Comment on college list

orangecrayon
Thu, 30 Aug 2012 21:17:02 +0000

Hello,

I am a rising senior, looking to do some type of science/math (not fixed on anything, but not likely to go into the humanities). Relevant stats:
4.0 UW (1/900) with 5’s on 5 APs, 3 more next year
2320 SAT, 800 SAT II physics/math2/spanish
EC: debate (president of the team for 2 years, member for all 4), and periodic bouts of karate and instrument playing that I probably won’t bother listing on the app
I can’t stomach anything south of the Mason-Dixie line other than Maryland, and I can’t fly all the way to the West coast, so I’m primarily looking at the Northeast, Midwest, and mid-Atlantic areas
My folks can pay full tuition (won’t qualify for need based), so there are Ivies on the list, but even partial merit money would be nice for paying off grad school more easily when that time comes.
I want to do research at some point, as well as have pre-med advising since that’s a possible career path right now.
I like having lots of opportunities and the ability to take very high-level classes in and around my major, and I want to carve out a social circle of people with similar interests while still being able to hide in the crowd occasionally (especially when filling distribution requirements), so I am focusing on larger schools (but if there are LACs that do that too that would be fine). I want accessible professors, but from searching though old threads here it seems that’s not too much of a problem at most of these schools.

The list, in rough order of preference (though merit money or a guaranteed spot in med school, which I am applying for at some of these schools, would change the order):
Harvard
Brown
Yale
Princeton
WUSTL
JHU
UChicago
Northwestern
UPenn
UMich
SUNY Binghamton
BU

MIT left the list after I visited and it felt too dystopic, and Tufts was here for a while but since they don’t have merit aid and are weird about admitting people with high stats I thought it wasn’t worth the effort. Reed is too far away but would have been on here otherwise, and I don’t want to do engineering.

I fear 12 schools might be a bit much to apply to, but they all look good on paper, I can’t fly out to visit most of these until I get accepted and have a smaller list to visit, and since there are a bunch of reaches on there it might not be wise to remove any.

So: am I overlooking anything important? Is the balance good? Are there schools that aren’t worth applying to on the list? Any other thoughts or suggestions for my search.

Thanks in advance!