<p>I just wanted to thank everyone who has responded to this thread. All of your input has been helpful for my decision making. I also wanted to let you guys know that I have narrowed down my college list down to nine schools (BU, Amherst, Duke, Emory, USC, Dartmouth, UChicago, and Vanderbilt). And 000ace000, I now realize that I shouldn’t have applied to so many school and I should have made a criterion before, but it doesn’t really make a difference now.</p>