College selection

Parents Forum
1

Hi Everyone!

New parent here. I have a Junior who will go to college next year. Trying to help her choose schools and want to run by you all what I am doing. First time doing this to please bear with me.

So some basic criteria. I am using the CC supermatch tool. Only privates in preferably in big cities in the NorthEast. Major in English. Not looking for financial aid. SAT 2360, ACT 36. GPA: 4.0 so far. Liberal environment must have.

I got as match some 20 schools of which I chose 9. Brown, Harvard, Columbia, MIT, Cornell, Barnard, Vassar, Amherst, Smith.

Then I added them in Parchment to see the odds. Harvard and Brown have hooks. UPenn has too but not sure why it didn’t come up in the list. Odds wise it is neck-to-neck with Columbia and the kid MUCH prefers New York over Philly anyway.

Reaches (<40% chance of admission):

MIT: 17%
Harvard: 26%

Columbia: 33%

Matches (<85% chance of admission):

Brown: 40%
Cornell: 48%
Amherst: 52%

Safeties (Rest):

Barnard: 85%
Vassar: 87%
Smith: 94%

Parchment college analysis says there is a 100% chance of getting into at least one of these and that expected number of acceptance letters is 4 out of 9.

Is this a good starting list for discussions with the GC and for making college trips?

Thanks for all advice!!

2

sales pitch?

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If you’re using some tool and it’s supposed to come up with schools in big cities, yet you got Cornell, Vassar, Amherst, and Smith, something’s wrong.

4

Parchment data is garbage. It is self reported by students who don’t always bother to update, sometimes project their results, and sometimes lie. And it is not a full set of data, only shows students who decided to post there. I consider it a “parlour game” to look at their info, nothing more. Does your school have Naviance? That is more reliable (although also not perfect, but at least the data is maintained by GCs).

And not sure why you say some schools “have hooks”. Are you saying she is a legacy at Brown, Harvard, and Penn?

5

You have a good start there.for reach schools, in Columbia,Harvard, and Brown. Barnard would be a good match. If you DD wants a big city, I agree with Marian,and I don’t think MIT has an English program. So much for the tools.

Looking at Boston, Tufts, BU, BC are excellent choices to check out as well. NYU in NYC is a school that should have come up. Going on to Philly, look at Penn, Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Villa Nova. DC has Georgetown and GW. Baltimore has Johns Hopkins. Most of these schools I’ve listed are selective to highly so. There are any number of excellent schools in those cities that are not as selective, and those too should be checked out.

My son’s best friend was just deferred from MIT EA and Columbia ED a few months ago with similar stats as your daughter, just to let you know how difficult this can be, even with those numbers. Another young man I know with top grades and test scores was also deferred from MIT. I have little doubt that both of them will get into one of the selective schools on their lists, but I wouldn’t say it’s 100%.

With her stats, your DD is within striking range of even the most selective schools. If she wants to give a school like Harvard a shot, SCEA gives her the best chance of acceptance but in doing so, she gives up the chance of what might be an excellent chance of getting into schools like Columbia, Brown, Penn etal on an ED basis. By checking out the schools, both online, reading some guides and visiting, if possible, looking at the programs offered, the cities they are in, your DD can start putting together a list and trying to get some sort of pecking order for her schools and making her decision of where to apply when in the fall. It goes very quickly once senior year starts, so she can start her research now. She’s ahead of the curve with her test scores where they are already, so that she does not have to worry about those tests. She probably should take 2 SAT2s as well, and that would be the extent of her tests, other than APs.

6

Yeah that’s odd. I was using the College Confidential SuperMatch tool. It shouldn’t have chosen Cornell, Vassar, Amherst, and Smith. Let me try again and find replacements. Problem with Naviance is that I am finding the odds to be way too optimistic as the school places ~15% in HYPSM each year. Naviance seems more realistic. Yes she is legacy in Brown and UPenn and facbrat at Harvard.

MIT is actually very highly rated in creative writing which may be her focus. SAT IIs she has taken and got an 800 in Math 2 and will be taking French and Latin this year. She got 5’s in 4 APs so far - Calc BC, Physics 1, Music theory, Computer Science A - and taking 5 more this year - Latin, French, English Lang, English Lit, Stats. Next year she is planning to take Art History and Physics C.

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I don’t understand the systems you are using or why. Her stats are good, so apply where you want to apply.Go visit some schools, the GC should help you with a list as well based on input she gets from your daughter and you. A list is nothing compared to seeing them for yourself if you can. If you look at schools that will help her determine the size (how much spirit, etc) and how far from home. Her GC can help with acadmic style of schools.

8

Why only the Northeast? There are some really good writing programs at colleges in other regions that are also good academic schools in general – places that would be a good fit for a student of this caliber. I’m particularly thinking of Washington University in St. Louis and Emory.

9

Agree, I’d sit her down with a copy of the Fiske Guide to Colleges and a packet of post-its instead of using the search tools.

10

If she looks beyond the Northeast, but in large cities, in addition to WashU and Emory there is the University of Chicago and Northwestern. (My son attended Chicago – they would love your d’s breadth.) Brown isn’t a large city but as you know it’s only an hour from Boston – and 3 hours from NYC. (My daughter attended RISD and often took train or bus to NYC where she had high school chums attending Columbia and NYU.)

11

Her stats put her in a good position for any school But “good” is relative. I think you can get the vibe in terms of how much being a faculty child at Harvard will help her by talking to others there. The Naviance for her highschool gives a much more accurate picture of her chances.

If big city is what she wants, then stick to those schools, there are plenty of them. Once she has a list, it comes down to prioritizing and strategy. SEA will give her the best boost for Harvard, you can see for yourself how many spots are left after those kids are accepted early and how many are applying RD and are deferred and still in the running. But that ends any other early chances. IF she’s not sure and MIT’s writing programs are of interest, EA for MIT and other non single EA schools can serve as safeties if she is accepted early, and she can then remain open without commitment for RD whereever she wants. So I suggest in that scenario, some EA safeties for her as well as MIT. If she comes up with a favorite school for ED, then that is what she should aim for along with EA safeties.

12

Forgot to ask…is her 4.0 unweighted? I am assuming it is, but thought it would be best to clarify.

13

So I think NYU and BC are good substitutes for Smith and Vassar. UPenn can stand in for Cornell. May be Tufts for Amherst? The LACs all seem to be in the middle of nowhere. :frowning: She isn’t going to look for anything beyond the NE big cities I know. This is just a prelim list of course something to take with us to the GC when we meet her. I didn’t think of the EA vs ED vs SCEA things at all. Hmmmm. This is complicated lol. Thanks much guys for being kind. I am lost here.

And yeah 4.0 is unweighted. School doesn’t give GPA anyway. But there are others with 4.0 GPA as well.

I looked up Fiske guide and will get it.

14

You might take her to visit a couple of “middle of nowhere” schools. Wellesley has a lovely campus, might appeal to her more than you would think. U of Chicago is another EA school in a large city – I know it isn’t east coast, but they love high stats kids there, and it might really appeal to her.

15

This looks like an exercise in short-listing the biggest name universities in NE cities, as if those are the only /most important variables. The student has grown up in and around Harvard & Boston- and if that doesn’t = big name + NE what does?!

The student obviously has the chops (and the numbers) to make a reasonable applicant to any college, so (imo) Chopin24567 can help her D best by making sure that she has had some legitimate exposure to different college experiences. It would be amazing if there wasn’t some institutional bias going on in the background (it’s Ivy or it’s nothing / there’s no place as intellectual as the NE / don’t look at any college that is ‘beneath’ your scores etc). Encourage her to go outside her box- go to Stanford for a weekend, sit in on a class there, etc. Go to Chicago, ditto. Help her pick out 2 or 3 LACs that are good all-rounders and are rich (in the sense of a lot going on) campus environments. and spend a night there (most of them have overnight programs, where you stay in a dorm). There is more to the ‘feel’ of a campus than can be sensed by their materials / reputations. Seemingly similar students can have a startlingly different reaction to the same school.

When visiting the colleges, make a point of talking to the people in the English department- she may not end up being an English major, but it is a place to start. Also, my D’s found sitting in on classes surprisingly helpful (even if the class itself wasn’t a core interest- sometimes the available choices are limited) . It is important to do it in a couple of universities, as the comparisons are as enlightening as anything. In one case it became the pivot that led to the final (and very happy) choice, but in all of them it helped move the dial between interested / not interested.

16

Lol Ivy bias? I thought we had a good mix half and half. I get your point though.

But really it’s the big city in the Northeast push which comes from the kid. We never pushed her this way or that and she makes her rules and honestly I don’t think she will be happy outside of a familiar environment of a big city. Now can she go halfway across the country to UChicago? Probably. We have no problem but she has to agree. She will live 4 years in the college and not us so we don’t want to push. We support whatever she wants if she can get in.

So she looked at the list and outright rejected Barnard as it’s a single sex school :-(. So no Wellesley either. Of course she ruled out UPenn as apparently no one can live in Philly lol. She wants to go to Columbia as no wonder it’s in NYC. I did plant a seed about visiting some LACs but she said she won’t get out of the car if we take her to any place but a big city school. I think this kid is destined for NYU :slight_smile:

17

I felt the same way when I was looking at colleges. Had to be in a big city. Wanted big city resources to supplement those of the college, wanted the mass transit/taxi options cities have and an airport. Also wanted the northeast, though I was willing to go as far south as DC.

18

Um really, there are only a couple of BIG cities in the Northeast…Boston, and New York. I guess Philly is Northeast too. Lots of colleges in those three places.

What about Haverford in Philly instead of Amherst? BC is about as close to Boston as Wellesley…I’d have her look at Wellesley too.

Is she interested in womens schools? What about Bryn Mawr?

I’m editing this sort of.

So really, she only wants NY or Boston. Well then, BU, Tufts, Harvard. BC, Columbia, NYU, MIT.

19

LOL yeah. And there is Northeastern too and Brandeis. Also Fordham. May be Brown as that’s a stone’s throw away from Boston. I think that’s enough and even may be 6 schools will be enough. What do you guys think?

20

BC straddles the Boston city line…closer to the city than Wellesley, and BC isn’t everybody’s idea of liberal. Barnard apparently not as insulated from men as other womens schools.Don’t trust parchments admissions predictions