<p>Well, as it happens Trinity is quite excellent, and as a bonus they have a NYC theater company, the Trinity/La MaMa New York City Performing Arts Program, so in the summers she would have a real “in”. I didn’t know any of that, so quite a coincidence.</p>
<p>I understand her wanting to experience a change of scenery for college, and I even encourage it. I think it is smart. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Columbia has a great reputation in theater. Some years ago they stole a lot of the faculty from my alma mater, Tulane, the dirty rats. They have been strong ever since.</p>
<p>Chicago as a city has a fantastic theater scene, but I don’t know much about U Chicago as a school for that. I do know that Northwestern on the other side of the city, up in Evanston about 10 miles north of downtown Chicago is one of the leading theater schools in the country. If you go see U of Chicago, take the time to see Northwestern also. Northwestern is academically about the same as Chicago, Vandy, etc. She has the stats for it, and would likely get accepted but no guarantees.</p>
<p>Yale has a long standing reputation for their theater department. It also has historically attracted actors, both budding and established (Jodie Foster) as has Brown (Emma Watson of Harry Potter acclaim is a student there now, or I guess she is still there).</p>
<p>These are the ones that stand out to me, but the fact of the matter is all the schools of this caliber will have fine theater opportunities and numerous productions. I don’t think she can go wrong, these ones I mentioned might just have a little “extra”.</p>
<p>“Why would the stats need to be above the 75th percentile to be a safety? I would think 50th would be fine.”</p>
<p>I thought so too–then I started to hear about the reality kids these days are dealing with. This year plenty of students above the school’s advertised 75th percentile got waitlisted or denied at most of the schools you listed. I know of plenty of students well above their state school’s 50% (with lots of leadership and activities) who didn’t get accepted to the state schools either. But there are positive results out there too.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone around here who didn’t get into a good school…especially if they applied to SUNY Binghamton, Geneseo or Purchase. I am sure she will apply to a few of the state schools. She was very impressed with the Yale drama department but of course that is so hard to get into (understatement). We may look at schools in Chicago but she might have to apply and visit if she gets in…the cost of traveling is prohibitive. We can get to most of them by train or car (which we have to rent). I also don’t know that we are going to get to as many schools in the next month as I had hoped because she has Lyme Disease and has been having some ill effects from the meds (motion sickness makes things difficult).</p>
<p>Being from a unique school, your best bet is to ask your D’s GC, who has the best idea of where kids of her caliber end up. She’ll be able to help D construct a balanced college list.</p>
<p>Your daughter’s stats look very strong. She has a chance at the Ivies and top level LACs. You need to continue doing what you are doing. Visit as many schools as you can and narrow the field according to which schools she likes. Does she have any idea what she wants to study or is she in the great pool of undecideds like most 17 year olds? For many of the LACs they take into account how much “interest” you show. Make sure you fill out the little registration cards at all your visits so she gets on their radar. Don’t stress over the fact that her ECs are centered in one area. When it comes time to fill out the Common Ap she will be asked to say how many hours she spends on her different activites. They will be able to see how hard she has worked. My son was very involved in music and very little else during High School. His biggest thing was Marching Band. When we tallied up the hours it was a little frightening. He was accepted ED to a top LAC. It sounds like Financial Aid is going to matter. If your EFC is low the Ivies and 100% need LACs will be generous. You also might want to check out the threads on schools with guarenteed merit aid to students with good stats. Good Luck!</p>
<p>She is in the pool of undecideds…She is equally strong in sciences, social sciences and humanities. Also in math but she doesn’t want to major in it. Hence the same score on all three parts of the SAT. All of this has been a bit tough on our unofficially adopted son who is 20 and at a community college–he had no choice in where to go–he had to go where he was accepted that was away from home because he was not as much a part of our family yet and lived in an abusive home. But he is taking things okay but gets discouraged about himself since he has pretty serious ADHD and finds it hard to focus (I second that…I am often having to try and focus him). But at this point anyway, I don’t want my daughter to try and do stuff just for the sake of doing them …I think the schools would know that and there is no point. What is EFC? Our family income is about $130,000. My friend said that there is a place to put on the financial aid app information about the second child that we help even though he is not legally ours. He does get his own financial aid but we contribute a lot toward his expenses (we buy him supplies and his computer and have helped him when he has trouble with benefits and he stays with us during vacations…I would say we contribute a few hundred dollars a month to him).</p>
<p>EFC is your “ecpected financial contribution”. It sounds like you need to do some reading in the financial aid forum. Basically there are 2 kinds of aid: need based which looks at income and assets and merit based which is granted based on a students grades, test scores etc. The ivies and the top LACs generally guarentee to meet 100% of “need” (as they determine". That doesn’t mean what you think you can afford to contribute it is what they think you can contribute. Most of them offer little or no merit based money! EFC is based on a formula set up by the feds and is used to determine if you are eligible for interest free loans, etc. It only looks at income. The top schools will also use the CSS profile (I have no idea what those initials stand for) which also looks at assets. They may or may not take your special circumstances into account. I would suggest you go to the financial aid page of some of the schools you are considering and look to see if they have a financial aid calculator. I think there is also one on college board. With an income of $130,000 you probably won’t get alot of financial aid. Please do some checking now rather than spending time and energy looking at schools you can’t afford. With your daughters stats she would be able to get great merit money at many schools. On a semi-related note, look into University of Rochester. Great school and they are generous with scholorships.</p>
<p>If we need to, we can take another mortgage (we have a very low one now). I know the ivies meet 100 % of need and usually require a 10% contribution of our income which we can swing.</p>
<p>True (you are speaking of Harvard at least, maybe others match that), but my understanding is that “income” can be more than what shows up in the tax form.</p>
<p>I don’t think they look at, for example, the value of your house. I would imagine that they look at things like stocks…which is fine. The only ones we have are for our daughter’s education and they only amount to a few thousand dollars–that will go right away and that’s fine…</p>
<p>The CSS profile does look at the value of your house, stocks, investments as well as income. Remember that Ivies give by far the most generous FA. There is a fair amount of variation in how schools calculate need, even those schools that guarantee to meet 100% of need. There are only 4 or 5 schools left that don’t require loans as part of their FA package. I have friends whose daughter was admitted to Brandeis a few years ago. They were shocked when the only “FA” they were offered was to apply for loans. They are a 2 income family but by no means rich.</p>
<p>In looking at the Brown U website for one, it says that EFC is based on assets including real estate, but not the home in which you reside. I don’t know if that is what the other needs based schools do but that means they would look at our savings account (a slight ouch), my daughter’s investments (another slight ouch but whatever) but not at the value of the apartment we live in…which is fine…we don’t own anything else.</p>
<p>Yes, and just to be clear, it isn’t like they say “Use all your savings first and then we’ll talk”, they expect that you will use a percentage of it to pay for the education. Which would be reasonable if only tuitions were reasonable, lol. Anyway, while speculating on FA and all is one of the great pasttimes on here, and certainly it is good to gather info, in the end all you can do is fill out all their forms and see what they come back with. The good thing is that now if they don’t come up with what you had thought you might see, you won’t be shocked.</p>
<p>My son had a small inheritance held in a trust. He is expected to contribute 25% of it each year. I don’t begrudge them the money, he’s getting a supurb education and we are getting about 25,000 dollars in grants each year. We had hoped he’d have some left over for graduate school but that is just not how it works. I feel a little like the angel of doom here. I’ve been reading these forums for long enough that I have seen families crushed when they realized they were not going to get the support they had planned on. Better to go in with eyes open.</p>