How do I narrow down my college search?

College Search & Lists
21

I do see quite a bit to like about each of the universities on your list, or at least the 70-80% that I know something about.

“My parents are only willing to send me out of state for highly-selective reach schools”

This makes sense to me. If you are in-state with the stats to get into UNC, then I do not see the point of paying two or three times as much for a school somewhere else that is just as good.

You have big (eg, Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA) and small (Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, 4 of the 5 Claremont McKennas). Do you have a preference?

Lets think about safeties: If your stats are strong enough to make all of these schools realistic, then given very highly predictable stats-based admissions McGill would be very highly likely. I do not know Rochester much, but it might be very likely also. If you are in state for UNC and if you have the stats to make it a safety, then that is a very good safety. These three schools might be safe enough to allow me to relax about the “need a safety” issue. Personally I would leave at least the in-state schools and McGill on the list.

The next thing to think about is whether your stats are really high enough to make the high reaches (eg, Harvard, Princeton, Yale) realistic.

After that I think that you need to think about what you want in a school. Bowdoin is a great small school in a nice but rather small town. The California schools are a long way away. Cornell gets ton’s of snow (I still remember being unable to find our car after three feet of snow fell on it in one day – we couldn’t have driven it anyway and were able to find it the next day). I am not convinced that I would pay full price for BU or BC if I could attend UNC at in-state prices.

I would probably only apply to at most 10 of the reach schools. However, as long as you have safeties as good as UNC and McGill, you can afford to just apply to whichever reach schools you want to apply to.

22

I prefer schools that are small to medium but would not be opposed to a bigger school if it had a strong community. I also want a school that is academically rigorous but doesn’t have a ton of GPA deflation (I want to go to med school so a low GPA isn’t gonna look too good) and is also not super competitive.

Realistically I do feel that I could go to an ivy - my classes are almost all AP/College Level, I have research in 2 subjects, leader of 2 clubs, started a health initiative, science YouTube channel, tutoring job and volunteer work, write science newsletters.

I’m also trying to take schools of the list that are not better than UNC Chapel - like what @DadTwoGirls said - it simply doesn’t make sense to pay out of state tuition for the same education I could get in-state

23

Claremont McKenna, Villanova, Dartmouth, Wake Forest, and Boston College might not match your interests.

UC-Berkeley & UCLA do not give financial aid to non-residents of California to the best of my knowledge.

Also, consider removing the University of Rochester. (UR has an unusually high percentage of international students–over 25%–which is interesting.)

Also, as noted above, you listed Cornell twice.

24

Then you should remove UCLA, UCB, UMich, JHU and UChicago. They all don’t satisfy at least one of your criteria.

25

With the info you’ve given us, it’s easier to narrow down the schools you list here. You lean towards smaller, urban, LGBTQ friendly, diverse, and you want to study subjects that are common and will be good at most of these schools.

You can apply to an Ivy and some of these very competitive schools, but what are your grades? Do you have test scores? Grades in rigorous classes will matter a lot at virtually all the schools you list.

I personally think applying to ten reaches is over the top. That’s going to be a lot of work with supplemental essays.

I definitely think you should consider Macalester and Clark because you might have a good chance of merit aid if your grades are high, and they all fit the bill.

Your list could be:
Tufts
Occidental
Clark
Macalester
Brandeis
Harvard
Brown
Haverford
BrynMawr
Pomona
Pitzer
Scripps

Yale, sort of urban? New Haven isn’t a “real” big city.

I’m sure not all will agree with this, it’s just my opinion. I didn’t put any others on the list because they are one or more of the following:
-not urban
-academically intense and/or very competitive
-very large
-too urban with no sense of community
-not known for being LGBTQ friendly and/or not diverse (doesn’t necessarily mean they are unfriendly to LGBTQ.)

It may be time to ask yourself how important your stated desires are. Most students have to compromise on something. Often that is location. How important is it to be in an urban location? A lot of fantastic colleges you mention are definitely not urban. Smith, Amherst, Grinnell, and so forth, are decidedly the opposite. Williams is diverse but soooo remote and a bit “old money prep school.” Wellesley is great, but pretty intense and competitive. Dig deeper than just the name of the school.

Personally, I think for many students, location is the easiest sacrifice. the physical location of a college isn’t so important when you understand that you might get a more collaborative, nurturing and accepting environment if you compromise on location.

26

Based on your feedback above, here is my 2 cents, with annotations. I’m a parent and thinking about where I’d be willing to be full pay if UNC is the benchmark for comparison. I’ve rearranged them slightly. Try to narrow your list down to 10-12.

Competitive mid to large size colleges/universities, choose a subset of these:

Harvard
Princeton
Brown
Columbia
Northwestern
McGill
Yale
Tufts
Northeastern (pre-professional, good merit scholarships)
Wash U St Louis (good for pre-med; collaborative)

Maybe cut these:

Berkley (not worth the money compared to UNC)
UCLA (not worth the money compared to UNC)
Boston U (not better than UNC)
Brandeis (not better than UNC)
UChicago (intense, grade deflation)
Cornell (higher pressure, some reputation for grade deflation)
Darthmouth (small but cute town, rural)
John Hopkins (intense, grade deflation)
UPenn (pre-professional, intense, fair amount of Greek life)
UMichigan (is this worth more than double of UNC?)
NYU (as a parent, I’d not want to do full pay)
U Rochester (good school but better than UNC? Students are academically serious)

LACs, choose a subset of these. Note that most LACs will be politically liberal and LBGTQ accepting, I’ve highlighted ones that are especially so.

Pomona (this seems the best fit of the Claremont schools)
Swarthmore (near Philadelphia, politically liberal)
Smith College (nice small town, politically liberal)
Vassar (NYC accessible by train, politically liberal)
Wesleyan University (small city, politically liberal)
Amherst (small but nice town)
Bowdoin (small but nice town)

These seemed like a less good fit to me:

Carleton College (small but nice town, intellectually intense, quarter system)
Claremont Mckenna (more conservative than other Claremont schools)
Grinnell (maybe? small town in rural area, good grad and med school outcomes)
Wellesley College (intense, pre-professional)
Williams (rural, remote)

I don’t know enough about these to have an opinion:

Boston College
Pitzer
Scripps
Villanova
Wake Forest
Occidental

Good luck! You are fortunate to live in NC!

27

I didn’t quite catch the OP’s timeline: Are they rising seniors or are they younger? A good many of the institutions on the OP’s list will not be open or open fully this Fall (Berkeley, the Claremont Colleges, HYP, Bowdoin, Wellesley) with no guarantee that the situation will be any better in the spring. A lot of the students already enrolled in these places are asking for gap years. There’s going to be so much more to sort out in the next admissions cycle, IMO, and I wouldn’t assume every college will return to its status quo before the pandemic.

28

@Snowglobes You may be able to find your answer in this recent article from College Confidential, which covered this topic in depth. You can read it here: https://insights.collegeconfidential.com/how-to-choose-dream-target-and-safety-schools