Why did you pick your college?

College Search & Selection
61

<p>I ended up getting into 5 schools.</p>

<p>*Pittsburgh - Mathematics * - (Rolling, found out in October) full tuition and they wanted me to go back for an interview for the full ride - I turned them down because I did not want to go to a public university after I had spent twelve years in public education. Oddly enough, a week after I said I didn't want to be considered for the scholarship, they sent me a letter saying that I didn't make the qualifying round to get an interview. I thought that was weird; I guess they keep their numbers artificially high.</p>

<p>Rice - Engineering - (Interim Decision found out in Feb) Half Ride (merit) - I really wanted to like the school, but in the end I just could not. I had never been to Texas before and there was too big of a culture shock for this northeast boy. The courses didn't seem very difficult and the school seemed to have a pervasive feeling about being underrated in prestige. Plus it was muddy, and it rains a lot in Houston and it can get really hot. </p>

<p>Now for the hard ones</p>

<p>Cornell - Engineering - no money (Regular Decision found out April 1)- I really liked this school, but it had the unfortunate fact of telling me last that I was accepted, so it became more difficult to fit it into the equation in my head. (I had heard from every other school by February, and I waited for this one until April) The program for engineering was excellent, next to MIT, it had the best facilities I observed during my college tours, and that includes Princeton, Caltech and Harvey Mudd. Contrary to what I expected, Cornell people were really down to earth and never mentioned once that they were in the Ivy League. It was really isolated though, and although centralized, just a huge campus, with too many people in the school. </p>

<p>University of Chicago - no money (Early Action found out in Dec) - This was so hard, you have no idea. People had thought for the one and a half years before that I was going to be a UChicago kid. Teachers (in unrelated subjects like Chemistry and Acting) and GCs (the whole department thought I was going to end up there) were telling me to go there. There were so many pros: the quality of the economics program and the mathematics program (two strong interests of mine), the contrarian nature of the school, the centralized campus within a major city, the diversity of improvisational acting troupes. In the end, there were a couple major problems with the school. I developed an interest for science in addition to economics over the course of my senior year, which prompted me to apply to a bunch of engineering schools, while UChicago, in its contrarian nature, refuses to have an engineering school (at least for now...in four years maybe?). When I visited, the school scared me. The workload of the Core, in the quarters time frame seemed quite difficult. (There must be a medium between being bored with the classes at Rice and frightened of the classes at Chicago) They guy they put me to room with, well, he was your stereotypical UChicago kid, a humanitees version of a caltechie, which while intriguing initially, soon became a clash of personalities. These people were all too frequent around the campus. It broke my heart, but I couldn't choose Chicago.</p>

<p>Columbia University - Engineering - no money (likely letter found out in Feb.) - By the time I went to days on campus, I had effectively eliminated all my other schools, so I hoped this was the place for me. On paper I could find nothing wrong with this school. Program, fine, location, fine, campus fine, people, normal. They put up quite a recruitment calling me up about once every two weeks with students and professors asking me if I would like any information about the school, bombarding me with letters from students, faculty and alumni congratulating me on my acceptance. They took time and effort to make me hear their sales pitch, and in the end, it won out. The Core was more science based than humanities based than that of UChicago. I went there and felt right at home.</p>

62

<p>well, back in the day when I applied for undergrad, I didn't know about resources like college confidential, so I was pretty uninformed. I only applied to three schools- ASU (instate), UW Seattle, and USC, and got into all of them. While I knew that I wanted to major in architecture, I didn't have any clue how many different degree paths there were in the field until after I had already applied. Actually, I was about to register at ASU, and saw that my admission didn't say "Architecture", but "Pre-Architecture," so I called and asked them what that was about, which set off a whole other level of research about BA vs BS vs BArch. After that I decided that I thought the BArch was a superior degree program, and so that sort of made my decision for me since USC was the only school I'd applied to that offered a BArch.</p>

<p>So, I guess the lesson from this for the (future) architecture majors out there is to figure out the maze of degree options before you apply, so that you can be sure to have choices when the admissions come in. I got lucky in that USC ended up being a great school, but it just as easily could have turned out very badly.</p>

63

<p>Great thread idea, and great responses so far. In any case, here's mine...</p>

<p>I'm an International Applicant and an Identical twin, so my college decision process was fraught with some amount of confusion, as I really had to no frame of reference, as I couldn't, obviously visit any of the colleges I got into. Added to this was the fact that my twin and I got into the same Universities, with the same financial offers, so balancing out issues of finances took a bit of time, along with the decision as to whether we'd want to go to the same University or not. I applied to 14, got into 8, all RD, and then spent much of April trying madly to decide which to accept. CC helped a lot, especially the Parents' Forum. (I posted a thread there,<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=320337%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=320337&lt;/a> , if anyone falls into a similar situation in the future) </p>

<p>Accepted to:</p>

<p>Johns Hopkins (BME): Eventually ended up accepting Hopkins, and will attend this fall.</p>

<p>University of California, Berkeley: Accepted to Engineering, great merit scholarship offer. (Regents' and Chancellor's Schol.) This was easily the toughest to turn down.</p>

<p>University of Pennsylvania. Again, accepted to SEAS, this was 3rd in my listing, no scholarship offer.</p>

<p>Rice University: Great Scholarship offer here, half tuition, which was a real tempter, though Berkeley's Scholarship offer was better. 4th on my list</p>

<p>Duke University: No scholarships here, but Duke was never that much in the frame for me. </p>

<p>Northwestern University: I thought quite hard about NU for a while, but that didn't really ever coalesce into anything concrete in the end.</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon University: Never quite entered the fray after I got the other decisions.</p>

<p>University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: Again, wasn't really part of my compass, though it was at the time of my application.</p>

<p>In detail now, for the 5 that were candidates:</p>

<p>Duke: I dismissed Duke first, well 4th, but first in the second round. Major reasons were the fact that I never really liked the feel of Duke, didn't like the big sports scene, nor the fact that I'd heard some pretty sketchy things about Durham. In the end though, the real reason that I turned Duke down was that I ended up not having a concrete reason to go there, which I had for the other schools I was considering at this stage.</p>

<p>Rice University: This went next. Rice had a great many things going for it, I'd received a scholarship from them which would have helped, plus their Engineering program's great, but I could never get myself excited about the college, something just didn't work.</p>

<p>Penn, Berkeley and Hopkins: These were the three left really. It helped that my brother had made his decision to go to Berkeley, and as his Merit Scholarship there was, as mine was, a Need Dependent Merit Scholarship, that freed me from having to consider cost differences, as any increase in cost would be covered by the scholarship. While I loved Penn, and in fact my Penn essays were my best of the entire application process, I was rejected from M&T which was the program that really interested me there. SEAS didn't have quite the same allure, and hence it was down to Berkeley or Hopkins. Now this was the decision that really took a while, but in the end, I was persuaded by the strength of the BME program at Hopkins, plus the fact that I really liked the 'academic' reputation that it has. (U Chicago was also a very attractive school for me, but I didn't apply due to its lack of Engineering) Another plus Hopkins had was the fact that I felt that I simply knew more about it, due to the Admissions Blogs and the work of AdmissionsDaniel and others. Still, it was a very, very difficult decision, Berkeley's one of the best known Universities in the world, and is, for an Engineering Student at least, very difficult to turn down. Still, on the whole, I felt that Hopkins offered more to me personally, both in BME and in IR, as well as in Physics. (All 3 areas I was thinking of majoring in) </p>

<p>So that was the end of my college decision process, as well as the end of this already much too long post.</p>

64

<p>For me it came down to American, Emerson, Sarah Lawrence, and SUNY Purchase. I chose Purchase because I can pay the tuition with out taking out loans, it had the right atmosphere, it had the languages, majors, and minors I wanted, and it's only an hour and a half away from my home.</p>

65

<p>I only applied to one school because it was the only one I wanted to go to(Early Decision also). I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I worked well in natural enviornments and with small, intimate communities. I was set to apply and go to SUNY Oswego, since it had Meteorology, was affordable, and wasn't extremely hard to get into. However I stumbled across College of the Atlantic, and was absolutely mesmerized. It seemed perfect, almost too perfect and I was intimidated to apply. </p>

<p>COA is a bit risky, not well-known(although with average GPA scores higher than schools like Bard), and there are a lot of things you need to do to graduate such as a final project, internship, human ecology essay, community service along with classes. I tucked away my little dream school until I found myself visiting its website all the time and at which point I thought "Why not? I need to take a chance."</p>

<p>So I did and I was accepted and i'll be attending the picturesque tiny school in just 29 days.</p>

66

<p>Applied: Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue, Loyola - Chicago University, American University, University of South Florida, University of Miami.</p>

<p>Rejected: University of South Florida (Waitlisted, then rejected) WOW wat a surprise that was... it was my SAFETY :S</p>

<p>Accepted: All the rest</p>

<p>Scholarships: Ohio State, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Loyola University -CHicago</p>

<p>Chose: University Of Miami.... It was always my first choice. School had great academics and also had every major/college I could think of so in case I wanted to change major, i didnt have to transfer.
Also I loved the opportunity of living near an ocean were I can take advantage of Sailing, Scuba Diving (even in the winter time :D).Lots of stuff to do outdoors and I am a 100% outdoor kinda person.
Aside from a nice country club lookign campus, Coral Gables (the surrounding town) is really nice and relatively close close to Downtown Miami. </p>

<p>GO CANES!</p>

67

<p>My college options at the end of the application season were:</p>

<p>UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, and Dartmouth.</p>

<p>I chose Dartmouth because...
-It seemed to offer the most unique experience(all others being in Cali, where I live)
-Access to the outdoors and all its perks
-Beautiful campus, better than all my other options besides for maybe UCLA
-A student body from around the states and the world, not like the UCs where just about everyone is from California.</p>

68

<p>Acarta -
Wow. I am really surprised that you got into UM and not USF. Oh, well, better rejection from USF than UM. BTW, my brother recently graduated from UM. He fell in love with the city and the night life and I'm sure you'll have the time of your life. Good Luck.</p>

69

<p>I only applied to three schools: Louisiana Tech University, Texas A&M, and Illinois Institute of Technology</p>

<p>I went to LA Tech because it just fit. </p>

<p>I suppose that I could make a long list of all the things I like about it and all, but how comfortable I've felt there since I first visited in 8th grade is enough of a reason for me. </p>

<p>In fact, if I had gotten my way in the whole application process, Tech would have been the only school I bothered with. A few of my teachers from high school were really pushing me to apply to Duke and several other top schools, but yeah...just wasn't interested.</p>

70

<p>Cornell University:</p>

<p>Beautiful campus, great people, comfortable size, excellent financial aid plus Cornell-specific scholarships, academic prestige, friendly city.</p>

71

<p>When I first started my college search, I felt like UChicago was the place for me. I heard a lot about the "uniqueness" of the school and how it truly embraced learning and academic education. I felt that I would really fit into that atmosphere and would be comfortable there. I visited and also had an on-campus interview there that went extremely well. I did this in December of my senior year in HS, so it was actually pretty late. Later that month, I also had an alumni interview. This time it was even better; however, from the interview I gained another perspective of the university. I did some more research, talked to more students, and realized that the fit may not be that great. At this point, I started to look more into Northwestern. By spring, I was admitted to both, and the decision was extremely difficult. Academics at both schools are amazing, so I couldn't go wrong either way. I was planning to major in Economics, and although UChicago has the more prestigious program w/ its Nobel Laureates, NU offers many programs that I was more interested in.</p>

<p>In the end, I chose Northwestern. Essentially, I realized that it was just a better fit for me. I’m really outgoing, love to socialize, and am really involved in sports. I went up again and just loved it!</p>

<p>Another thing that sold me to Northwestern: beautiful campus right on the lake
<a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/photogallery/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/photogallery/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>NORTHWESTERN = LOVE</p>

72

<p>Due to the wonders of waitlisting, I got to choose twice! In April, I had been admitted to Notre Dame, Northwestern, Texas A&M, and UT-Austin. I immediately dismissed A&M because College Station is really, really boring. The real choice was between Notre Dame and Northwestern. I loved Northwestern's Integrated Science Program, but was turned off by the prevalent Greek system and the prohibitive cost. Notre Dame, on the other hand, had a lot going for it. I have a few family connections to the school, and had dreamed of attending it since at least middle school. Not much can beat their intense school spirit. In this round, I chose Notre Dame.</p>

<p>Then, come June, I received a call informing me I had been let off the waitlist at Rice. This decision turned out to be much harder than I thought it would be. If you had asked me the previous summer, I have no doubt I would have chosen Rice without too much deliberation; however, since I had been admitted to Notre Dame EA, I had many months to fall in love with the university. Plus, I really wanted to go to some of those Notre Dame home football games. In the end, though, I chose Rice. For one thing, It's much more convenient for me to travel back and forth from campus to my house. I also preferred the diversity of Rice to the relative homogeneity of Notre Dame's Catholicism (especially since I'm not Catholic). The factor that really made my decision, though, was Rice's residential college system. The colleges offer what I consider the most perfect imaginable atmosphere, taking the social positives of a Greek system but randomly distributing students among the colleges to ensure that no matter where you end up you find a very diverse group of peers.</p>

73

<p>Penn and Stanford (yay double-legacy). Stanford had more prestige, sure...but I just didn't like the place. As an uptight jerk, I feel more comfortable around fellow uptight jerks ;)</p>

<p>And Stanford looked like a giant Taco Bell.</p>

74

<p>My choices were:</p>

<p>Carnegie-Mellon Tepper
Emory (Ultimatetly Goizueta)
NYU Stern
WashU Olin
George Washington University School of Business</p>

<p>I am a city girl at heart. All urban schools for me. I visited all the schools.</p>

<p>WashU got waitlisted</p>

<p>CMU, Emory and GWU offered the best packages. I was torn between Emory and NYU. I finally chose NYU because I thought their internship and study abroad opportunities suited me best. </p>

<p>What really struck me about Emory was the research opportunities for medical/biological fields. Emory University is a university attached to a very large research complex. We were told at orientation over 25% of incoming freshmen are pre-med majors.</p>

<p>CMU has the best fin aid award letter. It comes with a form to appeal your aid package. I appealed and they met my best offer. If CMU had been in NYC instead of Pittsburgh, it would have been a no brainer for me.</p>

<p>GWU nice compact campus in the foggy bottom section of DC. If you are in to being politically active or hankering for feredal internships this is the place for you, (or Georetown)</p>

75

<p>S chose University of Miami.</p>

<p>Strong academics
wide choice of majors
beautiful campus
good weather
close to city, shopping, restaurants, nightlife, beaches
diverse student body</p>

76

<p>I got into all the schools I applied to and even though I hadnt toured any I thought wisconsin, northeastern, and umass were my top picks
but ultimately it came down to maryland (in state) and suny buffalo because they offered the best financial aid..
I chose buffalo for sooo many reasons it seemed... I liked the program better/what I would major in more, I was in honors, it was a little cheaper, housing at umd is terrible, ub was safer it felt, a little smaller student body/smaller campus, I like that its about 5-10 degrees colder in buffalo, sports arent such a big deal at ub, I was just tired of maryland and felt the whole WNY/southern ON region had more to offer than where I lived for 18 years before...</p>

77

<p>I was ultimately accepted to Cornell Engineering, Univ. Maryland College Park, UVA, and William and Mary. Ultimately went to Cornell.</p>

<p>Cornell Pros:</p>

<p>It's Cornell Engineering, enough said
Was accepted to a research scholars program under Cornell Commitment
The weather (I like cold weather and overcast :p )
Location. Ithaca is a nice in the middle of nowhere place for me
Probably the best (academic wise) school I was accepted to</p>

<p>Cornell Cons</p>

<p>Cost (~45k/year is rough), no financial aid given :(
Lots of snow sometimes (overcast and cold is nice, trudging a mile to get to the engineering school over a foot of snow is not)</p>

<p>Maryland Pros</p>

<p>In-state tuition!!! :D
Accepted to Gemstone Program</p>

<p>Maryland Cons</p>

<p>I felt snubbed by the admissions office (since the scholarship I received from them was... very very small and I felt I deserved more)
Only an hour away from home (Too close)</p>

<p>Those were the two schools I seriously considered. UVA and William and Mary were immediately out of the running because they offered me no money, no honors programs, scholarships, etc. whatsoever. Just an acceptance. When you factor in OOS tuition, I figured why the heck I would go to UVA or William and Mary if I pay a bit more to go to Cornell who did offer me a type of special program?</p>

<p>It basically came down to academic strength and prestige vs. money and I ultimately chose Cornell. If Maryland offered me a larger scholarship (let's say, half off tuition), I would have gone there in a hurry.</p>

78

<p>I was a recruited athlete, and I applied to ten schools, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell (legacy), BC (EA), WashU, Johns Hopkins, Williams, and SUNY Geneseo. I did not like the team at Yale so told the coach I did not want to attend, and was rejected, and waitlisted at Harvard, after I told the coach I already had gotten a likely letter from Princeton and was probably going to go there, and WashU, after I did not finish the application.... and accepted to all of the rest, with financial packages at Dartmouth, Princeton, and Williams being very generous, and packages at the other four being nonexistent. </p>

<p>In the end, I decided on Princeton b/c it is just such a great school, very undergraduate friendly, they have a very strong team in my sport, the beautiful location, and the prestige of the school, especially because of the high quality of students it draws. Dartmouth and Williams both felt a bit "cozier", and have better food, but I am really excited for Princeton!</p>

79

<p>Applied and was accepted at both UVa and VaTech for engineering. Even though VT may have stronger engineering programs overall, I still chose UVa (as many good candidates do) for the following reasons:
1) I wasn't just interested in engineering, but a number of things. I felt UVa was a better U overall and and would give an all-around better educational experience
2) UVa engineering was smaller, it seemed with better and closer interactions with faculty
3) The "weeding out" factor: at the time UVa was relatively more selective for engineering than VT (probably still true), but once you were in at UVa as long as you met the required standards, you didn't need to worry about getting "weeded out"; therefore while there was competition it was not so much of a "cut-throat" variety. That was just a matter of institutional philosophy. VT on the other hand apparently used "weeding out" as an essential feature of its programs. Note, I personally did not fear being weeded out and would NOT have been weeded out at VT, but that kind of atmosphere just didn't appeal to me.
4) Preferred Charlottesville to Blacksburg as a college town.
5) Much shorter drive to Charlottesville from No. Va. and DC
6) Preferred semester system at UVa to quarter system at VT.
7) Loved ACC basketball (VT was not in the ACC at the time).</p>

80

<p>unless the school is truly abysmal and an awful awful fit which is a big longshot.. you'll enjoy yourself.. im sure</p>