Advice on college list for high stats applicant-Thanks!

Chance Me / Match Me!
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If I may add one thing - in the past week I’ve heard a UC Berkeley attendee turned down at SDSU.

And an MIT attendee WL at BU.

We could debate why this happened but no one truly knows.

What tells me is when the best and brightest need a safety.

My guess is that is Dickinson and others like Richmond and W&M will likely get in as noted. And I think Miami, if you decided to look, would be a sensible likely.

But the lesson to me, from the last week anyway, is one can never be 100% assured anymore.

The other lesson we see regularly is that an OP has to settle for the safety or likely and then is upset about it, deeming those schools not worthy.

Please make sure your daughter would be happy attending each and every school that she applies to.

Best of luck. I look forward to watching the journey.

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I’m with @Lindagaf here. Let others debate the viability/allure of the reaches ( Tulane’s a top 50 for enviro (according to Niche) if you want another thought.) I like locking in the bottom of the list.

Find the best state school that is known for enviro studies that you feel confident that she will be admitted. U Florida is #25 for enviro - research uni, warmer weather, with her stats she SHOULD get admitted. NC State is #46. Again, these are schools she most certainly should get in to and solidify her worst-case scenarios.

Your kid sounds like an absolute rock star who should receive an acceptance from one of the reaches/targets. She has clearly worked hard enough to reach for the stars. Just lock in a couple of likely schools - this whole college admittance dynamic which used to change from decade-to-decade now appears to be evolving from year-to-year.

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Richmond’s acceptance rate is below 20% for RD. Watch what decision round you’re targeting if you apply. We realized too late the huge gap.

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Take a look at McGill. They love high-stats kids. Note that the prices are in Canadian dollars so be sure to convert to USD.

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Amherst and Wesleyan have slightly better gender parity:

Amherst M- 50% F- 50%
Wesleyan M- 49% F- 51%*

Hamilton M- 46% F- 54%*

*Class of 2026

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Congratulations to your daughter on all of her accomplishments in high school so far. I suspect she will receive a number of offers from colleges next year. That said, I agree that there doesn’t appear to be a sure thing on this list…there are some likelies, but nothing that feels extremely likely to occur. Based on the increasing competitiveness in admissions (in part due to students applying to so many more schools), I’d want to lock down one or two sure things as well that your daughter would be happy to attend (she can prefer other schools on her list, but if this school (or schools) ends up as her only acceptance, she should still be looking forward to attending college there).

Some schools your family may want to consider are:

  • Elon (NC): About 6300 undergrads
  • Florida Southern: About 2800 undergrads
  • Rhodes (TN): About 2100 undergrads
  • Salisbury (MD): About 6700 undergrads
  • Stetson (FL): About 2900 undergrads
  • Susquehanna (PA ): About 2200 undergrads

Almost forgot two of your in-state publics, UNC-Asheville (about 3200 undergrads) and UNC-Wilmington (about 14k undergrads) would be great possibilities!

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Painful though it may be to hear, the one thing the top colleges are not looking for are smart kids, especially unhooked and from an over-represented locality. I suggest she evaluates her targets and safeties as carefully as her reaches, and understand that rejections do not constitute judgment of ability

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In that case, you should be changing your list.

Forget about Brown, Swarthmore, Rice, and Emory.

Replace Swarthmore with Amherst or one of the more environmental NESCACS (Middlebury, Colby, Bates, or Bowdoin), or Colorado College.

I really think that she should reconsider Cornell.

Harvard is good is she really likes evolutionary biology, in which case, Chicago should be added to the list. If she’s not interested in the evolutionary part, than it comes off.

Yale is up and coming - a decade ago I would have hesitated to recommend it, but it looks like a good place for people who are interested in field ecology.

William and Mary is OOS, so replace it with U Michigan, as long as you are dealing with OOS admission rates and tuition…

NCSU should be on that list.

As a safety, SUNY ESF.

What does she want to do in the future? If she is thinking of working for the government or a non-profit, I would change the list slightly. If she wants to go into academia, the LACs are good.

Next question: what part of ecology/environmental science does she like? If she is interested in oceanography, that list will change, as it will if forestry interests her.

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