If you are referring to the mid tier within the top 50, they are still reaches for you and most applicants. These incclude most other schools on your list like UMICH, UVA, etc. You need more matches, the schools that are really between reaches and safeties as you said. After you a have enough matches and at least one safety, then you can feel free to add as many reaches as you want.
First, find two safeties - schools that share some characteristics with your top schools (program quality, excellence of honors college, availability of co-ops/internships…), where you’ve run the NPC and know they’re affordable. Its often your state flagship, unless you live in Michigan, North Carolina, California, or Virginia.
In your case tOSU is a perfectly valid pick. You need one more and it doesn’t need to be an Ohio Public, it can be an OOS university that will give you sufficient merit for your stats or a private university ranked 50+ (national LACs, national Universities) or top 10 regional Universities. Always run the NPC and look into merit scholarships and honors colleges. (You want a strong Honors colleges with lots of good offerings).
Apply now, do a good job on these, apply to the Honors college.
Second, find five matches. If you have Ivy level stats it means colleges where the admission rate is 25-35%(40%). Run the NPC, show the results to your parents: are those affordale for them?
ONLY THEN can you start on your reaches.
Can you list your two affordable safeties and 5 affordable matches?
If not, HURRY. Get a Fiske guide from the library and look for schools through the acceptance rate index in the grey box. Then read the description and if it sounds like a good fit, run the NPC. If it’s within your parents’ budget, add it on common app or coalition app, fill out the “join our mailing list/requesting info” form to show interest, and consider it one down, four /one more to go.
Sure it’s a rough system but you’re running out of time finding them.
The key here: make sure you have choices.
If you have an abundance of riches in the spring… Good for you.
The reverse isn’t worth risking.
OP you are getting some good input. #21 is very detailed and gives specific concrete advice. I hope you come back and let us know how it’s going. You have great stats and are obviously a very strong student.
I just wanted to say, have a money talk with your parents ASAP. A real one, like, get them to say “we can come up with __ amount.” Remember that travel, books and laptop or other expenses have to be accounted for as well. Your parents may need some net price calc printouts to look at in order to make it real. This conversation could really be important as you continue your search.
Update:
Common app now includes:
UNC, GA Tech, Emory, the OSU, Miami (the one in Oxford, OH), the UVA, UMich, Yale, Vandy, WashU, UPenn, William and Mary’s, Case Western, Rice, Chicago, Princeton, and Wake Forest.
My next step is to start taking schools off the list. As of right now, Princeton and Chicago will be the first to go (too much writing), possibly followed by Wake (lots of small writing supplements) and Emory (not sure how much I would like the division between Oxford and Emory).
I’ll apply EA to OSU, UVA, UMich, Miami, GA Tech, and UNC.
The idea behind adding Emory, Miami, UNC, Wake, and William and Mary’s is that I will apply for scholarships, hopefully getting a or close to a full ride at one. Not necessarily that I will but that way I will have options that vary in rank and price.
My first choice school is Yale, but I may apply ED to Penn. SCEA at Yale has little/no benefit, while Penn’s acceptance goes from roughly 9% RD to roughly 23% ED. Still low but much better. I’m unsure of whether I’ll apply to Penn ED or not, I’d like to but I’m unsure if it’ll be a cost issue. (Earlier when I said something about FAFSA, I apologize for the phrasing) My family is above the 110K+ income bracket, and using Vandy’s calculator as a reference, we’ll receive anywhere from $7K-$0 in aid. My parents don’t want me to use all my college funds on undergrad (as attending Penn most certainly would) since I plan on going to grad school. If I were to apply to Penn could I expect any aid from the institution? Even $5K/year would go a long way. I know that Ivies tend not to offer merit aid (not that I would qualify for it above any of their other applicants), but since they have such large endowments, could I consider applying ED to Penn? My parents bounce back and forth when talking about cost, but my general understanding is that there is enough saved that I can go almost anywhere undergrad, but it may cost me for grad.
I don’t think W/M has merit, and I would not count on any merit at all from Emory, UNC or Wake Forest- you really need to offer them something in addition to high scores. These schools meet need so use the NPC and see if you might qualify. OOS acceptance at UNC is tough ( 18%). I think Case Western would give you merit if you show interest.
Ivies don’t offer merit - only need based aid. You need to use the NPC to see if Penn would offer you aid.
Run the NPC on Penn and if they don’t offer aid, don’t expect any. Show the results to your parents and ask whether they’re able and willing to pay that. If not, don’t apply ED.
Don’t count on full rides at UNC, Emory, Wake, W&M. They don’t offer full rides (unless you’re competing for Robertson or MoreheadCain but… those are super high reaches for students they want to
incentivize away from Harvard) and very few full tuition scholarships. If you have Ivy stats, you may be competitive for Emory scholars but don’t count on it and you must show interest.
You are likely to get a scholarship at Miami so you’ll have your guaranteed alternative in the Spring.
W&M has the 1693 Scholars merit program, but there are a very limited number and would be very competitive similar to UVA Jefferson and Morehead Cain at UNC. Of those, I think Morehead Cain has about 65 scholarships a year, 35 or so for Jefferson, and 8 or so for 1693. These scholarships are all intended to attract high Ivy quality students. Keep in mind a fair number of these admits are likely in-state students. All three of these are very competitive OOS even for non-merit positions.
If you could gain admission to Princeton in particular or Yale, you could pretty get a pretty good financial aid package based on your parent’s income.
I’d suggest adding schools like the University of Richmond. Very good school and I think a much higher percentage of students (about 10%) have some form of merit scholarships.
USC
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Wake Forest
Notre Dame
NYU
Tulane
Boston College
Hope this helps!
If you file the FAFSA, you’ll be able to take the federal student loan. That’s only ~$5500/year. If your parents can’t pay much, make sure you have a couple of financial safeties on your list.
Tufts-- on hidden Ivy
Unless you are from the state of NC - you can only apply for the Morehead-Cain at UNC if you are from a nominating high school (or if their admissions office flags your application if you are from out of state). Not mentioned is The Robertson Scholarship at UNC and Duke - both are full tuition and have an application that is open to anyone on their own website.
Based on what little info I have you sound like a very high stat Asian applicant (which I could be wrong). If that is the case you have some red flags I want to point out. You eliminate two schools because of the writing requirements which makes me think that you don’t like writing. All of your reach schools are holistic and writing the essays is very important to gaining admissions. If what I am saying is true you’ll need to understand that Asians applying to reach schools are simply rejected at a high rate as in the case @Lindagaf references. This is especially true when the applicant is not or does not like to write, so my advice is to pick some of the match schools when you can get merit aid for your high stats and ED to a reach school to maximize your chances for that school.