<p>We are trying to come up with a reasonable list of schools (mix of reach, target, and safeties) and trying to keep it around 10 or so.</p>
<p>My son:</p>
<p>GPA 3.95 unweighted
Top 10% (maybe end up top 5%)
ACT 32 (going to try for 33-34)
His EC's/awards are just decent (good not great)
He will end up with only 2 AP's, but has taken many challenging courses (advanced calculus, 5 years of Spanish, Advanced English/writing, etc...)
He wants to major in political science/government and then law school.
He is very laid back and "studious". Probably will not like to party and isn't really "preppy".
He wants to stay in the northeast (we live in NH)
He wants a small to mid-sized school and is on the fence between good LAC's and smaller universities (liked Bates/Colby & Tufts/Brandeis when he visited).
Financial aid will be a concern...don't want him to have tons of debt.</p>
<p>His current list:
Tufts
Boston College
Brandeis
Bates
Colby
Hamilton
U. of Rochester
U. of New Hampshire
Syracuse</p>
<p>Does this seem like a reasonable list for him? Are there any others he should consider in place of those listed? Does he even have a shot at some of the "reaches"?</p>
<p>“Financial aid will be a concern…don’t want him to have tons of debt.”</p>
<p>How much can your family afford to pay each year?</p>
<p>Have you run the Net Price Calculator at each website to verify that if admitted your son is likely to receive sufficient aid to bring his cost down to what your family can afford?</p>
<p>Which of the places on his list is his dead-on safety where he is absolutely for certain guaranteed admission based on his GPA and test scores, where your family can definitely afford the cost with no aid other than guaranteed merit-based aid from the institution, guaranteed state aid, and/or federally determined aid (FAFSA), and that is also a place he can be happy at if he doesn’t get in anywhere else with an affordable aid package?</p>
<p>Your son’s stats qualify him for serious money at a number of colleges/universities. He should take a look at the institutions named in the threads on guaranteed merit aid and competitive merit aid that are at the top of the Financial Aid Forum. Perhaps some will work for him.</p>
<p>Financial aid is a tough one. My wife has medical issues that may escalate in the coming years. If I use the calculators, many on the list will be close to affordable for now. UNH is the in-state safety that should be the last fallback if none of the others offer a package that is good enough. I just don’t know what to expect from many of the higher caliber colleges that he may be accepted to.</p>
<p>Syracuse/UNH will be his safeties…but he is aiming at stronger schools than those.</p>
<p>The Northeast is not a great place to look for big merit scholarships. Relax the geographic restriction and some other financially attractive schools appear:</p>
<p>It’s a reach, but I would add Bowdoin. Their financial aid is excellent. If he’s willing to consider DC, I would think he might be eligible for some merit at American Univ. GW and Georgetown would match his interests but money may be an issue.</p>
<p>The list looks fine…if anything, I see a big gap between URochester and UNH so you might want to find a school that he likes that in between those two in terms of selectivity/academics because he might qualify for some merit aid at a place in that space – some ideas for LACs might be Union, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall and some small universities could be Fordham, GW or American. I’m certain there are other good choices as well.</p>
<p>In addition, the SUNY schools (maybe SUNY Geneseo which is mid-sized and is an excellent school) are very reasonably priced even for OOS students and could provide good options as well, especially when taking finances into account.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help. We are traveling across NY next week and will visit several campuses (Union, Hamilton, Rochester, Syracuse). Would Colgate be a decent option? I’ve heard it can be considered quite preppy and strongly greek oriented.</p>
<p>We’ve thought about both American and Georgetown…but there seem to be options just as good a little closer to home.</p>
<p>We left Bowdoin off for now. If he raises his ACT another point or 2 we probably will consider Bowdoin, Middlebury, or maybe even Brown.</p>
<p>I’ll have to check into Muhlenburg and Clark.</p>
<p>Right now we’d consider Brandeis, Rochester, BC, and maybe Hamiliton as targets. Bates, Colby, Tufts as reaches. Syracuse & UNH as his safeties. Does that seem reasonable?</p>
<p>I agree…it seems like we need something between his targets and safeties.</p>
<p>chinook, Your son’s grades and scores make him a candidate for any college in the U.S. even the most selective. His recommendations, essays and ECs will be the deciding factor; I’d need to know more about his ECs before commenting as I think this aspect of his application will be more important than his ACT score. </p>
<p>If he likes Hamilton, I’d suggest he considers Bowdoin, Middlebury, Williams, Amherst. While reaches I don’t think these are out of range (certainly not any more so than Brown). Again, his application will be viewed holistically including what he does when he’s not in class.</p>
<p>How about Wesleyan? that is a bigger LAC that has a bit of that bridge between LAC and University feel and seems to fall into the same lists as Tufts and Brandeis.</p>