Congratulations on all of your accomplishments! I think you will be an extremely strong applicant and I suspect you will have more than one acceptance to an extremely selective college if your essays and letter of recommendations are strong. It’s questionable whether LSU is a financial safety, but if you’re interested in Louisiana, check out U. of Louisiana – Lafayette as you would get its top merit aid offer and I’d be stunned if they didn’t waive the remainder of the tuition for you. I agree about Tulane being more of a match and that they like to see a lot of demonstrated interest.
Out of curiosity, what is it about Middlebury that appeals to you? That seems to be the biggest outlier on your list to me. If you like Middlebury, then have you thought about Hamilton? Another need-blind school that will meet full need and seems to have a generous definition of need is Davidson, in North Carolina. This one would probably fall into the match category for you. U. of Chicago would be another reach, but I would at least investigate it if you haven’t already. I also agree with the suggestions from others about Amherst and Rice.
@evelyncarr, if your username reflects your real name, you may want to change it.
IIRC, Harvard is REA, and you can apply to other early action PUBLIC universities, but not private ones. So…I don’t think you can apply to all three if these EA.
They are hooks for you.
Having them perceive the rural environment through little touches in your essay can go a long way (mentioning walking by corn fields, cows mooing in the morning mist, driving 25miles to find a movie theater, or the excitement when a Walmart was built and they had to put the first street lights in town ← yeah, true story… or whatever is true that you really experience.)
Thanks everyone for your replies!
Updated final school list(for math major):
Harvard EA, UNC EA, UVA EA, Amherst, William, Duke, Caltech, WVU, UChicago, Vanderbilt, Emory, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, University of Washington, and MIT.
Will update as soon as firs decision comes back, not expecting anything from Harvard but its worth a shot!
Wait, U Washington? I don’t think they have special scholarships for OOS.
Do you want to add one more “match” or would you be happy if everything fails* and you were at WVU (Honors)?
(*for the record, I think you’ll do very well, but … you never know :s)
(Also, it may be a typo, but it’s WilliamS ← the school may not be well-known in WV even though it is on here but just in case, would rather tell than not…)
This is common among highly selective colleges. To your benefit, you may be able to choose most of the schools to which you apply based on aspects of importance to you beyond finances. With respect to this, this site can be helpful regarding any of the partner colleges included:
Be sure to run the WashU NPC. For our middle-class family, WashU was much more expensive than comparable schools like Rice and Vanderbilt, likely due to a more conservative definition of “need.”
My gc feels WashU and Amherst are safeties so I’m kinda counting in on ad least getting into one of those. However, I’m concerned she’s over confident as almost no one applies to top20 schools so there isn’t much data to go off. With my stats, geographic advantage, and AMC results she feels I have a 50% shot at Harvard and am matched at my other schools. I’m not as confident, but my gc has discouraged me from applying to any more safeties. Do you think I can count and getting into ad least one school on my list besides WVU honors, or should I add another safety? I’m also unsure what really counts as a safety as I am getting conflicting takes from my gc and everyone on cc who makes any T20 school seem a reach for anyone.
In the most recent year, Amherst accepted 7% of its applicants. Of the colleges on your list, it’s perplexing that your counselor named this school, in particular, as a safety. To assure a good, or better, chance there, I believe you would need to apply ED. Nonetheless, your chances there may be fair to good regardless based on the potential strength of your application.
It wasn’t just those schools, I was just giving an example. She views all schools except Harvard, MIT, Caltech, and Duke as extremely likely. I think its because no one at my school has ever taken as advanced curriculum, gotten national merit semifinalist status, or qualified for AIME so she is a little ignorant of how competitive most applicants are. It just makes its harder to find reasonable matches as I’m not convinced that the school my gc designates as matches are actually that likely.
Three years ago, you would have known in mid-December if your GC was overestimating your chances. In addition to any ED/REA response, you would have had EA decisions from Michigan and some of the other public schools. The Covid-impacted dates really make re-calibrating a list before RD so much harder!
I agree with everyone that your chances of one or more acceptances at all of the reaches is good, even if the likelihood of individual schools isn’t as great as the guidance counselor says. If you don’t get an REA acceptance in December, you could always add a LAC with a higher acceptance rate than what you have now (maybe in the 30%+ range) if that gives you comfort. There would be many who would love to have you!
but just in case, would rather tell than not…)