<p>So did anyone end up changing a lot of their college list once the time to apply finally came around? I was going through the threads I made today, and one of them was a list of colleges I had settled on in July. It ended up undergoing some major revisions once December arrived, and even November, actually.</p>
<p>Here was the original list:
Reach:
Caltech
Swarthmore</p>
<p>Match:
Harvey Mudd
Carleton
Wellesley</p>
<p>Safety:
Clark</p>
<p>And here was the final list:
Princeton
Stanford
Harvey Mudd
Carleton
Wesleyan
Wellesley
Williams
University of Chicago (EA, deferred then waitlisted)
Smith (accepted with merit scholarship)</p>
<p>It’s real weird, looking on that old list. I ended up not applying to half of them.</p>
<p>Mmmm, by early fall my list was set, since I wanted to get cracking on the essays and meet EA deadlines. I actually wish I’d applied Regular Decision so I could spend more time pruning the schools I wasn’t completely sold on.</p>
<p>I made a list of 12 colleges I was thinking about a little over a year ago, and it changed pretty dramatically over the second semester of my junior year. Here’s the list I made:</p>
<p>Boston College
Boston University
Brown University
Columbia University
New York University
Susquehanna University
University of Arizona
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, San Diego
University of Miami
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
University of Washington</p>
<p>For comparison’s sake, I actually applied to these schools:</p>
<p>Reaches:
Columbia University
University of California, Berkeley</p>
<p>Matches:
Boston College (I hope- it’s probably a high match for me, but I was deferred EA)
Boston University
New York University
University of California, San Diego (OOS)
University of Miami</p>
<p>Safeties:
Marist College
University of Connecticut</p>
<p>My final list:
Oberlin (accepted ED)
Wesleyan
Reed
Swarthmore
Macalester
Carleton
University of Vermont (safety)</p>
<p>Schools that fell off the list along the way, and that in retrospect I’d hate to go to:
Dartmouth
Columbia
Brown
Brandeis
a ton of women’s colleges: Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Barnard
Williams and Amherst
Bard and Sarah Lawrence
St. John’s (MD)</p>