Best schools for my daughter

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>My daughter will be a senior in a very large public high school in Brooklyn. In her school, because of the grading system, it is extremely difficult to get above a 3.5 (there are letter grades of E, G, S, N and F. E is equivalent to 3.5...you can get above a 3.5 by taking AP classes and independent study classes which are worth more than a 3.5). She has almost a 3.5 GPA under this system--3.489. She got 740 on each of the three parts of the SATs. She has taken and will be taking several AP classes (six in all). She has taken different sorts of classes every summer and this summer is taking college classes at City College Macaulay Honor's Program in Bioinformatics. She has been involved in theater tech (backstage stuff) intensely since 6th grade and has risen up in the ranks. On the last play, she was the Assistant Crew Chief. She does not have any other type of steady volunteer work--intermittent here and there because the theater tech stuff has been so intense. She says that she would like a relatively small college where she does not have to take a plane to. She says she is not sure about city versus country. So far, we have looked at Princeton and Swarthmore. We really liked Swarthmore--hated Princeton.</p>

<p>I am thinking that we will look into Vassar, SUNY Geneseo, Yale, Amherst College, Williams, Brown, Brandeis, Tufts, Emory (though it is a little far--they give out a lot of money), Harvard, Swarthmore, University of Chicago, Vanderbilt (though that is a little far too), Haverford...Any other suggestions? I am figuring that Yale, Harvard, University of Chicago might be hard for her to get into, Vassar, Amherst, Emory, Tufts, Brown, and Williams would be good fits. I am guessing Vanderbilt, Haverford, SUNY Geneseo and Brandeis would be safetys. But I am not sure.</p>

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<p>Vandy, Haverford and Brandeis are safeties for almost nobody.
She looks like a reasonable candidate for most of these schools, but I think you need to add one or two <em>real</em> safeties. </p>

<p>Also, if she likes Vassar, Amherst and Williams then she should probably look at Wesleyan it’s quite similar.</p>

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<p>I would rename your categories. Harvard and Yale are super reaches. Chicago, Williams, Amherst, Brown and Tufts are reaches. Emory, Vassar, Haverford, Geneseo and Vandy are low reaches/ fits. You don’t have any safeties. Your stats need to be significantly above the 75%ile to be considered a safety.</p>

<p>Drew would be a safety- it has some great theater. Also look at Muhlenberg in PA for a school with an artsy feel but solid academics (they have good acceptances to med school for example). And definately tour Smith if you are seeing Amherst. The campus is lovely, in a great college town, not too big, and easier to get into than other schools of its academic caliber.</p>

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<p>If she doesn’t want to go too far from home, the regional admissions counselors are probably familiar with her school’s grading policies. The school may also have a profile that explains things clearly for a school that may not be familiar.</p>

<p>According to your explanation, your daughter has near-perfect grades for her school.</p>

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<p>How many AP classes did she take?</p>

<p>You need more safeties on your list.</p>

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<p>More importantly, what is her class rank?</p>

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<p>I am not sure of her class rank yet…She has taken three AP classes so far and got 4s or 5s in them. She is taking three more senior year. She is also considering the MacAulay Honors program at CUNY which might not be a safety but is probably closer to one than the others listed above seeing as how she is at a summer program there (and the percentages of acceptance for that program are about the same as for the college program and they are heavily courting the participants). She did not want to previously consider it because she wanted to go away but is now reconsidering since some of the campuses have dorms. I hate to spend so much money on colleges like Muhlenberg and Drew when other kids we know with less stellar credentials got into Brandeis and some other schools. I would think that SUNY Binghamton would be a safety (pretty much everyone we know got in and is a big draw for her high school). I am reconsidering some of the schools on the list because one of the reasons that she is considering the CUNY honors is because it is in a city and there are a lot of opportunities so I may cross off Williams and Amherst. I realize that Harvard and Yale are superreaches–we saw Yale today and liked it much better than Princeton. Why would the stats need to be above the 75th percentile to be a safety? I would think 50th would be fine. A friend of mine advised that the safety schools should be ones that offer more money. Her son got into Brandeis with significantly lower GPA and SATs. She was suggesting Emory as a safety considering her scores and someone else suggested Tulane…Tulane has an honors program that offers a lot of money. But New Orleans weather would be a tough sell to my daughter, the snow bunny.</p>

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<p>Hey, Tulane had one day of snow two years ago!! LOL. But you are right, if she is really into snow, then Tulane, Emory, Duke, and Vandy don’t belong on the list. Since she doesn’t want rural, I won’t suggest Middlebury, although they do own their own ski slope.</p>

<p>Reach, match, safety (which I dislike, I would prefer “likely”) are all ill-defined. For example, the Ivies are a reach for every student except the really good student whose family donated 6 figures or above. Harvard and Yale, for example, accept less than 10% of all applicants. Harvard has said many times that they could tell all 2,000 that are due to enroll this fall “ooops, we decided not to let you enroll. Too bad”, take the next 2,000 from their rejected list, and not lose any quality. So while she may be perfectly qualified, it is a crapshoot.</p>

<p>Schools that have low admissions rates (under 25%) sometimes seem irrational in their admissions decisions. That is why prople are saying the some of these schools she clearly has the stats for might not be “safeties”. SUNY Genesco is a fine school and is likely, no doubt. It is selective but I think she will have no problems there. I don’t know much about Haverford, but it looks like a match stats-wise. Brandeis is having some tough times financially I hear, but don’t know how accurate that is.</p>

<p>Regarding her GPA, is the 3.489 including the weighted grades from the 3 AP courses she took? If so, can you tell us what her GPA would be if those only counted the same as a regular course? That is, a true unweighted GPA based on a 3.5 scale. As it stands, if the 3.489 were unweighted for the AP courses, which I am guessing it is not, her UW GPA would be 3.987. If the 3.489 is weighted and if she got A’s in the 3 AP course, I am guessing her unweighted would be about 3.389, which is equivalent to an UW 3.873 on a 4.0 scale. Quite excellent still, and it won’t hurt her anyplace. Anyway, if you could clarify, that would be great.</p>

<p>Oh, and regarding Tulane in case she decides that warm weather might be OK, you are right she would be invited to the Honors Program and she would most likely receive $25,000/year upon getting the admission letter. If she applied by early October, she would likely hear by the end of October. She will most likely get an invitation to apply via a “personal application” from Tulane, but she doesn’t have to wait for that. The Tulane application is one of the simpler ones, and free. She could also apply for the Deans Honors Scholarship (DHS), which is full tuition every year. It requires a separate application and has a “small” project associated with it.</p>

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<p>Her school has a grading system that is different from other high schools so that I am not sure a numerical average means much. It grades on a “E, G, NI, F” scale. E means a 95. The only way you can get more than the 95 equivalent of an E is if you take AP courses or a MILE (Independent study). Both get you credit (if you succeed) of 105). She has taken three AP classes so far and two MILES and gotten her credit for all of them. I am not sure the transcript I saw was totally up to date (meaning it might not have even had the last two AP courses and the second MILE) but the numerical average was a shade below 3.5 and unweighted was 3.9, I think. She will be taking AP English Lit, AP Eco and AP Environmental Science next year. She also has an impressive transcript in terms of the academic rigor (she took AP AB Calculus, organic chemistry and physics last year, in addition to AP US History, English (she did not want to take AP English Comp–too boring), set design and gym. She has typically taken more courses than she needs–choosing to have one free period than two.</p>

<p>Obviously, Yale is a long shot. But it seemed to me like everyone there seemed to prefer students who had a wide range of interests rather than a focus on one thing academically. My daughter has been interested in and done well in every subject (including art and music)–the only thing she has not been super strong in is foreign language but she still did well on the Regents–she just had to work harder at it and didn’t like it so much–being an international diplomat or translator is not in the cards).</p>

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<p>i tend to disagree. vandy, here , will be a safety.</p>

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<p>Vandy is likely, but the term safety is just a mistake. There are numerous postings at that and similar top 20 schools of students with stats like hers or better that got waitlisted, and occassionally even rejected, although when not accepted waitlisted was far more common. the problem with calling it a safety is that it might lead some people to then not apply to true “safeties”, schools that have much higher acceptance rates than these top schools. Weird as it seems, these days the admissions “game” is just not so predictable.</p>

<p>@SueMac - 3.9 sounds right. She has excellent chances at all schools in the sense she is as qualified as anyone from what we can see. Again it is just that these top schools see a lot of kids as qualified and just cannot take them all. But she will end up somewhere great, I have zero doubt.</p>

<p>As far as the interests, there is some disagreement about that. I think the general consensus is that you want to be in the middle, having a few interests that one is very involved in, as opposed to dozens where the involvement is clearly superficial, but also not just one to the exclusion of everything else. She will be fine. Theater is dominant apparently, but it sounds like she has done one or two other things.</p>

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<p>She has had little time to do other things. When there is a show, which is pretty much all the time, it is all consuming. The kids eat, live and breathe theater. She has even spent time on vacations in school working on the shows, doing everything from painting scenery to lighting, lifting and supervising others. Her nonacademic life has centered on it since she was in sixth grade and even though she has no intentions of majoring in theater in college, she clearly intends to continue to do it there, to the point that she was asking questions of the schools about the theater departments…I think this would be a great thing for her to write about on her college essay because it is clearly something that defines her and shows that she is this well rounded person who is not only strong in the sciences and math but also in the arts.</p>

<p>I am guessing that we will have her apply to one true safety…somewhere that she would be okay with going if she needs to. A friend of mine recommended that we have one session with a college counselor because our school’s college counselor is useless–the school is really good but not in that. He gave a useless list of schools–huge and no indication of what was what (safety…etc.). He is known for being useless.</p>

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<p>As far as theater being dominant, a good thing about that is it does use lots of different skills.</p>

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<p>Check out schools in these conferences:
[New</a> England Small College Athletic Conference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Small_College_Athletic_Conference]New”>New England Small College Athletic Conference - Wikipedia)
[Centennial</a> Conference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Conference]Centennial”>Centennial Conference - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>The fact that she scored a 740/740/740 was an indicator that her 3.5 definitely wasn’t the same as a 3.5 out of other public high schools.</p>

<p>It will probably be easier to work out the logistics of your list once you visit more schools. You came to Philly to visit Swat but didn’t check out Haverford? Perhaps that’s why you originally thought that Haverford was safety. Visits’ll give you a better perspective on which school falls into which category.</p>

<p>My interpretation:</p>

<p>Reaches and Crapshoots: Yale, Harvard, UChicago, Amherst, Brown, Williams
Super Crapshoot: Tufts (lol)
High Matches: Emory, Vanderbilt, Haverford
Mid Matches: Vassar
Should be in: Brandeis, SUNY Geneseo</p>

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<p>For whatever reason, she is not interested in Vassar. With timing and other stuff, it worked out that we visited Swarthmore and Princeton, plus I am not sure that Haverford was on our radar until we talked to someone at a college fair (same with Vanderbilt). We were heading back toward north Jersey for a seder so it seemed convenient to go somewhere in NJ. Why is Tufts a super crapshoot when Yale, Harvard etc. are reaches and crapshoots? Tufts’ stats are less exclusive than all of those. Brown is definitely a reach but it is encouraging that someone from her school with a similar resume got in (similar grades, scores, theater background). Yes, the theater does give her a broad set of skills, especially since she has done lots of different things backstage.</p>

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<p>gc414 - LOL, well of course it isn’t the same as a 3.5 out of other public schools, it is on a 3.5 scale. It is like a 3.89 UW/3.987 W for most schools. But I agree with the assessment of reaches, etc.</p>

<p>SueMac - You said she liked Swarthmore, so I would add that to the list as a high match. It would surprise me some if she didn’t get into at least 3 of the 11 reaches and high matches, although not sure why she would apply to Chicago if she wants to stay in the northeast. I think Chicago is a wonderful school, it just doesn’t seem to match her criteria. What about Columbia and Penn? Obviously also reach Ivies, but urban and quite excellent, of course. As far as another safety that is urban and high quality, I would look into Trinity College in Hartford. Her SAT scores are above the 75th percentile in each category, so highly likely. Good school and in Northeast urban. Seems to fit.</p>

<p>I agree completely with MD Mom, theater is a lot like sports for teamwork and comraderie, and one does learn a ton of practical skills. It will make for good essay topics.</p>

<p>The Tufts comment is because the school is famous for waitlisting students that look like they are likely to get into Ivy schools. The theory is they do it to protect their % admitted stat for their USNWR ranking. I am not sure how true this is, because that particular stat only counts for 1.5% of the ranking, but it is possible it used to count for more and the reputation hangs on. In any case, they became so identified with it that it got named “Tufts Syndrome”.</p>

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<p>Just a few years back I read an article in Harvard Magazine about the shortage of students capable of serving as Technical Director for theatrical productions (of which there are dozens). The impression I got was that a kid with a skill in technical theater might actually have a “hook” comparable to a recruited athlete or someone who plays an obscure instrument that the band needs. It’s a NEED they have to fill to make the non-academic programs run. </p>

<p>I don’t know if this is still the case, but it could certainly make a student attractive to schools with extensive extracurricular theater programs.</p>

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<p>DeskPotato - That’s cool, and it makes perfect sense.</p>

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<p>That was what I was thinking too, about the theater tech. Everyone wants to be on stage; few want to be behind the scenes. Yet that is exactly where she wants to be (she is too shy to be on stage…and is concerned about interviews because she gets nervous). I am not sure about Columbia. Previously, she made it very clear that she wanted to go to college away (we are in NYC)…now she is considering the CUNY Honors Program because she would be able to live away from home but still be in NYC…Not sure we could do that with Columbia. We will look at U of Penn but she might find it too big. We might look at U of Chicago…my friend’s son loved it but didn’t get in. I will look at Trinity’s website.</p>

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<p>Since she definitely wants to continue doing theater tech in college, which of these (or other colleges with good academics) has a good theater department?</p>