Trying to help my daughter make a balanced list that includes safety schools. Thoughts appreciated!
GPA ~4.4+ W, ~3.9+ UW
IB Diploma Candidate (plus a few APs)
SATs likely will end up in the low 1400s, ERW much higher than Math (sorry-- these are not finalized yet)
Solid meaningful ECs with long term commitments and some leadership (but not national award impressive levels)
3 years part-time job
~200 hours volunteer, organization that helps rape and domestic violence survivors
Let’s assume very good essays and recs
CA resident, Large public school, no hooks, no financial aid needed
major: polysci, IR, env studies (something like that)
She is interested in being in or near (easy transit) a large vibrant city
So many kids have missed the last two years when trying to identify a “safety school”. I want her to be happy with her choices, even if she only gets her safety schools. So hard to tell how safe is safe enough.
Here’s the current list (too long, would like to get to ~8, 10 max)
Georgetown/Walsh (reach)
Barnard (reach)
Tufts (reach)
Wellesley (reach)
UCLA (reach)
Boston Univ. (reach?)
USC (match)
Pitzer (match)
Scripps (match)
George Washington Univ./Elliott (safety?)
Univ. Washington/School Of Environment (OOS) (safety?)
Fordham LC (safety?)
Occidental (safety?)
She has not yet visited all these yet, but will.
thanks for any feedback
Are you looking for more suggestions on the safety end or just opinions on your current safeties? If you want more safety/match options what about Macalester in St. Paul?
Both I suppose. Definitely opinions of the current list. I have mentioned Macalester to her several times. We’ve never been to the midwest at all so may have to visit to get an impression of the city and culture. I think she has a highly inaccurate image in her head.
Just UCLA most likely, and possibly not even that. Huge classes, housing shortages, frustrating admissions, hard to graduate in 4 years, and often hard to get admitted to your first choice major. Very good price, but she’s fortunate that doesn’t have to be a consideration. This year the overwhelming opinion after UC acceptances/rejections came out is “apply out of state or private!” I’ll check out the website though (thanks!) as I know so many of her peers will be asking the same questions.
UCs are not hard to graduate in four years for a good student like yours. Some majors are limited-admissions, but it is unlikely that the ones your student is interested in are in that category (CS and engineering majors are the usual majors in that category).
And don’t think that the grass is automatically greener elsewhere. Washington has similar complaints about huge classes and limited-admissions majors. USC and BU also have large classes.
It is so easy to add extra campuses to the UC application that she might as well. If she gets her major and a Regents award at one of the mid-tier UCs, it could make it worth considering (priority registration for classes, faculty mentor). I think UCSD gives more AP credit than UCLA. My son at UCSD got some AP credit for foreign language, US history, and Calculus AB, so he was able to take a fairly light course load all the way through (about 3 1/2 courses per quarter) and easily graduated on time. If she does apply to UCSD, Muir College is the choice that is regarded as having the fewest requirements.
I think she’ll be about 90 points above Occidental’s median. Of course the medians seem to go up every year (and that’s 2022 data). So you could be right.
For Georgetown she will need 3 subject tests or 3 AP tests (policy expected to allow AP tests in lieu of Subject tests in 20/21 app cycle), which is what the most competitive candidates will have.
It’s hard to categorize schools not knowing the SAT score, and projected degree of imbalance. If it will be something as dramatic as 800 EBRW and 600 math, I would take some of the reaches off the list.
I also struggle to call any of the four safety schools safeties, yet she will likely get accepted to at least one of those. Make sure she demonstrates interest at the schools that consider it in the admissions process. Good luck.
Thank you! We know about the Subject Tests/AP. She has one 5 on an AP and will submit her Junior year IB score too (I hope they will take IB scores-- anyone know?)
I expect SATs to being 670/770 but we’ll see how it ends up.
How do you demonstrate interest other than visiting/touring?
I’m sure you already know this, but be sure to find out if representatives of colleges your daughter is interested in will be visiting her high school. Make sure your daughter can make time in her schedule or get permission to leave class if necessary on the days they are there.
What is your budget? Are you looking for financial aid or merit money ?
I don’t think you have any safeties on that list. Fordham can be very fickle. I personally know of some young women with stats like your Dd’s Rejected. It was a shock to them. That you can apply EA there and get s read on that scene is a good thing, but if this were my kid, I’d be looking for some certainties. It really wallops a kid hard if the EA schools don’t pan out, especially if any of them were supposed to be safety schools. You want a sure in.
I think that her chances at BU are decent as long as you are fine being full pay. Figure on at least $300,000 for four years. If this cost is fine, then I would put it as a match. Of course, that doesn’t help you with safeties.
I don’t think that I would consider the University of Washington as a safety. I would have thought that it would be a match.
For your last two alleged safeties, you should either run the NPCs or be fine with being full pay (with travel costs and a bit of inflation figured into your planning). Given the high quality of the various Universities of California, plus the high quality of the schools to the north in British Columbia, you seem to be planning to pay a lot for comparable schools elsewhere.
Your daughter sounds terrific! I would consider adding 1 or 2 safer safeties, with acceptances rates higher than 50%. A few schools which might tick her boxes include:
Seattle University
Chatham University
Lewis & Clark College
Warren Wilson College
Eckerd College
I also read that USC accepted only 11% of applicants this year. I think the collective wisdom on College Confidential is that any school accepting fewer than 20% of applicants should be considered a reach for everyone.
Thanks everyone! I think we will look harder for some true safety schools. Maybe Univ. Wisconsin? American Univ is also a possible safety. She might like Univ. Seattle. I’ll check out the rest of those (she didn’t like L&C-- too isolated).
Fortunately we are willing/able to be full pay. We will not qualify for any aid whatsoever and merit aid is pretty hard to get unless you shoot low relative to your stats. That’s what I did and I’m glad she won’t have to.
To my knowledge, Georgetown is not expanding the subject test/AP test recommendation to include IB scores. We should know definitively this month when they update their website with the 2020/21 application.
Regarding safeties, American is probably not a safety and demonstrated interest is considered very important, per their CDS. U Seattle could be a safety, UWisc a match, not a safety (670 math is the 25%ile for 2018 freshman).
American University does not like being used as a “safety” by “overqualified” applicants applying to Georgetown and/or George Washington. “Level of applicant’s interest” is “very important” there, according to its common data set.
Of course, if it is her first choice, and is affordable, she can apply ED there and eliminate their doubts about whether she will attend.
Pick a few schools with early or rolling admissions that she can get a good education and would be glad to take her. These are the most difficult schools to add to the list because many students and parents don’t like this category of schools. It’s the true challenge of college search to find them.