<p>I want to get more focused on this college search, but keep going in circles. For right now, I think it would be wise to try to find safeties that my D could really be happy with. D just finished her soph. year in HS, so there is still time, but I suspect the next year will be a busy one, so I'd like research what we can now.</p>
<p>She is in the IB program. Current UW GPA 3.92, and Sophomore yr PSAT =200, PLAN=29 with no studying, so higher (possibly merit aid/selective school acceptance worthy) scores seem attainable.</p>
<p>We have planned to pay for approx the equivalent to our in-state U costs (approx 22k) and when we use Net price calculators at 'meets full need' schools, the net price seems to come out close to that cost, so we are hoping that makes those schools workable.</p>
<p>Merit aid seems fairly unpredictable, but is something she may qualify for at some schools. (I know that at some merit would just reduce need aid, but might be 'stacked' at others).</p>
<p>Sooo. given that vague info, can you categorize these schools generally into the the auto-admit (is there such a thing?), safety, match and reach categories? What I am REALLY looking for are Fit and Financial Safeties and matches. </p>
<p>Agnes Scott
Berry
College of Charleston
Davidson
Duke
Eckerd
Emory
Furman
Georgetown
Guilford
Muhlenberg
Oglethorpe
Rhodes
Rollins
U of Miami (Florida)
U of Richmond
U of Tampa
Wake Forest
Wellesley
Wofford</p>
<p>There are others on our list, but these are the ones that I feel least able to place in a category.</p>
<p>Reaches-Duke, Davidson, Emory, G’town, Wellesley</p>
<p>Matches- Wake, Richmond, Miami, Rhodes, Furman</p>
<p>Safeties- the rest of your list.</p>
<p>This is ONLY for acceptances IF she continues to stay the course and performs well on SAT/ACT</p>
<p>I agree with Bigdaddy88 about this list. I don’t think you will get as much aid from Richmond, I’ve heard they don’t give out much, I may be wrong though. Look at Sewanee, if you like the feel of Rhodes.</p>
<p>An up and coming school with VERY generous financial aid that I would look into is High Point University. It’s a safety for you, worth looking at though.</p>
<p>A safety meets these four criteria:
- The student can pay for it with no aid other than federally determined (FAFSA) aid and/or guaranteed state aid and/or guaranteed aid from the institution itself.
- The student is flat-out guaranteed admission based on his/her GPA and/or exam scores and/or other special criteria, and this guarantee is specifically spelled out on the institution’s website. Many public U’s publish this type of info. for in-state residents.
- The student’s prospective major is offered.
- The student will be happy to attend if all else goes bad in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Yup even students with a full IB and a 4.0 need at least one real safety on their list just in case. Because sometimes things do indeed go horribly wrong and the student doesn’t get in at any of the reasonably safe or even pretty-damn-safe institutions on their list. If none of the institutions on your student’s current list admit by the numbers, your student should keep looking until at least one place like that is identified.</p>
<p>I didn’t even realize there were schools that would ‘admit by the numbers’. It is some of our state schools that we’d probably consider to be the most safe for admission and finances, but our state schools don’t guarantee acceptance with any specific stats. They do have minimum requirements, but meeting those requirements doesn’t guarantee admission.
Finding that blend of all four of those criteria is a challenge. I suppose community colleges would be a safety for admission, but not for where she’d be happy to attend.</p>
<p>Someone with a 4.0 2200 isn’t getting rejected from USF or Florida Atlantic unless they took no academic courses in high school. There are plenty of schools, particularly state schools, where you can pretty much assume you’re in with certain stats. Also by that logic, the vast majority of students who apply beyond their auto admit community college don’t have a “true” safety (in terms of admission) since they might not know exactly the admissions cutoff but can easily treat it as an assured admit so long as the school doesn’t look at interest. The 4.0 2200 student who was rejected from all of his schools probably only applied to reaches. </p>
<p>Oh and by the way, assuming you can afford it, College of Charleston is a safety.</p>