My daughter took the SAT for the first time this summer before her junior year and scored 1460 (760 Math; 700 reading). I expect her to retake once or twice and should at least break a 1500 (superscore), with a small increase in reading. So far she is an unweighted 4.0 taking all honor and AP classes, including BC Calc this year. My daughter attends one of the highest ranked public magnet test in schools in the country. She is also half Hispanic as her Mom came to the US from Mexico as a child. She has pretty normal ECs, (cheer, band, clubs, PT jobs, etc.) nothing that really stands out so far in that regard.
My questions: 1) What would be the highest ranked safety school(s) for her given these stats? 2) What do you think would be the best match school(s)? 3) What reach schools would she have a realistic shot at if everything stays the same thru junior year?
I plan on having her apply aggressively to a lot of schools, but given the competitive admissions environment I want to make certain she also applies to the highest level safety schools (for her stats) just in case. Any input would be appreciated.
What is your home state and budget? Are you OK paying $300K+ for 4 years, looking for need-based aid, or chasing merit? What is she looking to study? With nearly 4000 colleges in the country, we need a little guidance. Needing a lot of aid and studying CS yields a different list than being full pay at a LAC studying English.
Lives in IL. Cost of college is not an issue. She is leaning toward either: psychology major with pre-med requirements or actuary science, likewise with pre-med requirements.
Certainly any of the T20 colleges/Ivies/LACs could satisfy the reach category. Schools with small acceptance rates are reaches for everyone because they get more applications from qualified students than they can accommodate. Many of those same schools are over enrolled for this year, meaning they likely will accept a smaller percentage in an attempt to balance out enrollment.
It looks like she prefers bigger schools and certainly your instate public would be the most logical safety. NYU, Columbia, and UCLA would be tougher. The general train of thought is schools with a less than 20% (some say 30%) are reaches for all applicants.
UCLA should be in the Reach category with a 13.9% overall acceptance rate for OOS students. You will also be full pay at around $67K/year for her to attend. Merit is extremely limited and around $2000/year.
UCLA is an exceptional school but highly competitive if Medical school is in the future. California universities have so many highly qualified Medical school applicants and not enough spots.
Consider Pitt as a safety. They have rolling admissions so you would have that in hand early allowing you to breathe easier regarding other applications if she likes the school. They’re also quite good for pre-med and are located in a city many students enjoy.
I’ve seen Pitt be a safety for applying, yet end up as a first choice later on (out of choices, not as a safety) when kids have visited it. It really appeals to many.
Your daughter sounds like a great student, but NYU and UCLA are not “matches” for her considering their low acceptance rates. I would put those schools in the “reach” category with Columbia as a high reach. If you are full pay, you stand a better chance at NYU - although they won’t be giving any merit. For a true safety, I’d suggest your state flagship and, of course, there are lots of less selective (but still excellent) colleges where your daughter could get lots and lots of merit $$. By their very nature safety schools need to be schools where your child is assured admission and you can afford for them to attend - typically those schools have acceptance rates of 50%+ (for lesser students, that could be 60%+).
Since she isn’t looking at CS or engineering, UIUC may actually be a safety for her. You are not going to find a higher ranked safety, especially for Actuarial Science. One thing to make sure about Actuarial Science is that at some schools, it will be in the B School. That generally makes it more difficult. Wisconsin would be an example of this. Wisconsin would move from low match( near safety)to a high match/ low reach.
Knowing only what we do, UIUC for actuarial science could be a match to reach, psych probably a match…both are in LAS.
UIUC is going to be hard to predict this year….this is their first time on common app (apps typically increase a lot first year on CA) and they are overenrolled this year (8300 first years against target of 7500-7700). This year they will have to cut back on admission offers because they want to be sure to be in the normal class size range for class of 2026.
For OP…Iowa and Iowa State would be safeties, probably Michigan State close to one too.
An in state student with a 4.0 uw and at least a 1460 SAT from one of the top schools in IL (Payton?). I know many on CC get conservative (including me) on classifying likelihood, but really?
According to Declaring your Major | Division of General Studies (for undeclared enrolled students), actuarial science, math, statistics, and psychology are “Majors that Guarantee Admission for Students Who Meet Specific Criteria”.
So they may be more competitive for frosh admission than “Majors that Guarantee Admission with a Minimum 2.0 Major GPA” for undeclared enrolled students but less competitive than “Majors that Require an Application and Do Not Guarantee Admission” for undeclared enrolled students (this latter group includes engineering majors, all combinations with CS, and business).
She didn’t take PSAT last year b/c of covid. She just started her junior year so she’ll take it this semester. She only took the SAT for the first time over the summer. I’m confident she’ll break above 1500+ as she will take SAT again this fall (junior year) and then the summer before her senior year if necessary.
Right…and both majors are small (100ish actuarial science per class, 125ish for psych). No way of knowing how many first years are directly admitted and how many transfer in, so those are the max first year class sizes.
OK. If she gets a good score at the PSAT/NMSQT aka PSAT 11 this year, she could become a CBNRP recipient (formerly known as NHRP for Hispanics) and then she could pick some safeties from schools known to be CBNRP / NHRP friendly.
Note that some of those schools have well regarded Honors Colleges that you should consider applying to. You might even end up deciding that an Honors College at one of those schools is actually the best option for a pre-med student.
