Help me choose some colleges!

insanedreamer
Mon, 16 Jan 2017 12:29:36 +0000

Since you’re lucky enough to live in a state with one of the top 4 publics in the country, UNC should be your number one choice. You might get into some top-20 privates but since you won’t get need based aid, and they won’t give you merit aid, if you think you might do an MD or grad school, then save your money.

As others have mentioned, forget the UCs. For the same reasons, unless you’re offered in-state tuition or other scholarship, there’s little reason for you to chose UIUC, Michigan, Maryland, VT, Texas A&M, UT-Austin, or Purdue, over UNC or even NCSU (your safety).

I suggest you focus on:

merit scholarships at elite schools (i.e., Rice, Notre Dame, WashU, GTech, Duke, USC) - these are very competitive, but worth a shot (some on this list: http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com)

good privates that offer merit aid (look in the 20-50 rankings - a lot of colleges will offer good merit scholarships to high stats students to lure them away from the top-20; if you decide for engineering, excellent schools like Rochester, RPI, will offer good merit; excellent LACs will as well if you don't go for engineering).

I've heard Michigan sometimes gives in-state tuition to high stats students but I'm not sure. If that's the case, you could go ahead and apply there.

If you really want to go to Stanford or MIT, go ahead and apply, but bear in mind that besides the slim chance of acceptance, if accepted you’ll have to make the choice between spending the money on undergrad or saving some for grad school. If you want the latter, then forgot HYPMS and focus on ones where you might get some merit.