What a great smart group of parents you are! You give such good advice. Thank you so much!
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There is no perfect option. Most colleges are “good enough”.
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Going back to finances …
Not asking you to be specific, but to be fully aware. There have been threads here on CC where families thought they had savings/income that negated any cost concerns about college, but when they finally sat down late in the process (senior year) they realized they didn’t know the current cost to attend the most expensive colleges.
If you think your family will have $320K in savings (the ability to cover $80K/yr) and your daughter has no plans for graduate school, then you really don’t need to consider cost. However, if you have a budget of $50K/yr, that will somewhat limit the schools your D can consider as matches. And if the budget is $30K/yr, your search may be different than one of the other figures.
$120K, $200K, and $320K are all very fortunate positions to be in, but they are different. Each will/may represent a different sort of college search journey.
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The perfect fit at 12 or 15 or even 17 may not be perfect at 18 or 21. Strive for merely a good fit, not perfection.
Noting this child is still in middle school, $320k per year is just the current cost. It will only increase in the next 5-10 years. Easily over $100k/ year at many schools. Money invested now may not match the rate of increase
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Echo all the comments above that your kid will likely change a lot over the next few years, and any schools that seem right at the moment may be way off the mark down the road. But . . just to list a few good schools in the NE that are easier to get into than Ivy League: Fordham, University of Vermont, Skidmore, Connecticut College, Villanova, College of Holy Cross, Temple, UMass Amherst, Bard, University of Connecticut, University of Rochester, Brandeis, Syracuse.
For more competitive, but still not a Ivy League levels, options: Bates, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Northeastern, Colby, Wesleyan, Colgate, Boston University, Boston College, Middlebury, Hamilton, Lehigh, NYU, Barnard.
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Barnard is the women’s college of Columbia, fyi…and is quite competitive for admissions.
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Agreed. Barnard, for all intents and purposes, is like applying to Columbia.
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@circuitrider @blossom Disagree. Barnard is easier to get into than Columbia, and more comparable to the other schools that I put on that second list. Barnard’s admission rate for 2019 was 11.8%, where Columbia was 5.4%. Average SAT score for Columbia is around 1500. Average SAT for Barnard is around 1400 (which is lower than the average SAT for Middlebury, Northeastern, Colby and Boston College, which are a few other schools that I listed alongside Barnard). It’s certainly a highly competitive school – but so are many of the other schools on that second list.
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I would also add Bucknell and the University of Richmond to that list.
Bucknell is a good add (assuming that Pennsylvania qualifies as Northeast.) I did include Lehigh on that assumption. I don’t think Virginia could arguably qualify as being in the Northeast. But, if OP’s kid was OK being a bit farther south, then yes University of Richmond, William & Mary, American University, George Washington would all be good schools to add to the list.
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Well, basically you’re comparing two colleges within the same university, one of which rejects 90% of all its applicants versus the other which rejects 95% of all its applicants. The OP has to decide whether that’s a meaningful difference.
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That is 100% admirable and the right mindset! I think it’s great you want to educate yourself about the process!
Personally, I just think you are putting the cart before the horse. As some have said, review your finances and get a handle of what your budget means. Maintain flexibility, though, because these past 2 years have taught us all that things can change - investment value goes up and down, people lose jobs or get better ones, colleges close. More importantly, your D can change.
My D is an only child, too, and we started in earnest when she was a sophomore. When she was in middle school, her focus was not on college. She went through a phase when she was going to become a music producer and didn’t need a college degree…until she met one who told her he regretted not going and never hires anyone who doesn’t have a degree. It has only been 4 years since then but my D is so different from that kid!!
Folks here are truly so helpful!! I just think making a list of specific schools at this point is an exercise in futility. Do you know if she will want a school with a lot of Greek life? Does she even know what that entails? Does she want small classes or would she be happier with some anonymity? Anyone can make a list of 20, 50, 100 schools with the only criteria being that they exist. Give her a chance to start to figure out who she is and then be prepared to help her navigate this process.
The comparison is flawed when the “population” are of different composition.
When you have two different populations competing for a resource, the resulting calculations are not equivalent.
Naturally, a co-ed college will have to reject more applicants competing for their “resource” (admission), than a college that had already disqualified half the “population” from applying in the first place.
Which is a conscious choice Barnard makes with their holistic admissions!
Rather than playing the easy stats game through elevating the SAT average beyond 1425 for the “hitparade” (pick your favorite magazine), they have been known to be actively looking for excellence not reflected in numerical scores. So, in some way, it can make Barnard harder (less predictable) to get into for those with strong stats, because so much more weight is put on factors other than SAT.
2015: 19.6%
2016: 16%
2017: 14.8%
2018: 13.7%
2019: 11.3%
2020: 13% (operating mostly remote during pandemic)
2021: 10.4%
There are TONS of colleges in the northeast where your student can find their niche and thrive. Tons.
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Absolutely - because…
you apply to two undergraduate colleges within the same university, thus sharing access to the same resources, like libraries, gyms, sports teams, dining halls…, even clubs and sororities. You also share the same course calendars (students from either college will attend classes taught at either school) and faculty (all Barnard faculty are also University faculty) - and both receive their degrees from Columbia U.
Beyond that, Barnard’s key advantages over Columbia College for a female applicant:
A woman-run enterprise, with (at minimum) gender parity for management and faculty, where students experience first-hand a microcosm of how the world should be operating. A challenging, yet supportive, environment that is implicitly attuned and actively looks to address gender issues. Being able to retreat to dorms that are not shared with “just-out-of-high-school boys” (advance apologies to all Mom’s of sons for throwing in this cheap stereotype - but for some young women that is a definitive plus)
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This.
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I think this is exactly correct. Some of them would today cost $80,000 per year or a bit more. Some might cost half this. Some might cost still less.
We found some colleges and universities that were insanely expensive, and some that were relatively affordable. There was very little correlation between the cost and the ranking. The highest ranked university that either daughter got into was one of the least expensive. The second highest ranked that either got into was the most expensive.
However, both daughters found very good universities that were a good fit for them that were affordable and that fit our budget. Hopefully you will have the same experience.
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As an opinion, it wouldn’t seem that colleges with sub-15% acceptance rates match the request in the opening post.
With respect to what you have posted, schools such as Skidmore, Connecticut College and Wheaton offer strong literature and art departments and, to varying degrees, offer spots to some students who may be characterized as “solid.”
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I agree that looking for fit at this point is too early. My older daughter (now a college sophomore), when in middle school and even during her early high school years, was insisting on going to our state flagship (where both my husband and I teach)-- to be closer to home, to her sister, “to help you guys when you’re seniors”-- never mind we were in our mid-forties :)), etc. By her junior year in high school she was obsessed with liberal arts colleges and only applied to our flagship because we insisted it was a financial safety. Turned down a selective honors program offer from the flagship and is super happy at a LAC. So, yes, kids change a lot.
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Agree. My DD was at SMU on the tour with her older sibling when DD was in 7th grade. For several years, she insisted we didn’t have to go on ANY college tours because SMU was where she wanted to go.
Fast forward to 11Th grade. I asked if SMU was where she was planning to apply…and she said “I don’t want to go to college in Texas”. Ok…
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