Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP-
As others have mentioned you probably want to have him think more about the size issue with particular focus to the size of the undergraduate population. One problem is there generally only are small (3k or fewer), medium (5-10k, most in this bucket are @ 6k) and large (15-25K) these are mostly public schools.

Beyond looking at student totals what does he prefer in terms of classroom experience? Does he care about class size? What about clubs/activities? Are the things he is interested on offer with enough scope and variety, if yes size is probably fine.

To the issue of varied interest that can be a problem at schools where you apply to say the College of Engineering vs the College of Arts and Letters. This killed Northwestern for my DS because his interests were split between 2 schools and he was told that while he could take classes "across the line" he'd have lower priority than students in the other college. For this reason your DS might prefer those that in the single college model, Harvard and Yale both are but so are Rice and U Chicago.

Not true for Northwestern. They encourage double majors across the schools. You just have to be accepted to both. I did it 30+ years ago and it continues today.

Anonymous wrote:OP-
As others have mentioned you probably want to have him think more about the size issue with particular focus to the size of the undergraduate population. One problem is there generally only are small (3k or fewer), medium (5-10k, most in this bucket are @ 6k) and large (15-25K) these are mostly public schools.

Beyond looking at student totals what does he prefer in terms of classroom experience? Does he care about class size? What about clubs/activities? Are the things he is interested on offer with enough scope and variety, if yes size is probably fine.

To the issue of varied interest that can be a problem at schools where you apply to say the College of Engineering vs the College of Arts and Letters. This killed Northwestern for my DS because his interests were split between 2 schools and he was told that while he could take classes "across the line" he'd have lower priority than students in the other college. For this reason your DS might prefer those that in the single college model, Harvard and Yale both are but so are Rice and U Chicago.

Anonymous wrote:We are trying to understand what schools are the right fit, regardless of ranking.

DS is high stats (4.0 UW with as rigorous course load as anyone can be at his highly competitive HS, 1590 SAT first attempt), good EC's with leadership positions this year.

1. Interested in multiple subjects sciences, economics and linguistics.
2. Want to go to a school that is large, anything above 10,000 total students would be good
3. No real preference for rural/urban, visited both and likes different aspects of each
4. Full pay and any school is affordable

All the big schools seem to have all the majors, courses, clubs and career services available that he needs.

Say we are looking at UMD, U Pitt, UVA, Harvard and Yale, just as an example. All of them meet all the criteria and so do a ton of others.

I know there is no chance of getting into Harvard or Yale and I am asking this to understand the thought process. What other criteria can use to say UMD, Harvard, Yale, U Pitt or UVA are not a good fit. Is Harvard not a good fit for anyone on the off chance that they get admitted?

Anonymous wrote:OP-
As others have mentioned you probably want to have him think more about the size issue with particular focus to the size of the undergraduate population. One problem is there generally only are small (3k or fewer), medium (5-10k, most in this bucket are @ 6k) and large (15-25K) these are mostly public schools.

Beyond looking at student totals what does he prefer in terms of classroom experience? Does he care about class size? What about clubs/activities? Are the things he is interested on offer with enough scope and variety, if yes size is probably fine.

To the issue of varied interest that can be a problem at schools where you apply to say the College of Engineering vs the College of Arts and Letters. This killed Northwestern for my DS because his interests were split between 2 schools and he was told that while he could take classes "across the line" he'd have lower priority than students in the other college. For this reason your DS might prefer those that in the single college model, Harvard and Yale both are but so are Rice and U Chicago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Think about weather, location wrt urban areas, sports teams, recreational opportunities, proximity to airport, will car be needed.
Cornell? Give me a break.

Why would you dismiss Cornell?

Awful weather. Depressing. The Gulch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Think about weather, location wrt urban areas, sports teams, recreational opportunities, proximity to airport, will car be needed.
Cornell? Give me a break.

Why would you dismiss Cornell?

Anonymous wrote:We are trying to understand what schools are the right fit, regardless of ranking.

DS is high stats (4.0 UW with as rigorous course load as anyone can be at his highly competitive HS, 1590 SAT first attempt), good EC's with leadership positions this year.

1. Interested in multiple subjects sciences, economics and linguistics.
2. Want to go to a school that is large, anything above 10,000 total students would be good
3. No real preference for rural/urban, visited both and likes different aspects of each
4. Full pay and any school is affordable

All the big schools seem to have all the majors, courses, clubs and career services available that he needs.

Say we are looking at UMD, U Pitt, UVA, Harvard and Yale, just as an example. All of them meet all the criteria and so do a ton of others.

I know there is no chance of getting into Harvard or Yale and I am asking this to understand the thought process. What other criteria can use to say UMD, Harvard, Yale, U Pitt or UVA are not a good fit. Is Harvard not a good fit for anyone on the off chance that they get admitted?