<p>Leanlikeacello,
Definitely Realistic Fiction. My absolute favorite book is The Great Gatsby.</p>
<p>Brown, Washington & Lee, Columbia (dream on, right?)and perhaps Northwestern. John Hopkins for graduate school (their medical school is the premier in the country). Ok, I don’t mean to dampen anyone’s day here, but has anyone else noticed a common theme; everyone(including myself) is aiming to ultimately attend an Ivy League university. I’m not by any means saying you aren’t incredibly smart. Anyone that ambitious is certain to have an impressive wall of accolades, near perfect test scores, and a GPA that makes the average student seem as dim witted as Elmer Fudd. Needless to say however, everyone who has wasted the time and ink for an application is in the same position. The question for the admissions committee now isn’t if the candiadate has excelled academically but rather if he (or she) has stellar stats AND has started an organization dedicated to teaching underprivilidged hispanics how to read. Are you a genius or a sumo genius?</p>
<ol>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Cornell
Back Up: Carnegie Mellon</li>
</ol>
<p>It changes every time I visit a campus but right now (in order) my list is:</p>
<h1>1-Yale, Princeton, Columbia</h1>
<h1>2-UPenn</h1>
<h1>3-Georgetown</h1>
<h1>4-Carnegie Mellon</h1>
<h1>5-Villanova</h1>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s not a safety school. :)</p>
<p>carnegie mellon as a saftey? are you kidding?</p>
<p>bigblue, i’m going to assume you’re from somewhere even better than my school in terms of carnegie because even though we get EAs and lots of acceptances at carnegie a lot of us are still worried of rejection. i think its acceptance rate was in the 20-25? that’s what our oh-so elite BOARDING SCHOOLS have right now 
so i would say no to backup, even though compared to all your other schools it could be viewed as one.</p>
<p>but i read this article about how CG and Bryan Mawr and I think Barnard and some other colleges are becoming part of the extended Ivy family.</p>
<p>We just visited Georgetown yesterday. Gorgeous administration building and upper quad…rest of the campus was eh…And soccer fields looked not so great. The residential district around the school is beautiful and downtown is also very nice. Will look into this school more…</p>
<p>keylyme, where does your older son go to college? you can PM me if you don’t want to say it on the board, or it’s also fine if you don’t want to say.</p>
<p>bigblue u wish u cud get into CMU. don’t diss my dads school it aint no safety</p>
<p>Wow, I wish I was in a position to say that CMU is my safety school! You’re either incredibly naive or are the smartest kid in your state lol…either of which are equally plausible considering the list of schools you presented. Anyway, my back up school is Sewanee (university of the south)</p>
<p>HYPSM or any other Ivy.</p>
<p>Hey, I have one question that needs your help.
I have a friend. She is great at music (piano performance), and she hopes to have some chances to study abroad, maybe in the States. However, her family, for real, have hardly any abilities to make her dream come true. Their incomes sometimes even can’t buy their children study instruments. Then, my friend also hasn’t had a full chance to study English well too.
So do you think she would have any chances to get some financial aid or scholarship to get into a music college? (which cover all the expenses: tuition and rooms, kinda that)
Thanks so much.</p>
<p>Almost all music schools have competitive music scholarships. Tell her to try some of the larger state schools, some of which have excellent music departments. PM me with more detailed info regarding her level, repetoire, experience, etc, and I may be able to give you some contact info.</p>