<p>Thanks for your help @jkeil911 it’s been a pleasure :)</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus thanks for the insight. Yes of course, essays are quite important! Gotta start working on them :)</p>
<p>OP, if your family income is more like $200k a year then you really need to have the talk with your parents about how much they can afford to spend for your education. Schools like Brown (which would meet your criteria except for the specific location part) and Tufts (full disclosure: my older daughter is a junior and loves the collaborative/non-competitive environment) and Pomona may well end up costing your family $60k+ a year. Best to know now if your family can afford that.</p>
<p>Glad to hear you’ve been looking into Macalester. Check out <a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpEcCjpbm5w”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpEcCjpbm5w</a> :-)</p>
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<p>Since the OP is in CA, the $20k scholarships mean these schools are comparable in cost to going to a UC. IIRC there’s some bigger merit at Smith, possibly at some of the other women’s schools (except for Wellesley, which is need-based only). </p>
<p>I just tried to talk to them. Their response? Get in and we’ll take care of the rest.
I have a LOT of reach schools that I’m applying too… would adding Tufts be too much? Just wondering how your daughter’s application was and if I am at all comparable.</p>
<p>Hahaha that video is too funny. It seems like a wonderful place 
I’m betting it’s pretty cold there though ;(</p>
<p>Mmm… I live nearby, and it is cold this winter. But fall and spring are great – we had the nicest campus visit for D2 on a spring day, I have some great photos we took in a garden full of red tulips on campus. Mac is a great location in St. Paul and does have a nice, collaborative feel to it. Also gives some merit aid.</p>
<p>What do you guys think of WUSTL</p>
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<p>Do they realize how much colleges can cost?</p>
<p>Be sure that you have some safeties that you like that are low cost, just in case your parents are overpromising what they can contribute.</p>
<p>Our income will probably prohibit much need based. No I definitely think they do. Would UC riverside or merced be a good safety?</p>
<p>WUSTL is a fine school, but they do have a reputation of rejecting students they think aren’t really interested… so if you plan to apply, at least get on their mailing list now if you can’t visit, and if they come to your area for a college fair or presentation, go and talk to the rep. 33 ACT is right at the 50% mark; with a 4.0 and showing strong interest, it would be a match for you.</p>
<p>GREAT thing to note I actually met with the admissions rep. at my school and followed up with an email. How is the school’s environment?</p>
<p>If you apply to several of the other UCs (beyond UCB, UCLA, and UCSD), then the chances of not being admitted to any of them with your stats would be tiny, unless your application had a problem that they all care about (like not being UC eligible).</p>
<p>What would being UC eligible mean?</p>
<p>a-g requirements and a high enough GPA (3.0 in-state, 3.4 out-of-state). What trips up some students is the visual or performing art requirement in the a-g requirements.</p>
<p>Haha I’ve been in band for all of high school, so I got that!</p>
<p>Hello all! I just wrote a diversity “essay” (it’s like 150 words-- the maximum) for a summer program and was wondering if any of you would read it and give me feedback! @intparent @jkeil911 @ucbalumnus @slitheytove</p>
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<p>Right now we’re all just lobbing school names at you. It’s your (fun!) job to read up on the various schools, look at their websites/CC forums/reviews in college guidebooks/images on google search/etc (and run those pesky Net Price Calculators-- and see what works for you. People will be really happy to answer specific questions about schools, too. </p>
<p>Oh, and tell your parents that THIS parent says that “you get in and we’ll take care of the rest” isn’t an acceptable answer. If they want to say that yes, they can afford to pay $60k a year for four years (and with $X of loans, where X shouldn’t be more than, say, $20-30k total over four years) then good. If they say they can afford $40k or $25k or whatever–then you know what the constraints are. All us parents love our kids and want to make them happy, but there are few sadder things than a 12th grader holding a bunch of acceptances in hand and not being able to afford any of them. :-(</p>
<p>True dat, ST! Something like that will happen to 5 to 15 high school seniors in every cafeteria in the nation.</p>
<p>WashU and Tufts are excellent choices. So is Vandy. The work being done at Tufts on language, writing, and the brain is terrific. One of the advantages of all three are access to major researchers and major research hospitals.</p>
<p>It might be that there’s a source for your college costs that your parents don’t yet want to make you aware of, like an aunt or grandmother or something like that, but they need to know, whatever the source is, that the Cost of Attendance may be as high as a quarter million dollars. And it would be nice for you to know what they can afford so you aren’t chasing your tail looking at schools you cannot afford. It’s time they started treating you as if you were becoming an adult member of your family. It sucks that our children are growing up. It’s great that our children are growing up.</p>
<p>bump</p>
<p>There may not be any compelling reason for you to leave California. You can find good academics and a laid-back atmosphere, at relatively low costs, at several of the UCs. If cost isn’t a concern at all, you’d probably find USC more relaxed and “balanced” than most selective private schools in the East (the Ivies, etc.) </p>
<p>If you do decide to leave California, your stats are good enough to have a shot nearly anywhere. However, for your combination of major and minor interests (and given your lack of size preference) you may want to focus on mid- to large-sized schools. I love LACs, but you won’t find a broad selection of courses in neuroscience AND Italian at a tiny LAC … unless perhaps it is a consortium member (like Amherst) or attached to a larger institution (Barnard). </p>
<p>For everything you say you want, and for good course selection as well as quality at a relatively reasonable price, I think it would be hard to beat Berkeley or UCLA. </p>
<p>@tk21769 : Thank you for your response! From all the research I’ve done, I have come to realize that, as you said, UCB and UCLA are going to be great places for me (USC, too…). I’m just looking for some other schools that are possibly equivalent and that I may have a good change of getting into… I just want to cover all my bases :)</p>