Winnowing and whittling down a list: academically rigorous schools with a sense of community [WI resident, 4.0 GPA, top 5% rank, 35 ACT, <$60k; statistics / econometrics / physics / math + English / history]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • WI
  • Public high school (co '26)

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • 60k yearly

Intended Major(s)

  • I’d want to double major in one of Statistics, Econometrics, Physics, or Applied Math, along with one of English or History. This might change.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Class Rank: Top 5%
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 35 ACT (M:36, R: 36, E: 36, S:33, W:11)

List your HS coursework

  • As a sophomore, I took AP classes in World History, Spanish, and Stats. (Scores of 5)
  • As a junior, I took AP US History, Calculus AB, Physics 2, and French. I also self-studied Lit and Lang. (Scores of 5)
  • As a senior, I’ll take Calculus BC, Biology, and Chemistry. I’ll also take a post-AP French class at UWM.

Awards no

Extracurriculars
I’ve never really been on the EC-circuit. I have worked at an Asian grocery store for a few years, and I have some household responsibilities. I play badminton recreationally.

Essays/LORs/Other

  • I can write well, but I don’t know how effectively I can distill my essence into a personal essay. I don’t enjoy writing about myself, but, as I read more examples, ideas are coming to me. I think my essays will turn out fine.
  • My LORs will be good. I have affectionate relationships with some of my teachers.

A few months ago, I made a post about how I wanted to go to an “intellectual” college with an academically-minded peer group. I also classified myself as a non-STEM person. I have since met lots of people who’ve led me to reevaluate those concep/victions. No school’s student body will be uniformly intellectual or uniformly checked-out, I understand. I would prefer to go to a school where people didn’t gravitate towards box-ticking and using generative AI, where people like to read and write and talk instead of stare at their phones during and between classes, but I realize that such people are everywhere and that I am personable enough to find them. I also, I realize, am a STEM person who enjoys math and physics, to the extent that I want to continue studying them in college, while continuing to pursue my other, liberal-artsy, proclivities.

So what I’m looking for are colleges where it is possible to double major in both letters and sciences (so a generous AP credit policy would be useful), where there is an attestable general desire for the college experience to be more formative, enlightening, and social, and less half-hearted, transactional, and distant, and where (ideally but not requisitely) there is a nearby sizable city with all sorts of people to meet. Rigorousness and no-nonsense-ness (even I don’t know what I mean by this) is preferred.

I have, conveniently, admission guaranteed at Madison and Milwaukee, and, as I’d be happy at either of those, I don’t really need a bunch of safety schools. The following list is a compilation of some of the college suggestions I’ve received, here and offline, and, though I am looking primarily to narrow the list down, other suggestions are welcome. Any other advice would be useful, of course. I realize that there’s a lot of variation in school size, but, having toured both types of campuses, I don’t necessarily have a preference.

Schools
The Claremont colleges, Carleton, Macalester, Swarthmore, Vassar, Haverford, Grinnell, Emory, Duke, Tufts, Brandeis, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Brandeis, CMU, JHU, Rice, Rochester, Ohio State, UMN, UW Seattle, McGill, Trinity College Dublin.

I can’t speculate on the likelihood of admission to any of those schools, though I guess they are generally low for all. Merit and lower cost is certainly a plus, as I would want grad school to remain a possibility.

2

Do you qualify for need based aid?

3 Likes
3

No. My household’s income is a little over $200k.

4

You sound a lot like me stats wise and goal wise. I chose Brandeis over some of the other schools on your list, three of which made my short list. Before I started, I was on a gap year program with other high stats, motivated kids who were mostly heading to super prestigious schools. I come from a family of academics, who “know how the sausage is made” at various institutions, so I wasn’t really hung up on names, but during my gap year I second-guessed myself and wondered if I should try to transfer to an Ivy that waitlisted me before all my awards had come in. That idea completely left my head during my first semester at Brandeis. I am very content with my choice. One thing that I especially like is the close relationships I have formed with my professors. It’s nice in and of itself, of course, but it has also served me well in terms of being supported when applying for (and receiving) prestigious paid internships.

I am happy to answer any questions you might have. I also notice that you listed Brandeis twice. A sign? :winking_face_with_tongue:

ETA I did receive a very generous merit scholarship

5 Likes
5

UChic,Carleton, Grinnell, Vassar, Brandeis, Haverford, JHU, Rice match what you want really well.

At Wisconsin, for a more “intellectual” atmosphere, Honors and

1 Like
6

If you won’t be getting any need based aid, a lot of the schools will not meet a 60k budget. Get a handle on cost of attendance for your list of schools before you apply.

7 Likes
7

Note that at some colleges, such as the generous meet-need colleges, a 200k income may mean up to full tuition need based scholarships and definitely under 60k budget. Do run the NPC on each.

Incidentally, when trying to protect Hillsdale from a law they were passing in the OBBB, Republican lawmakers raised taxes on colleges that have more than 3,000 tuition-paying students and endowments above certain limits. As a result, the tax on that endowment is multiplied if they hit that threshold of tuition paying students…and goes down if they don’t. For Princeton, it means 2,700 students need a scholarship equal to full tuition or more; 1,100 students are on a full ride + 2,880 others receive some amount of financial aid - if 1,600 of them receive the equivalent of a full tuition award they’re off the hook.

1 Like
8

Is Grinnell on the list because it’s near Cleveland?

1 Like
9

This is fine - especially if you work regularly.

Some schools - unless the NPC tells you otherwise - are not going to get to $60K (and I suspect with a $200K income they won’t) - that’s Swat, Vassar, Haverford, Tufts, NW, CMU, etc. as they have no merit aid, only need aid.

So do the NPC - but they might be easy removals.

Ohio State, UMN and Seattle are all going to happen - but are vastly different than the rest. UWash could be out of budget.

I suspect you have acceptances - but then an acceptance isn’t enough - because you need merit aid - so an Emory, Rice, etc. are unlikely even if you get in - but better odds than the first list since merit is possible, albeit unlikely.

You might add an RPI as an example for the private, smaller type. Or Ga Tech and Purdue as assuredly affordable other schools with a bent toward his interests. These would all hit budget and RPI and Purdue are near certain.

But it appears you have wasted apps (if the budget is true) so you can winnow and sub with possibilities that you can afford.

Good luck.

1 Like
10

Since some of what you seek in a college is fairly broad, these Princeton Review survey-based sites may be of interest:

1 Like
11

Colleges with lots of general education requirements that do not overlap with your likely majors can also be more difficult to do two majors in.

What kind of grad school?

12

As a suggestion, pick just one from UChicago and Northwestern.

13

Reed? Very rigorous liberal arts, while also being rigorous in STEM. Not sure about the Net Price.

And Wisconsin is genuinely a very strong school - take the time senior year to explore campus. All your majors are in the same college (L&S), so double majoring should not be too onerous.

3 Likes
14

If you would like to combine a few of your quantitative interests, consider a major in data science, through which you could choose, say, economics as an appled domain. Nonetheless, such an approach would allow for the pursuit of a second major in a humanities field.

15

I agree about checking NPCs being critical. You may get more aid than you were originally thinking, but you need to know.

If you like Madison, I would think that would strike out a lot of the OOS publics on your list. Like I think Minnesota is a great university to consider in many cases, but I am not sure it has much value for you.

Your LACs and Rochester are all places I know would be good for kids considering diverse double majors. Washington University in St Louis might be worth considering as well–it has a broadly similar curriculum structure to Rochester in Arts & Sciences.

CMU is not normally a place I would recommend with this sort of possible goal.

3 Likes
16

Just want to reiterate the importance of checking NPCs. Home value and assets can obviously change results, but in my experience of running NPCs, 200k income level at meets needs schools usually come back in the 45k to 60k range.

4 Likes
17

St. Olaf. Off the beaten path but seems to fit the peers you are looking for. They are generous with merit and I think you would appreciate their honor system, culture and diversesity of thought. While it would be a likely for you, I only mention it because it is a completely different feel from the bigger schools you are looking at. It seems to be a place where you will find students and faculity sitting in small groups having disucssions on a wide variety of topics and should easily come in on budget.

4 Likes
18

I would consider Bates, Smith, and Bryn Mawr if a women’s college is appropriate. Bear in mind, the Claremont Colleges are really different from each other.

2 Likes
19

I will add that you can whittle down by determining what is most important to you and analyzing each school based on that. In my case, one of the most important things was close relationships to faculty.

At the admitted students day at my front runner school (which is on your list) one of the faculty members told my parent, “Do not send your student here. I didn’t send mine.” :open_mouth: We did a deep dive and discovered that the school relies very heavily on visiting assistant professors, who leave after one or two years. When I called to ask how I was supposed to develop close personal relationships with professors—and this is one of the school’s selling points—who were only there for one year, I was told, in seriousness, that I could have that close relationship during that one year.

My parents have friends who teach at another school on your list and it was scratched off when we were told that there is staff that serves as a buffer between students and faculty to keep students from bothering the professors.

You might not get “insider information” like we did, but you can do the deep dives based on what you’re looking for. If working in a lab is important to you, for example, make sure the school you are interested in has a strong history of allowing that and make sure that it moves beyond grunt work. Would you like to be able to TA? Make sure the school has undergraduate TAs.

I think that a lot of people, both students and parents, get hung up on arbitrary ratings and don’t thoroughly research schools and departments. Don’t rely on reputation! Do your homework. No school is a perfect fit and most driven students can get a great education at any number of schools. But make it the best fit for you by deciding what is important to you and going from there.

1 Like
20

I’m not sure. Perhaps a Master’s in engineering, if I end up doing physics. Perhaps a Master’s in a liberal arts subject, if I find that I love it so much that I want to have a career in that area. I wouldn’t want med or law, though.