In terms of a general source of information, the Princeton Review assigns WF a selectivity rating of 95 (60–99 scale), and UR a 93.
My son just finished his first semester at Northeastern. His experience so far as been positive. He wanted to go to a mid sized school in an urban area. Boston is a good fit. He isn’t into the big football scene. Northeastern does have basketball and hockey teams that draw crowds. My son plays Ultimate (last year team played in club nationals) and goes to chess club. The campus has a busy feel. He meets with his advisor and feels like he’s getting individually pertinent advice. There is a feeling that cool things are happening on campus in terms of student and faculty projects.
Girls applying to places like WFU should study the common data set for that school. In it she will learn that WFU has almost a exactly equal number of male and female first year undergrads, but thousands more female applicants. So competition for female slots is harder and presumably those accepted have higher stats than the reported overall average
I still think we are in good shape with the following tentative list. I am categorizing them with our Naviance info and a 31 ACT. Please don’t post and argue that they aren’t in the right category. I’m sure about where each school ranks here.
For instance I know Denison is a safety from our school. Every single student was accepted down to 3.1 UW and 24 ACT. And William and Mary, although out of state, has taken everyone over a 3.7 UW and a 31.
Safeties:
Denison
Elon
Santa Clara
St. Olaf
Matches/High Matches:
William and Mary
U Richmond
Wake Forest
Reaches:
Davidson
Colgate
Washington & Lee
Schools we are keeping in mind & could add:
Lehigh
Bates
Lafayette
Rhodes
@coun2316 Loyola would be too urban and too close to home!
@roycroftmom I agree with your comment about the male/female breakouts in admissions. Just last cycle, a friend of S19’s (a female student) applied to Wake with a 30 and the same GPA that I expect D to hit. She applied RD and got in. Decided on another school instead.
I think we are going to have to seriously consider ED at one of her matches or reaches if 31 ACT or SAT equivalent is as high as she goes. That decision will also be made after we visit safer schools. If she likes one or more of the safeties enough to really see herself there then she could probably risk doing EA at Richmond and RD at the other high reaches and roll the dice…as long as she is very content with a safety option. That way, we can see how much (if any) merit she gets at safer schools and decide in April if any RD acceptances are “worth” spending more.
On the other hand, if she (and we) really see her at one of the matches/reaches and have come to terms with paying full price at that school, then she will use ED.
Lots of visiting and researching to do before then.
You sound like you are in good shape, but a word of caution. Unless you personally know all the applicants represented by those naviance data points very well, it can be risky to over rely upon it. Our naviance would easily confuse someone who had not known of the hidden hooks of some applicants, which they certainly did not talk about. Caveat emptor.
Santa Clara had some surprising rejections of kids this year who thought it was a safety. Not sure if they had a big increase in EA apps or what.
@roycroftmom our high school has very few kids who would have hooks. I know which athletes were recruited. None to any on her list. We have almost no URMs at our school. Embarrassing but true. The few we have do not apply to these schools. The only other hook is legacy and I doubt very much any of these are legacies. We’re a pretty tight knit town. Obviously I can’t know who each or these check marks are but I do know who the kids are who went to the schools on this list for the last two years and we’re pretty sure we can even figure out which check marks they might be or at least narrow it down to a few. Nuts but kids know each other’s gpas.
@chardonMN Thanks. I checked Naviance for Santa Clara and we have around 20 kids apply each year and 8/9 accepted. Looks like a 3.0 GPA and a 29 is in and everything above is a slew of green checks. I’m guessing lots of kids apply because they have EA and give merit. Not sure, of course, were the merit starts with stats.
I know of a 34 ACT with 4.3 weighted who got 7K merit, less than she was hoping. Not affordable, probably.
Our Naviance shows they accept about half the applicants from our school with an average accepted 31/3.5. From the rejections I have heard about, I am wondering if SCU got a bit tougher this year.
Also, I don’t know if SCU admits/gives merit by major?
Your counselor would be the best source of guidance, OP. Some hooks are obvious; some are not. Even if you know personally each of the applicants, do you really know who has a grandparent who is Hispanic, a rich uncle who donated heavily, a grandparent alum ( at places where that counts) or a similarly hidden hook? You might be quite surprised. Your counselor is more valuable than naviance.
@roycroftmom I agree. I’ll ask the GC and get what info she’s willing to give but I don’t think there are any Wake or Richmond or Colgate or Davidson alums around here. I’ve been very involved at school since the kids were little and the vast majority of parents went to Big Ten schools, elite non-Ivies, more regional schools like DePauw or Loyola or Ivies. It’s never a secret here when the Ivy legacy kids apply to a parent’s alma mater!
SCU is much tougher for business or engineering. I vaguely recall that two yrs ago, the business acceptance rate was 27%. So, perhaps their arts & sciences school is safer. SCU also heavily considers demonstrated interest.
@evergreen5 yeah. She’s signed up for SCU’s mailing list. I’ll have to find out from our GCs if they know how/if anyone showed much interest. I highly doubt we will be flying to CA to see it unless she’s accepted and wants to consider it knowing the rest of her options.
I have a friend who went there and her son is there now. If she applies, I will have D talk to them to make sure she gets the real scoop about the school. That way, she can hopefully write effective essays that shows she’s a good fit.
To Santa Clara U in CA? According to the CDS, the average GPA is 3.71 and ACT 25/75 of 28-32. Surprising.
@sushiritto Yep, that’s what Naviance says. There are a lot of colleges that know our school I think and know there’s no grade deflation and that even the kids not in the tippy top are very strong students. I don’t know. It’s sort of known here that our kids seem to get into schools (especially outside of, say, the top 20 universities) with lower GPAs or scores. SCU says that they are need blind but maybe not totally? Lots of families here are full pay. That could be a bump too. Plus, geographical diversity coming from the Midwest to CA.
Or maybe the 3.71 is weighted? I’m using UW GPA.
It will be important to visit Santa Clara, I think, as it has a different vibe from many of the other schools on your list - it seems to be more pre-professional and is very tied to the Silicon Valley economy. One of our friends had a son there, and he didn’t really enjoy it. It’s a good school, just depends on the individual.
@homerdog I’m just surprised. That’s all. SCU is kinda close to us, but I didn’t realize that the average stats were that “low,” relatively of course.
@tkoparent Well, honestly, it’s not likely she will end up at Santa Clara. Spending a couple thousand dollars for us to go out and see it seems crazy since almost half of the kids from our school get in each year and I highly doubt many of them made that trek. Best guess? Her safer schools that she will really truly consider will be closer to home. Denison likely being the most likely. I’m keeping the list longer for now and it will most likely whittle down over time.
@sushiritto well, the 29 ACT is in SCU’s middle 50th percentile. It’s just the 3.0 GPA that is maybe weird. I looked up weighted GPA and it does seem like the kids accepted with a 3.0 must have taken at least a handful of honors and APs because their weighted GPAs are quite a bit higher. Our kids tend to do well on APs so, if they reported those scores, that would maybe be a plus too. I also doubt many of them applied to engineering. Kids around here have way too many local and amazing options for engineering including UIUC. Same goes for business. Guessing most applying to SCU are liberal arts.