CC Wisdom on junior daughter's current college list

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Some of that described my daughter’s criteria four years ago - and I will comment as far as they fit Barnard, since you had tagged it:

Barnard has great programs and professors for social sciences, English and arts. In fact these are my daughters majors and minors, and she very much enjoyed the lecturers, enormous breadth of courses, and variety of topics that Barnard, and the large university catalogue offered. Those are also the disciplines where she picked up internships in the city.

However, at Columbia U you’ll need to “temper” expectations as far as the classic “school spirit” for the football team that she might know from high school. It won’t have nearly the same vibe. Obviously Columbia U competes in the Ivy League, and in certain sports (such as fencing) is a powerhouse, and Barnrad women are on several competitive female teams in various disciplines. However, the stadium is a (free shuttle) bus ride 3 neighborhoods away, and you won’t see 33,000 university students wearing gear and creating huge excitement on campus on game days.

As far as theatre/music - in general, this too will be different at colleges vs. high school. While in tax-paid high schools, everyone is pretty much welcome in any club, in colleges there usually is an interview/audition process for many such extra-curricular activities. This is not specific to Barnard.

Having said that, participating in two performing and visual arts related clubs was a big factor for my daughter’s happiness, creating a counterbalance/outlet for academics. So yes, a big university like Columbia absolutely has many extra-curricular opportunities for students interested in arts, it might just not necessarily be in the exact manner that your daughter is currently thinking of.

The first two are a good description of Barnard - it comes with all the benefits, opportunities and activities of a large, co-ed university in the “greatest city in the world” with countless cultural offerings of all kinds at all times, while also having a small little campus to itself when the hustle and bustle gets a bit much.
Much of the time will be spent on the university campus, which is actually quite nice, going to classes, using one of the libraries, any of the dining halls, going to the gym, etc.

Now - as far as warmer than Illinois… I suppose technically that’s true for New York, based on statistical data. :wink:

My daughter had stalled deciding for Barnard until the last possible moment - and now she’s actually genuinely sad that soon she won’t be passing through that gate anymore. It truly does feel home to her (even though, like very many upperclass-women, she’s been living in apartments in neighboring blocks.)

However… for hospitality programs, there might be schools that are much-better known for those studies!

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Delaware flies a little bit under the radar for people outside the local region for a state flagship. It offers almost every major you could think of, including Hospitality, a solid business school, D1 one sports, especially a well-regarded football team. Also, based on your daughter’s current stats and projected SAT would be a strong candidate for their honors college and a high probability of significant merit. The list of choices gets narrower if you want to keep hospitality as a potential option. Delaware offers this and checks off a number of the other boxes.

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such a shame that Lehigh changed the name- Engineers was cool and unique! there are enough bird names already!

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84

Great feedback on Barnard ,thanks! As I mentioned, it’s currently at the top of my daughter’s list. We actually went to NYC primarily to see NYU and Fordham, and I convinced her to look at Barnard at the last minute, and she loved it. It does check a lot of her boxes, plus it’s a singular place with offerings that are unique unto itself. There won’t be another school that will be like it. But, she’s still got a lot of schools to visit, so it will be interesting to see how she feels once she’s seen other schools on the list. Kids always have unexpected reactions, which is what makes this process fun!

And, I also don’t want her getting super attached to any one school - unless it’s a safety. Chances are, even if Barnard stays at the top of the list, and even if she EDs there, she won’t get in. So, I’m hopeful there will be other schools she loves/likes just as much.

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I think quite a number of alumni were very upset with the name change. I know the other two alumni in my family were (I am one too).

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I’m not sure I’d suggest that. Vandy and WashU in particular have become astoundingly selective over the last 15 years, to the point where they’re reaches for kids with 35 ACT scores and a dozen AP classes finishing toward the very top of their high school classes, and still a crapshoot for applicants with perfect standardized test scores and A averges. I think the original poster and their daughter could consider adjusting their list upward if she throws down an SAT score that creeps into the mid-1500’s, but otherwise I feel like these schools would be a waste of the one early decision bullet they have.

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Absolutely!
If it still happens to be her first choice come application time, then allowing her to apply ED will improve odds significantly, albeit only from virtually impossible to unlikely. Her class rank and GPA fits the profile of those students who are admitted, hopefully she will manage to improve her standardized tests (SAT or ACT).

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I think my daughter would love Vanderbilt. And, we’ve actually visited Wash U (not a tour, but walked about campus and stayed in St. Louis) and she loved what she saw of it it. But, they are just too reachy, I think, to be in serious contention. Not to say that Tufts, Cornell (SHA), Notre Dame and USC aren’t pretty reachy, but to my mind, Vandy and WashU are even a tick above those first four (given that she has legacy at ND that might help her a smidge there). Maybe if she takes the SAT and gets a 1550 plus, and earns some sort of crazy award in her first semester of her senior year, and if she writes essays that will melt the heart of the most indifferent admissions officer . . . . then we could re-think some of the more lofty reaches. However, I’m not expecting any of those things to come to pass, and I’m therefore looking right now to eliminate reaches and add targets and likely’s.

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Agreed, sounds reasonable.
We’re in a very similar boat: junior D who’s got very good, top 6-7% of her class at a highly competitive private high school grades, in all honors or AP classes, and a 34 ACT hoping to get to a 35 (whether through superscoring or not). She’s the sort of kid who a generation ago would probably take a shot at somewhere like Wash U or Northwestern or Vandy or Hopkins, even though they would have been stretches even then (she’ll graduate around 30th in her class, not 3rd), but has no chance at those sorts of schools now, so she’s trying to determine what level of school would be a good place to use her one, precious ED application. Even harder to figure after this year.
We’re just not sure anymore what even constitutes a reach or high target for her (much less what appropriate backups might be). Things are considerably more muddled, and it feels like the landscape shifted by a decade during this one admissions cycle. It’s disorienting to be told the places where her stats put her in a sea of green check marks on her school’s Naviance scatterplot have become near impossible reaches all of the sudden. Even our guidance counselors are sort of throwing their hands up in the air and saying “We just don’t know how to gauge anyone’s chances anywhere right now.”
We’re OK adjusting her sights and she’ll turn out great no matter where she goes to school, but part of the problem is the chaos from this year will just further incentivize kids to carpet bomb schools, leading to more years of record application numbers, later decision dates, and even more unpredictability. Not sure how/when that cycle gets broken, but the whole system’s a little out of whack at the moment. I hate that my D will spend a considerable amount of time and stress on getting 15 college applications out the door this Fall, when she’s supposed to be enjoying being a senior in high school. That’s just a terrible allocation of time and unnecessary amount of stress to add to a 17-year-old’s life.

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Why do you assume you have to ED? It’s your choice to - but who’s to say the right college for her needs an ED?

Are you willing and able and desiring to spend $80K + a year when it’s not necessary - especially in a major like CS.

We’re OK adjusting her sights and she’ll turn out great no matter where she goes to school

This is correct - it’s about the kid, not the school. I promise you. Sure a name can help…but it’s no guarantee and tons of people from “normal names” do just fine.

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Interested in any SLACs? Full pay? Location?

ED has worked out for many full pay kids in our neighborhood. Typically mid-pack SLACs.

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Fair question. It’s not an assumption of need so much as an assumption of her desire to use ED as a chip if it makes sense. She’s one of those kids for whom fit, through her stated impressions after touring about a dozen schools, looks destined to align fairly closely with the higher end of what I would characterize as attainable selectivity. Not because of prestige chasing or a need for the gold star of getting into a “better” school than her peers. She’s just felt like there were a higher percentage of relatable (to her) kids among those she’s met at the tier of schools that are in what we’ve thought of as the target through moderate reach schools - she’s been to a few super reaches and not felt comfortable, and the same with a few clear safeties.

But it’s clear that there are 5x the number of kids who could handle the academic load at target/moderate reach University X as there are seats in X’s freshman class. So for an applicant without a unique hook (like our D, who has good EC’s with some leadership but she’s not publishing scholarly works or founding companies at the age of 15 or whatever), it may help to present as a yield win - someone committed, who can pay full freight, and who’s toward the upper 25% of admittances based on stats alone. Especially when compared to some of her peers from the same/similar schools in the area, who will be spraying applications all over the place. We’re fortunate enough to be able to support her committing early, without indications of potential merit or other financial aid (leaving aside the separate discussion of ROI and why we’re not insisting she just go to our perfectly acceptable state university). So if she ends up loving several places and can decide on one that’s at the top of the list, then why not go ED as a strategic choice.

[Thankfully, for her sake in terms of the college admissions process, no interest in a CS or any other STEM-type major!]

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What’s the “S” stand for? She’s been to 3 LAC’s on visits, but has said pretty clearly that she wants to end up somewhere larger than her high school, which is about the size of the average NESCAC institution. So probably not looking that direction, though you’re right - we’ve seen cases where those sorts of places fill an inordinate amount of their freshman classes with early decision applicants. My guess is that without $17B endowments that could fund tuition for the entire undergrad population, they’re more apt to jump for qualified applicants who are committed to paying full tuition in order to allow the school to be more aggressive in aid for others. It makes more sense as a business model, I guess, for Colby, than it does for USC.

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IMO it is way too early in the process to write off looking at Wash U or Vanderbilt for ED. At a 1420 PSAT with no prep, you could reasonably be looking into the 1500s with some good prep and a couple of attempts. I don’t have any experience with Vandy but get on your admissions counselor’s radar at Wash U. If a school like Wash U is a clear number one choice, then ED can give the boost to be right in the mix. Even in this hyper-current admissions environment, there are a lot of kids getting into schools in their range.

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Thanks. Trying to be super careful not to set expectations too high since she’s already got so many reaches on her list as it is. But, if she kills it on the SAT then maybe we go back and re-think the reach schools where she might have a legit shot versus those that are a pipe dream. I just really don’t want her to aim too high and then feel disappointed with where she gets in, so my focus has been on finding schools that are in the target/likely category and pushing her to get really excited about them. But, maybe I’m erring too far on the side of caution in evaluating her reach schools.

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I’m probably more in the minority here, but sometimes, you sell yourself short while managing expectations. Even though the current cycles have produced some crazy results, the number of kids applying to schools and the number of spots available haven’t changed much. I’m all for having a well-thought-out list with safeties, matches, and targets. These kids put in so much hard work, if it’s a top choice school and a “reasonable reach” put your best foot forward.

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How about Scripps since she likes Barnard?

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A 1420 on the PSAT is likely to translate to about a 1470 on the SAT assuming she’s had all the relevant math. With some prep she may well get to 1500 or at least very close. I have no idea how much that helps her chances but it’s probably attainable.

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Barnard appealed initially because of its location right in NYC and the fact that it is part of Columbia. On the tour, she also really liked that it was a small LAC and a women’s college (about which she - and I - were surprised), but only because of the presence of those other two factors. She likes the unique combination of qualities that Barnard has specifically - small women’s college that’s a part of a large research institution, and in the midst of a big city that she loves. It’s such a combination of unique positives.

I’ve talked to her about the Claremont consortium, and Scripps in particular. But she’s much less interested. It has in common with Barnard that it’s a small all-women’s LAC that’s a part of a larger institution (or group of institutions in this case). It’s also an academically excellent school. But, from my understanding, it’s pretty far outside of LA and she’s less attracted to being a part of a consortium than being a part of a large university.

I’m not saying I necessarily agree with her - I’d be thrilled to be lucky enough to attend Scripps, or for her to attend it - but that’s where her head is right now.

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Yes - never in a million years would I have expected my daughter to even consider a women’s college. You summed up her feelings perfectly.

So, it is indeed a unique combination. Rather than looking for “the same” elsewhere, it’s probably better to realize that anywhere else will always be different, but other colleges will have their own, unique advantages that will make them equally “good” fits - just for different reasons.

PS: I remember my first visit, going through the gate, turning around to face Broadway, and taking this picture below. It captures it all: behind the gates of a small LAC, immersed in the big city, and part of the large co-ed university right across the street:

IMG_0140 (2)
IMG_0140 (2)1920×1350 480 KB

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