<p>Should I be worried that I haven’t met with my college counseleur at all yet? My ex-college counseleur quit her job so half of the kids in my class are in a pretty awkward place.</p>
<p>I’ve had one meeting with my GC and she was like:</p>
<p>“Did you take the ACT/SAT yet?”</p>
<p>“No…”</p>
<p>“Do that and then we’ll talk”</p>
<p>I really hope I fall in love with ONE school when I visit in September so I can ED. If not, I was going to do the shotgun method and apply to a ton of top schools and hope I get in somewhere.</p>
<p>Based off of this criteria:</p>
<p>Safety: A school with a 40% or higher acceptance rate where your GPA AND SAT scores are both in the top 25% (i.e. above the published 25-75%)</p>
<p>Match:
- A school with a 25%-40% acceptance rate with your scores and GPA both in the top 25%, or
- a school with a 40% or higher acceptance rate with your scores and grades both in the middle 50%</p>
<p>Reach:
- A school with a 25-40% acceptance rate with your scores & GPA in the middle 50% or
- A school with a 40% or greater acceptance rate where your stats are in the bottom 25%, or</p>
<p>High Reach:
- A school with a 25%-40% acceptance rate where either your GPA or SAT is in the bottom 25% and the other is in the middle 50%.
- A school where the acceptance rate is under 25% regardless of where your scores and GPA fall. </p>
<p>Safeties:</p>
<p>Clark University
University of Connecticut
Skidmore College
Wake Forest University</p>
<p>Matches:</p>
<p>Boston College
Brandeis University
Oberlin College
College of William & Mary
Carleton College (high match/low reach)</p>
<p>Reaches:</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon University</p>
<p>High Reaches:</p>
<p>Vassar College
Wesleyan University
Amherst College
Brown University</p>
<p>I need to cut this list down, but I don’t know where to begin. I’d probably take out CMU (I’d only be going for a CS major), but all of the rest are fine.</p>
<p>For me,
Super Reaches: Brown, MIT
Reaches: Oberlin, Carnegie Mellon, Tufts
Matches: UC San Diego, UC Davis, University of Rochester, Smith, Scripps
Safeties: University of Pittsburgh, UC Santa Cruz, Clark University </p>
<p>There are a lot of other schools I’m slightly interested in… but should I visit them?</p>
<p>Oh jeez my list is so reach heavy. Definitely need to be more realistic.</p>
<p>High Reaches: MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Caltech, Northwestern, Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice, Johns Hopkins, WUSTL, Harvey Mudd, Berkeley, UCLA</p>
<p>Matches: Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Safeties: UT Austin, UMich, Purdue</p>
<p>CMU is a match and Northwestern is a Reach? I’m closer to the opposite with CMU being a reach ad NW being a Match,</p>
<p>Safeties:
Alabama
Minnesota</p>
<p>Matches:
Wisconsin (low match)
Illinois (engineering dpt)</p>
<p>Pretty simple list for me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>OMG. It’s like you went browsing in the US News Top 30 lol.</p>
<p>At least I only did 3 Ivies :)</p>
<p>And WUSTL, Harvey Mudd, and UCLA are almost certainly coming off.</p>
<p>Rice, Berkeley, and Columbia aren’t sitting so hot either on my list.</p>
<p>Caltech, Northwestern, Duke, and Johns Hopkins might come off after visits.</p>
<p>@TinnyT my thoughts exactly.</p>
<p>For CMU I want to do a computational biology major, which means I would be enrolled in both the CS and science schools, right? What if I only got into one of them?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>US News Top Undergraduate Engineering Schools THANK YOU VERY MUCH.</p>
<p>@qcat I looked through the CMU forum, and it seems like as long as you get accepted to one school, you can double major. The only problem is you’ll have last priority in registering for classes. Try to get into SCS though.</p>
<p>Well, computational biology isn’t a double major… It’s one of those interdisciplinary majors. Ah well, I’ll go stalk the CMU forum. >.<</p>
<p>@TheKongo I visited Duke, and it made me love it even more! I hope you don’t take it off your list :)</p>
<p>I have a lot of schools I’m applying to, any ideas on how to narrow it down?</p>
<p>Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, Emory, Michigan, UNC, UCLA, UCD, UCSD, UCSB, Stanford, Rice, UVa, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest</p>
<p>Well considering how the only similarity between Columbia and Dartmouth is that they are both Ivies, it’s a little obvious that you’re not really sure what you want in a college. Do you want a big city or rural area? Large student body? Major?</p>
<p>Also you could take out some of the UCs. You don’t need that many safeties.</p>
<p>^Not all UCs are safeties. Depending on one’s grades, only UCSB in the list is really kind of safe. But even those with higher admit rates (UCD and UCSD) than UCLA, a reach for most people, can be tricky. Depends on your high school, too. </p>
<p>Also, do you want a party school vs. a non party school? Most of the Ivy League schools have blatant drug use from the “jock” type of people. But especially known for heavy partying is Dartmouth out of that list of Ivy Leagues. In addition, UCSB, Stanford, and Wake Forest are heavy party schools. </p>
<p>UCSD and Stanford (not sure about the other schools) are in suburbs - but a major big city is within 10 minutes driving. </p>
<p>So yeah, there are many options for how to narrow the list down. Make a list of characteristics you want in a college, then research whether each has most or all of what you want.</p>
<p>I guess you’re right TheKongo. But the thing is, even though Dartmouth and columbia are super different, I could see myself at either. I love NYC, but I could also see myself adjusting to love the outdoors. Also, I have no idea how I feel about party schools because I’ve never tried partying. But I have a feeling I might like it.</p>
<p>I guess I could take out UC davis at least. It’s too close to home.</p>
<p>lol my list is so long. I have like 26 colleges on it right now. I’m not applying to all of those, but I need to narrow it down.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know which of these are reaches or safeties for me, but I’ll take a guess from what I’ve been told and what I’ve seen.</p>
<p>Hopeless, impossible reaches: Stanford (if only…), Princeton, Yale, Columbia</p>
<p>Reaches: Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Brown, USC, Penn</p>
<p>Matches: UW Seattle, Santa Barbara</p>
<p>Safeties: None? Not sure what would be considered a safety for me</p>
<p>My never ending lists is…</p>
<p>Reaches: Amherst, Bowdoin, Haverford, Swarthmore (ED), University of Chicago (EA), Wellsleyan</p>
<p>Matches: Bryn Mawr, Colgate, Dickinson (EA), Franklin and Marshall, Gettysburg, Kenyon, Oberlin, Smith, Vassar</p>
<p>Safeties: Allegheny, Chatham, Denison, Juniata, Lafayette, Muhlenberg</p>
<p>One or two of my matches are probably reaches and one or two of my safeties are probably matches though…</p>
<p>My current list - which changes everyday and seems to keep on growing:</p>
<p>Reaches: Juilliard, MIT, Harvard, U Penn, Colgate, Northeastern
Matches: SUNY Brockport, SMU, George Mason, Dickinson
Safeties: SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Cortland
Other: Ailey/Fordham, SUNY Purchase, Cal Arts</p>
<p>None of those schools fit perfectly - some might be matches/safeties/reaches!</p>