My daughter
Hispanic female from NY
Currently. junior taking AP Physics, Psych and Stats. For a 4 on AP Comp Sci as a Sophomore
NHRP
1450 SAT
4.69 W GPA
2 Varsity sports
Volunteer tutoring
Started peer coaching program: college admissions, assisting ENL students
Intended major: biology and computer science
Reach
Stanford
Columbia
Georgetown (legacy)
John Hopkins
Fit
Boston College
Vassar
Williams
Amherst
Northeastern
UT Austin
Safety
Binghamton
Itâs hard to tell - your Weighted GPA seems high for few APs so iâm guessing your school gives a 4.33 to A+.
Hispanic is good - seems ECs are good but standard.
Iâd say your reach are reaches but Gtown is possible.
Your matches are reaches except BC.
Bingthamton is safe.
In CS, you may consider applying TO.
Hispanic helps of course.
Good luck.
Truth hurts but thank you. I need to manage expectations and come up with a more reasonable list if your assessments are spot on.
Thanks for the candor.
These schools are reaches for EVERYONE.
Youâre super smart, balanced on ECs - donât take it as a negative. When you apply to all the top 20 or top LACs, thatâs what you get.
We donât know your finances, etc. and that could play a part too.
Bio and CS - vastly different - probably an LAC is better to do both.
I didnât say you wouldnât get in.
But even a school like NEU - if you donât ED, itâs impossible. And UT Austin - youâre out of state.
btw - Binghamton is great - but maybe a Brandeis instead of a BC.
A Skidmore instead of Vassar.
When I say instead of, it could be in addition to.
But yes, Iâd have a few more lower but still strong options.
Could you get into the reaches - absolutely.
But they have far more quality applicants than avail spots.
Ok thanks. Truth is always better than fantasy when trying to manage a high achieving teenâs expectations.
Glad to hear any good fits.
Yes, this is a list of reaches except for Bing. Even BC with its 27% acceptance rate is no sure thing. I know so many excellent students recently who have been denied there. In fact, Iâm not even sure who is getting in lately.
Will she be happy with Bing? My son is a junior there and loves it, but many high achieving NY kids throw it on the list as a safety and then arenât happy when itâs their only option. A safety is only safe if the student can get in, can afford it, AND will be happy to attend.
A Hispanic student with great grades will get a hard look. She needs more colleges in the 40%-25% acceptance rate range.
I have to be honest, this list seems to be comprised solely of âcolleges people might have heard of.â I get no sense of what type of college she is interested in or why. Georgetown and Northeastern have little in common. Vassar and JHU are so different from one another that I am wondering how they appear on the same list.
Maybe give us an idea of what environment she is interested in. Liberal, conservative, urban, suburban, rural, preppy, arty, creative, socially aware, lots of Greek life, sporty, etcâŠ.
You donât mention cost factors. Does she need FA or big merit awards? Have you run NPCs for these colleges? Give us some more info and we can help you better.
lindagaf you are correct. The list is not a mature one necessarily, purely based on perceived reputation. It certainly needs to be modified for many of the criteria you rightly list.
To answer a few while I have you:
It would be refined more if my kid would provide me something to go on. Kids keep it pretty tight to the best sometimes.
Has she considered the ACT? My daughters could not get their SATâs over 1470 (math kids). They were chasing merit so just applied to safeties/matches.
took the ACT- got a 31, but she hated the test. I donât think she will retake.
She will retake the SAT, but to me honest, we were both pretty happy with her score. Were hoping to break 1400. Will she improve appreciably from 1450- I would say maybe⊠1470?
Before I move on from her list up top completely, let me explain how I was assessing possibilities. I took the midpoint between 25/75ile. If her score (1450) was at or above that point, I considered it a possibility, not a reach. I understand scores are only a part of the decision, but GPA and ECâs I thought she was reasonably strong. Maybe my approach is naive?
That aside, I would really like to hear suggestions as to where we should look.
I think her score is great, but if sheâs aiming for reaches, even if she has straight Aâs (like many) lots also have 1500+ scores. She has great stats, there are so many great schools that arenât Ivy. Has she done any tours? Some of my kids changed their minds on what type of college they wanted to attend after touring several.
ToursâŠI am not sure how between APâs, sports and test prep!!
Looking at test scores/GPA isnât a good way to sort match/reach/safeties. Acceptance rate is the key metric. IMO, if a school has a sub 20% acceptance rate itâs automatically a reach.
Most of the competitive schools will tell you that 95% of the applicants have the academic chops to succeed there. I think parents often think that the students getting rejected arenât qualified and are over reaching but that is not the case.
If she likes DC, take a look at American U or GW. UMD CP if she wants to look at a flagship. Those would be matches.
Brandeis was already mentioned in Boston.
That is a very interesting twist on this, and I have never thought of it that way. Thank you.
Now I need to resort the list. I think it changes things a good bit.
I think itâs really important to get an idea. My kids had a bunch of APs, 3 season varsity sports (senior captains), jobs, one had dance 5 nights a week and did the HS musical every year. They tutored, officers in clubs, peer leadership at church, and their ECâs were pretty average compared to student stats Iâve seen here., no published research, national award, NMF⊠Where does she want to go to school, close to home, where itâs warm? There are thousands of colleges in the US.
This is all very good food for thought. WSe need to come up with the right set of filters (location, major, chance of admittance, size, location, etc.) to even winnow day places that are worth visiting.
The tricky thing is what do the colleges think you can swing? Many of the âmeet full needâ schools give only FinAid, no merit. If you can swing that much, their algorithm may think that you can swing the whole amount- often in the $70K range these days. Be sure to run NPCs on anyplace you/she gets serious about.
UT-A OOS has a 10% acceptance rate and a $60K OOS COA, and unlikely to have any merit money. You need to consider whether UT-A is worth stretching your family resources that far, and have the money conversation with your student. It is entirely fair for you to say "our budget is X. For specific schools, that we agree to in advance, we would look seriously at stretching that budget to Y, but there would be trade-offs to make [in our family holidays / our retirement plans / replacing the car / etc] so it has to be considered carefully.
re: tours- as everybody who has navigated admissions cycles both before and during the pandemic will tell you, visits can make a huge difference*. Start with whatever colleges are within an easy drive for you (or are near places you are going to be anyway). It doesnât matter if she has the slightest interest in going to that school- she is building a vocabulary. The first tours are full of new and wondrous things; by the time sheâs done 2 or 3 the things that every college tour includes will be old hat and she will be better able to pick up on the differences of any given school. The schools run full-on marketing campaigns to get your kid to apply (even when there is zero hope of acceptance), and the good ones are really good at it. One of the Collegekids couldnât wait to get to a particular college that she was sure was the perfect fit for her. We barely made it through the tour- she viscerally didnât like the âfeelâ of the place and couldnât wait to get gone. There was nothing specifically wrong - it just didnât fit her. A student who as UT-A and JHU and Vassar on her list really needs to go see some campuses!
Spring break Junior year is a traditional touring time, as are weekends. Some schools have fly-in programs- usually for low-income students, but sometimes for URMs. Your daughter may be eligible for some as an hispanic applicant- itâs worth checking.
re: using mid-point of middle 50%- the selectivity and other characteristics of the school can materially affect how helpful that is. Itâs useless at Harvard, for example, because there are simply so many applicants with strong stats (middle 50 of ACT is 33-35), but also b/c there are so many categories who are not held to that standard (legacy, donor, recruited athletes, etc), who throw the curve.
*There is a whole thread on CC " Colleges your child crossed off the list after visiting, schools that moved up on the list. Why? " that has been going for 4 or 5 years now.
@MrkInMerrick - Yes the initial list may be based purely on reputation but itâs a good start to pressure test a few additional things that may resonate with your D.
First have some conversations around the intended major. Why Bio and CS? What classes does she like in HS? Are the majors picked because CS is the hot major now or something she is really interested in? The majority of HS juniors have a narrow view of what career options are available for different majors. Biology means I will be a scientist, math means I will be a math teacher. My S23 loves philosophy but it wasnât on his list of majors originally because he didnât think there were many jobs for Philosophers! Realizing that they go on to Banking, Law School, Med School etc was an eye opener for him.
Second, think about location? The urban/suburban is one element, but how far away from home is comfortable? Flying back on a plane for breaks? a 4-5 hour car ride away, can escape for a long weekend? or closer? Does she have a bit of Wanderlust and loves to experience new things or is she a diehard NYC girl!
Third try to get a feel for the vibe of the colleges on your list. Whatâs is it about that school that resonates with her? If itâs nothing more than itâs a T20 school, then throw it off the list. Start to visit a few schools, spend some time talking about what she liked and didnât like about each school. Start with a variety of options. Fordham (Catholic), Vassar (LAC), Rutgers & Bing (State Schools), Marist⊠Start keeping a spreadsheet, when something clicks look for other schools that seem to fit. The effort you put in here also helps when itâs time to write essays.
Most of all remember, you are not looking for the best school, you are looking for the best school for your daughter! Best of luck, pop on over to the Parents of 2023 board and share your journey!