Seniors - how did you create your list of schools?

Applying to College Admission Stories
21

I need to second what Wolverine86 said because it’s incredibly important—TALK TO YOUR PARENTS ABOUT PAYING FOR COLLEGE. Figure out how much they can pay and how much they will pay. Figure out if you need to carry any debt. And, please—look beyond what your parents are saying when they go, “We want you to go to your dream school”. Can they realistically afford $50,000/year? And do you have any siblings that are going to be going to college?

It freaks me out that so many high schoolers (this is me speaking as a current senior) researching colleges and not even mentioning talking to their parents, not thinking about cost, holding on to vague ideas (“I guess we’re pretty well-off, we take ski trips every winter”—this doesn’t mean anything! Get hard numbers!) about what’s financially doable and what isn’t.

But here’s how I made my college list:

List v0
I was pretty dead-set on a major (Computer Science), so I initially formed my list by checking out different rankings for CS and taking the top 30 schools without considering money, location, fit, et cetera (yet). I added on 5 UC campuses (I’m in-state) that had the best CS programs: 2 reaches, 1 match, 2 safeties.

List v1
Added on other schools that weren’t ranked highly in CS largely because I really liked the culture and environment; interestingly enough I dropped these fairly quickly just because their CS programs weren’t as strong as my state-school options and would have also been more expensive. I removed pretty much all major reaches (HYPSM et al) from my list and then added them back on on a case-by-case basis: two schools I really liked and one to appease my parents. Winnowed my initial list down a lot based largely on prestige and the name-brand factor (UIUC has fantastic CS but I cut very early on from my list). I’m still undecided as to whether this was a good idea or not, but prestige was a fairly big issue for my parents—and they were also less attractive options compared to certain UCs. There ended up being around 15 on this list (+ UCs = 20).

List v2
This was very close to my final list: I looked a lot at merit aid percentages and what the rep of the school was in terms of awarding financial aid. (Interestingly enough, what ended up being my dream school in terms of fit—it was probably a match or low reach for me—is known for being stingy, but it ended up being quite affordable for me in the end.) I struck off schools that I knew would be costly, unless I was in love with the school or my parents approved of it enough to consider paying near-full tuition if I got in. At this point most of the schools were ones where I felt I’d be happy to go to (except for two: my private admissions & financial safety, which I didn’t really like, and a high-reach school my parents liked). (10 on this list, + UCs = 15.)

List v3
Cut down the number of private schools I applied to down to 6, because I didn’t want to apply to an insane number of schools. I think one mistake I ended up doing here—being too skeptical of my chances, and striking off two schools I really loved but worried were too high of a reach and I didn’t want too many reaches in my list. In retrospect I feel I had a fairly good shot at one of them, and I do have some residual “what-ifs” about not having applied to the other.

I actually didn’t even consider location (the urban/rural thing) when selecting colleges to apply to at all. It was only around February that I started realizing that I really preferred an urban environment more. A lot of the traditional factors questionnaires ask you about (co-ed or not, large or small, big on sports or not) I really didn’t care about until later on, when I had already applied to schools. I focused almost exclusively on CS departmental strength. (Yeah, I’m kind of a nerd.)

22

Can you share your application experience? How did you go about choosing your list of schools?

During sophomore and junior year, I had a monster list that was constantly changing. My choir director kept recommending music schools to me, and by that point, I knew nothing about any of this except for the fact that I wanted to be a music major. After countless agonizing visits to antiquated schools with “prestigious” music programs (most of them were unimpressive to me, not to mention in the middle of nowhere) I realized that I wasn’t looking in the right places. I reassessed my musical direction and passion, and realized that I would be most successful and happy with a career in what I love. I wouldn’t be satisfied being a typical voice major, because frankly, I can’t stand operatic voices, and most vocal-heavy classical music bores me. I’m a jazz and R&B influenced rock ‘n’ roller at heart, and I want my career to be in that sort of realm. So I went back to the drawing board, and scrapped every school that didn’t have some combination of the following emphases in a music major: jazz voice, contemporary/popular voice, songwriting, music business, and recording studio production. After I found more schools with programs along those lines, I realized that I must go to college in a big city. Building up and narrowing down my final list, I ended up applying to University of Southern California, New York University, University of Miami, Berklee College of Music, The New School, and Virginia Commonwealth University. I auditioned for all but VCU (my English major in-state safety), and got into all.

In retrospect, would you have applied to more colleges? Less?

I would have applied to the same number of colleges, but less programs. At both Miami and USC, I applied and auditioned for both their jazz and contemporary/popular programs. They saw right through me and could tell that I was more passionate about the pop stuff and auditioning for jazz “just in case.” You can guess which major they put on my acceptance letters.

If you could give advice to next year’s applicants regarding the college list, what would you say?

Apply to one program per college/university (unless it’s allowed and two are equally intriguing), don’t sell yourself short academically if your major is in an unrelated field (conservatories are notorious for accepting students who are exceptional performers but have never had a high focus on academics), do A LOT OF RESEARCH before hauling yourself and your family members to schools you may or may not end up even applying to, and HAVE SOME CONFIDENCE when applying and waiting for your decisions! =)

23

I’m SO glad the college process is over! I legit have only about a month left of school. YAY!

Can you share your application experience? How did you go about choosing your list of schools?

Since middle school, I’ve always wanted to become a pharmacist. I considered applying to medical schools at one point, but I realized that although I have a willingness to help people and want to make a difference in the world, I could never achieve the level of passion required to truly become a great doctor. Really anyone can become a doctor if they have their heart completely in it 100% and can deal with the sacrifices. I realized I just didn’t have that passion and drive. So I settled on pharmacy and after some research, I began to really, really like the field and it seemed to fit me so much better. Chemistry was one of my better subjects and I loved the variety and flexibility that came with pharmacy.

So I basically researched all the 0-6 pharmacy schools in New England and finally narrowed down my list to 5. Rutgers was at the top of my list back when I thought the ranking of a pharmacy school actually mattered. I knew nothing about the school except that it was ranked very highly among US News pharmacy schools and that its program was supposedly very prestigious. However, Northeastern was my ideal school because of its great education/coop, amazing location, large, modern campus, and opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and explore new things. URI, Uconn, and MCPHS were basically filler schools in case I didn’t get in to those two, but I soon found out that URI also had a very prestigious pharm program, seeing as they only accepted 100 students. Then I applied to my state school for the heck of it just in case I was rejected from all the other pharm programs. (Thankfully I wasn’t. I got into them all) I did not plan to go there.

So basically I applied to 1 reach (Rutgers- no idea how I got in), 2 matches (Northeastern, URI), and 3 safeties (Uconn, MCPHS, UNH)

In retrospect, would you have applied to more colleges? Less?

I actually wish I applied to more colleges. I remember when I was little, I was obsessed with going to Princeton. It was where all the “princes” go, according to “A Cinderella Story” LOL So I wanted to go there. :stuck_out_tongue: I also thought Stanford looked so so pretty! I wish I applied to some more reaches/ Ivys/ non pharmacy traditional colleges just for fun to see if I got in. I wouldn’t expect to get in nor would I necessarily attend, but hey, miracles can happen! It would just be nice to have something to fall back on. I mean, I know that I want to be a pharmacist, but even if I didn’t, I don’t really have a choice now to pursue something different.

If you could give advice to next year’s applicants regarding the college list, what would you say?

APPLY EARLY ACTION!!! Seriously, colleges love it when you show early interest and it increases your chances of admission by a lot in most cases. Plus it relieves a TON of STRESS. My classmates were busy worrying about transcripts and college essays and I was sitting back and relaxingggg. :stuck_out_tongue: But good luck future applicants! Don’t be afraid to take chances! :slight_smile:

In the end the process is worth it and I am proud to say that I will be a Northeastern Husky next year!! Woooo!

24

I applied to 11 schools all over the US. 2 in NorCal, 4 in SoCal, 3 in PA, and 2 in NYC. I chose my colleges based on where I wanted to live. I picked my cities first, then looked at the great colleges close by. I think this is the best way to pick colleges because, for example, if you’re a city person, then there’s no use in looking at a place like Cornell, in the middle of nowhere. Now that acceptance and financial aid are in, I’m down to four schools that are financially feasible, and it just so happens that one is in each locale, so I think I compiled my college list pretty well. :slight_smile:

25

I borrowed my cousin’s 2008 copy of the Fiske Guide - there were sticky notes indicating her top choices and so I just shifted them around. I chose mine quite randomly, I was looking for a large(r), private, research institution that still maintained a dedication to the liberal arts:
Duke (top choice) - deferred/rejected
UChicago (close second)
a slew of lower ivies
Boston University
Fordham
Tulane
Drexel
UMass Amherst
All in all, I’m extremely happy at where I ended up getting in - my only adivce is don’t underestimate your transcript - it can be helpful if you lack in other areas, write original essays that show who you really are, blah blah same old stuff. Good luck to all juniors!

Oh and go maroons! D3 ftw!!!

26

I fell in love with Bowdoin my sophomore year of high school. I built my college list around Bowdoin. I searched for similar schools in New England and the Midwest. I had an ULTIMATE safety, my state university. If you fall in love with a college, I would say this is the way to go.
So, from the point where I knew I wanted to go to Bowdoin, but could not apply ED, I decided to go crazy with applications. I applied to 15 schools. The end results were pretty fantastic: 9 acceptances, 5 waitlists, and only 1 rejection! I was accepted to Bowdoin, and I think I will be attending next year. I made sure I had a range of schools from an ultimate safety (Big State U) to a safe(r) school that I probably would not attend over Big State U (Conn College) to “match” schools (Colby, Hamilton, Oberlin, Bates, etc.) I ended up getting into three big reaches. If you are applying for FA, also be sure to apply to a lot. I am most likely attending the most expensive school with the least FA, but I’m glad I had both a full ride and some aid to top LACs available to me. I’m lucky to be in the position that I can choose where I fit best.
Good luck future applicants! I worried way too much about this. Even if I had been rejected by all my schools, I would have done the same process. Hopefully, the bubble of college applications will pop soon and the process will be more reasonable.

27

Can you share your application experience? How did you go about choosing your list of schools?

I started “looking” (in other words, I chose my first school) after attending a camp in seventh grade (Wellesley). After that, I looked for similar schools. My first concern was whether it had strong departments/teachers in the subject that I liked, then the general student body attitude towards learning and each other. Also, the level of political activism was important to me, as well, so I looked for schools that were near political hotspots.

By the end of tenth grade, I had a list of about 100 colleges that had departments/aspects that I liked. My brother told me to take out anything that wasn’t first tier, and my parents told me to take out the ones that had a ranking < 50. I took out schools that had student bodies over 10,000 and/or that were located anywhere not on the east coast.

In retrospect, would you have applied to more colleges? Less?

Both. I would have had more confidence in my abilities and taken out a few of my safety schools, and I would have applied to more reach schools. Getting rejected ED by one of my top choices that was also ranked highly discouraged me from applying to other similarly ranked/also selective schools, which I regret.

If you could give advice to next year’s applicants regarding the college list, what would you say?

Take chances, but not too many. Be sure to apply to a range of schools that you would not mind going to. There are people every year to apply to tippity-top schools, and then “safety” schools that they would never go to. Then they get rejected from the top schools and complain all the way while going to their “safety” school. Don’t be those people.

Also, don’t be unreasonable! If you’ve got really low GPA, SAT, and very few ECs, don’t apply to all Ivy Leagues/top schools unless you’ve got something else that stands out about you.

So I guess what I’m trying to say here is have balance.

28

I actually didn’t bother caring about my college list until the very end of junior year, and looking back, I’m still surprised at how much my list changed.

Even as a junior, I felt like college was too far off for me to care. So, I picked a preliminary list based on superficial qualities such as whether the name rolled off my tongue, location (albeit important), campus beauty, etc. I came up with this: Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD (all three for in-states), UPenn, Johns Hopkins, UMich, Carnegie Mellon, and WashU.

During the summer before senior year, however, it suddenly dawned that I would be spending four years of my life at one of these schools, so I decided to really make sure that those were the schools I wanted to apply to. As I was doing further research, I found myself putting on and taking off so many schools. Stanford went on and off; almost all the Ivies popped up on my list at one point.

But I still didn’t feel satisfied, and so I decided to think a little deeper. I started discovering qualities that I really wanted in a school, and I began looking for fit, activities, and persona of the student population. This led me to fall in love with my first choice college, Brown. It had everything I wanted and so much more; I couldn’t imagine myself happier anywhere else. But there was just one problem–how in the world was I going to get in?

Since my parents refused to let me ED, I grudgingly finished my list. I ended up with what I thought was a well-rounded list of schools that I would be happy to attend: Brown, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, WashU, Case Western, Cal, UCLA, and UCSD.

Quite a few people wondered why I didn’t apply to the classic HYPSM. After all, I had the scores for them. My answer was simply because “I wasn’t feeling it,” and because I knew that it took a lot more than a 4.0 and 2300+ to get in. While I come from a highly competitive high school, I’m happy to say the best decision I made was to apply to schools that truly represented me.

Although I ended up being rejected/waitlisted at my second, third, and fourth choices, I did get into my first. I’m so happy to say I will be attending Brown University in the fall :slight_smile:

So for future applicants, I hope you’ll all pick schools that you would absolutely love to attend. Don’t be afraid to scratch what you thought was your “dream school” off your list; it happens, because people change. Good luck!

29

I thought I wanted a small LAC, but I had a lot of conflict on the LAC vs. Big U front. Since I was ELC I was guaranteed into UC Davis, which I knew I’d be happy with as a safety. So that took care of that. I knew I had the stats for Ivies and top LACs, so after looking at Fiske and maybe a bit on CC and the colleges’ websites I planned about 10-15 schools to visit on the East Coast. After that trip, I was able to cross off a few schools, but I did like most of them… So I had a ton of reaches–since the whole thing is a crapshoot, I figured I should apply to a bunch of top schools to improve my chances–and then threw in some mid-level matchy schools, and some schools where I thought I met get merit, and a few more safeties in case I ended up wanting a choice besides Davis. I ended up applying to 18 or 19 schools (five UCs, the rest privates), which I highly do NOT recommend.

Fewer. Fewer colleges, not less.

Anyway, yeah, um, fewer than 19. Lol. I didn’t really know what I wanted though, so I had a very large range of schools–urban and rural and suburban and huge and very very small and somewhere in the middle and very into sports and not athletic at all and with frats and without greeks and blah blah blah. For me it was just hard to narrow it down, because quite frankly I liked all the schools on my list. I do think it’s better to apply to too many and work your butt off on the apps for a week and have no regrets than apply to too few and always wonder “what if.” I shouldn’t have applied to so many UCs. I basically underestimated myself and ended up getting into most of my reaches. So of course now I say I didn’t need to apply to so many matches–then again, hindsight is 20/20, and of course you can’t know how successful you’ll be.

If you are not indecisive, I highly commend and admire you. I am kind of jealous. For everyone who has trouble narrowing down his/her list, I highly empathize. Honestly, it’s not that we don’t know what we want–it’s that we can see ourselves being equally happy at a wide range of types of schools, and think it’s dumb to cut schools off our list for artificial reasons like the weather or the architecture or whatever. I like to think of we indecisive types as simply being more flexible–we know we will do fine anywhere. :smiley: So I guess I’d say err on the side of too many schools rather than too few, but try to get at least to around 10-15. I did all my apps in the space of like 3 days (besides UCs, which were due earlier–and I had already finished the CommonApp, since I applied SCEA to Yale). It ruined my winter break. :frowning: Then again, I was only intensely stressed during those three days, and not in the months leading up to them. I work well under pressure. :wink: Yeah, not really recommended though. It was nice to have had the CommonApp main essay done by the end of summer.

I would also say that if you are applying to a ton of schools, make a chart with all the essay questions and try to determine which topics you can write about that you can sort of mold to fit the most prompts. Sort of maximize the number of prompts that one topic will fit, you know?

Good luck, don’t worry too much, and enjoy senior year!

(GOD, that was so cliched. Blech.)

30

My process:

<ol>
<li>Pick a few top schools that are strong in your potential major. For me, that was Princeton and Stanford.</li>
<li>Pick a few “gimmes,” AKA schools that have a high acceptance rate that you would also like to go to and that are strong in your major. For me, that was U of Arizona and ASU.</li>
<li>If you want to have the option of in-state (I wanted OUT, baby), pick one or two that are in-state that you think you can get into and/or that have good scholarships.</li>
<li>Ask around. I found out about U of Arizona from a friend of my mom’s, whose daughter went there on a full scholarship for engineering because she was a national merit finalist (same situation as me). You’d be surprised what you can find out.</li>
</ol>

In summary, the main points I looked at were: strength in your major, cost (including scholarships and financial aid), location, overall reputation.

I only applied to five because money is tight. At anywhere from $50-$100 each, applying to college gets expensive fast. Just make sure you have somewhere you can get in, but also apply to enough that you have options.

31

I told my counselor that the only two schools I absolutely had to apply to were Reed and the University of Chicago (which I had researched over the summer; Swarthmore was also on this shortlist initially, but I took it off myself when I realized I had zero chance of admission there–not that my chances at UChicago were any better, but I liked it so much I felt I’d regret it forever if I didn’t apply), and asked her to help me identify other, more realistic possibilities. I also told her my preferences: beautiful campus, urban location, etc. She gave me a list of colleges that more or less fit the description where people from my school with similar stats and financial circumstances had ended up in the past, and told me to research them and pick my favorites. Which is what I did. Then she made additional suggestions and contacted a few of my colleges to inquire about their international fin aid budgets this year, which resulted in the removal of a couple of schools from the list.

At the very beginning of the process, she gave me a very frank and informative speech on the scarcity of financial aid for internationals, and insisted on applying to a broad range of schools.

Basically, my counselor did most of the work. I don’t know how I would have managed without her.

32

^You were very lucky.

33

I just took the top 15 colleges from the US News Rankings and eliminated the ones I can’t see myself at (Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown). I then added 5 UC’s and my college list was complete. The hard part was writing the essays for all those schools.

34

^Tell me about it. I applied to 5 UCs and 14 privates. Essay writing was hell.