Current junior aiming for Brown PLME –– Chance Me

Chance Me / Match Me
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You haven’t asked, but I started thinking about a list of colleges I might give if you were my kid. I focused in on larger cities or very close proximity to them, as that seemed a common thread to your list. I put a mix of larger and smaller schools, as you have some small ones (like Pomona) along with huge state schools. I put some on there that have a bit more cachet to them (as that also seemed to be a common theme) if that was important to you, but that also offer merit aid, a key to helping bring the price down for all the reasons mentioned above. Some schools would be shoo-ins for terrific merit aid, and others would be more a matter of shooting your shot. Alternatively, some of them just have lower costs of attendance than the schools on your list, so even without merit aid, they would just save you money on your education. I also avoided warmer areas of the country. The midwest has some amazing educational values, so they’re well-represented here.

I’ve sorted this list by my very fallible sense of what your chances for admission might be. I am not an admissions professional. Additionally, this doesn’t indicate the chance for getting sufficient merit aid to meet your family’s budget (whatever that is). For instance, not only is Wash U. an extremely difficult admit to get in, it’s extremely difficult to get merit aid. But, they offer very generous merit aid to that small number who gets it.

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Butler (IN): About 4500 undergrads in Indianapolis

  • Creighton (NE): About 4500 undergrads in Omaha

  • DePaul (IL): About 14k undergrads in Chicago

  • Emmanuel (MA): About 1900 undergrads in Boston and part of the Colleges of the Fenway consortium, where students can cross-register with several other Boston colleges and participate in sports and arts programs together.

  • Hamline (MN): About 1800 undergrads in Saint Paul

  • Lake Forest (IL): About 1700 undergrads in a suburb of Chicago

  • Loyola Chicago (IL): About 12k undergrads

  • Loyola Maryland: About 3800 undergrads in Baltimore. Part of an association of Baltimore colleges that allows students to take one class/semester at other colleges in the association, like Johns Hopkins and Goucher.

  • Marquette (WI): About 8k undergrads in Milwaukee

  • North Central (IL): About 2400 undergrads in a suburb of Chicago

  • Saint Joseph’s (PA ): About 4200 undergrads in Philadelphia and is acquiring or forming a relationship with the U. of the Sciences there, which will only strengthen its offerings in the sciences.

  • Saint Louis (MO): About 9k undergrads

  • U. of Cincinnati (OH): About 29k undergrads

  • U. of Nevada – Reno: About 17k undergrads and this is a WUE school, so you probably wouldn’t pay more than about $13k/year in tuition, at the worst.

  • U. of St. Thomas: About 6k undergrads in Saint Paul

Likely (60-79%)

  • Howard (D.C.): This HBCU has about 9k undergrads and also has a really cool science scholars program that @ChangeTheGame might be able to provide more insight on.

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • Brandeis (MA): About 3600 undergrads in a suburb of Boston

  • George Washington (D.C.): About 12k undergrads

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • Case Western (OH): About 5800 undergrads in Cleveland. If you’re interested in them, you want to make sure they know it.

  • Macalester (MN): About 2200 students in Minneapolis

  • Villanova (PA ): About 7k undergrads in a suburb of Philadelphia

Low Probability (less than 20%)

  • Washington (MO): About 8k undergrads in St. Louis
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