Confused

College Search & Lists
1

So I currently am applying to about 15 college, and as crazy as it sounds, I am still sort of looking. I plan to study something like Graphic Design, though I am still not sure. I also do not want to go to an exclusively art college, like MICA. I do not want to be in a large city (I have anxiety in large crowds), however, I do not want to go to a super small school, probably around 5000 or more students. I have toured many of the colleges I am applying to, and none of them have felt like the perfect match. Here are some of my stats:

School- Public Vocational
Shop Area- Commercial Arts
W GPA- my school gives percentages- 102.7. I have had all A’s and mostly Honors courses.
AP- US Govt/Politics (4), taking AP Calc and AP Psych. At my school we cannot take AP until junior year and options are limited. I have taken 4 Dual Enrollment classes at a community college to make up for this and have gotten all A’s in those.
SAT- M 700, R 770
SAT II- Math 2 and Bio both 680, yikes, I know.
Extracurricular-
Cross Country 4 years, captain for 2. Medaled at a few competitions, though I do not expect/want an athletic scholarship
Track- 4 years (distance events)
Avid runner, ran a marathon last november and do a lot of 5ks and volunteer at many as well
NHS president
NTSH member
Work-
I’ve had a summer job at a local pool for 2 years, and currently in my schools “co-op” program, where every other day (my school operates on an A/B schedule) I work instead of going to shop class. It is work related to what I have learned in shop, like taking photographs of school events and designing posters for school activities.
Income- less than 70k, single parent home
Cost is a pretty big factor, I will need large financial aid/scholarship packages

Schools I have/plan to apply to(sort of ranked):
Yale (applied SCEA, decisions tomorrow but not expecting much)
Cornell
Brown/RISD (Dual Degree)
Harvard
U of Delaware
RIT
Syracuse
Penn State (accepted university park)
Towson (applied)
SUNY Buffalo
CU Boulder
U of Michigan
2 smaller, local colleges that I would prefer not to share for privacy reasons, but accepted to both. Safety Schools.

I think that is probably enough info (or too much), but let me know if you have any suggestions. Also, please refrain from telling me that I have poor chances with Ivy schools, I know I do, I just wanted to have some reach options. THANKS!

2

Correction, NTHS, not NTSH. National Technical Honor Sciety, it’s a thing for vocational schools

3

What is your home state? You have public Us from at least four different states. Can you afford your safety schools and would you be happy to attend them?

4

I’m in PA. My safety schools would be affordable, one is a full tuition. I honestly do not want to go to them because they just aren’t the right environment for me. I want somewhere were people are on the same sort of acedemic level as me, and the local schools aren’t going to provide that. I also was not a huge fan of Penn State, mostly because the dorms suck and there’s a ton of partying that I don’t want. It would be cheap though, especially if I get into the honors college. Not optimal however.

5

Then they’re not real safeties – you need schools you’d be willing to attend. It sucks to have to make a choice among options you don’t actually like.

The honors dorms aren’t bad (IMO) and you can ask to live in them even if you don’t get into Schreyer. As for the partying, I’m a senior and have never attended a party here. You can find other things to do if you’re not interested in drinking.

(Not to dismiss your concerns – I had similar ones – but to offer a first-hand perspective.)

6

You might like Pitt more than Penn State

7

Have you thought about RISD?

8

Have you run the Net Price Calculators on each of those schools? I would be surprised if the out-of-state public universities you have listed, like Boulder and Michigan, are going to be affordable.

Here are a few others - check out their program websites, admissions stats, and always run Net Price Calculators!

Northeastern
RPI
Lehigh
CMU

9

Thank you for the suggestions! I will definitely run net price calculators later, but part of the reason I am applying to so many is because I want to be able to consider many offers. I looked at RPI, and I am definitely going to be adding that one to the list- probably replacing SUNY buffalo. Thanks again!