You can google the acceptance rates for Rice, Harvey Mudd or any other college and get an idea. FWIW for the class of 2026 it looks like Rice accepted 8.5% of applicants and Harvey Mudd accepted 13%). As I said above, nobody can reasonably chance you for elite schools as there are more extremely well qualified candidates than there are spots available.
It is easy to focus on these top tier colleges. However, the most important thing is to create a well balanced application list (focus on admissions and affordability) of schools you would be happy to attend (and I’m glad that you do have some good safety options!)
so how about a reverse chance me?
I am not really looking for any kind of environment(city, rural, etc) but I really like the LAC vibe so far. that said, don’t restrict it just to lacs!
My main factor is aid, I think the max we can contribute is 25/30k. I am only going to apply to schools that “rank” above my safety state school(which is borderline T100, so not bad), so like really good colleges. I am not really looking for merit aid since I have my safety state school.
and I forgot to mention, but I plan to major in STEM- i will apply as a bio major, since most of my activities are as such, but I may switch to a CS major while in college since I want to go into CS/AI/ data science , and not research/medicine.
That may or may not be possible depending on which college it is. At a lot of colleges CS is a limited enrollment (“impacted”) program, making it hard or even impossible to switch into CS later.
Vassar
Wesleyan
Smith (single sex - women)
Tufts
Middlebury
Hamilton
All east coast schools where the geographic card has some play. All have reputations for generous aid - but would be a bit of a roll of the dice as far as getting discounted costs down to the $30K level. All are under-appreciated for their investments in STEM and a female STEM applicant would probably be a hook.
I am repeating a fair chunk of post #49 as an answer to your reverse chance me. Unless you spoke with your family and the financial parameters changed drastically from before (i.e. $20k budget, maybe $30k), you MUST get merit aid. As you may not be as familiar with some of the names, I have bolded the ones that are in the top 100 liberal arts or national universities as per USNWR. I also noted the two #1 rated regional universities (where Master’s is generally the highest degree given, whereas it’s usually doctorate for national universities and Bachelor’s for Liberal arts colleges). Note that most of the list is bolded. And these are all schools where I think you have a legitimate shot of getting one of their top merit offers coming out to full tuition or a full ride.
If you would like to view your state university in a general ranking, through which you can compare it to LACs of potential interest, this site may be helpful:
Note, however, that fully test optional colleges (at the time from which the data was collected) represent conspicuous omissions (Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Bates, etc.).
Quite a few of the top schools only award need based aid. You’d have to fill out the NPC (if they have one for those who don’t qualify for federal aid). Even when looking at merit aid, make sure non-citizens qualify for merit aid.
Well, it’s an interesting question as to what to exactly label the advantage that Smith and other all women’s colleges offer female applicants in terms of chances. Their admission rates are typically double that of their co-ed counterparts. Why? Because they exclude half the population of the planet.
Wesleyan and Vassar share a similar variation of the same misperception, which is that they are both women’s colleges, one because it actuallywas at one point and the other because itsounds like one.
Hi everyone, thank you for your help so far… I have just been getting summer program decisions and am kind of confused on what to do? can you help me out?
So i am choosing between a few programs:
-I will definitely go to MIT BWSI, which is july 11-august 7. how much will bwsi help me in terms of prestige/apps?
-will do girls who code SIP- how much will this help? i know it is not seen as that good… how does GWC compare to a camp at my state flagship, which is not too selective but still teaches advanced math stuff? they conflict with each other
-also got into agdiscovery, from the USDA, one of like some 20 students… i mainly applied to this for the biology aspect… will it help me much? it does not conflict with any program so I will probably go
If you were truly interested in agriculture-- and it seems you are not – in my opinion that program could have helped your college admissions chances the most!!
MIT BWSI/Girls Who Code etc – you are following a well trodden path. In other words, those activities put you in a pool with thousands of other kids.
Now, a kid who is interested in programming AND agriculture, in an authentic way (er, that’s the key) – how many of them are out there? I’d guess less than 10 in the entire country. Now you stand out from the crowd!
My advice is to always try and think outside the box. The agriculture angle won’t work for you, unless I’ve misread you and you have other activities that would support an interest in farming.
Also, ps, went back and read the thread – you are very impressive!
If you like LACs and you like prestige, please do look into Washington and Lee. 10% of each class are Johnson Scholars (so about 40 kids out of about 400). They get a completely free ride: tuition, room and board, plus a generous stipend. One of the institutional priorities for W&L is to increase diversity, so an Asian STEM girl from an underrepresented state might be particularly attractive to them.
Do your research. It is a school slow to embrace change, and with a terrible past, but it has made huge efforts in the past 10 years to rectify its issues. Not just the Johnson program, but the Shepherd Center, the new Center for the study of race relations etc. The president of W&L comes from Williams, and brings that sensibility to the school.
I think the biggest benefits of things like Girls who Code are that you learn how to code! Use that to get a job, to earn some money, to be exposed to the industry. THAT will help more than just taking a class or camp. Anyone can go to a camp but not everyone uses the info they learn. Show that you learned something, learned leadership, are using the experience to make meaningful choices in selecting a college. You’ll be able to write an essay about what you liked, what you didn’t like, what little nugget really sparked your interests.
Will the camps help you with admissions? Probably not, but they won’t hurt.
I agree that the USDA camp is more unique and may stand out more than a coding class.
Sigh. Here’s the thing: you seem to be chasing ‘prestige’ over any over metric. NONE of these are a ‘oooh-stop the presses! @some-random-user has X and Y programs on her CV’. The fact that you got in & did it is only one side of it: how does it fit with the overall arc of your application. You are dismissive of Girls Who Code SWI- but whose opinion is it that “it is not that good” - other HS students?
The fact that you string together a bunch of the best things you could get into over the summer together will do you less good- in applications and in life- than picking the ones that you are truly interested in, that add depth to other things you have done, and (especially!) are something that you can build on after you finish the program. A dean of admissions at a top-tier school said to one of the collegekids "we don’t care what you do with your summer- we just care that you do something and we want to know what you did with that experience afterwards.
It’s great – all your summer plans are great. Prestige isn’t the be-all and end-all of college admissions. Read what I wrote: there are thousands of kids with similar profiles.
One of my sons’ summer activity wasn’t some competitive academic camp, it was making hay on a local dairy farm (which is a very hard job!). That’s also what he wrote about in his common app essay. He got into a T20 reach school.
There are many successful paths with college admissions. You’ve gotten good advice on this thread.
Look up the essays the New York Times publishes every year for examples of very good college essays. You may not realize what is different about your personal experience because your life is what you know. The essays chosen by the NYTimes aren’t always about the most unique experiences but they are thoughtful and well written and do focus on experiences that are not universal. I also appreciate how they illustrate how to be personal without being too personal.
It is also probably worth your time to read international section on the The College Essay Guy web site.