^ I disagree, particularly when someone is in the top 10% or higher of their University cohort - I think it is an individual issue and really depends on each kid (not only on academic abilities but also on their personalities and what type of high school environment the kid is coming from) whether they will thrive in that type of environment.
Fit is about so much more than stats. Even a perfect match, stats-wise, can be misery for a student who will do poorly as a result. That’s why this thread is so useful.
My daughter and I fell in love with my daughter's perfect match school, ( Mount Holyoke, which encouraged me to start this thread ). Yes, we continued to visit and she applied to many other reach and safety schools. She got rejected from 3 reach schools (Middlebury, Colby and Vassar), and wait listed at 4 others. While dropping her off for her first day Friday at Mount Holyoke, I had a few free minuets as my wife was at the parents info session and my daughter walked up with her brother to get her room key card. I chatted with a Senior at an info desk, who had told me she transferred from Middlebury, the school that could have been seen as my daughter's dream school. This student told my how when she visited Middlebury she loved the school, but it just wasn't a match for her, and transferred after her Sophomore year. My daughter is not preppy, into sports or drinking, and is shy, maybe some of the reasons why this student didn't fit in. ( I would pick Middlebury for myself if I had the chance ) The entire process came full circle for me. If you are as fortunate as me, and your student finds a school that they get the feeling that is where they belong, don't chase rankings. My daughter has a facebook friend from the accepted students facebook page she met last night who also got into Harvard. If I could pick any school in the country, just after hearing about her first three days, I wouldn't change a thing, and I am a little embarrassed at myself that prestige crept into my thoughts at times in this process.
Thank’s to everyone who followed and posted on this thread, I didn’t realize it would take off like it did. I PM some folks who gave me some great personal advise, and I appreciate that. Reach out to others on this site, they are hear to help. Some like to brag a little, I’m, probable a little guilty of that myself.
Dropping off my daughter at college on Friday was one of the greatest days of my life, knowing what a perfect match her school is for her. It’s our job to raise them so they are able to take care of themselves when they leave.
@Akqj10 That’s wonderful, so glad your daughter found her “fit”. My D applied to all those same schools plus more and ended up choosing Skidmore based on social fit, location, and final COA. Mount Holyoke was a contender until the very last day, a fantastic school, best of luck to her!!
Beautiful post, @Akqj10 and thanks for starting this thread - it’s one of my favorites. You are kind to pay it forward to the CC community.
@Akqj10 wrote
That’s awesome! I could have written the same thing about our D. Dropped her off for her sophomore year at Susquehanna University. I also had to let go of the idea of “prestige.” This school is just perfect for D, down to the music scholarship for non-music majors that gives her a small annual stipend and free piano lessons. She was just beaming the entire time we were on campus with her. 
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@londondad I think I might agree with your last post. We aren’t there yet as we are still waiting for SAT from August and, of course, junior year grades. Being in the top 25th percentile could work at certain safety schools but, if the student has a very high GPA and something like a 34, being in a school where the 75th percentile is a 29 would probably not be the best fit. S19 is looking for collaborative environment and a good life/work balance so that’s what will we be seeking at all levels of his list.
Regarding finding safeties/matches for high stats kids where they can feel like have academic peers- I think it goes beyond looking at stats. Look for schools that have a ‘work hard’ reputation (even if they also include play hard), look for schools that attract serious minded students, look for schools that have some very noteworthy academic departments. Stats alone won’t tell the whole story and there are schools out there where the vibe is definitely not work hard. You could have 2 schools theoretically with the same stat profile, and one could be known for rigor and the other for slacking off.
@londondad that’s fine that you disagree. I said a high stats student can find like minded students and can thrive in an environment with lesser achieving students. I never said or implied all could, I just said that it was a possibility. In fact , I know it’s a possibility because my son is doing just that and surrounded by other students just like him.
@londondad add my D to the overflowing bucket of high stat kids finding intellectual challenge, likeminded peers, and excellent faculty at a university with a broader range of ‘numbers’ admitted. Yes… a 4.0 (uw), 34 ACT, years of research experience, music, and athletics-- happy and challenged at U of OK. And… what’s more - it was her choice- she turned down a top 20 university (that was affordable, heck she even was awarded merit money there) because the research and study abroad opportunities was more to her liking at OU.
and since this was about choices crossed off after visiting… she crossed off Duke (b/c she felt like the social life revolved around hackathons and basketball… neither of which she likes) and GaTech (because Atlanta…)
Schools that moved up OU for the win… beautiful friendly campus, strong engineering, and great school spirit.
@homerdog yeah those dang 29 ACT kids are such slackers wouldn’t want them bringing down the academic integrity of a university…Seriously? Head over to the Class of 2018 Parents thred I recently posted a list of schools my DD applied to so far. Her 14% rank, 27 ACT, 4.81 wgpa might give you a good list of schools to move down or cross off your kiddo’s list. (Or go back to my similar stat DD2016’s list, it will give you even more schools to axe!)
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In a desperate attempt to inject some statistical reality into the direction this thread is moving into, everyone should remember that (a) nationally, the average ACT score is 20.8/average SAT score is 1083, and so once you get decently above that you’re really talking about the edge of the curve where there’s probably no meaningful difference; (b) somebody has to be the highest-stats kid in their entering class; and © the correlation between most any measure of intelligence and ACT/SAT score is tenuous at best.
TL;DR: Trying to rule out schools just because the test scores of the entering class are slightly lower than those of the applicant seems based in something other than anything academically meaningful.
ETA: That said, you have to thin the list out somehow, and so that’s cool. Just be careful when you try to give a rationale that sounds objectively meaningful for the process.
A high stats student of mine turned down acceptances at American and Georgetown for a full ride to Bowling Green university in Ohio (instate regional, act range 19-24, she scored a 34 if memory serves). I will freely admit I was worried about her as she went off to school. Two years in, she has gotten phenomenal leadership opportunities b/c she IS the cream of the crop there.
I toured bowling green with my niece several years ago… my biggest problem was that the buildings didn’t match 
In our case, our daughter has gotten the equivalent of all A’s and A+'s except in one class last yr. However, she is happier and thrives when she isn’t feeling intense pressure. The school she ends up going to can’t be too intense academically even if she is capable. Some kids thrive in different kinds of environments. The goal for us would be to find a school that has lots of bright kids who inspire her, challenge her and work hard, but are not under enormous pressure all of the time. It’s tricky finding the right balance, especailly when you are considering so many factors.
I actually wonder about high stats kids who feel they can’t learn and thrive among peers who may be less intelligent or less educated than themselves. What happens after school is over? Looking at you, parents, are you really only surrounded by peers who are equally as intelligent and equally motivated as you? Can you still get your job done? And, among those co-workers, friends and associates, is every person as educated as you? Were at least SOME of them, perhaps, not “high-stats” kids before they matured and found their niche? Or, maybe even some of your friends and business associates didn’t even attend college? People who are highly insulated and associate only with people “like them” may have a much harder time thriving once they leave the hot-house of a super-elite university.
^ This is exactly what I worry about happening to my state school. It was always regarded as having a great reputation for producing easily employable people. The graduates were known for their ability to connect across social and intellectual classes and were humble enough to pick up after a conference room meeting, grab a mop if there was a spill, etc. reflexively getting things that needed to be done, done.
I spent all the years of my education - including med school, surprisingly - amidst classmates who were less academically talented than I was (although many of them were more intelligent and/or talented in other ways). It wasn’t good for me. I didn’t learn to study, I didn’t learn to use my brain to its capacity (I’m not smart enough or motivated enough to have done that without a push), and I spent so many years hiding my intelligence that I can no longer find it. So, although that rant was entirely off topic :-), I know that I do not want the same thing to happen to my own children. I want them to experience college at the highest intellectual level in which they can thrive. We did check out one lovely college where they would be statistically at the very top (I was wondering whether it would be worthwhile to look at lower-stats schools that might give big merit aid), but the visit made it clear that my children would find few intellectual peers there and that the education provided would be directed toward the majority. I think large universities are a wild card. They certainly have an abundance of smart and intellectual students on campus; the question is whether they ever find each other. So (in a gesture toward the topic under discussion), that is one way we are crossing colleges off or moving them up the list.
@labegg I apologize if my post seemed insulting or condescending in any way. I didn’t mean to move the thread into a discussion of higher stats kids. And I certainly didn’t mean to offend anyone. I was just agreeing with other posters that certain high stats kids may fit better with a school with a certain profile over another.
Thinking about it more, the college experience must be different than the high school one. Thanks to all of you who have posted and given me more to consider. In S19’s high school, he would be bored in non-honors classes. He took two freshman year because we weren’t sure about the workload of all honors and wanted him to not be overwhelmed. He never had much homework in these classes and honestly didn’t learn all the much. The discussions were not what he was experiencing in his other classes and he preferred to take all honors the following year. At our particular high school, the average (!) ACT is a 29 so the kids in his honors classes are made up of kids with much higher scores and those are the kids he identifies with.
From what I’m hearing, college could be different when it comes to the environment and the classes in particular. Depending on the school, professors could very well be able to challenge all types of students in the same class. Just to be clear, S19 is very interested in breaking out of the box that is our suburban high school. He wants diversity, both economic diversity and cultural diversity. He’s not looking to surround himself with a bunch of people just like him. He’s not judgemental (and neither are we as parents). Of course it’s important for him to meet all types of kids.
Two of the schools we visited (Beloit and Denison) would definitely be considered more inclusive and he really liked them both. The only school we visited that is considered elite is Chicago and I knew he wouldn’t like it because of the city location and the intensity. We are nearby and we were curious so we visited. He did like that the students challenged each other (they made that abundantly clear) but thought it was too intense. In my post, I was just trying to say that he might like a school with those types of kids but a different environment. We will see how he feels about that once we visit more schools. I didn’t mean that he definitely would not like a school with a wider range of kids academically. We aren’t sure yet. We are still trying to figure all of that out. And S19 would certainly “pick up a mop to help out”. Just because a child is bright does not mean he’s entitled.
Again, please know I was not trying to offend anyone. Hopefully I’m more clear in this post.
@londondad Thank you for the honest and provocative post. We are in a similar boat with S18 who has some very strong aspects as an applicant but also some weaknesses, such that he will end up applying to a wide variety of schools, including those where his test scores will be in the top 10 percent but for other reasons would be a “match” school for him.
One thing we’ve been considering in this regard is school size. So, for example, we visited Pitt and some small not so selective Pennsylvania LACs. We liked all the schools and he has a very strong chance of getting in, we think. However, our view was that at Pitt, if he’s in the top segment of the class academically, that puts him with a thousand other kids, whereas at a small college it puts him a group of hundreds (or less).