Lots of Texans go to college in the Northeast. Texas is not exactly an unpopulated backwater. 
A school that has a hard time attracting applicants from anywhere outside of its region might disproportionately value a Texas applicant, but Harvard not so much.
@lookingforward SUNY Binghamton is her safety. I understand that theyāll want financial info from both households and her dad is submitting his info.
@emorynavy the only geography she cares about right now is being in the northeast. Sheās unsure about her major at this time and wants a liberal arts degree.
@citymama9 Thank you. We may be in for a reality check once her decisions start coming in, but she has 15 schools on her list now. Iām just hoping she gets into the school thatās the best fit for her. She really just wants to go to the best school possible, because she feels like help position her to succeed.
Suny Bing at full pay?
āThe best school possibleā - what do you mean? The most highly ranked on the USNews list? Hopefully not, as that is a bad metric. Hopefully it means the best fit, with a strong department in her major that also meets many of her other desired components (one of which seems to be location) that is affordable.
Keep in mind that many students spend most of their time on campus, anaās donāt go into town all that often, so where its located may not matter all that much. The mix of students at the school may be a better measure of āfitā than location itself. For instance, many of Tulaneās students come from the NE, even though its in the SE. I went to undergrad in the NE, but when I was on Riceās campus, I felt like I was back on a NE campus. Rice/Houston was a blue dot in a sea of red, per my DSās experience.
Look at schools like Goucher as a safety, as it can be very generous with $.
I advised a URM with a similar profile to the OP last year, but much better ECs. Like the OP, many people told her, contrary to my advice, that she was a shoo in at all these competitive colleges. She was denied at every one I advised her not to apply to. Itās a myth that a 1370 SAT URM is getting accepted to most top schools. It does URMs no good to perpetuate the myth. She can get into some very good schools, but this idea that she should apply to all reach schools is setting her up for a lot of disappointment. Compound that with the financial aid issue, and this is just not a well targeted strategy.
No expert here but unless your D would be happy to attend the SUNY school she might be pretty disappointed next Spring. She is by no means a shoo-in at any of those schools on your list. Every one of them is at least a high match (Bates maybe) or reach with the probability of acceptance at less than 50/50. A good list should consist of a couple safeties, a couple reaches and some matches. In 2015 my D had better stats, applied to 19 schools and was WL at Bates and Barnard, and rejected at Vassar (schools also on your list). Iāll give you that she was a white girl with a 4.0 from the Northeast so no hook. In the end, she was accepted with great merit to many of her match schools but chose a safety for financial reasons. These schools are much harder to get into now than they were 4 years ago.
Please at least add another safety and a couple of realistic matches, what harm can it do?
I like to think in terms of silos. Take her dream school then find schools that are like it but have higher and higher acceptance rates until you have a list of reaches, matches and safeties. A silo for Williams might look like this:
Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin (reaches)
Bates, Hamilton, Wesleyan (high matches)
Connecticut College, Dickinson, Skidmore, (low matches)
Denison, Hobart and William Smith, St. Lawrence (likely)
Gettysburg, Muhlenberg, Allegheny, Juniata (very likely/safety)
People can quibble about where in the silo each school belongs but I think you can get the idea.
This is from 2012 but it can still be useful. Be aware that colleges tend to be aspirational in choosing their peer, that is they list schools above them in the food chain more than those below.
I would suggest Bryn Mawr which is needs aware rather than needs blind. Her stats are in line with theirs, the acceptance rate is favourable and they offer cross registration with Haverford, U Penn and Swarthmore (I believe). Not truly NE but pretty close. SJW, would feel at home there. Great school.
If your expected contribution is $41k you would do well to look at colleges that offer merit, maybe Clark or Wheaton. Investigate how scholarships are calculated for the second, third and fourth years.
In our familyās experience of the top (and I hate to use that term because fit should be what we look for) Williams and Yale were way out in front for financial aid.
It almost seems like you are been punished for taking on a second job. What a world. Good luck.
Wonāt those scores qualify her for a full free ride at Howard? One can do very well after graduating from Howard, and it is in a great city with excellent opportunity. I know several students who turned down top 15 schools for Howard scholarships. They had excellent outcomes.
Writing essays- really good essays- for 15 schools is a lot more work than either of you may realize! Again, she will help herself with her admissions chances if she pushes herself to think harder about what she wants from her school experience, then use @Sue22ās silos as examples. It might seem that being open to āAnything in the NE that has a good nameā would help- not being picky, right?- but actually it is going to disadvantage her. Those āwhy usā essays really matter, esp at LACs.
Also: has she visited SUNY Binghampton in the winter?!
There isnāt a chance in heck that I would pay OOS state tuition for SUNY Bing if I had auto admit, instate tuition at UT Austin. Since your daughter is undecided about her major, she may very likely need to go to grad school. She can do that in the NE or go to work there. I totally get it about kids wanting to branch out and explore different parts of the country but if your best academic and financial option is in state, IMO, that trumps location, especially when thinking longer term.
I agree with @collegemom3717 . Better to submit 10 really good apps and supplements than 15 that are generic and more rushed. Pick 2 true safeties (where sheās at or above 50th percentile in stats and more than 50% acceptance rate and you can afford w/o aid or thereās guaranteed aid based on stats) , 5 to 6 match/low reach (sheās at or above 50th percentile in stats and 25 to 50% acceptance) and 2 to 3 high reach ā dream colleges known for being generous with need aid.
Iām not adding the full financial filter here b/c I gather your situation is complicated. For safeties and matches, however, Iād encourage you to include guaranteed merit options as high priorities.
Good luck!!!
PS ā normally Iād say 75th percentile stats in choosing safety/match/reach but with URM hook and coming from TX (geographic diversity for NE schools) I think you can look at 50th percentile in statsā¦
The strategy can be different if she is already an auto admit to UT Austin. No need for more safeties, only apply to schools she would clearly prefer to attend instead of UT Austin for a rational reason. Personally, I would not consider a large, out of state, lesser ranked public on that list absent extenuating circumstances.
And, chances are improved with EA applications, many of which are due in a week!
Texas A&M auto-admits students in the top 10%. UT auto-admits students in the top 6%. Her SAT scores are well above the thresh hold for auto-admit in both schools.
There are many strong candidates in Texas and many apply to NE colleges. There are also students from the poor areas of Texas with bang up profiles and solid ECs. Good stats and URM are not rare there, thereās competition, not just the automatic super pull some think.
Plus, as collegemom says, itās necessary to do a great job on the Why Us. (Sometimes, thereās a direct question. But most of the supplement questions are about seeing how you understand your match, how you show it.) For every candidate, thatās more than location, āhelp position me to succeedā (everyone should try to avoid saying that to a highly competitive college,) or that they have your major.
Do you have a Fiske Guide to Colleges? Look up the colleges Sue22 noted as low matches, likely, and very likely (all very fine schools) and see what the Guide suggests as similar.
Is her GC helpful? Does your daughter have the right recommendation teachers lined up?
Weāre not trying to discourage you, but light the path. It was mentioned in your older thread that she needed to up her ECs, look at the impact in her volunteer work (I have no idea what she did,) and prep for the standardized tests.
I dont think any here are saying to drop all the reach targets. Rather, to try to understand whatās a balanced list. Not to crapshoot at a bunch of reaches, then just two or so safeties. But pick the few most reasonable reaches, the ones where she matches their likes and wants, for both their academic bar and the qualities they want in the class.
Best wishes.
And to reiterate, as UT has so far been disregarded, it is imperative to clarify that Op's kid IS definitively in the top 6% and that isn't a movable metric. Is rank in the school reported quarterly, the end of 11th, or as the application is submitted?
@coolguy40 >>>Texas A&M auto-admits students in the top 10%. UT auto-admits students in the top 6%. Her SAT scores are well above the thresh hold for auto-admit in both schools.<<<<<<<<
Her SAT s 1370, TAMU academic admit requires:
SAT: Total score of 1360 with at least 620 Math and 660 Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW). That is not well above but as top 25% is auto, it probably doesnāt matter. I would certainly be putting in an app in this kids situation though. For a true safety.
AFAIKS UT doesnāt have any such test score threshold. It is all about the rank.
The rank for UT is determined in June of the junior year.
@collegemom3717 @Sybylla @momofsenior1 She was born and lived the first 10 years of her life in NY. She spends the whole summer there and we go back for Christmas. She even goes back for spring break sometimes. All of our family, including her dad still live in NY, so she will likely only have to pay out of state tuition at SUNY Binghamton for 1 year. Iām not sure how Binghamton compares to UB (SUNY Buffalo), but I went to UB for 4 years. Most of my friends from Brooklyn who went to college went to CUNY and SUNY schools. What I realize is that most people really like the schools that they go to because thereās no other point of reference - itās all they know. She misses being around people of Caribbean descent as well. There are tons of those people in SUNY, CUNY and NE schools. I agree w/ @Sue22 silo examples. We revised the list yesterday her and I reviewed the responses in this post, and we will keep revising until the weekend. So we are really appreciating all the advice. Again, we really donāt know what we donāt know.
I guess her dream schools are Dartmouth, Amherst, and Bowdoin. The one safety on her list right now will be Binghamton. I will have to look into UT - she is in top 6% and I believe itās auto-admit. We signed a for and returned it to the school last year, but sheāll talk to her counselor this week.
@roycroftmom weāll add Hampton to the list.
@jym626 I know ED is Nov 1. I think sheāll apply to 1 school ED. I believe Bowdoin has an ED II if she doesnāt get accepted to her first choice. All the other schools will be regular decision.