I’m a junior looking for schools to add to my list.
Here’s info about me:
UW GPA: 3.78 (this is self-calculated as my school does not calculate GPA, but is a competitive NYC school that sends about 25% of students to Ivys and equivalents)
ACT: 35 composite
SAT II’s: 720 Bio and 730 Lit
PSAT: 1470
Here’s my top three schools based on what I’ve visited:
Dartmouth: LOVED IT - I fell in love with the location with great access to the outdoors and the down-to-earth but highly accomplished student body. Size seems perfect (small enough for very few lectures but big enough to not feel trapped) and I like the progressive state of Greek Life - most frat parties are open to the whole campus.
Brown: Really liked the open curriculum and incredibly happy students. size seemed pretty agreeable, but did not love location. However, the friendly and happy student body made me fall in love.
Tufts: Liked location and campus and the student body seemed really great and down-to-earth with a nice student body size. strong mountain club made me feel better about the suburban location.
I also really liked Williams, but I am concerned that I would feel trapped at such a small, isolated school.
Through visiting, I’ve found that I have the following desires for a school:
Not an urban campus, should have some greenery at least.
Down-to-earth, happy, friendly students.
Access to outdoorsy stuff is a huge plus.
No core curriculum, but I don’t care if there are distribution requirements.
I would prefer to avoid many lectures.
If greek life is big, cannot be hyper-competitive.
What other schools should I be looking at? Thank you for all suggestions, but safer options would be much appreciated as none of the schools that I have loved could be considered safeties.
High Reach (not that you need any more of those): Middlebury, Bowdoin
Low Reach: Hamilton, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College
Match: Skidmore, Kenyon, Whitman
Safety: St. Lawrence, Hobart and William Smith, Lewis and Clark
Agree with @lalalemma on ranking as things have gotten even more competitive in last 2-3 years. I have twin DD’s that profiled the same as OP and they were denied from the couple of Ivies they applied to as well Amherst, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, and Williams, WL at Middlebury and Wesleyan, and accepted at the schools you noted as low reaches.
And all of this is with a Gen Z population that less than half of Gen Y, which tells me that schools are doing a better job of reaching a more diverse US population and the number of international applicants keeps increasing - its a race to the bottom with Stanford at a 3% acceptance rate this year.
looking for matches… do you think I would like Richmond or Rochester b/c I liked tufts? I’ve heard all three are very similar. How is the focus on undergrads at Richmond and Rochester?
Richmond and Rochester are good matches - perhaps high matches due to selectivity.
You need to find colleges with acceptance rates in the 30%+, basically, then run the NPC to make sure your parents can afford them (bring the NPC results and discuss them with your parents).
Have you brought them NPC results? Many parents say it’s not an issue, until March senior year when they realize they’re expected to pay 50K a year. Have you discussed specific numbers? Have your parents committed to specific numbers? It’s important because each year there are countless students whose parents pull out the rug from under them. :s
Both my sons applied to tufts and URochester (one is attending tufts, the other graduated from brown), but neither would have applied to Richmond bc it doesn’t have the same intellectual vibe. UPitt is another good school because it has so many excellent depts, particularly if you’re interested in STEM, but it’s also known for it’s philosophy department, for instance. They both applied to Pitt rolling by late sept/early oct and heard they were accepted within 3 weeks, which took some of the edge off of waiting for the other schools. My younger son, whose at tufts, also applied to Tulane early and heard he’d been accepted with an amazing merit scholarship early. Another school you should look into is USC. If you apply by dec 1, you’ll be considered for a merit scholarship (younger son was a finalist before having to pull out bc he got into tufts ED2). It’s not a match school but still worth considering bc it’s an excellent school and it gives good merit. Uwisconsin may be a good match/safety for you.
D’s at Rochester (and it was her first choice, not a back-up plan). Other schools that she found interesting were Tufts, Brown, Vandy, NU, and Rice. Wake Forest and Richmond were also considered.