<p>Yeah, I totally agree… the OP at least needs to figure out whether they want a small LAC or huge university, and rural or urban. No one can make those decisions for you, and sometimes there are some tough “cuts” in the process.</p>
<p>Edit to add: Brown, Macalester, and Haverford (maybe Bates also?) are not very pre-professional in orientation and probably land fewer grads into top business programs and jobs overall. Not that you can’t do it from those schools, of course, but the alum connections probably aren’t as widespread.</p>
<p>Dartmouth also seems like it would be a great fit. It has amazing placement into graduate schools, offers access to the best busines jobs, yet also has an intellectual feel most often associated with LACs. Its very overrepresented at the top MBA programs. Also, it is one of the most tight-knit camraderie/ community schools around with a very strong social scene (along with Princeton and a few others). Not to mention Dartmouth owns its own slope and has tons of winter activities. Oh yeah, and one of the best study abroad programs among the top schools. That plus sophomore summer (camp Dartmouth), where you meet all the students in your class in a summer environment, makes it a great place to think about. </p>
<p>Here would be my refreshed list:
Amherst
Bowdoin
Brown
Colgate
Cornell
Dartmouth
Emory
Michigan State (Honors College)
Middlebury
Northwestern
Pomona
Rice
Stanford
University of Michigan</p>
<p>Delete:
Bates
Chicago
Macalester
Haverford
Claremont McKenna (too engineering focused, not type of school spirit I’d look for)</p>
<p>allison-yes, I acutally have good friends who live RIGHT near there, and have spendt alot of time up there, for someone who lives right in the middle of a fairly big city, to me there is NOTHING up there, i live like 10 minutes from 8 places that have 5x more shopping than freeport. That’s not say its not nice up there, but it’s no boston, or even northeastern surburban. It’s very different then the BoWash mentality I am use to</p>
<p>Sorry i know you said you would rather not talk about stats, but looking at your list i think it should be brought up, your list is very top heavy and most schools have an average acceptance % rate of around 30%, which is never good considering that you should include some schools very more lax acceptance rates maybe an ohio state,wisconsin, penn state, uiuc, which would also satisfy your desire for school spirit although would kill the fact that you want a smaller class size…looking at what you want I think usc and syracuse would be nice private schools with good business schools to look at, diversify your schools a bit amherst,bowdoin, colgate and middlebury are all very similar schools/</p>
<p>I agree with FSU that stats would really help. But I disagree that you should diversify the types of schools you are looking into. You want to apply to lots of similar schools not schools all over the map!</p>
<p>My reasoning for that is that to go out of state I want something exceptional. My parents have offered to pay for travel and other things to add to my learning if I stay in state, so, unless I am going to a T1 school, I’m going to go to MSU or UM.</p>
<p>I have visited USC and Syracuse, hated Syracuse, and USC seemed very nice, but had some turn offs. Also visited OSU and PSU - HATED OSU, PSU was nice, but reminded me a lot of MSU, so why not go to MSU and backpack through Europe over the summer vs. going to PSU.</p>
<p>I should look into Dartmouth a bit, that is a fair point, fits in with my other schools.</p>
<p>And on a few of the schools that have been listed to drop - my initial reasoning:</p>
<p>Bates - seemed like a solid LAC which was very student focused.
Haverford - good school, plus there is some sort of system to take classes at Swarthmore and UPenn; so I could possibly take a couple business courses at Wharton, but still be at a LAC.
Chicago - already covered, smart plus convienent to visit(so might as well leave it for now at a minimum)
CMC - seems like an excellent fit based on their literature(business and econ focused, SoCal, somewhat laid back, but still very smart).
Macalester - dropped, more I read, appealing less</p>
<p>Some basic stats:
top 10% unweighted
AP USH, Psy, Lang, Calc AB(BC next year, either dual enroll or AP), Gov, Lit, Macro and Micro Econ - 5’s on all the tests I’ve taken so far
Football and Lacrosse
34 ACT (33’s on all sections except reading, 36 on that; awaiting results of my 2nd [mandatory] attempt)
No SAT II’s yet(june probably)</p>
<p>But I would rather be narrowing this based on appeal than getting in. I am very comfortable with my safety options, so whether the other schools on my list are reaches or not is not a problem. And frankly I think I am qualified for most of them at least.</p>
<p>Small vs. Large - generally would prefer 10,000 or less, but my ‘large’ schools are the in state publics and safety schools.</p>
<p>Urban vs. Rural - I loved Stanford and Cornell, and (campus wise) UCLA and Pitt. I didn’t think that Pitt or UCLA would be worth the OOS $$$, but I’m not restricting it to urban or rural because I enjoy both, if for different reasons.</p>
<p>I agree that you can’t make the cuts for me, you shouldn’t, however considering I can’t visit every school in the nation, I have to cut some blind, and I would like to know as much about the schools as I can before I spend the effort and money to visit, apply, or whatever else.</p>
<p>Some people probably have strong preferences on LAC vs. large university. But my daughter clearly took a different approach. She applied to 7 colleges, ranging from 750 to 22,000 students and has gotten into 5, which include that size spectrum. </p>
<p>Her decision rules re: where to apply included a challenging education (with honors college at state university qualifying), no or alternatives to fraternity/sorority culture, climate she likes (4 seasons), affordable (decent need-based or merit aid or non-outrageous costs) and college town/city. Not every school hit all of these -all hit most.</p>
<p>Sit down and figure out your decision rules - it sounds like you are on your way and research, research, research.</p>
<p>momfromme - that does remind me of my situation.</p>
<p>That Frat/Sorority thing is one thing that I am curious about. If there is one thing I am worried about with Cornell, Northwestern, and those is the Frat scene, every relative I have who has been in one has ended up regretting it, so I would like to avoid that.</p>
<p>I agree with amykins, to a point. My dd does not want to go somewhere where the Greeks dominate the social scene. You can get stats on % in fraternities and sororities from at least some college guidebooks and that should give you some sense of their impact.</p>
<p>Some the schools that I would really like to hear about:
Bates
Emory
Rice</p>
<p>Emory and Rice, because if either of those get dropped, I’m saving a trip. So those two have to be very competitive within my list to stay(though they could also be apply and visit if I get in options).</p>
<p>I disagree that Brown would be weak at business placement. Brown has scores of recruiters show up on campus. I think Emory and Rice are keepers, but I would apply w/o visiting. You don’t need to visit every school you apply to. Dartmouth is a must add, I think you would love it.</p>
<p>That makes sense, but it’s not helping me narrow my list :(</p>
<p>I’m thinking (as of now):</p>
<p>Drop Macalester and maybe Bates and Haverford(visit if I can, but if not too bad); add Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Have a visit trip to Chicago, out east, and Cali(#2) if I can.</p>
<p>And I want to visit as many of my app sites as I can. I think that I would be able to have better essays, and have a better feel of each college.</p>
<p>I think your changes are spot on. To be honest as a high school senior DSC I got into 0% of the schools I visited (HYP, Brown, Duke) and 100% of the schools I didn’t visit (Columbia, Northwestern, Michigan honors).</p>
<p>Organize your safeties- If it is extremely likely you will get into a real, real safety and would then choose it over another, cut down your list. Other than that, you may want to check commonapp.org and see what the essays are like. If the school doesn’t require additional essays, (and money isn’t a big concern) apply! Otherwise, think about how long you want to spend writing essays. See if any essays are similar and you can re-use one.</p>