Chance Rising Senior w/ Journalism Spike for Yale REA, Ivies [4.0 GPA, 36 ACT, 1590 SAT, < $50k/year]

Of course that will be true of some students. But if a given applicant was indifferent to college size, I would usually expect a mix of sizes at all of the “likely”/“match”/reach" levels.

So at least off hand, I found it worth noting that the OP’s reach list had several smaller R1 universities (Yale, Duke, Northwestern, Columbia, and maybe Harvard), and their match/likely list had none, unless you count Fordham (which is still bigger than all of those, and also an R2 not an R1).

But I am not suggesting the OP should NOT consider larger R1 universities too. I was just pointing out that for people who like Yale, Northwestern, Columbia, Duke, and maybe Harvard, there are more colleges broadly like that which are a bit less selective, AND which might offer the OP merit aid. And therefore the OP might want to explore such options too, if they have not already.

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