| An example of what I think is an inappropriate group would be a single student applying to all eight of the Ivy colleges. These are very different colleges which offer very different experiences. IMO, such an application strategy would be letting the prestige of a certain college or group of colleges overwhelm an intelligent search for a college that is both academically excellent and a good personal fit.
As for an example of a student making a list of colleges that have some similarities in academic caliber and undergraduate experience, I have often posted in favor of colleges that IMO offer the premier undergraduate experiences, ie, those with excellent academics, a socially oriented student body, and active, nationally competitive sports scene. If a student were interested in this type of undergraduate experience, then the groupings would go as follows:
BEST CHOICES
Stanford
Duke
Northwestern
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
NEXT BEST CHOICES
Rice
Georgetown
USC
Wake Forest
“IF YOU HAVE TO HAVE IVY” CHOICES
Cornell
U Penn
Princeton
PUBLIC CHOICES
UC Berkeley
U Virginia
UCLA
U Michigan
U North Carolina |