Understood - I’m just giving an all encompassing answer for every scenario - because everyone is asking - how was the list made.
And we don’t know - so I tried to cover all scenarios including publics of small size I could think of that they’d respond with.
Or maybe you’re referencing an earlier note?
And OP did say this - hence the diversity of my note.
If you read thoroughly I named a lot of schools for OP to maybe study up on!!!
One last thing - all ‘safeties or targets’ are not for international. Op may be full pay but has other options and we’ve seen on this website that rejections at these safeties happen but then they’re given a “we could approve you if you’re willing to pay x $” - so therefore those schools aren’t safe bcuz the initial decision is no.
So I see nothing off kilter in my note but if others want to, that’s their prerogative.
I’m looking for target schools tbh, so i can balance my list better. But thanks for the website! I’ll take a look
Your academic interests are not very restrictive, which is good. I understand cost of attendance is also not an important issue for you, which is similarly eliminating a common restriction. Finally, I understand your likelies are in the UK, which also eliminates a common consideration.
Your suggested list is then really diverse–in terms of size, independent colleges versus research universities, public versus private, region . . . .
There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but usually people who are in your position can afford to be more choosey than that. Like, they can focus on a region, or one or two formats of college, or so on. Not that you have to, I am just curious if you have considered that option.
I also ask because that would help focus “target” suggestions. Like, with your relative lack of common restrictions, there are just so, so many possible targets. So even if you wanted your reaches to be diverse, any sort of focused preferences you can give us would help narrow down your target options.
Since you had some big state schools like Michigan and Berkeley, an obvious addition would be U. of Wisconsin - Madison. I believe it also makes some international college rankings lists (whatever their methodology happens to be), it’s strong pretty much across the board, and Madison, WI gets a lot of positive press about being a great town (which is a state capital) and a great location if anyone likes outdoor pursuits (as your thinking about ED at Dartmouth makes me think is possible).
Other schools you may want to consider include:
Case Western (14% non-US residents)
College of the Holy Cross (3% non-US residents)
Fordham (7% non-US residents)
Trinity College (14% non-US residents)
Two other schools that are reaches that you may want to consider include Washington U. in St. Louis and Emory, as someone who likes Tufts and Duke would have a good chance of liking those.
Since you already have Barnard on your list, have you thought about Bryn Mawr? It’s a women’s liberal arts college but is in a consortium with Haverford (very close relationship) and Swarthmore. I’m not sure if the relationship with UPenn is still on the books or not. It’s in a charming town but a short train ride into the big city of Philadelphia and all it has to offer. 14% of its students are non-US residents.
If part of Vassar’s appeal resides in its relatively flexible curriculum, then some of the other colleges suggested in this site also may be of interest:
Not “Almost all” are reaches, but “ALL are high reaches” for somebody with a 3.7-3.8 GPA (so far). To be brutally honest, unless 3.8 puts you in the top 1% of your country, the only way for you to be accepted to any of these is if you are a star athlete or a parent donates a very large amount of money.
I honestly do not know about NYU Shanghai. I know that their admission rate is 8%, but I don’t know exactly what they look for.
Apply if you want - it only costs the application fee which you may get waived. Who knows?
As for suggestions, what are you looking for in a college? Your list of USA colleges looks like it is simply a random selection of some of the most popular colleges in the USA.
Studying at universities and colleges in the USA is a very different experience than studying at a university in the UK or elsewhere in Europe (or Canada). Moreover, the differences between colleges and universities in the USA can be as large as the differences between colleges in the USA and colleges in Canada or the UK.
You have Amherst College on your list, which is a liberal arts college with fewer than 2,000 students total, all undergraduates, and a teaching methodology of small classes which require a lot of interaction and a LOT of writing, and everything is done by the professors. You also have Berkeley, which had 32,500 undergraduates, and is much more like the Universities in Canada. You also have smaller private universities, like U Chicago, which has 7,500 undergraduates, a teaching system somewhere between Amherst and Berkeley.
Amherst, Berkeley, and UChicago also have radically different ways that their curriculum is determined. This is true for the entire list of colleges. The colleges themselves are also in places which are very different, geographically. Amherst is in a very rural area in the woodlands of New England, Barnard is in NYC, Vanderbilt in is Nashville, Tennessee.
So - what are you looking for from a college or university in the USA that you think will be different, and better for you, than what you will get in Canada or the UK?
I think you have hit the nail on the head. You have safety schools in the UK. It sounds like those are options you would be happy attending.
Yes, the list of colleges here are reaches, but you knew that already.
You may as well go for it.
As asked above, do you want suggestions on less costly colleges (it does not sound like this is an issue), or just ones that are in some way similar to this list with less challenging admission rates? Let us know.
And if you like Vassar for its open curriculum and like Amherst, why not consider Smith or Mt. Holyoke? You can participate in the 5 college consortium and take classes at these and Amherst (and 2 others) and are still shooting for top schools. IntroToFiveCollegesFinal1 7-13-22.pdf
As an international student who may eventually live outside the US, you might also consider the global reputation/branding of your US college choices.
I graduated from Vassar and what surprised me was how well known Vassar is globally compared to most of its liberal-arts college peers. Global reputation was never a criterion for me when selecting colleges (I’m from small-town USA). However, Vassar’s brand recognition certainly helped me when living and working in Scandinavia and the Middle East. It also made a difference for me when applying to graduate school in the UK or mixing with the Oxbridge crowd.
