Good colleges for me?

[surfinillini]

University of Illinois C/U ?

Its in Champaign, about 2 hours or so south of Chicago...highly populated campus, lots of specialized majors and some of the best programs in the country from a public school.

[Cubswin]

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I don't think going to community college will help him much. Many beginning college students don't know what they want to do and many others think the know what they want to do (e.g. pre-med) but end up changing their minds before they graduate. Liberal arts programs are structured to allow students to try a few different fields before deciding which one they will specialize in.

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It cant hurt him much either. It sounds like he doesnt even know where he wants to be geographically, let alone academically. Your core courses are basically the same no matter where you go and from my experience you find better teachers in a CC environment. You can build up a solid GPA and transfer it over to the 4 years school of your choice. Of course, if money is not a concern or if he has great scholarship offers at a 4 year school, by all means go for it. If he is just going to the liberal arts school to figure out his direction, he could save 40-60k by doing this at a CC.

[Dan.]

I'd also recomment Northwestern. Without trying to sound like a brochure, NU has all the advantages of a research university, because it is one, but many advantages of a liberal arts college since the student population is only ~8000 undergrads. I'm currently a math/econ major there, and I couldn't be happier.

[Cubswin]

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University of Illinois C/U ?

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My vote is for CC then transfer to UIUC [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] Thats the route I took and wouldnt change it if I had to do it over again. My four years of undergrad cost less than 1 year of graduate school at the London School of Economics.

[Schmitty 87]

I don't know if those scores will get into Gtown.

I have heard good things about all the smaller liberal arts schools mentioned in this thread.

University of Chicago was a really interesting place, though not for me. Sounds like you've visited, and if you liked it, I'd go for it 100%. Have fun with the application [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Dan.]

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Have fun with the application [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Does UoC still use the Uncommon Application?

[lastchance]

That's a strong resume, quite a bit better than mine (going to UWashington next year).

First, what's medium-size? From 5,000 to 15,000, or what?
Second, is money an issue?

You can probably eliminate all of the big state schools right off the bat, and if you don't want to a small place, you can eliminate most of the liberal arts schools, with populations from 1k to 3k. Makes it a lot easier.

Oh, and any general idea of what you would like to study is useful, from a specific major to just a general field (like engineering, humanities) to your interests and the type of person you are.

Important tips of advice:
Cast a wide net. Take a look at any college ranking list (any of them), and familiarize yourself with the top 150-300 schools. You can probably eliminate a lot of them right off the bat because of personal preferences.

Make sure you apply to a college you know you can get into, for obvious reasons.

Do the interviews, write a damn good essay, and have a lot of fun.

Oh, and www.collegeconfidential.com.

Useful stuff there.

[surfinillini]

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University of Illinois C/U ?

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My vote is for CC then transfer to UIUC [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] Thats the route I took and wouldnt change it if I had to do it over again. My four years of undergrad cost less than 1 year of graduate school at the London School of Economics.

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true...I can see that, the only reason I would say it would suck to do this is b/c it will be hard for OP to meet people when he's a junior that he doesn't already know.

Isn't the great thing about college becoming close friends with multiple complete strangers over the years...

anyway, UIUC is a huge campus so I'm sure he wouldn't have issues, just hard to get his footing immediately (soph/junior living in dorms = -EV)

[ccrazy88]

I applied to the University of Chicago last year. One thing that is stressed a lot when they look at their applications is the essay. After your grades, which are obviously #1, your essay is what makes you or breaks you much of the time. The Uncommon Application's prompts are usually really weird, but I took a straightforward topic in which I talked about one aspect of myself and still got in. The UoC, while a great feeder for graduate school, is less pre-professional than Northwestern.

And... I'll shamelessly plug Carleton, where I'm going next year. It's smaller than you'd probably like, with about 1900 students, but it's awesome in the maths and sciences.

[vhawk01]

Maybe not, his numbers really confused me. I dont know what a 98 GPA is, I assumed its 98th percentile, which seems pretty stellar. And his SAT score again confused me, since I took the ACT, and thought like 1800 was good for the SAT. But GTown isnt as tough as people make it out to be. Its just really expensive. But I'm going to be so ridiculously in debt after I'm done, that I decided I didn't care about that. And I love it here.