Hey guys, so I’m a junior who is currently trying to put together their college list.
SAT: 1430
ACT: 32
SAT 2’s: World History: 730, Math 2: 710
I was wondering if someone could let me know if I have enough reach schools on my list? Thanks
The list:
-Umass Amherst
-UW Madison
-WPI
-BU
-BC
-Northeastern
-Brandeis
-Georgia Tech
-UVA
-NYU
-Northwestern
-Cornell
-Duke
-Dartmouth
What is your financial situation? Some of the schools on your list are state schools that are expensive for OOS students and won’t give you much aid.
What is your GPA (unweighted)? SAT breakdown? Proposed major?
And in general, you have plenty of reaches. Dartmouth, Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, UVA, and GTech.
Duke, Dartmouth, Cornell and Northwestern are a reach for everyone, given how low the acceptance rate is. So yes, you have plenty of reaches.
The real question is whether you have affordable options on your list. Are you in MA? If so, U Mass Amherst may be an admissions safety for you unless you are applying for computer science or other highly competitive programs (as best I understand, from CC, not having researched it independently).
Many public universities, such as UW, GA Tech and U VA, have state mandated limits on the percentage of out of state students who can attend, so the stats needed to get in as an out of state student are often much higher than for an in state student. So an OOS student should assume they need to be at least in the top 25% of stats to be a credible candidate for admission at those schools.
Also, many public schools do not give good financial aid to out of state students. UW does not give financial aid to out of state students, so unless your family can afford the full pay cost, it is not an affordable option. NYU is famous for its poor financial aid, so it too may not be a realistic option.
The first step is to sit down with your family with last year’s tax forms and input the numbers into the Net Price Calculator for your home state flagships as well as a range of schools you are interested in. If your family cannot afford the Expected Family Contribution --EFC – then you need to find schools where you will qualify for substantial merit, rather than need based awards. There are threads with schools for good merit aid on the Financial Aid and Scholarships board.
Yeah, I am in MA, so Umass Amherst is definitely a safety for me. Thank you for your input! I will definitely add some schools that I can get good merit aid at.
If you tell us more detail about your financial situation, we can provide suggestions.
Why do you think you need to have any reaches at all? How did you come up with the list you have so far?
Start with the money. Until you know how much your parents can afford, you really can’t do much at all.
Then think about your major. Until you have at least a general notion about that, even knowing a place is affordable won’t do you much good.
I would aim for a 1450+ or 34+ for you standardized tests. You have time since you’re a junior. But you already have plenty of reaches since some schools on your list are pretty selective.
You have 14 schools on your list. That is too many in total. Many of those schools are highly selective which means even if you have the stats you aren’t necessarily going to get admitted. Really, to answer your question, I think you have too many reaches and you need to start eliminating some of them.
Assuming your GPA is pretty high, as in at least a 3.7 or 3.8 unweighted, it looks like you have about 6 reaches, 6 matches, a low match (WPI), and a safety. Even if your GPA is a little higher and you get your scores up a little higher, you should probably consider dropping at least one or two reaches and one or two of the more financially doubtful matches.
If your GPA is actually not that high, you might want to drop more (possibly most) of your reaches. In any case, I think it might be good to add one more low match, as in a pretty good school that might be affordable and that accepts more than 35% of applicants.
You already have 14 schools on your list, and as a senior applying right now, you either need to get a lot of stuff done extremely early on or you’ll be half assing a bunch of your applications. If you were to add any more schools, I’d highly suggest replacing other schools on your list with those. But in that case you’d potentially be replacing matches/safeties with reaches, and I would advise against that.
@Wilson98 There appears to be a strong “self selection” process going on at WPI. Forty-eight percent of the pool was selected last year, but the data on enrolling students indicates a mid-50% range on SAT of 1310-1480 and mid range of 27-32 on ACT with an average GPA of 3.86 and (most important) an average RIC of 9% with 68% of the class coming from the top 10% of their graduating class AND the applicant is from the private college’s home state. I don’t see how you get a “low match” out of that when we don’t even know the GPA or RIC. Your putting way too much weight on test scores and percent of applicants accepted at a school which was the first STEM school in the country to go test optional. They are looking for project directed students.
@Keriell Congratulations on your test scores, but there would be no need for an admissions staff if all they had to do was read scores. Computers are perfectly capable of doing that and of selecting the higher scores. They want to know about you, your GPA/RIC, your goals, ambitions, interests, hopes, dreams and ECs. They want students who will fit into a very unique program of interdisciplinary project studies. Motivation is what gets a student through a challenging university program. They want you to succeed!
@Midwestmomofboys is on target about UMASS and CS majors, Their CS program is very popular and interest is growing. Depending on your choice of majors, you might want to put UMASS Lowell @ https://www.uml.edu/Academics/undergraduate-programs/default.aspx on your list as a more affordable and an academically strong option.
If you would like a respected, more conventional STEM school, you might consider Clarkson.
:bz
Major: CS, Minor: International Relations.
GPA UW: 3.9
school reports weighed GPA though, which is 4.4
Financially my parents can afford to pay for my education. State school’s are affordable for us (up to like 35,000 is definitely) Private schools are not an issue as long as it’s not 50,000+. I’m aware most private schools cost 70,000+ to attend without scholarships, but I’m going to apply for a lot of scholarships and it’s also why I have so many schools on my list. hopefully one will give me merit.
I am late to this game… but…
Have you run the NPCs for your schools of interest? Most of the schools on your list either do not give merit at all… or… will not give YOU merit if you happen to get in…
You will likely be full pay at most of these schools - unless you are accepted to one that meets full need… and those acceptances are very…very competitive… not to mention that you have to qualify for FA. In my opinion you have way…way… too many reaches and not enough safeties and matches… and that includes financial and academic.
You are a very good student… but I would have created a different list. There is a strategy involved when requiring merit or need based aid…to me it does not seem like you “strategized.” OOS state schools are pushing $50,000 a year, and BU is much more than that.
Few of the schools on your list offer merit awards. Please read the “stickied” threads about schools with automatic merit, and schools with good merit.
UMass is a great school… but from what I have read… it may not be a safety for you as a CS major (?). I am happy to read that you are a junior. That gives you plenty of time to revise your list. I see about 8 reaches on your list, and that is just for academics.
@retiredfarmer Didn’t know that about WPI. I agree that it’s difficult to be better than a mid-match at a school with a 3.86 GPA average because there’s not much room above it, and you’re competing with a lot of high GPA students. I still think with a 3.9 and scores at or near the top of the mid 50% as a junior then WPI is a pretty good match. But if WPI is closer to BU, BC, Brandeis, and Northeastern in selectivity than I’d thought, that only points out the need for considering another school that is not so uncertain. Particularly because I’m not sure if financial aid will work out as the OP hopes, even if one or more of those schools do work out as far as admissions.
On a side point, I wonder if being at the top 25% in scores might have slightly more of an advantage at a test-optional school in some ways. It’s true they are de-emphasizing scores, but they must know that if 32 ACT is the 75th percentile of their submitted scores, it’s higher than that for all applicants. It wouldn’t make sense to have a lot of applicants with a 32 or higher who don’t submit scores.
Also if it helps, my high school sends the majority of it’s kids to Northeastern (70 kids applied, 45 were accepted), Boston University (51 applied, 33 were accepted), WPI (41 applied, 26 accepted), Umass Amherst (119 applied, 100 accepted), and there are about 125 people in each grade at my school. This is why I consider these schools all pretty good shots because the kids who did get in were definitely in my stat range via naviance.
Can you afford these schools if you are accepted?
I definitely need to use the net price calculator for each school and talk to my parents about them before I apply. I’m in state and I will probably have the Abigal Adams full tuition scholarship (because all of my MCAS scores have qualified me for it) at Umass Amherst, which the results come out for in the beginning of senior year, so worst comes to worst, that’s a great school I can afford. Regardless of that though I can still afford Umass.
^the Abigail Adams scholarship is tricky, because at UMass tuition is like $2,000… and fees $10,000!
I do think you need one more affordable safety and one more affordable match.