Did I subconsciously pick schools...

georgiagreenguy
Mon, 23 May 2011 23:33:49 +0000

Ok, so I’m a sophomore (class of 2013) and I’ve been looking at colleges not too seriously, but compiling a huge list of schools from around the country. So I decided that going into my Junior year, I want a more concise list that I can manage to do more in depth research on, visit (hopefully all of them), and then apply to. I did some more research, and listed the 25+ schools into categories based on how much I liked them (based on academics, atmosphere, and many other factors). Then I decided that I would just eliminate all but the top three categories, which left about 15. Then I did even more research and made sure that all of them were in the right categories, and then eliminated the third one (or better yet “archived” it for future reference if the ones left don’t work out). So now I’m down to 9 schools (pretty much in order of preference): MIT, Stanford, USC, UC Berkeley, McGill, NYU, UPenn, Cal Poly, and U of Washington. I want to major in urban planning or urban studies, and because those are interdisciplinary degrees I’ve had to research exactly what each program is really about. So I started looking at this list of 9, feeling pretty good about it, and then I realized that all of them are really far away from home (I’m near Atlanta, Georgia), and all of them are in liberal places. I tried not to pick based on location/locale alone, but it looks like it turned out like that. I mean I don’t absolutely hate Georgia, but I’m definitely ready to get out of here, sooner than later, and I don’t really fit in as a liberal in one of the most conservative states in the nation. So I want to know if you think that I might have selected my college list with a subconscious prejudice against the South and/or red states??? Is this normal??