A Dose of Realism, Please?

Lindagaf
Tue, 02 Jan 2018 13:01:21 +0000

You don’t need to justify your choices to me, but you do need better reasons than proximity and weather in order to get into Stanford. All of those qualities you have mentioned can be found at many other schools. None are specific to Yale, U Chicago, or wherever. James Madison U is clearly also full of top notch professors, at least 7 more than Yale. A close friend went to a SUNY and joined a ton of clubs, got internships, found great opportunities, etc… He went to grad school and lives in a mansion. No one needs to go to a tippy top school to be successful and find opportunities. Do you see what I am getting at? You need to get below the surface of what appeals to you about those schools if you really want a shot at getting in.

U Washington is highly regarded and you are OOS. It has a 45% acceptance rate, so you would probably get in if your school’s naviance shows that others have been accepted. I am sure you would get into UO and UW. If you are just looking for safeties at this point, maybe you should consider some privates where your stats would get you attractive merit offers. Look for acceptance rates at privates that are 35% and above, ideally, and show interest. Again, U Rochester and CWRU would probably be really good options given your areas of interest.