<p>I don't want to go into too much detail, I just want to know which schools I should be aiming for and are at or slightly above my level. </p>
<p>2110 SAT
(650 R, 750 M, 710 W)
31 ACT
(31 E, 32 M, 32 R, 28 S, 9 Essay)
Weighted GPA of 4.55 (school doesn't use UW)
Class rank of 8/325 (top 2.5%)</p>
<p>IB Diploma Candidate with, by far, the most rigorous courseload.
15 AP/IB classes and 9 honors.
AP Scholar with Honor</p>
<p>Various extracurricular activities:
50hrs as a volunteer at the Humane Society
Part time job 25hrs/wk
President of Mu Alpha Theta
VP of NHS
Started small business, $2000 in sales
Other clubs (less important)</p>
<p>I want to major in finance or economics, preferably near a large city. I want a small-medium size school (3,000-9,000). FA is not a significant factor. </p>
<p>Which schools should I be looking towards as matches and reaches?</p>
<p>I’ve been looking over that Supermatch search tool, and I’ve noticed that most of the colleges that are ~100% fit for me are all significant reaches.</p>
<p>Brown, Penn, Tufts, Rice, JHU, Wesleyan and a few others top the list. </p>
<p>Realistically would these schools be high matches/low reaches/reaches for me? And since I don’t stand very good chances at these schools, which schools would be more of a ‘match’ for me?</p>
<p>There’s plenty of match schools. The limitations for you are that you want to be near a large city and at a mid-sized (3,000-9,000) school. You’re excluding lots of Liberal Arts Colleges with those criteria, as nearly all of them are smaller than that and rural. And research universities are, by and large, larger.</p>
<p>For economics, are you looking for pre-PhD (math intensive), pre-professional (more business oriented), or more interrelated with other social studies subjects? Different schools’ economics departments have different emphases which can become more apparent by looking at the course offerings.</p>
<p>I’m interested more in the business aspect of economics, but the quantitative aspect of it also interests me. I’m more interested in going into investment banking or consulting, and most likely pursuing an MBA. So the business aspect is probably more important. </p>
<p>And by saying there are few match schools for me, I know there are a number of schools that fit my criteria, but I know a lot of them are highly selective so saying I’m a ‘match’ or average applicant doesn’t mean much at schools with acceptance rates <20%.</p>
<p>Aim for Northeastern LACs ranked 20-40 in USNWR and private universities ranked 16-30.
Although they’re “reaches”, they’re also “within reach” for you.</p>
<p>It depends how you define “match”. Match doesn’t necessarily mean “likely”. </p>
<p>Match could mean, for example, that you’re between the 50-75% quartiles for SAT and GPA, your ECs are average for the candidate pool, but the selectivity of the school doesn’t guarantee admission or even make it likely. </p>
<p>A likely is basically where your stats are very near or above the 75th percentile and you have some ECs that make you shine, relative to your competition.</p>
<p>I have a financial/academic safety, Clemson University. </p>
<p>To give you guys something of an idea of where I’m applying:</p>
<p>Clemson
Brown (ED for a laugh)
Johns Hopkins
Lehigh
Princeton
Rhodes College
University of Richmond
Emory</p>
<p>I feel like my reaches are TOO reachy, but the other schools are low-matches for me (I think I can do a little better as I’m around the 75% of scores at those schools), I just don’t know which schools I should be looking at for that mid-high match range.</p>
<p>–Claremont McKenna is quite business focused. Maybe it replaces JH.
–Boston College (with business school) to bridge that gap youve identified.
–Case Western to fill that gap too. It might be a bit more quantitative and it has a Finance Major and Minor.
–How do you feel about Michigan or Berkeley? Excellent Econ and Math and Ross/Haas B-Schools are stellar if you can outperform the competition.</p>
<p>Might look at Holy Cross and Bucknell both in the same athletic conference as Lehigh-Patriot League. Holy Cross like Georgetown is a Jesuit school but is liberal and HC seeks students of all faiths or no faith. Both schools have strong business alumni networks especially Holy Cross which has an alumni group for Investment banking/finance in New York. Ranked 25th best lac, HC offers good combination of academic/athletics similar to Duke or Davidson.</p>
<p>Holy Cross seems like a great school and I’ll definitely look into that more. </p>
<p>I’m sure schools like Boston College are in the match or high-match range for me, but it may be just a bit too religious for me to feel comfortable. And my parents are incredibly adamant that I say east of Chicago or St Louis, preferably staying close to the Atlantic coast.</p>