<p>I'm not sure whether I'm aiming too high, too low, just right, or what. </p>
<p>I'm a white female from NJ</p>
<p>SATs: mixed- 2130 (740CR/680M/710W)
one sitting- 2100 (710CR/680M/710W)
horrible SAT IIs- Lit 660
BioE 650</p>
<p>GPA: 3.7-3.8 W at a small, very competitive private (usually 15% or so to Ivies, dean of admissions at Colgate was very familiar with it)
No rank at all</p>
<p>ECs: 4 years Varsity XC, captain
4 years Varsity Swimming, captain - our team was State champion last year if that's significant
2 years JV softball, 1 year Varsity (couldn't play 1 year due to multiple injuries)
8 years year-round swimming ending after Junior year. 21+ hrs per week, 48 weeks per year
measly 30 hours of volunteering at town library
National Merit Commended</p>
<p>List:
W&L
Colgate
Dickinson
Muhlenberg
Lehigh
Hamilton
Trinity (CT)
Loyola (MD)
U Richmond
Bucknell</p>
<p>Do you think my chances would increase significantly if I could get my SATs up to 2200 and get 2 SAT IIs up to 700 (even though only W&L requires SATIIs)?</p>
<p>I think you should focus more on the SAT II's. You might aim a little higher and apply to a few reaches because most of those look like matches. Maybe a place like Middlebury.</p>
<p>yeah I'm a legacy at Wesleyan but I visited and people did not seem friendly. Plus it's completely different than any of the other schools I'm interested in and I don't think I'd be comfortable there.</p>
<p>unfortunately my parents want me to stay relatively close so VA is the furthest South they'd really want me to go (unless I could get into Duke or something, which I can't), plus they have issues with the South in general haha</p>
<p>umm well in the area that I live a significant amount do (even my GC told me that any college in the South is automatically going to be easier and less pressurized because it's in the South.... right.) but I live in a really snobby area that even looks down on South Jersey haha so I'm not sure about other areas in the North</p>
<p>Looking down on the South actually is not something to be proud of. I don't mean to attack the OP but it seems as though there are still a few politically correct prejudices left among the Great Northern Enlightened Ones and it seems pretty silly to me. Given that UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, Davidson, and Wake Forest are all in the state south of Virginia (and I won't even mention the states Vanderbilt, Emory, and Rice are in) I'd say people are missing some great opportunities. I would suggest that people who consider this particular prejudice (being too good, too smart, too enlightened) for the South to be cute/acceptable/a sign of superiority, etc., may be missing out on something. (I am a lifelong northerner and I do remember all the not-so-nice things about the South but I am also smart enough to appreciate the excellence of some of its colleges and universities). And why anyone would decide that Duke, with all the dreadful publicity it has had in the last few months, is the only respectable school south of Charlottesville I really don't know. </p>
<p>I have to add that W and L is south of Charlottesville, and feels VERY southern, and Richmond, also on your list, was the capital of the Confederacy and has a very popular Museum of the Confederacy, which does in fact make me uncomfortable. So I think you may need to review the list and do a little more thinking about regionalism. You may find that Wake might be a place to consider, as might Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>yeah I'm a legacy at Wesleyan but I visited and people did not seem friendly. Plus it's completely different than any of the other schools I'm interested in and I don't think I'd be comfortable there.<</p>
<br>
<p>[slaps head] Sorry, I didn't read your list very carefully. Have you given any thought to Drew? Also, Tufts. There was a fellow not far from you statistically and geographically who was taken off the waitlist at both Tufts and Wes last year. It became obvious after an extended thread that Tufts was just a better fit. This may be the case with you, too.</p>
<p>youre a match at W&L, colgate, lehigh, bucknell. the rest of your school are (or almost) safeties. also, im going to W&L and never turned in any SATII's. from my own experience and that of my classmates, many schools (though not all) do not enforce the SATII thing. i think it does give an applicant a leg up to turn them in (especially high ones), but it does not make or break an application.</p>
<p>mattmom- okayy yeah I don't have a problem with the South, it's my parents and the area that I live in that I was talking about, not my ideas. I can't change their minds so there's really no point in getting them mad at me about it, plus there are loads of great colleges in PA, NY, VA, CT, etc that I can go to. My parents refuse to even look at Vandy because it's in TN. I looked at UVA but among other things, I'm looking for safer locations (or what I perceive to be safer) and Charlottesville did not seem like a nice area (or maybe we were mostly in a bad area of Charlottesville? regardless, the bad area(s) was very close to the school), also UVa is much bigger than I'd like.
As for Duke, I could care less about the bad publicity, if anything the scandal made me even more interested in it because recently I've heard so many great things in defense of it and the lax players too (several of the lax players were from our brother HS down the road), plus it's more selective than several Ivies and it's just overall thought of as an amazing school around here (and everywhere basically)</p>
<p>Anyway, thanks for the suggestions johnwesley, I'll definitely take a look at Tufts. Drew is a nice school but it's only 1/2 hour or so away from me, my grandma lives in Madison, and I spend a lot of time in Madison already bc of my grandma and several friends who live there so I'd just like to get away a bit. I do love Madison though, very safe and cute.</p>
<p>Wow really pirt? That's very interesting, thanks for that info, I was really worried about my less than stellar SATIIs</p>