Are we on the right track?

Applying to College
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<p>We were feeling pretty good about my son's (a Junior) potential college choices, based on test scores and GPA so far. But, as I read through these boards, I'm a little panicked because he doesn't seem to have the so-called "excellent" ECs, as far as leadership. </p>

<p>Background - Junior with unweighted GPA of 4.44 at the end of first trimester Junior year, unweighted 4.0, at a large (870 in his class), academically strong hs. Got a 33 last year on the ACT (Feb of sophomore year) and will probably re-take this Spring. Got a 2100 on the SAT as a freshman, got a 207 on PSAT last year (currently waiting for the Junior year PSAT score and crossing our fingers for Natl. Merit) Got a 5 on AP US History test. Currently taking AP Bio, AP Comp, Honors Pre-Calc (with take AP Calc next year), Honors English, Spanish 4 (will take AP Spanish next year), Physics. Will also add AP Chem next year, and Honors Anatomy and Physio next year.</p>

<p>ECs - Cross country, but not Varsity (there are 110 boys on the team!) - 9,10,11,12
Running Club, training for Half Marathon - 10,11,12
Youth Group - 9,10,11,12 which has included annual mission trips, including one to Peru
NHS, 11, 12 Spanish Honor Society - 10,11,12
Youth recreation leader for VBS - 9,10,11
Has averaged about 50 service hours a year, but with a variety of activities
Initiated and led a shoe drive as a service project for the cross country team
Elected to serve as the youth representative to the Board of Elders at our church - 11,12</p>

<p>He is fairly certain that he wants to major in Biochemistry (research intent, not premed) and has shadowed a Doctor/Professor/Researcher in a pulmonary lab at a nearby teaching hospital. After visiting several schools to get a feel for what he likes, his first choice school is Wash U-SL, with Emory a close second. We have visited both. We also plan to check out Notre Dame and anticipate that it will be a top choice as well. BUT, are we overreaching?? We will obviously know more after a couple more tests this year, but reading through these boards, I am afraid that perhaps without those "outstanding" ECs, we should not aim quite so high? Honestly, I am amazed by what some kids manage to do while still keeping their grades high. I'm just not sure that he could take on any more and still continue to be a successful student!</p>

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<p>What is posted here is done anonymously, so it often is not possible to separate fact from fiction.</p>

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<p>No, I don’t think you are overreaching at all. He sounds like an excellent student, taking a rigorous courseload, with excellent scores. His EC’s are fine. Not everyone can have a leadership role, there aren’t enough to go around! It’s mostly the kids applying to the Ivy league and similar schools that are trying to be one of the 6% that get admitted that end up making themselves crazy trying to overdo everything.
Hopefully your guidance counselor can help come up with a good list of schools. In the meantime, you can play around with college search engines to get more ideas. College Navigator [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics) or collegeboard.org or the one here on CC.</p>

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<p>Thanks Happymom and BeanTown Girl. I would assume those frequenting these forums tend to be parents of high achievers (or the high achievers themselves), which probably tends to skew perspectives a bit. :wink: I hadn’t really considered that due to anonymity, it’s also a lot easier to exaggerate. </p>

<p>We have spent a good deal of time on Naviance through Edline (through the hs), as well as on the collegeboard.org site, which is how we pulled out Emory and Notre Dame. We were initially thinking maybe a Scholars program at a large state school, looking at places like IL, Michigan, etc, but decided to check out Wash U and quickly discovered that he LOVED that environment. But, we also know that he wouldn’t be an automatic admit there, so we needed to find some places that were similar, but perhaps more attainable. Hoping that perhaps Emory and Notre Dame may fit that profile, although I’d love to find others…</p>

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<p>Your S seems terrific. I wouldn’t worry about the ECs. He obviously likes to run and to serve his community. The academics seem fine. </p>

<p>Naviance is your best source for chances. I found it to be much more predictive than anything on here. You will also be surprised that the probability of your S getting in is often higher than you think. Sometimes it’s lower though and you’ll find some schools won’t take top students because of yield issues. Washington University in particular is notorious for that, though they seem to have gotten better lately. They used to waitlist 75% of the candidates from our school. You can see from your own Naviance what the situation is. </p>

<p>If it’s his first choice, Early Decision would help. It might be prudent to make sure he’s in a position to make that choice when the time comes. A thorough overnight visit at the top 2-3 choices in the fall before Nov 1 would be really useful. Don’t go too early because kids grow a lot during Junior year and the summer before senior year. </p>

<p>My algorithm is basically to look at your S’s dot and take a neighborhood around his dot. Then count the green dots and count the total dots. Round to the nearest 10%. Do this for each college of interest assuming that there is enough data. </p>

<p>If he can order them in order of preference, then you can estimate the probability of “attending” a particular school. This would be the probability of getting rejected by higher choices times the probability of getting into that particular choice. Then you can see what’s worth reaching for. </p>

<p>I personally don’t think it’s worth applying for a 5th choice reach school where the probability of attending is 1% because there is a 95% chance of his attending one of his higher choices. </p>

<p>My view is to let him do what he enjoys with his time. Then he can apply to college. There are a lot of terrific colleges that will be really glad to have your S. I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.</p>

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<p>ClassicRockerDad, thanks for your optimism and thanks for sharing your algorithm! I’ve already spent way too much time on Naviance looking at those school comps and having a standard to use may help. Wash U is the really confusing one - there really seems to be no rhyme or reason to those they take and those they waitlist! When we visited, they made it sound as though the essay was hugely important in their decision, so all that I have been able to figure out is that maybe some essays have just blown them away…</p>

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<p>They have wanted to boost their USNews ranking for a long time and did it by boosting their yield which they achieved by not admitting a lot of kids until they took their place on the waitlist. One would only do that if it was a higher choice than the school that was being deposited to. Those who were accepted off the waitlist were highly likely to attend so they got a much higher yield from that pool than from the RD pool. I’ll bet that you see a lot of blue dots which are students that didn’t accept a place on the list because they had other options that they prefered. All of those blue dots became rejections and lowered their admit rate. </p>

<p>Nonetheless, if it actually does eventually become your son’s first choice, and he applies ED, then I think his chances are probably decent. Recently WUSTL seems to have stopped doing that and are making more decisions.</p>