We need advise selecting Match and Safety schools for our son. He has lots of Reach schools (Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, etc.) but what are realistic Match and Safety schools? We are visiting Vanderbilt and Northwestern this summer, and have already toured Wash Univ. St. Louis and Notre Dame. All of these seem like Reach schools to us, his academic accomplishments are much higher than either my husband or myself!
$$ Factor: Dad is Sr. Administrator at Washington University at St. Louis (he can attend w/free tuition - pay room & board only; or we receive $24,000 tuition remission payable to another school). We have an older son in college and 2 daughters in high school so funds are always tight. While Wash U is the best choice economically, he wants other options.
Rising Senior, male
Interested in attending law school
35 ACT
221 NMSC (hoping for National Merit Finalist - Missouri cut off was 218 last year)
1480 PSAT
3.8 unweighted gpa
4.3 weighted gpa
5 AP courses to date
6 Honors courses (weighted grade courses)
Tuba Player 4 year all state, all suburban, district honors band, low brass ensembles, tuba Christmas, etc.
Varsity lacrosse- 3 years; Boys State; Missouri Public Policy Academy
All of the mentioned schools are reaches for your son based on his stats. His dad being a Sr. Adm at WUSL could be a hook but that depends on the school. Given the record-setting selectivity rates each year, the old Reach-Match-Safety model is no longer valid, so it’d be wise to treat the “Safety” as “Match” and Match as Reach and Reach as Lottery.
You should spend the rest of your visit efforts on matches and safeties, since your son is a lot more likely to end up at one. Visiting all reaches to start with also can make your kid kind of picky in an unhelpful way. Get a copy of Fiske to see what appeals to him that is lower ranked. Run the NPCs on them. Visit those, not Vandy & NE. I don’t know how to recommend matches and safeties, since the only thing his current list seems to have in common is prestige.
Be sure to check out the tuition exchange rules and regulations at each of his target schools before assuming that he will automatically receive the tuition remission. Even at a participating schools, most will only take a limited number – sometimes on a first-com/first-serve basis, while others will only award to a select number of top students.
Since your son is a top student, his chances at most schools will be solid to receive the tuition exchange, but not a certainty.
4 year all state, all suburban, district honors band, low brass ensembles, tuba Christmas, etc.