True?
@AlmostThere2018 Came back from a few college visits with my parents. We were in the northeast, visiting colleges and family. I prefer warmer climate but willing to brave the cold for a great school.
Liked small to medium colleges about 5,000 with large more isolated campuses. Greek life is good but not necessary. Want to be part of a school community. Appreciate opportunities to explore the outdoors. Close to city is okay if it’s separate. Academic freedom to explore different subjects without taking a hit to my GPA a huge plus. Collaborative peers not cut throat. Looking for more matches. Must meet need or give merit. My parents and I can contribute $20,000 total. We ran NPC on the schools on my list and they are affordable.
Reach
Duke * favorite so far
Dartmouth campus and traditions a plus
Brown * legacy
Vanderbilt?
Rice?
Wash U?
Match
Emory
Middlebury
Safety
UMCP (state flagship, possible merit awards)
U of Alabama (full ride)
Naviance hasn’t been very helpful because most kids in my school go to state schools so not a lot of data for other schools. I plan on targeting 8-10 schools so the list change. Suggestions for more matches?
Looks like you have a good approach. I’ll add one major thing in to the mix. Make sure that wherever you go you feel you can get top grades. You will need them for any chance to get into medical school. High grades, high GMAT scores and good ECs are the way to get in. School name doesn’t matter. Yes you need to think of a plan B but think what you can get. My son’s gf is pre-med. She probably could have gotten into highly selective colleges. She chose her in-state with a full-ride (4 siblings - 2 in college). She has a 4.0, feels she is getting a great education, and has super cancer research since freshman year. You can get out of it what you put into it! Good luck!
@momocarly You make a good point about maintaining an excellent GPA. I would imagine it would be easier at a less selective school.
Even at the less selective schools you can grow intellectually. My son’s gf works with a top cancer researcher who talks to her individually and is now her mentor. She has learned so much from that professor and grown intellectually. Look at the less selective schools and see if undergraduate research is easy to come by for pre-health professionals.
She has taken lots of interesting classes as well as requirements as has my son (pre-vet). There has also been time for summer study abroad programs and gaining leadership roles in clubs. My son has the same grades as his gf and is president of his large fraternity, studied in Switzerland for a mini-session, and works for the physics department even though he is an animal science major. As I mentioned you can get out of a school what you put into it if the school is fundamentally sound in your major (which goes past the rankings).
@momocarly True, colleges are what you make them. Your son and his girlfriend sound very accomplished. Do you have any school suggestions?
I suggest getting your applications in as early as possible to your safety schools and get them nailed down. Then you can apply to your reach schools with wild abandon.
@cptofthehouse Good advice, it will feel better to get some acceptances. The more I talk to relatives and older friends, the more worried I get. Many with stellar credentials (better than mine) got rejected from their dream schools. It’s rough out there!
Any match suggestions?
Dickinson, Gettysburg, Muhlenburg, Fordham, GW, American, F&M, wash&Lee, Prospects of merit there.
Emory, Middlebury no ones matches. Especially Middlebury
Not that long ago, I would have put a lot of schools as great matches in that someone like you would get into half of those schools with 40% or higher acceptances. Maybe even at the 30% level. But though there are fewer college applicants these days, it seems that there are more applicants to the top rated school. Acceptance rates have gone down on a number of these schools to the point that I’m hesitant to match most anyone. UMich as an early action pick for high stat kids applying SCEA or ED was a disaster a few years ago, when most all of those kids got deferred. It’s a very long 4 months before RD when so many classmates are already accepted, done with the process-and you are sitting with two deferrals. I’ve seen the same happen with few other schools as well especially to oversubscribed programs, engineering, STEM majors. That you are URM will give you a bit of a boost but it’s no sure thing. That your school does not tend to send kids to these selective schools means that your GC and teachers are not atuned to the particulars of high stakes admissions. I missed what courses you have taken , whether you are taking the most rigorous courses at your school and any SAT2 and AP exam results So take a good look at whether schools on your list require or recommendations the SAT2s.
I like pairing a less selective school close to highly selective ones. SMU with Rice. Hamilton or Union or St Lawrence with Dartmouth. Fordham, Providence, Skidmore with Brown. Rhodes with Vanderbilt, etc. There are merit opportunities with these matches
@cptofthehouse my stats are below. I understand that I am at a disadvantage, maybe even an underdog these days. No essay coaches or admission experts, just my family and teachers by my side. It’s crazy competitive out there. Many people with stellar stats (much better than mine) don’t get into their schools. If I do gain admission to a selective school, I will be grateful and know some of it is luck.
SAT I (breakdown): 1510 (R 760, M 750)
SAT II: 800 Bio, 780 American History
Probably doesn’t matter but I am in a program for advanced students at my school that requires a competitive admission.
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0 Weighted GPA ( out of 5): 4.9
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 2%
AP: All 5s (8 total AP’s not including Senior Year) AP gov. AP world, AP comp sci, AP Lit, AP bio, AP Physics, AP cal. AB, AP cal. BC,
Senior Year Course Load: multi variable calc, AP Psych, AP Stat, AP microeconomics, AP, AP Spanish AP macroeconomics, AP lang, weight lifting for Varsity athletes
Teacher Recommendation: BC calc. teacher ( have her again this year for multi variable Calc) and Bio Should be good both teachers commented that I was very creative in solving problems. Commented that I was the best student they have taught. Hope they weren’t joking lol Have a good relationship with them and tutor students for them during lunch.
My SATs and grades are 75%ile for Emory and Middlebury. Why are they not matches?
Middlebury in particular is a tough admit along with the little Ivys because they have such small absolute numbers as well as low % in accepts. When you look at the number of seats they have , and you know they want somewhat of make/female balance, they field quite a few athletic teams which need qualified athletes, they are loyal to their alumni and development people, and you can see that there are simply very few seats there. Those are balanced somewhat by majors and premed tends to be oversubscribed. They are looking for diversity, so being URM is going to help. But you see what I mean?
Emory could be a Match. It’s total accept rate is 15%., however, and that’s with accepting more students than usual. The ED accept rate is 30% which means that the RD rate is ridiculously low . Your stats are in the upper echelon but you aren’t applying ED. It would be a good match ED but you aren’t doing that. They are also are big in QuestBridge with over 30 matches and give precedence to First generation. Though you are URM, you can see where they could be at a point at RD where that doesn’t count as much.
Do you follow my rationale here? You can look up these sort of stats looking at the Common Data set and info on the 2019 accept data.
Please don’t get me wrong; you are an excellent prospect at all of the schools. It’s just the danged low numbers these days I’ve run a quick sloppy analysis which basically come to the conclusion that if you apply to 4 Emory type schools, the chances run 65-70% you get into one of them.
@cptofthehouse: Perhaps you know, but in case you don’t, Middlebury and Hamilton post the same acceptance rate (16%), and Hamilton reports a higher SAT profile on its CDS. I’d caution you not to categorize Hamilton as a match and Middlebury as a reach with respect to selectivity in your posts. It would be a shame to unintentionally mislead the OPs.
Note that the number of athletes needed to fill a given set of sports teams does not vary by the size of the school. A small school with an emphasis on intercollegiate sports will consume a larger portion of its admit class with recruited athletes than a large school with a similar emphasis on intercollegiate sports.
Smaller schools can have smaller athletic teams or fewer of them. They can also have one athlete on two teams (field hockey and lacrosse, track and field and cross country). Middlebury had a women’s lax team of 32 and Hamilton had 27. I think that’s fairly common for the slightly smaller school to have a slightly smaller roster.
Middlebury’s acceptance rate (17.1%) may land a point higher than Hamilton’s (16.1%) based on recent information:
@merc81 , you are correct. Middlebury And Hamilton are running at the same rate. Middlebury accepts some student for the spring semester which makes their numbers a bit off in some situations. Also, Until the Common Data Sets come out, getting true count including waitlists is often not accurate. . Hamilton certainly might be more selective than Middlebury and Haverford and Wesleyan these days when the final counts are released. I’m also shocked at Pitzer and Colby numbers. They’ve become super selective.
I think Hamilton is a smaller school than Middlebury but iI do not know the sports team situation for it. The small schools with a lot of NCAA sports teams have a larger percentage of their students who are athletes leaving fewer regular spots.
There have been significant changes in the school rankings , selectivities just in the few years I’ve been out of the admissions loop.
One thing for certain, it can be a lot more difficult to get into some schools than current stats show when application surges are occurring. More applicants for the most selective schools. We won’t know for certain until fall what the final yields are, something that can affect subsequent year admissions. Some schools have higher “summer melt “ than others.
Hamilton is not a match anymore. for OP with his stats though he falls in the Top 25% in stats, again because of the small absolute numbers of students accepted. Also a < 20% accept rate is too low for me to feel comfortable matching to it.
My youngest has several friends who have applied to Hamilton. None of my older ones did. Which Was unsurprising because itvis such a small school. I should have picked up on the name being bandyed more in later years.
Ok, got it. Most small well known LACs are difficult to gain admission. Must be some matches for me, my stats are decent. Looking for matches not safeties. Really would like a medium size school with an active and social feel. Challenging but not cut throat. No religious schools. Suburban or rural is best. Most important that they meet 100% need. Any ideas?