College Lists

College Search & Lists
1

Okay, so I’m a junior and I’ve realized that I should probably start to cut down on my college list, so I’m wondering if anyone can give me any insight on the schools that I list + tell me whether they’re reaches/matches (& perhaps get rid of some of the reaches that seem out-of-place and give me a few more targets?)! I’ve done NPC calculations on most of the schools, but I’m going to finish that off over the summer.

Stats:
GPA: 3.9 UW; 4.0 UW for sophomore and junior year so far
SAT: 2300 (800 CR, 770 M, 730 W); I will be taking the new SAT in June as well because I did well on the PSAT
PSAT: 1520 (760 M, 760 CR/W)
SAT Subjects: 800 Math 2, 770 Bio E, 780 Chem
AP Courses (I haven’t taken any tests yet): Junior: AP Chem, AP Physics 1, AP Calculus BC, AP World History; Senior: AP Lit, AP Physics C, AP Computer Science, AP Stats
Honors Courses: Honors English 9, 10, 11, Honors Algebra II/Trig, Honors Precalculus, Honors Biology, Honors Chemistry
Concurrent/Dual Enrollment: Spanish III, Intro to Psychology

I’m an Asian female from California; I attend a highly competitive public school. My family’s income is in the 100k bracket.

I’d prefer not to specify my extracurriculars here because people would be able to recognize me. However, I have a pretty extensive list, mostly balanced between STEM stuff (mostly earth sciences + engineering) and writing stuff, among other things. Last summer, I interned at a top university in the earth sciences. I’m waiting on results for some (very selective) summer programs this year as well, and if I don’t get into them, I’m going to attempt to get an internship at either the EPA (unpaid/volunteer), USGS (unpaid/volunteer), or at local universities (unpaid/research).

Current list (by acceptance rate, not preference!):
Stanford, Harvard (to be honest only on there for my parents’ egos), Yale, Columbia, UChicago, MIT (probably EA because of rec letter limitations), Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Harvey Mudd, Cornell, Tufts, Rice, UC Berkeley (undeclared engineering; my school is a huge Cal feeder though), Carnegie Mellon (college of engineering), UCLA (engineering), Wellesley, UCSD, UC Santa Barbara, Smith, UC Davis.

I want to major in computer science (may change to some other type of engineering later, which is why I’m a bit iffy about UChicago) and something like environmental policy or science, technology, and society, with a minor in geology (this will depend on the school and what’s possible there, obviously–e.g. at Harvey Mudd, I’d probably do my humanities concentration in something like STS because I’ve heard it’s difficult to double major).

I’m quite liberal & I like socially active schools. I don’t quite care about school size, but I suppose that’s because I haven’t visited enough schools to know my preferences?

As a note: Brown was one of my top schools until I saw the NPC for it, so it’s now off of my list. Stanford is my absolute dream school. The only schools on this list I’ve visited are Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and UCSD, and I haven’t taken a formal tour of any of them since I was eight.

Thank you so much!

2

You’re actually only applying to 16 colleges (if you consider the UCs as one college, as they all have the exact same application). I would try to cut it down to 8-12 colleges, maybe choosing 2-4 out of the first 6 colleges you listed, because those are all pretty high reaches (Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, MIT). UCSD UCSB and UCD should be pretty good safeties, so maybe get rid of Smith and Wellesley, unless you would truly rather go there instead of those UCs. This would leave you with 10-12 colleges, including a couple reaches, a lot of matches (Harvey Mudd, Cornell, UCB, CMU, UCLA), and a few safeties as well.

3

Your stats are impressive. They are better than mine and I was accepted into Stanford EA. I think it’s a plus for you as engineering seems to be male dominated. The Asian part not so much. If Stanford is your top choice you should consider EA because the acceptance rate is a little higher(around 9 or 10 percent). I can’t say much about your other choices but I did visit and got accepted into UC Berkeley UCLA and UC Davis. They are all great schools. Don’t underestimate UC Davis. I was very impressed by their engineering school. You have a great shot at all those schools.

4

@chunkylumbee I wanted to apply to Stanford EA, but the teacher who’s writing one of my rec letters doesn’t do EA; I’m actually probably not going to get into MIT because I’m using another teacher (one who doesn’t know me well) in place of her (the teacher I’m using for CommonApp doesn’t do non-CommonApp schools either). And I actually like Davis quite a bit from what I remember.

Thank you @lshaynal!