Carleton is need aware so being full pay will give her a bit of an edge. If she likes Reed, Davidson and Pomona she should definitely look into it.
@Zinhead I think the figures from the collegedata website are a bit out of date. I looked at the Pomona 2016/2017 CDS and calculated that 12% of men were admitted but only 7.6% of women. https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/cds-2016-2017.pdf
The recent admissions results of your niece’s high school graduating classes may be predictive of her application success. Both my unhooked high stats/income white Ds had disappointing results coming out of a suburban public high school, and between the Naviance data and tracking similarly situated female seniors it really wasn’t a surprise. But there are schools- public and private- that regularly send girls with the same profile to top colleges and universities.
For schools like Whitman and Reed which value “demonstrated interest” according to Common Data Sets, make sure she shows them the love.
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Also since she wants to do medicine a good local school might be easier and set her up for a better med school.
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WHAT does she want to study in college?
What will her major be?
Being an OOS premed at any Calif school is not a great idea.
A school that isn’t a big reach is better for a premed anyway…unless she really don’t know if she wants med school.
While it’s not exactly a safety, I think her chances at Whitman are very good–42% female admit rate, and she is above average for their pool. I believe Whitman would like that she is full pay and may throw in some merit to sweeten the pot.
I disagree about downplaying Guatemala. Going back several years in a row shows something more than your average flit around the globe.
@mom2collegekids is on point for this.
If she is really set on pre-med and she is confident that she will not change, I wouldn’t recommend seeking out a school like Stanford except for a very extraordinary kid. It will only make her life more difficult.
I think it is also important for everyone to understand the path to being a doctor. Many students and parents have no idea about it. Someone recently explained to me that their daughter (a HS junior) wanted to major in medicine and become a Dr. I said, you mean pre-med, so she can go to Med School. They said, no, she just wants to to college to study medicine right away, and be a Dr. when she graduates. I have do explain that this is not possible. Many people outside of CC: do not know these things. The parent then told me that they looked at schools and want to apply to Stanford. I suggested that they need to have other plans because there is only a 5% admit rate. The parents said maybe they should apply to a second school “just in case.” This student did not have a 3.98 or a 1550. I suggested that the family should consider discussing this with the high school counselor.
Just another thing to consider.
I am surprised that nobody has mentioned Michigan in these last two pages. Michigan slots quite nicely between U Washington and Duke, and it allows EA. Ann Arbor is a great town, and if D hadn’t gotten into UChicago, she would have happily considered her acceptance at Michigan.
In terms of application strategy, I would recommend EA to Michigan and ED to a top 10 school like UChicago, or Duke. UChicago has clearly shown this year that it provides a notable admission advantage for ED vs. EA, whereas Duke states very clearly that ED provides an admission advantage.
And if ED doesn’t work out, than there is the option of ED II at some schools, of which the most highly ranked are UChicago and Vanderbilt. At this point, I would suggest ED II at Vanderbilt along with some reach applications, and some safeties if Michigan didn’t work out for some reason.
Now, all this assumes that she is not absolutely set on medicine. If absolutely set on medicine, I would then recommend Pitt and Alabama where she is likely to get merit scholarships. The parents can then save their money for med school.
Two of my nephews (brother & sister) went to Stanford just a few years ago, and they didn’t have any special “hook” and were typical white middle class. On the other hand, my D had similar stats to your niece (3.98 UW, 1540 SAT) and didn’t get in to Stanford (but she applied RD which is much harder). I think your niece has a shot at all of those schools. Will she get in? Impossible to say. Once you’re “in range”, which she is, then a lot of it is luck. If Stanford is her dream school, then sure apply EA. If she’s not set on Stanford, then use ED for other picks that she loves and is a tad easier to get into - Duke or Pomona, for example, or Reed. Actually she has a good shot at Reed at RD, and I’d say Whitman would almost be a safety. All those schools on her list are excellent and will prepare her fine for med school. You don’t have to get into the “best” college to go to the best med schools. For example, the daughter of a close friend just got accepted to UWash medical school, considered one of (if not the) the best, and she did her undergrad at Wash. State. Only to Stanford or an Ivy if she has a burning desire to go.
“Don’t be too discouraged. Reading CC too long can give you a false sense of pessimism.”
@ThankYouforHelp , so true. People who are not adcoms should not, except in the most obvious of cases, ever say to a kid posting here “forget it.” But alas, many do. I’m sure it has nothing to do with their own shortcomings. 
That said, the list is fine because she’ll get into Whitman and UW with that GPA. I’m assuming there is at least some rigor behind that GPA … Whitman will look for it. For UW, it won’t matter as much. They are a GPA-driven admissions office. Below 3.7 and you start to need other things to support your application.
She should consider more LACs if she’s interested in them. There is a wide swing between Pomona, which is super hard to get into, and Whitman, which is a great school but much easier to get into.
She should look at the NESCAC schools and some of the great LACs in the midwest, like Carleton, which is a fantastic school.
I would not recommend blowing the ED chip on Stanford.
“I think it is also important for everyone to understand the path to being a doctor. Many students and parents have no idea about it. Someone recently explained to me that their daughter (a HS junior) wanted to major in medicine and become a Dr. I said, you mean pre-med, so she can go to Med School. They said, no, she just wants to to college to study medicine right away, and be a Dr. when she graduates. I have do explain that this is not possible. Many people outside of CC: do not know these things. The parent then told me that they looked at schools and want to apply to Stanford. I suggested that they need to have other plans because there is only a 5% admit rate. The parents said maybe they should apply to a second school “just in case.” This student did not have a 3.98 or a 1550. I suggested that the family should consider discussing this with the high school counselor.”
Ok, but I would say that this is not typical. Most people who even know what Stanford is are not that egregiously clueless.
“Actually she has a good shot at Reed at RD, and I’d say Whitman would almost be a safety.”
I’d agree.
@NosyCaliparent " Her choices are Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Duke, Whitman, Reed, Davidson, Pomona and University of Washington and Washington State as safeties."
I think this is an excellent list. She has some excellent schools such as UW, Davidson and Whitman where she has a good chance given her stats. If anything, if she is okay with a few more essays would add one or two more reaches with strong science programs (maybe Northwestern, Tufts, Georgetown and/or Hopkins) and another low reach/match such as Boston College or BU.
“If not, the best thing you can do for her is find some more “match” choices that are, admissions-wise, easier than Duke but more selective than Washington State.”
University of Washington and Washington State University are very different schools. She’s practically a lock for UW. Unless she wants to study Animal Husbandry or really likes Pullman, Wa, there is no need to add that one.
FWIW, $350K+ makes you upper middle class in Seattle, but not affluent. It all depends on where you live. I’m sure $350K anywhere in Alabama makes one Lord of the Manor. In Seattle, that’s just another successful professional.
Either way, she can go where she wants to go.
Early decision is extremely, extremely important to some very good schools, especially schools that are trying to protect their yield, their average standardized test scores, and thus, their place in the US News rankings. These schools know that an applicant who gets in in the ED round is going to come to their school and their bottom line stats will be protected.
Our guidance counselor told us that high test score and grades students lacking a huge hook especially should consider ED applications to WashUStL, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, Cornell, or maybe even UPenn (but not Wharton). For some reason no one at this high school ever applies to Duke, Vanderbilt or Emory, but I’ve heard that the same principle applies to those places. Her line essentially was “If you have great SATs and you apply early to Wash U or Notre Dame you WILL get in. If you wait to apply RD, you WILL get waitlisted. We’ve seen it over and over.”
Unhooked but very high high grade/score applicants also should consider ED applications to the top 10 LACs like Bowdoin, Wellesley, Middlebury, Carleton or CMC (probably anywhere other than Amherst, Williams and Pomona).
Remember these are all great, great colleges that would serve anyone well. But they are searching for the students who really want to be there, not students who would be happy to be there but when push comes to shove and the RD letters come in, probably will choose Yale or Amherst instead. ED lets these great colleges fill their class with high scoring achievers for their stats, and then they can use the regular decision waitlist to fill in the rest of the class with specific needs like the oboe players, the debate team captains, and whatever. HYPSMCC and AWP kind of do it the other way around - grab the hooks in ED, protect the average grades/scores/stats if necessary in the RD round.
This is all anecdotal, so take it for what it’s worth - not much. All of us are just blathering our opinions on here anyway.
@MiddleburyDad2 “FWIW, $350K+ makes you upper middle class in Seattle, but not affluent. It all depends on where you live. I’m sure $350K anywhere in Alabama makes one Lord of the Manor. In Seattle, that’s just another successful professional.”
Sorry but that’s just not true. This is from 2012 but a household income of $350k put you in the top 2% in Seattle. Average (median) was about $60k.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?_r=1&ref=your-money&
Don’t despair for unhooked, white, middle-class girls, they do just fine. I have one of them. And plenty of them do manage to get into top colleges. Read this post: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1878059-truthful-advice-about-getting-into-top-colleges-for-your-average-excellent-student-p1.html
There are a lot of really good perspectives in this thread. I don’t feel sorry in the slightest for girls like the one you describe. They will do well in life, but they might not get into Duke. (In fact, I know two girls who just applied ED to Duke, they sound like the girl you describe. They didn’t get in.) Let’s be honest. These girls don’t really have challenges. I am not trying to sound harsh, but I am so much more aware, after spending three years on this site. There are kids who struggle, have no money, have nothing, and still manage to achieve great things. I do not begrudge those kids because they got into Duke and the two girls I just mentioned didn’t. I don’t begrduge them for getting into Brown when my kid didn’t. My kid goes to an excellent school, and so do most average excellent students. Just saying.
One more thing. From our school’s perspective, Vanderbilt has the most stats-based admission process of any top-20 school, by far. Unlike other top-20 schools where there is a blur between rejected and admitted, there is almost a clear delineation between admitted and rejected for Vanderbilt. In our school’s case, just about anyone with 2300+ SAT or top 10% GPA was pretty guaranteed admission.