My high school ranks pretty high in the state. Public school, known for a rigorous curriculum.
My GPA is a 4.3, ACT is a 34.
Interested in foreign relations, law, business, lots of things. So I was planning on ECON major since it’s versatile (tell me if this is or isnt a good major for my interests).
I’m pretty liberal. Don’t love NYC honestly.
I have solid extra curriculars.
I am interested in UChicago and Wesleyan.
Do you see me going to these places? What are my chances? What OTHER schools do you suggest I look into for ED?
Wesleyan and UChicago, as well as other colleges that place highly in the following analyses, appear to offer top economics programs when measured by faculty publishing:
I don’t see economics as a good fit for your interests unless one of your major interests is math. Do you plan to go to law school or work in business? What do you see yourself doing? Do you have particular academic or other strengths?
I do enjoy math. I like math amongst other things. Not quite sure what I want to do career-wise yet. Possibly towards law or business. I also enjoy and am good at statistics. I was just thinking ECON would be versatile for either of these paths. Thoughts and feedback?
Of course, you can do a double-major or major+minor - you don’t necessarily need a school with an interdisciplinary major, so long as there are strong offerings in economics, math/statistics, and poli sci/public policy to cover your areas of interest. Flexibility is good, because you won’t really know what direction you want to go in with all of this until you have some experience in these subjects at the college level. Many econ departments have a quantitative track with heavier math requirements than the “regular” econ track, and that would be a good default plan for you to start with, as you could flex from there. (i.e. change to a math major with an econ minor if you preferred the math focus, or add a poli sci minor, or… anything you want.) https://ase.tufts.edu/economics/undergrad/majorQuant.htm
Also consider how much computing and “big data” focus you might want to include. The UMichigan stats department is a good place to look at the different variations on the theme of stats - data science, informatics, statistics, applied statistics… any of these can be combined with economics, political science, and other social sciences. https://lsa.umich.edu/stats/undergraduate-students/undergraduate-programs.html
If the OP is very liberal, Reed offers the sort of intense academics that Wes and UChicago are famous for. Carleton too.
Columbia, of course, but OP doesn’t like NYC. Cornell? The OP doesn’t seem super-certain about a major, so I am trying to think of schools that are quirky, rigrous, and even a bit nerdy in its student body’s commitment to intellectualism.
William & Mary, Wake Forest. Both are excellent at all of your interests and have strong ties to DC (international affairs)
Wake started a great DC based program called Wake Washington. It’s a “Study Abroad at home” program. They have a prominent location for classes. It’s a semester program. Each student interns during the day and takes seminar classes at night (taught by Wake faculty who live on site for the semester). Internships are in government, thinktanks, NGOs, etc. Last semester guest speakers for classes included Madeline Albright, Andrea Mitchell, and other quite prominent DC movers and shakers.
S’ roommate is doing it in the spring and is super excited. He’s currently interning in his state’s Governor’s office. The program has that type of appeal.
William & Mary, Georgetown, George Washington, Johns Hopkins and Tufts are schools that may be good choices. Of course all of those schools are incredibly selective, so you will want good matches and safeties as well. Don’t apply ED unless you know you want to attend – but if you are interested in exploring different majors, LACs sometimes let you do this better than universities.