I am quite sure that he will get into BU and Northeastern, but he still needs a safety, so youâd better add Rutgers to the list. Can you afford to pay 75K/yr for 4 yrs? Would he be eligible for financial aid? If not, he is well-positioned for merit scholarships at less competitive schools, so you might want to work that angle, too.
Since he seems to like Boston, has he considered Tufts? He is most definitely qualified, but unless he shows a lot of âinterestâ in the school, they might reject him because they think heâll wind up going someplace else. I saw this happen this year to a top student in my kidâs school, who did wind up getting into Princeton. You should have a talk with your son about the necessity of showing great âinterestâ in each and every school that he applies to. He doesnât have to lie, just has to give each and every school the impression that he is very interested in going there, more interested in going there than to any other school in the universe. Itâs aggravating that they have to play this game, but since the colleges are, the students have to, too.
He most definitely has the stats to get into T20 schools. But he doesnât have an extracurricular that really stands out from the pack. It is not too late to do this! He could possibly do something this summer that would show great drive, creativity, and leadership. This might not help with MIT, but could help with other T20 schools. For MIT, heâd need to do some type of engineering project or research this summer that would be really impressive, and I just think itâs probably too last minute to arrange that, although if the summer project generates some form of recognition by late 2021, it will still help with regular decision applications.
During the pandemic, the extracurricular/charity flavor of the year was doing something over the internet that reached out to and helped people despite the lockdown restrictions. This summer, I think that activity could be helping disadvantaged kids, in-person, to catch up on their essentially missed year of schooling. If you live in NJ, you cannot be far from a disadvantaged area. He might want to look into recruiting a group of friends to run a tutoring program for disadvantaged kids. They might be able to piggy-back onto some summer youth program, like the Boys and Girls clubs, YMCA, town day camps, or church day camps, offering the kids a half hour of tutoring during the day, in small groups, running throughout the day. With help, the kids might get a lot of catching up done on essential math and reading skills, and if your son can recruit other good students to join him in this, he would have a fantastic extracurricular that is timely and relevant, that shows innovation, drive, leadership, and community involvement. This is just one idea, but I hope it makes your son realize that it is not too late to add in a significant and worthwhile EC this summer that will help his application. My son began his pandemic service EC in September, put it on his successful early action Ivy application for November. I doubt it hurt, probably helped.
