Wondering if anyone could give me suggestions on where to apply to college based on my stats? I am interested double major in History and Psychology. Specifically, I would really love a place where the students are serious, passionate, and intellectual. I want a culture in which everyone is working hard but enjoying the challenge.
Testing
790 World History
5 on AP World History, 5 on AP Psych, 5 on AP Lang and Comp
Sat Superscore 1370 (640 Math and 730 English)
Schooling
4.72 GPA weighted and 3.96 unweighted
Rigorous dual curriculum (Jewish day school so I learnJewish texts for four hours a day and then have my secular classes) for 9th, 10th, 11th grade
In all honors classes except for math
AP World History in 10th ( only allowed this one AP in 10th)
AP Psych, AP US History, AP Lang in 11th ( only allowed two per year but GPA was high enough to take three)
pursuing a GED once 18 instead of going to 12th grade
— instead of 12th grade I will be living in Israel, learning religious texts full time in an immersive Hebrew- speaking environment
Extracurriculars
tutor kids every Sunday for two hours (9th,10th, and 11th)
model un (10th,11th)
chairman of education and volunteering for youth group (10th, 11th)
leadership role in Zionistic youth group (9th and 11th)
student ambassador
Founder and president of school’s archeology club (11th)
debate club (11th)
-tennis team (9th, 10th)
A bunch of other things that are small so I don’t think I will fit them in the common app, but art club, plays, basketball manager, etc
Summers
intensive aboard volunteering trip for 5 weeks (9th)
5 week trip,historical and religious learning aboard trip (10th)
two week seminar program at Yale, focusing on philosophy, gender and family, contemporary Middle East, history, economics, etc ( 11th grade and 6 hours a day)
3 and a half week internship as research assistant at one of Carnegie Mellon’s lab (11th grade and 6 hours a day)
Family and finical background
mother is tenured professor and doctor at University of Pennsylvania
BA at Amherst, pre-med at Columbia, MD at George Washington
Less selective:
Connecticut College
Dickinson
Rhodes
St. John’s College (two campuses)
Beloit
Earlham
Hampshire
You have some reading to do, but it will be fun to learn about these schools (and those yet to be mentioned) and figure out which among them fit you the best.
All of the schools @merc81 and I mentioned are liberal arts colleges, which are generally known for their intellectualism (vs. generally more pre-professional universities).
you should apply to Penn as well, as your mom is a tenured prof there and universities tend to accept children of faculty who are academically “qualified” in higher #'s than other non hooked applicants.
NYU, Tulane. Note that Tulane appears on party school lists, so weight this facet of the school appropriately. I wouldn’t rule Tulane out for this reason alone, however.
Urban colleges wise… if you are interested in continuing your Jewish studies along with history and/or psych, the JTSA joint program could give you another path into Columbia/Barnard where your test scores wouldn’t be as much of a barrier. http://www.jtsa.edu/list-college (JTSA has a 1420 median SAT, but your 1370 is still solidly in the middle 50% and your GPA is high enough to more-than-compensate.)
UChicago is newly test-optional, and while this won’t help the majority of applicants (because it will take very high GPA’s and exceptional EC’s to gain acceptance without test scores), you might be one of the few whose strong transcript and unique EC’s might do the trick. They accept a majority of their class ED now, though, so it’s a very long shot in the RD round.
GWU is a great option. I’m less familiar with its psych offerings, but its history and anthropology programs are very strong. There are experts on ancient Israel and Judaic studies on faculty there that even Harvard would like to have (e.g. Eric Cline and Christopher Rollston). Proximity to the museums and archives in DC is obviously terrific for history majors.
American and Trinity (TX) are worth a look as well.
Jewish enrollments at all of the schools suggested so far:
42.8% Tulane
26.5% Oberlin
25% GWU
23% Hampshire
21% Vassar
20% American
19.3% Haverford
17.4% Penn
16.4% Kenyon
15.0% Bryn Mawr
13.2% NYU / Chicago
12.3% Earlham
11.7% Pitzer
10.5% Dickinson
9.9% Smith
9.0% Hamilton
8.81% Conn College
7.22% Carleton
4.5% Mount Holyoke
2.77% Rhodes
No data is available for Wesleyan, Bates, Grinnell, Reed, Swarthmore, SJC, Beloit, and Trinity.
Note that percentages do not tell the whole story. You can have a relatively small percentage of Jewish students at a large school but still have a very vibrant Jewish community. Only 6% of UVA undergrads are Jewish compared to 12% at Earlham, for example, but Earlham has 130 Jewish undergrads compared to 1000 at UVA.
UChicago would be great (echoing an earlier post) for your interests, and it is test-optional. UChicago is arguably the most rigorous non-STEM-focused university, and it is known to be among the most intellectually intense schools, whether LAC or U.
But its RD acceptance rate is like 3%, so if you find you love it, I would suggest applying ED1 or 2.
More intellectual schools in city settings:
LACs (naturally intellectual) –
Rhodes (mentioned earlier)
Holy Cross
U of Richmond
Lafayette
Reed (mentioned earlier)
The Columbia and Penn suggestions are also good – great ways to get into extremely selective universities.
If you’re interested in investigating Jewish life at the schools on your list this site (Forward College Guide) might be helpful. It bills itself as “Your guide to the best colleges for Jewish students.”
1 Emory University 85.33
2 University of Pennsylvania 84.33
3 Washington University in St. Louis 80.5
4 Harvard University 79.58
5 Vanderbilt University 78
6 Cornell University 77
7 Tulane University 77
8 Brown University 76.33
9 Columbia University 76.17
10 American University 75.5
11 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 74.66
12 Yale University 74.33
13 New York University 71.83
14 Queens College 71.67
15 Princeton University 71.67
16 University of California, Los Angeles 71
17 Johns Hopkins University 70.83
18 Tufts University 70.83
19 Brandeis University 70.67
20 Duke University 70.33
21 Yeshiva University 69.67
22 Boston University 69
23 Rutgers University 67.84
24 University of Southern California 67.67
25 Binghamton University 67
26 University of Maryland, College Park 66.67
27 Pomona College 66.33
28 Lehigh University 65.83
29 University of Michigan 65.83
30 Brooklyn College 65.5
31 Stanford University 65
32 Dartmouth College 65
33 Northwestern University 64.75
34 Stony Brook University 63.67
35 Wellesley College 63.16
36 Franklin & Marshall College 63
37 Harvey Mudd College 62.5
38 University of Pittsburgh 62.5
39 Williams College 62.33
40 Carnegie Mellon University 62.17
41 Claremont McKenna College 61.67
42 Pennsylvania State University 61.5
43 Baruch College 61.5
44 University of California, Berkeley 61.33
45 University of Miami (Florida) 61
46 George Washington University 60.67
47 Middlebury College 60.16
48 University of Hartford 59.84
49 Hunter College 59.83
50 Rice University 59.16
51 University of Rochester 58.83
52 Muhlenberg College 58
53 Bryn Mawr College 57.83
54 Haverford College 57.67
55 University at Buffalo 57.5
56 Hamilton College 57.16
57 American Jewish University 56.67
58 California State University, Northridge 56.5
59 Amherst College 56.33
60 Swarthmore College 56.16
61 Dickinson College 55.83
62 University at Albany 55.67
63 Skidmore College 55.66
64 Syracuse University 55.5
65 Trinity College 55.17
66 Towson University 55
67 Clark University 54.84
68 Washington and Lee University 54.83
69 City College of New York 54.5
70 University of Virginia 54
71 College of William and Mary 53.34
72 Goucher College 53.34
73 Bowdoin College 53.33
74 Case Western Reserve University 53
75 Colgate University 52.83
76 Temple University 52.58
77 Florida Atlantic University 52.5
78 University of Minnesota 52.17
79 Carleton College 52
80 University of Texas at Austin 52
81 University of Florida 51.84
82 University of Chicago 51.67
83 Michigan State University 51.42
84 California Institute of Technology 51.33
85 Pitzer College 51
86 University of Arizona 51
87 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 50.92
88 University of Central Florida 50.83
89 Colby College 50.5
90 University of Delaware 50.34
91 Vassar College 50.33
92 Florida State University 50
93 Bates College 50
94 Sarah Lawrence College 49.67
95 University of Connecticut 49.67
96 Hofstra University 49.67
97 Kenyon College 49.16
98 Ithaca College 49.16
99 Bentley University 49.16
100 Elon University 49
Also as a religious Jewish person, some colleges I would recommend to you (based on your majors, interest in rigor, and Jewish environment) as matches (some high matches) and safeties are U of Mich, UCLA, John Hopkins, Cornell, Georgetown, UCSD, NYU, and Brandeis.
Emory would be a great fit for your interests. Emory College has a large Jewish student population, and is in a great part of Atlanta. Wash U in St. Louis and Vanderbilt in Nashville also are great schools with a large Jewish student population located in urban areas. They would be reaches or high reaches. Tulane in New Orleans is slightly less selective than Vandy, Wash U, and Emory. American in DC is a match school for you. Brandeis and Yeshiva should also be on your list.
