Nope.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about how good the student is, it’s that admission at highly selective universities cannot be relied upon even for a 4.0UW / 1600 / 36 student as anything more than a low reach. A few public schools fall into those bounds. GT for engineering is one of them.
No it’s not, that is my point, Stanford accepts fully 1/3 of perfect scores. GT is no where near Stanfords acceptance rate nor quality of application pool. A perfect applicant at GT is nearly 100% acceptance rate, with possibly a few outliers who get rejected if the AO feels the applicant is not really interested in going to GT.
Fair, perfect is a bad example. But that is not the case here. A 1500 new SAT is not an automatic acceptance by far.
“No- but it means that these schools are reaches. And he is applying from an over-represented state.”
They’re not all reaches, CA, an over-represented state sends thousands of students to top OOS universities. He has stats good enough to consider a few of them matches. UNC is the only possible reach since they seem to want primarily North Carolina residents. Michigan, UVA, Illinois, Washington, Wisconsin are matches for this applicant.
Again not automatic, I didn’t say a safety school, but a match as his profile is above average for GT. The idea that GT is a reach is ridiculous. Having said all this GT is a great engineering school and attracts top applicants like the OP.
The OP’s scores fall within (albeit on the high side of) the median band for all 2015 GT freshmen*. To me, that does not make for a very reliable “match” for engineering programs at a school with 32% overall admissions, especially when we’re talking about an OOS applicant seeking large merit scholarships.
- http://admission.gatech.edu/images/pdf/2015_freshman_profile_web.pdf Note the average 7-12 AP/IB/DE courses. Do we even know the OP's class rank?
CU123, you are correct that OP is an outstanding student and will be accepted to outstanding schools. I hope that they are proud of their hard work. They have a good starting list. Any in-instate school (in any state) would be a match/safety for them, BUT OOS is a different matter. They are a very competitive applicant at GT. GT would consider them fully qualified to succeed at the school. A healthy % of OOS applicants with those stats will be admitted. AND a healthy % will be denied admission. Look at my LAC example in post #23. For several dozen schools, there are far more highly qualified applicants than seats available. This is not true at the overwhelming majority of schools. For OOS students, especially a male from a state where the school receives a lot of applicants, GT is dramatically more competitive than just 5-6 years ago. I think it a high match for the OP.
They should feel great about the process. They’ll do well. It’s just important to have a range of realistic options. Money factors in here. What if a student has one safety and does not find success in applying to schools that accept 5-20% of applicants? That safety might not give them the necessary financial aid to make it workable. It’s just important to be balanced today. Low acceptance rates, a mania for the Ivies and other name schools, and holistic review policies make it hard to predict with assurance.
Of course my perspective is that there are many, many outstanding schools where a student can get a world-class education. Unfortunately, society fixates on just a few. On another thread, a student is interested in Holy Cross. I promise the liberal arts education there is equal to schools where students are desperate to be in the 6-8% who are accepted (I have no affiliation with HC). (Many, many schools ranked lower than HC also offer outstanding educations. I just used that one as an example. I could have used Denison, Rhodes, JMU, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Colorado School of Mines, Virginia Tech, or many others.)
This is a student with an excellent SAT score ( many students have excellent scores). He also has a very good GPA… But we do not know his rank. Where does he fall within his class? And… his ECs are very good… he should be proud of his accomplishments… but what is out there is wild and not to be under-estimated.
The students parents said they will spend $50,000 on a school like Duke and $20,000 on a school like Maryland. Those are the rules.
This student is also from NY. This is a state/geographic area where there are way too many qualified applicants applying to the exact same schools. What happens when 10,000 applicants in the country are highly qualified and they can only take half? Half get rejected or waitlisted. I have seen #2/ 2350 ( old SAT) kids from NY with amazing ECs get flat out rejections from some of the schools on this students list.
Right now this student has 8 schools that are academic and/or financial reaches. IF he gets into GT he needs merit or his parents will not pay for it. Will he get in? Will the school throw him $10,000 merit? Will his parents spend the $32,000 ±? We don’t know if GT is on the list of schools that the parents will spend this amount of money for…
Pitt and Maryland are financial reaches. His parents stated very clearly that they will spend $20,000 for these 2 schools. Merit to these schools is not automatic and I strongly doubt Maryland will give him $25,000 to bring the cost down. They don’t give that kind of money to these students from NY anymore… They just don’t. Will he get $8000? Maybe. Is that enough? No. He may get some merit from Pitt… but how much? $10,000? Maybe. Full tuition? We don’t know because we don’t know his rank and merit is not automatic. Right now these schools are financial reaches.
UNC is a high reach. Our NY HS has 1 acceptance every other year from kids who are highly qualified. The school meets need but this student says he does not qualify for FA. Maybe he does- he should investigate. Without aid, the school is $50,000. This is what the parents said they will pay for an “elite” school. I don’t know if they consider UNC to fall into this category. It may not be “elite” enough. Will they pay if he gets in?
UVA is also a reach. This school usually takes the top 1 or 2 students from our school who apply. We don’t know this students rank or who is applying from his school. We don’t know his schools history with UVA. UVA also costs more than what the parents will spend- it is also a financial reach. They meet full need and the student should investigate.
ND, Duke, U Chicago are reaches. They also cost about $15,000 a year MORE than what his parents will spend - making them financial reaches as well. His parents said they will spend $50,000 a year for schools in this range. They did not say that they would spend 65,000. This student says he will not qualify for FA… however maybe he will and should investigate. He has a sibling in college and that may help… depending.
This student needs to do 3 things. He needs to use the net price calculators for competitive schools that meet full need ( Duke, Chicago etc) and show the cost to his parents. If the cost is acceptable- apply. If the cost is not acceptable- drop the school and add a different one. Next… he needs to find 2 schools that he likes, that he will get into, and that his parents will pay for. I suggested SUNY ( the student said no), Ohio State because I think he will get merit, and Alabama where I think there is automatic merit. Lastly… Apply to schools with competitive merit such as Pitt and Tulane etc.
This student appears to be hyper- focused on reaches. That is very easy to do. The hard part is finding safety schools that he likes and that will come down to $20,000 a year- that is what his parents will spend on schools that are not similar to Duke.
The 20k per year rule does not apply to GTech. That is a very good school and will be in the 35k range I think. The 20k is a loose parameter and I could probably do Maryland for a bit more and Pitt for a little more. The 50k rule only applies to schools that anyone with any scores would be positively elated to get into like Duke, but is very strict. My parents won’t drop 75k a year for undergrad.
My school does not usually rank but I believe I would be within the top 5%. To get my rank I need a note to my counselor and i need to be in the process of applying. As I said, my school seems to be in good standing with uva and UNC, but I know that is no guarantee. I also understand what some of you are saying that none of these public schools have score and gpa requirements that are too high for me, but admission into some is definitely no guarantee. Bama is very far away and doesn’t have the elite biomedical engineering that Georgia tech does that would warrant going that far ( I think GT is 2 in the nation for BME). I like the idea of Ohio st. How are Michigan State’s programs for engineering? Thy seem like they could possibly work for a safety. Thanks everyone for the help.
How do you know that GT will cost in the 30’s? Do they have guaranteed merit for OOS students with your scores and rank?
Schools like Duke cost $65,000+. Is this acceptable? Have you used the NPC to see if you qualify for FA?
If Maryland comes down to $35,000 is that acceptable?
No FA
Will your parents spend $65,000 for Duke, ND, Chicago etc? These schools are not $50,000. How will you pay for the extra $15,000 per year for these schools?
How is GT in the 35,000 range? It costs in the low 40’s. That might be ok … but you need to get in.
Yes GT seems to be a great value school. I’m starting to realize how unreasonable duke/UChicago are… I’ll throw a flyer into one or two schools like that bc you never know , but they aren’t seeming feasible. When I say that I think i can pay 35k for GT, that just means that is what the perfect cost would be, not what I think it will cost
Ok now I understand. Hopefully you will get accepted and hopefully your parents are ok spending in the low 40’s.
I am glad that you are recognizing that schools such as Duke may not be realistic financially.
I think you should investigate Michigan State.
My D2 is an OOS Junior at GTech. I pay around $34K per year for tuition (31-34 credits), and $11k-12k per year for expenses (little on the higher side as she shares an apartment close to the campus for 9 months). Scholarships are rare for OOS folks but after the 1st year, part-time jobs (in/out of campus) and internships are easy to get.
This is the latest freshman profile. Admit rate is down to 23%, therefore, at best a “High Match” for OP.
http://admission.gatech.edu/images/pdf/Freshman_Profile_2017_1.pdf
So at this point I need to decide whether or not to take the sat again. I know I can do better than the 720 on reading and writing and I think I can perfect my 780 on math. At this point, will the scholarships I get be increased by a higher sat score or does it not matter anymore. I think I can get a super score 1530 and my “hope” score is a superscored 1540-50. Would that make a difference in any potential merit scholarships or should I just focus on my classes?
What scholarships/schools were you thinking about?
Money to Maryland and pitt, maybe help me get into the uva level schools we’ve been talking about or a small merit scholarship if a miracle happens
My daughter had high test scores well into the 99th percentile, graduated #1…same geographic area.
Maryland- $8000 merit + $2500 from her dept- this is lost if she changed majors
Ohio- $18,000 merit
Pitt- full tuition - the requirement at the time was top 5% and scores over 33/1450. This may be more competitive now and it is not guaranteed.
You might ( might) get into UVA- what is your schools record? … but they don’t give merit ( unless this changed) other than the Jefferson Scholars program which does not come from the school. It is a separate outside program and you need to come from a nominating HS. If you don’t come from a nominating HS then UVA can nominate you if they choose to. My D was a Jefferson Scholars nominee. She got called for the first interview, called for the second interview… and did not make it to the final interview in Virginia. This award is fiercely competitive and I would not count on it.
Apply to UVA and GT and find yourself some acceptable matches and safeties.