The problem’s that I have quite a lot of choices, hundreds, as a matter of fact. So how should I narrow down my list even further, given that I don’t care about other stuff, such as campus size or location?
Consider how likely you are to get into each college, and then maximize the perceived quality of the institution, and the employment rate/salary and/or gradschool/medschool application success of its Biology grads.
(Incidentally, I semi-strongly recommend you consider the student body/social life as well.)
Moreover, to how many colleges should I apply? As far as I know, most people apply to 6-9 colleges, but some even apply to 20! I guess that by applying to as many colleges possible, my chances of admission go up. But, I probably won’t have time to write hundreds of admission essays, or the money to send in my application to all these colleges.
There are two overlapping solutions. To reduce costs, you can apply early to one or two schools that are either your top schools (meaning that if you get in, you will not apply anywhere else) or ones that are high-safety/low-realistic, such that you are likely to get in, and you will only apply to reach schools during regular admission. One significant issue is that early decisions usually come out around December 15th, while most regular admissions are due in around January 1st; this means you will still need essays pre-written and edited, and for your school to send in your grades and recommendation letters ahead of time in case you do apply. (This method also gives you some info on which others schools you should apply to.)
(Though this can lead to lulz- I know a girl who applied early to Stanford, wrote up applications for literally 20 other schools, got in early, and never sent in the other applications.)
Also, you can try to see if you can get admission fee waivers, which eliminate admission fees for up to 4 colleges.
In addition, you may want to consider colleges with “rolling admissions”. I have no experience with it; if you want more info, IIRC curiouskid has some experience.
For essay writing, it’s often possible to reuse essays, with some editing, from school to school. (I had to do this extensively because I started writing my essays in June...using the previous year’s prompts...)
Lastly, as my objective is to gain admission somewhere, should I only apply to colleges with acceptance rates above a certain percentage? What should that percentage be?
Just looking at percentages doesn’t tell you enough about the school or you. eg some colleges had oddly high admission rates because only top students apply; Caltech would be vastly tougher to get into if you were very good in the humanities than if you were very good in STEM subjects. I don’t know enough about biology programs to give you any specific examples, but this is a good thing to look into further.
How high you should aim in your college applications depends significantly on you- your grades, scores, extracurriculars, etc.
Yes, the U of C used to be a place where only those who “fit” really well into the hyper-nerdy culture actually applied. Thus, the admission rate was about 60% when I applied—but people who wouldn’t have fit in (and succeed academically) didn’t seem to apply.
About when I graduated, the administration decided that the admission rate was bad for the college (presumably because it didn’t fit with the school’s ranking on the US News ranking). So the administration put some effort into broadening the applicant pool. As far as I can tell, the academic program is just as strong as ever, but the student body is much less “quirky.”
I don’t consider it an improvement, but just because the move was hostile to quirky nerds doesn’t mean it was bad for the college as an institution.
It’s not really, “trying to get rid of it,” it’s more that losing the culture is a byproduct of expanding to the general population. For example, the admissions office sent me a scarf after I got accepted to the class of 2015, and those who had a birthday between acceptance and attending got a handwritten note from the admissions office.
There are many pockets of quirkiness, it’s just not prevalent throughout campus. Interestingly, the two largest dorms are the ones with the reputation for the least quirkiness (Max P and South), while the smallest ones have the most (Snitchcock, Breckinridge).
Posing like a phoenix in front of a camera. It’s like planking, only UChicago specific, as the phoenix is our mascot. Bonus points for doing it at another college campus.
Consider how likely you are to get into each college, and then maximize the perceived quality of the institution, and the employment rate/salary and/or gradschool/medschool application success of its Biology grads.
(Incidentally, I semi-strongly recommend you consider the student body/social life as well.)
There are two overlapping solutions. To reduce costs, you can apply early to one or two schools that are either your top schools (meaning that if you get in, you will not apply anywhere else) or ones that are high-safety/low-realistic, such that you are likely to get in, and you will only apply to reach schools during regular admission. One significant issue is that early decisions usually come out around December 15th, while most regular admissions are due in around January 1st; this means you will still need essays pre-written and edited, and for your school to send in your grades and recommendation letters ahead of time in case you do apply. (This method also gives you some info on which others schools you should apply to.)
(Though this can lead to lulz- I know a girl who applied early to Stanford, wrote up applications for literally 20 other schools, got in early, and never sent in the other applications.)
Also, you can try to see if you can get admission fee waivers, which eliminate admission fees for up to 4 colleges.
In addition, you may want to consider colleges with “rolling admissions”. I have no experience with it; if you want more info, IIRC curiouskid has some experience.
For essay writing, it’s often possible to reuse essays, with some editing, from school to school. (I had to do this extensively because I started writing my essays in June...using the previous year’s prompts...)
Just looking at percentages doesn’t tell you enough about the school or you. eg some colleges had oddly high admission rates because only top students apply; Caltech would be vastly tougher to get into if you were very good in the humanities than if you were very good in STEM subjects. I don’t know enough about biology programs to give you any specific examples, but this is a good thing to look into further.
How high you should aim in your college applications depends significantly on you- your grades, scores, extracurriculars, etc.
Actually, in recent years the admission rate for U of C has gone down, for 2016 the rate was about 13%.
http://chicagomaroon.com/2012/04/13/college-has-lowest-acceptance-rate-ever-touting-caps-resources/
Yes, the U of C used to be a place where only those who “fit” really well into the hyper-nerdy culture actually applied. Thus, the admission rate was about 60% when I applied—but people who wouldn’t have fit in (and succeed academically) didn’t seem to apply.
About when I graduated, the administration decided that the admission rate was bad for the college (presumably because it didn’t fit with the school’s ranking on the US News ranking). So the administration put some effort into broadening the applicant pool. As far as I can tell, the academic program is just as strong as ever, but the student body is much less “quirky.”
I don’t consider it an improvement, but just because the move was hostile to quirky nerds doesn’t mean it was bad for the college as an institution.
I’m a bit sad that I’ll be attending UChicago after it lost (or at least started trying to get rid of) its quirky nerd culture.
It’s not really, “trying to get rid of it,” it’s more that losing the culture is a byproduct of expanding to the general population. For example, the admissions office sent me a scarf after I got accepted to the class of 2015, and those who had a birthday between acceptance and attending got a handwritten note from the admissions office.
They also encouraged “phoenixing,”which is this: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwitfzvflA1qh4kty.jpg
There are many pockets of quirkiness, it’s just not prevalent throughout campus. Interestingly, the two largest dorms are the ones with the reputation for the least quirkiness (Max P and South), while the smallest ones have the most (Snitchcock, Breckinridge).
I see it, but what is it?
Posing like a phoenix in front of a camera. It’s like planking, only UChicago specific, as the phoenix is our mascot. Bonus points for doing it at another college campus.
My sister did that after getting her acceptance to Chicago. This was recent, so apparently it’s still a thing.
Thank you, fixed.