What University should I apply to? Only 8 days away....help

College Search & Selection
1

Procrastination is never a good thing.
Here I am…8 days away from most University application deadlines …and have yet to apply to any school except for Texas A&M and UT (which don’t really count because they were automatic admission).

Anyway, these are the schools I was ‘thinking’ about: Rice, Yale, Stanford, Duke, and Columbia.

The only school I know anything at all about is Rice and A&M. Rice because I visited ONCE and talked to a student there, and A&M because my brother goes there.

I pretty much don’t know anything at all about those other schools I’m applying to…except the weather and location (and that Yale is an Ivy league…is Columbia too?)

Anyway, I’ll give you some of my details and personal preferences and I’ll let you decide where I should apply.

I come from a border town in Texas, part of the Magnet program of my school, I THINK I want to be an engineer, I’m Valedictorian (4.4 weighted gpa on a 4 scale), passed 11 AP exams (National AP Scholar), I’m SUPPOSED to be a National Hispanic scholar (long story), 2190 on SAT, 780 on Math 2 and 740 on Bio E. I’ve been in lots of clubs, but no leadership position (national honor society, science national honor society, HOSA, Beta, CARE, Amnesty, etc.) …no sports…I started my own club this year with three friends (Peer Tutoring Program), and…well sadly that’s it. As for internships and stuff like that, I only, just this summer, attended a summer program called DocPrep at Baylor College of Medicine (this is when I visited Rice and when we talked to that one student).

As for my preferences, I think I want sunny, warm weather because I basically live in a desert right now, and I hate shivering. I like school pride I guess. I really don’t want to go to any of those ‘cutthroat competition’ schools. Umm…ask me questions, and I’ll give you answers.

I somehow knew this would happen…I knew I would find a way to leave my applications to the very, very end.
Help??? Please…?
Thank you.
(You can suggest other universities not on that list…and say why you like that university or why you’d think I like it, etc. ) Thank you!!

2

A friendly environment…one thing that stood out to me about Rice was when the student there told us that “everyone helps each other out”…and that all their GPAs are basically the same because they study/tutor together…it’s very relaxed and noncompetitive…that’s how I would like it…I’m DONE with pressure/competition/stress studying

3

Most high schools have deadlines for the GC to send in recs, etc. (like December 1, Dec 15th) Are you prepared with the supporting aspects of last minute applications (score reports, recommendations, subject tests, etc.) You may need to talk to your GC at school before break if you are adding more schools to your list.

4

Oh and I’m an 18 year old female

5

Why are you applying to Yale and Columbia if you hate cold weather? There is more to school selection other than stats. Environmental fit including social fit is important. Also financial fit.

6

Because I could sacrifice weather for a great school

7

STOP…College CHOICES need to be filtered through FINANCES. Don’t waste your time applying to schools you and your family cannot afford.

Ask your parents today how much they can afford to spend each year on your college education. Will your brother still be in college when you start college? That’s a huge expense for a family. Your stats seem to support a strong possibility of getting merit aid, so you can focus on schools with automatic merit scholarships. Some are even stats based only, so no additional essays to write.

What is your financial safety? A school your family can afford to send you to that you are happy to attend?

How far away do you want to be from your hometown? If you don’t click with engineering major, what would your second choice be?

I second the need to communicate TODAY with your GC at school. You need to kindly ask if they are willing to send out your recommendation letters over the break. Be nice, and bring them home baked cookies for their efforts.

I don’t sense that you have any drive left in you. Maybe going with one of your automatic admissions is okay for you. Not everyone needs to join the admissions rat race.

I suggest you pull up the Rice website right now and start figuring out what their deadlines are. Be sure to check not just the admissions deadline, but other deadlines for any extra scholarship applications. Some colleges require supplemental essays and applications for Honors College or scholarships. Other colleges just work from the original admissions application.

Get up and get going…time’s a wasting!!

8

I disagree with powercropper. You can apply to schools and see what FinAid they offer. Attending a school should be based on finances and future earnings based on the school. Applying should not be. I applied to really expensive schools and attended a top university graduating with $10k in debt and a high paying job offer. Definitely worth it.

9

Why are you applying to Yale if you want to be an engineer? Yale Engineering isn’t bad, it’s just there are other schools of a similar level that have better engineering programs, like Princeton. Also, unless you want to go to A&M or UT, I’d apply to more schools in-between A&M and your other schools. Since you’re “automatic admission” at A&M and UT, I’d definitely apply to them, but I’d also apply to more schools.Rice, Yale, Stanford, Duke and Columbia are all extremely selective, and frankly, your chances are no better than the other 20,000 applying. Other schools you might like are Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, University of Miami, and Harvey Mudd College. I’d also like to point out, it’s not too late to apply ED2 somewhere. ED2 is the same as ED, just the deadline is around Jan. 1st, and you hear back by mid-february. Can your family afford all of these schools or will you need financial aid? Have you started writing any essays?

10

@rasofia do you know which engineering discipline you want, and are you thinking you will also be pre med?

11

@RaiderDore my suggestion is strictly for this OP, who has 8 days to narrow down choices and complete applications and write essays and get GC recommendation letters out. If you have started early in the application process, you have the time, energy and ability to churn out many more apps. That gives you more choices on down the line.

I was suggesting in this Crisis Mode that the OP focus on the most realistic choices. The clock is ticking for this OP. It doesn’t appear that OP has considered the financial side of this equation. Trying to bring some realism to the conversation.

12

Rice, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Penn, Harvey Mudd and Cornell are all excellent schools. Rice and Harvey Mudd are standouts for engineering, the others very good. All have very good financial aid and should be affordable for most students. Stanford is an extreme reach and you may not have time to complete the essays for the extremely low chance of admission.

Also check Purdue and Michigan, all excellent engineering schools. Michigan has increased its FA recently and may be more affordable then in previous years.

Run the NPC on each schools web site to confirm they are within your budget. Then prioritize starting with the schools you like best, and complete as many apps as you can. Make sure to check the due date, some are Jan 1, some Jan 3, others later. You can order your ACT/SAT scores as you complete the applications.

UT and A&M are also really great choices, so don’t worry, you have a good place to go.

13

I’m actually not convinced that you want to leave Texas. Your procrastination in applying to highly selective schools that require multiple essays and sending off transcripts, test scores, LOR, from your school (which is most likely already on winter break) says a lot about your ambivalence. You may well be able to pull it off but the quality of your apps may suffer (perhaps not your best effort). Try to think clearly about what you want from a school and include the financial factor.

14

Ok…so I’ve had my Common App essay since the summer…yes, the summer. And @goingnutsmom is right. I don’t really want to leave Texas. Kinda scared to go too far from my family and not be able to see them as often as I’d like to. As for the applications, I’m almost done with Yale and Rice…then I’ll move onto another University.
Gosh…it’s just frustrating that there’s no one University that I desperately want to go to. You know how others have that passion for that one University…I don’t. I wish I did. It would make deciding where to apply a whole lot easier.

I’ll work on my apps all day tomorrow. I don’t think it’s that much though because I already have all my recommendations (my counselor already submitted her rec and the school report on Common App)…all I need is to answer the Writing Questions.

As for the Common App essay that I wrote in the summer, I thought it was kind of…plain…I just wrote about physics (not really)…because I couldn’t think of anything else to write about (didn’t want to write about something generic like AP exams or my parents’ divorce). HOWEVER, it’s obviously too late now…so I’ll just use the physics one.

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP fellow CC users.

Keep the advice coming if you can. It’s really reassuring, and I’m reading a lot of things I had never thought about…definitely making me think about my future (and about my applications, which I should probably start working on now lol).

15

BUT the only reason I’m applying to all these IVY leagues is because I feel like others in my high school are expecting me to do so since I’m Valedictorian (my family too). I just feel like I’d be so humiliated if I get rejected and maybe that’s why I’ve been putting off applications for so long :confused: …I’m dreading that moment when I receive the e-mail or letter.
While others in my high school are getting into great schools and even Ivy leagues…I just feel like it’d be embarrassing if I didn’t…but I know, it’s life. I have to face life.

16

There you just said it yourself…you would like to stay instate. UT and A&M are GREAT Engineering schools. Stop thinking about what everyone else thinks you should do and start worrying about what YOU want to do and where you want to do it. It is your life.

Rice deadline is Jan 1. I’d concentrate on getting that one done. Purdue has rolling admissions and the deadline is Feb 1 give it a shot too if you are serious about engineering. Try Case Western in Ohio their deadline is January 15 it is Common App without supplements (although I am not sure about supplements for Engineering) and they often give good aid packages. Georgia Tech is another good option with a January 10 deadline.

17

There is nothing wrong with wanting to stay in your home state. Neither your family nor your friends are going to college with you and you need to go where you feel that you will be successful- wherever that may be. It’s not where you go but what you do once you are there. I am also from the border in Texas and believe me, just going to north Texas to college was so different from where I came from that it was like being in another state. I don’t want to discourage you from your reaches and having faith in yourself. Just try to block out what others expect from you and tune into what you need and your desires of your college experience.

18

The OP doesn’t want pressure – probably should skip Harvey Mudd, then.

19

Good engineering schools with excellent need-based financial aid, in warm-weather states, include:
Rice, Vanderbilt, Duke, Harvey Mudd, Stanford. Application deadlines are in early January for all of these. So it may not be realistic to try to apply to more than 1 or 2 at this point.

The University of Southern California is another warm weather school with strong engineering programs and good need-based aid. It also offers more merit aid than most other top ~25 universities. Its RD application deadline is January 15.

Your net price to attend one of these selective private schools will depend on your family’s financial circumstances. If you are in a low to middle income bracket, net costs should be competitive with (or even lower than ) UT and A&M. If your family income is over ~$150K, the private school costs probably will be much higher (unless merit aid kicks in). Run the online net price calculators to compare.

20

Just a heads up.

The odds are good that any application not in by today will not be processed by your guidance office until after the Christmas break… and even many that are. I would try, very hard, to get to guidance to fill out whatever form they require to have transcripts sent.