Chance my child for GWU/American/BU/BC/Emory/UMD/Tufts/UCONN/UMASS

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

US Citizen
Midwest
Large Public High School

Intended Major(s)

Majors: Economics/Pol. Science/Business

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores(Roger Hub UC GPA calculator)

Unweighted GPA: 3.74
Weighted GPA: 4.1
Class Rank: school doesn’t rank
ACT/SAT Scores: Planning to take

Coursework

APUSH
AP Bio

Taking

AP Micro/Macro
AP GOV
AP Lang

Awards

Highest Honors award
some local piano competitions
outstanding witness in mock trial

Extracurriculars

Mock trial
FBLA
Moot Court
Ivy league IR summer program
Youth curt
Congressman campaign volunteering
Abuse prevention internship

Cost Constraints / Budget EFC shows 45K. We can afford that and can stretch little bit more

Any chance at BC, BU, GWU, UMD, American, Tufts, Emory, UCONN and UMASS?

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Any chance - of course - and you don’t have a test score yet.

At this schools that track interest - at least GW and American - get on their lists, start opening emails, join a session.

I’d say all are reaches - even with a good SAT.

Forget the EFC - google each school and Net Price Calculator.

Then fill them out. Each one. The privates go by that - what they think - not the feds. They look at home equity, assets and other things.

UMD will need a scholarship - so unlikely to meet cost.

Good luck.

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Too early to say. I know they don’t rank, but they have to give some sort of nomogram that indicates the weighting system, and in what percentile of the class the student’s GPA puts them. If the weighting adds a full point, and his GPA is 4.1/5.0, that’s not gonna help a lot.

Did he take the PSAT? How did that come out? If he’s planning to take the ACT or SAT, he should have taken a practice exam for each, decided which one he’s best suited to, and begun self-prep, if he’s motivated. Or you could pay for tutoring or a class.

I think he might get into UMass, maybe UConn, maybe American. I don’t think he’ll get much merit money at any of them. But why are any of them better than your in-state flagship state U, which would likely be cheaper for you than UMass/UConn?

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@parentologist , thanks for your input. I totally understand your point and I am struggling myself with it to explain her. I have a tutor for SAT/ACT but the kid lost all the motivation recently this year. So I am worried.
We have an older kid in college in east coast so planning to move closer to both. Also Midwest doesn’t have many opportunities in general.

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Midwest DOES have opportunities, especially educationally. Midwest states have excellent flagship state U’s, and also some very good second U’s. But yes, if you have a child who has lost all motivation recently, you should be worried. Did something bad happen to her? I remember once I had a patient who was totally suicidal over her boyfriend having died in a car accident, driving to come see her late at night at her request. She was so incredibly guilty. And her parents knew NOTHING about it. She couldn’t tell them, since they were a strict South Asian immigrant family, and having a boyfriend was absolutely forbidden. They didn’t understand why she had suddenly changed. I had another patient, a South Asian immigrant boy, who was suicidal, even had a plan (although in my opinion jumping out a second story window isn’t a very effective plan.) Parents were completely unaware of this - their only concern was that he wasn’t the absolute top student in the school.

Maybe you should make an appointment for her with her pediatrician. Call beforehand to let them know about your concerns. Sure, sometimes they get off track in high school because they’re too distracted by social issues, but it can also be that they’re depressed, or having a reaction to something bad that happened to them, that they haven’t told you about.

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I’d guess that BC, BU, Emory and Tufts are all somewhat high reaches, with Emory and Tufts being slightly tougher admits than BU and BC, but all very difficult with less than 20% acceptance rates (these schools are reaches for any student!). GW and American are both a little bit easier admits, but I don’t know if they’re targets - perhaps lower reaches, or perhaps high targets. American perhaps might be a target if your child could apply ED- they admit a huge percentage of each class ED, and RD then becomes much more competitive. ED would likely improve chances at nearly all of these schools to varying degrees, but since you need aid and probably want to compare aid packages, that may not work for you. A high test score would also help.

I’m not that familiar with UMD, UCONN, and UMASS.

My daughter looked at quite a few of these schools and one school she really liked that’s not on your list (likely because it’s not where you want to be geographically) is University of Denver. Great school, right in a city, merit aid is likely, pretty campus and would be a target. You might also consider University of Vermont.

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Oh, I missed Uconn and UMASS - check the NPCs - and for merit (UMASS for sure)…to make sure in line price wise.

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Also Fordham - another school that would likely be a target and that fits with some of the rest of the schools on this list.

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Low Probability
BC
BU
Tufts
Emory

Toss-Ups
GW
American
U. of Maryland (high target/low reach)
U. of Massachusetts

Likely
UCONN

These are my guesses, but I am not an admissions official. And these are my guesses for acceptance…not for getting the price into your budget. Run the Net Price Calculators (NPCs) to make sure the school is providing a price that you can actually afford, as they don’t always align with what FAFSA indicate.

As soon as I saw your D’s interests in poli sci, economics, and business, I thought of U. of Richmond. It’s a tough admit, but not as difficult as the schools in the low probabiliy category.

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Great poli sci / b schools - and you’d stretch a bit $ wise - U of Denver and Indiana University. Both safeties.

If there’s an international focus, Ole Miss, IU, and Charleston. Ole Miss would hit budget for sure and likely Charleston and even IU with their merit although likely not a direct admit to Kelley - if went business.

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Definitely apply ED or EA to Richmond

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@Illinoisparent12, @AustenNut , @tsbna44, @parentologist and @EduQueen ,

Thank you all for your inputs. This girl doesn’t discuss anything. She is fine if we don’t talk anything about school/college/studies. She’s a good kid but not putting enough effort to take the responsibility and do anything in addition to school. I think her friend circle and social media is another reason for not being motivated. If I talk anything about studies, she doesn’t respond or postpones the topic.

That’s the we want away from our iwn state abd hoping she might find some good friends and start from there. Most of her again go to in state school. Being a timid personality, she may not make new friends and just hangs on with the old friends. They are good friends in general but not when it comes to studies/motivation.

I will definitely keep URichmond in mind. Any other suggestions I might have missed? I know, U of Indiana is a safety for us. We like Denver too but I think she didn’t express about the place earlier.

I am not sure if I can apply ED to any school as I can’t expect much merit for her stars and not sure how much we really qualify for need based. Our income is >200k and unfortunately these days housing market became a hype.

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Going to give UConn a 50/50. It’s v v competitive now especially for OOS.

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So you can study poli sci and econ just about anywhere - and please understand that business and econ (a liberal art) are two different things. Business is more restricted but many schools have. Business often includes disciplines - such as marketing, accounting, finance, supply chain, IT. There are also some general programs.

Given mostyour schools are on the Eastern Seabord and all are urban-ish except Uconn/Umass - you might look at a Pitt. Getting outside of urban, Miami Ohio for public and there’s a ton of great liberal arts schools in the East - from a Dickinson, Gettysburg to Allegheny to Hobart - up the cost to the New Englad schools that will be a shade easier than your list - such as Connecticut college and then other mid size such as Bryant. Elon - if a tad more isolated is ok.

I already mentioned Denver (not urban but in city; $45K a stretch), Charleston (very urban - my kid chose over UMD and American, amongst others), Indiana, and as an outlier Ole Miss due to their Kroft School.

It sounds like you won’t have need (as colleges determine) - not at most privates - with an income greater that $200K. But schools like Franklin and Marshall, Connecticut, etc. do meet need - so you can run their net price calculators and see. But forgetting that you have a somewhat reachy list except for a few, you have an affordable list - and at $200K, after you run the NPCs, I’m assuming you’ll be frightened away by the $80K+ price taggs of Tufts (no merit aid), BU, BC, Emory, etc.- where even with aid you’ll be over budget. So it would be safet to remove those now - and restart on the list.

Disagree on the test score, even without, you will get decent merit at a school like Miami of Ohio, if she can get up her unweighted this quarter U of Arizona, and depending on her test score - U of Alabama. WVU is another. Truman State - excellent - and smaller. There are loads of LACs such as Depauw, Kalamazoo, and more - that will throw gobs of money at her with her stats as of right now, even sans test.

W Carolina is only $8500 OOS including fees.

The thing with merit is - you need to go down in pedigree. And to find schools that will 100% hit budget - or at least a couple that you can fall back into just in case.

All that said, you have a $45K budget, and that can definitely be achieved - but given you’re in a large midwest state, i’m sure there are schools that are not the flagship - that can also be had at a bargain price (assuming you don’t wantyours as the flagship).

In short, if you are flexible, $45K works.

But tell us more - large, medium, small - urban, rural, sports, greek, weather, etc. I can kind of glimpse from these you’re showing but…helps to really dig in.

Thanks

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S22 with very similar stats(3.7 UW/4.1W) and 4AP and very modest ECs got into the following schools: UMASS, UConn, Pitt, American and Syracuse. Rejected at William and Mary and UMD. We are in MA. BU you might have a chance ED. All the rest reaches.

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You can’t apply at all! she has to do it…and if she is unmotivated it is going to be problematic.

I would be too! How does she feel about your planned move?

There are lots of reasons kids don’t want to engage with the college conversation, including anxiety about leaving home, anxiety about meeting parent’s expectations, conflict between what they want and what their family and/or friends want, etc.

This is not a useful calculator except for the University of California- which is not relevant here. The UC system has some very specific quirks. If the school doesn’t provide a GPA, you can do a rough&ready version yourself for UW GPA.

Finally, your biggest challenge with your list will be cost- $45K/year is a lot but getting most of the schools on your list down to that amount is likely to be hard. As others have said, run the NPCs on a few of those sites to see if they are at all possible. Many of the ones on your list retail at almost twice that number. For example, the average merit aid at GWU (COA ~$70K) was about $23K- last year, just about enough to bring a $70+ COA down to $45. But- less than a quarter of the applicants were offered any merit aid, and from what we can tell your student’s stats put her in the middle of the accepted student range. Merit aid is used an incentive to get strong students to choose that school. So, GWU looks more likely from an admissions pov than for affordability.

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But assuming they have no need, they can’t ED at BU (or anywhere). And short of maybe the two publics, they won’t hit cost at any of those.

That’s an co-issue on their school selection - in my opinion. Pitt is a flyer - they can apply early and hope for merit - but typically you need to be a top applicant, etc. But it was on our list and we got in - but same thing, didn’t make our budget. We were full pay - but I wasn’t willing to be - sounds like this will be a similar situation.

It’s the type of school to try with - as long as you have a 100% sure thing financially in the bag…

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@tsbna44 , thanks for a detailed message. To be honest with you, Miami of Ohio doesn’t really work well. I know it’s a great college but being from a South Asian vegetarian family background, it may be hard. Some of our friends found it non-diverse college and couldn’t adjust there and later transferred to a different college. Most of the colleges you mentioned falls under the same category.

We’re looking for a decent, not highly competitive, good South Asian population, good opportunities but close to city, not too rural too, not too small (at least 15-20K population as our high school itself 5K). She doesn’t want to go anything of her high school size.

I am sure she is a nice kid but not matured enough yet to handle the high school stress. She has high dreams but doesn’t know yet that she has to put more effort to get there. I think she lost the motivation just because she is not able perform well and also may be comparing with peers and sibling too. We tried counseling but it didn’t really work well as she didn’t share anything with the counselor. I hope she learns along the way.

I really appreciate any inputs on colleges, things that work with my kid etc.

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I think you need to figure out whether or not you’re going to ED. For my S23 we decided to roll the dice and I will tell you there were times we were second guessing as the EA process can be very unpredictable.

A bunch of the schools offer ED1 and ED2 so so can take two swings. American and GWU love ED students (rule of thumb is the lower the overall yield is the more ED makes a difference).

Some others to look at - Holy Cross, Big endowment, outstanding alumni network. Kind of a cross between BC and Richmond. Lafayette is another LAC that might fit

I would also look at Pitt, it’s a great school with Rolling admissions. If you can get her application in early you can get an acceptance in by Thanksgiving and take some of the pressure off.

If you decide you want to look for more merit look at some of the other Jesuit schools (Xavier, Fairfield, St Joes ¶… Providence College). Similar for Marist

Best of luck!!! If you can get her to get her essay and common app done this summer, it will take some of the stress off of next fall

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ok - will take that back and if others don’t come up with suitable ideas, will work on later.

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