This is really helpful. I think his high school college counselor is perhaps being a bit bullish. In any case, do you have this type of universal understanding for matches as well? A great example is U of Rochester. I see that its admission rate is about 30% and his SAT is at the 75th percentile. On Naviance, I see that every single student from his school who has applied in the past several years with at least a 1390 SAT and 92 average has been accepted. What should I be looking for to define a match?
If he hasn’t done so, this can be very important for the OP’s son. When my son was in high school, he swore up and down that he wanted to attend a college or university in a “big city”; so we visited many schools in “big cities.” The final college trip we took was one that I planned at the last minute to a school in West Lafayette, Indiana – not a “big city” – and after visiting there, my son said that the search was over for him; he is now enrolled in Purdue University, and having a great experience.
My point is that seeing things in person can have a profound outcome; and that what you might think you want from a theoretical perspective, and what you want after seeing the reality of it, can be two very different things.
Yes, totally agree! Obviously it has been a bit challenging to do visits in the last year or so for everyone, but we did a bunch of virtual tours and have visited some in person, even just to walk around the campus. That’s part of how we came to CMU and Johns Hopkins and have seen them both in person. He seemed to like the size and focus and also the ways in which they are situated within Pittsburgh and Baltimore respectively. I went to grad school at Columbia and it’s a similar vibe: an actual campus but still inside a city. I know CMU and Johns Hopkins are reaches so my hope is to try to come up with other schools that may have a similar vibe but more realistic admissions.
Thanks again for all of these suggestions. It has definitely generated some new ideas!
Sounds like Rochester is a low match then…one can’t call a school with a 30% admission rate a safety, even if it looks like your kid will get in per Naviance, things can and do change from year to year especially with holistic admissions.
Some on CC will only call a safety a guaranteed admit school based on stats, like UT schools, Iowa/Iowa State, IU Kelley. I agree with Myos1634 that your S will get in to Pitt, and with rolling admissions he should know in October, as long as he applies early. Safeties also have to be affordable, meaning if you are accepted and can’t go due to finances, it wasn’t a safety.
Have you run Rochester’s NPC?
Agree with the Stevens rec and that it’s a highly likely. It’s way overweighted male (70/30), and only 4K undergrads, so not sure big enough for your S, but he should take a look.
Yes, CMU was one of the “big city” schools that we visited!
I know that it has been crazy this past year about not being able to have in-person, on-site visits; although there are always the “admitted student” visits you can take (hopefully) on the back end. Obviously, if you can swing any in-person visits this Fall, that would be a great opportunity.
You might see varying definitions of match/target, but I think the safest one to use is that the overall acceptance rate is >20% and the student is at or above the 75th pctile with scores and grades.
My anecdotal experiences support what Naviance is telling you about Rochester; it seems to be a very reliable match for kids with stats like your child’s. Richmond (which is in the South and more self-contained/suburban than urban) is another school in that tier of selectivity that rarely surprises a high-stats kid. Case, on the other hand, is a little more volatile—again, purely anecdotal, small sample size, don’t know the specifics about demonstrated interest or essays, etc.
Pitt is definitely a good safety for you. You can afford it and with their rolling admissions you’ll have an acceptance early. You might even get some merit aid, but that’s definitely not assured.
Rochester is likely IMO, again, esp being full pay. Many who like it and end up not being able to go there have finances as their reason.
One of my sons came down to those two being his top choices and chose UR mainly because he liked the campus better - full of students who were involved in research and with a campus bubble vs Pitt being immersed in town.
That said, I know a lot of students who started with Pitt as a safety and it ended up top of their list at the end (not due to lack of acceptance). It’s a really good school with a lot of opportunities plus the city/sports, etc.
I think JHU is an extreme reach for this student, and he has literally no chance if he doesn’t apply ED. Middle 50 at the college of science at CMU is 1540-1570 (and that is from 2020, it may be higher for this year). It’s definitely a reach.
I do also agree with everyone (and am aware) that JH and CMU are reaches. It’s also possible he will take the SAT again - he got 1500 the first time in the fall of last year and decided that was good enough, in part by looking at average scores for the schools he was interested in. In some cases, reported scores have now gone up since then. At the time, we may have been looking at data from 2019. I wonder if test optional has contributed to the averages going up as those with scores on the lower end don’t submit?
That seems to be a safe assumption with the (unfortunately) limited info colleges are releasing so far. CMU went test-optional the cycle before the pandemic, so that would be reflected in the numbers I posted above (although 76% of accepted students submitted an SAT and 35% an ACT, so there probably weren’t that many TO applicants to begin with).