Help this junior be a bit more realistic

College Search & Selection
1

Ok, y’all, I’m a little unsure about how my prospects are right now and I just want some other people’s opinions.

Intended Major: Cognitive Science, if they don’t have it, Computer Science or Neuroscience (both I know are pretty competitive)
GPA: 3.85
SAT: 1500 right now (but retaking in August to try and get it up to 1550 or something)
Rank: N/A since school doesn’t rank

I take IB a year early, like about 100 other kids at my school, and so I’m doing all my IB tests rn, and I was hoping for a 40, but after this past week and a half, I’m feel like it might be more like 36, so that sucks.

IB Psych SL
IB Bio HL
IB Lit HL
IB Math SL
IB History HL
IB Spanish SL

AP Tests: Taking Gov, Calc AB, and Bio this year
5: APUSH, Lang
4: World (Freshman year)

Also, my grades right now are not as promising as they were before testing, and so I might end up with 2 B’s in Spanish and Literature, which sucks because the grading has literally screwed everyone over (literally had a class discussion about it today in spanish, for example, where everyone was asking about how their grade dropped around 9-13% because my teacher decided to enter grades for when we did practice exams of past IB exam papers, and then proceeded to not weight them and put them in our test category. Like seriously, in IB, a person can get like a ~70% and get 6 or 7, but she doesn’t do that, she straight up just puts in that 70% and let’s our grades plummet)

Anyway, that just means that my GPA is going to be even lower, and my predicted UC capped weighted GPA is only 4.04 at this rate sooooo, not great

Extracurriculars:
- State champ sophomore year for an unrecruitable sport, 2nd freshman year (although I’ve since stopped competing, but still practice recreationally)
- VP for Girls Who Code
- VP + Co-founded Game Design Club
- Treasurer + Co-founded Animal Welfare Club
- Web Designer for Key Club (I’m going to design the website and such)
- MUN (lots of leadership, having been director of several different conferences and on Sec once)
- A part of this Girls Who Code program at a local Cancer Research Center
- RCM Level 9 Piano certified

Summers:
- Stanford Pre-Collegiate Program
- Volunteering at a local bilingual summer camp
- Perception Science Internship at Berkeley this summer

Income: >$200,000
State: WA
Ethnicity: East Asian
Gender: Female

My parents are a little delusional and believe that I could get into an Ivy like UPenn or Cornell, even with how competitive my school is (which is actually insane), but I want a more realistic outlook.

These were my schools a few months ago:

Reaches:
Cornell (Cognitive Science)
Carnegie Mellon (Cognitive Science)
Northwestern (Cognitive Science)
Pomona (Cognitive Science)
Rice (Cognitive Science)

Matches:
Barnard (Neuroscience or Comp. Sci, but both are competitive)
Wellesley (Cognitive Science)
NYU (Neuroscience or Comp. Sci)

Safeties:
UW (Neurobiology Major)

UBC (Cognitive Science Major)

But I understand that basically everything in the reach category will become a mega-reach/unrealistic at this rate, so.

I’m looking for a smallish school that’s not in the Midwest or the South, more like New England, and distance is not too much of a consideration as long as it’s not super rural. My parents prefer a private school if I’m out of state, but my mother is a bit more receptive to publics, although they do seem a bit too big for my liking.

If you’re reading this and know who I am, hi, hello, please don’t mention this to anyone haha ok.

If you made it this far, wow, thanks, I appreciate it. I’m really just looking for a more realistic college list if this just happens to my profile when I apply.

2

The University of Rochester fits your current theme. Also look into Vassar. If the NESCACs don’t seem too rural for your preferences, then research them individually as well.

3

Who will pay for college? Can your parents afford full pay? If not, you have only one school on the list - UW.

4

I agree that NESCACs are good options but most are very rural.

5

The biggest constraint for college choice is money. What are your parents willing to pay for what? I’ve known a lot of unhappy kids who find that their parents might have paid full freight for the name recognition schools but started tightening the belt when it came down to pricey schools that they didn’t recognize. Better to get the situation clear now.

All of your choices are great and wonderful. You have your lottery tickets, reaches and matches all lined up. Now comes the difficult part of college search; the schools you know will take you that fulfill your requirements. Call them safeties, likelys, whatever. They are the most important schools on your list. Get s couple of them cinched early through EA or rolling admissions and you are good to go.

6

@cptofthehouse @momsearcheng I am lucky enough that my parents are willing to pay for everything and can comfortably do so for any of the listed schools. The list above was one curated by me and my parents a few months ago; I just wanted to see how fitting it is now and what edits I could make to make it more suitable for my current profile.

7

I know you said no Midwest but you did include Northwestern on your list. So what about Wash U in St. Louis - they offer an interesting Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program. https://pnp.wustl.edu

8

You have plenty of great schools on your list. If you can nail down those safeties, early, just go to it and see what pans out. You have UW and UBC as your safeties. Do either or both have rolling or Early Admissions so that you can have a sure thing before year end? If not look for an acceptable school with your major that does, understanding that may be where you could end up.

I don’t know what schools have that major, so can’t help you there. Get a list of the schools and look for one that will give you an early read.

9

I don’t have a specific suggestion for you, but even when you anticipated a higher GPA – your list is was too reach heavy. Barnard & Wellesley were never “matches” – unless possibly you had planned to apply ED to one. Don’t consider any school with an under 20% acceptance rate as a “match” – those are still schools where odds are against you. Because being qualiified for admisison is not enough at a school like that – they are turning away more well-qualified applicants than they admit.

I’m just posting this so that you revise your criteria for determining reach / match / safety somewhat.

I don’t think your “safeties” are safeties either. A “safety” is a school where you are virtually guaranteed admission, not simply one where your odds are pretty good. The schools where your odds are pretty good, but not guaranteed, should be viewed as matches.

So focus on schools with much higher admit rates. If Barnard & Wellesley were targets for you – then look at Bryn Mawr or Mt. Holyoke. (definite matches, not safeties).

10

If you are considering CMU, also consider Pitt.

Tufts could be interesting, but it is not an easy admit.

11

Pretty Much Safe: No student from your high school with your classes, grades, and test scores has been rejected in the past two or three years.

Truly Safe: Your grades and test scores guarantee you automatic admission.

Yes, there is a difference. Talk with your guidance counselor, and verify that UW and UBC are indeed Pretty Much Safe for you, and think seriously about finding at least one Truly Safe option.

12

@writingpumpkin03 @merc81 @DCCAWAMIIAIL @gardenstategal thanks, I’ll take those into consideration!

13

@calmom thanks for the insight, tbh I kinda needed it. I’ll make those adjustments accordingly and keep this in mind in the future when finalizing my list. I’ve looked at Bryn Mawr a bit and it looks pretty nice, thanks for the suggestion!

14

@happymomof1 Thanks, I’ll do that soon! I think that UBC and UW are more pretty much safes at this point from my knowledge, so it would be good to confirm that with my counselor.

15

I would look for school where you can get extra credits from the IB Diploma:
https://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2018/05/05/getting-ib-credit-at-university/

16

You need an absolute true safety — not just a “pretty much safe” — because kids get turned down from their safeties because of factors like yield protection (when a college turns away an applicant because they don’t think the student will attend even if admitted). Any your almost-safeties are public institutions – and sometimes they are under different sort of pressures that impact how many nonresident applicants they can accept.

But a school with rolling admissions or an EA program can become a safety if you apply early and secure your spot. So that’s another option.

Or apply to the UC system and go ahead and list UC Merced as one of your options (as well as any other choices). Assuming you qualify for guaranteed system-wide admission, Merced would be where a student would end up if turned down by the other campuses.

17

@calmom I’ll take that into consideration, thanks!

I think I may have calculated my UC GPA incorrectly, as I’m taking IB a year early, so my 10th grade and 11th grade classes are essentially all IB classes. However, I’m not sure how this is weighted, and I may have calculated my UC GPA incorrectly? I tried using the online calculator, but i’m still confused.

18

Agree that Barnard and Wellsley are matches for nobody and should be in the “reach” category.

Some unsolicited advice: IMO too many people put all their time and effort into the reach colleges when it would be better placed finding match/safety schools. You say you don’t especially want a large college yet those are your safeties. I would spend more time and effort coming up with match and safety schools that fit the type of school you would like to attend. If you haven’t done so yet get your hands on some of the good college guide books (ex. Fiske, Insiders Guide) and start reading up on small and mid-size private schools with strength in the sciences… Offhand you might consider some of the other excellent but somewhat less competitive women’s colleges (ex. Smith, Mt Holyoke if not too rural), some other LACs such as Union College, Lafayette, Franklin & Marshall to name a few (again be sure they aren’t too rural), and some mid-size universities such as URochester. Find match/safety schools you love – they are out there.

19

^^^very good advice

My kid had stats like yours (well, her SAT was already 1550) and was interested in similar majors, so we looked at different colleges and decided on matches and reaches (her safeties, UIUC and UMN were already determined long before).

As @happymomof1 wrote - look at the acceptance rate from your high school. Our HS is well known and regarded in most of the Midwest, so, for most Midwestern college most designations move half a category or so, with low reaches becoming matches, and low matches becoming safeties. However, for most East Coast colleges, the exact opposite is usually the case, and most high matches being actually reaches, and most reaches being out-of-reaches. So, for example, for my D, Carleton is a match, however, Barnard is a high reach - kids from our HS have been accepted at Carleton at a much higher rate than their average acceptance rate (36% over the past three years, when acceptance rates have been 19%-22%, and 83% of kids with stats similar to my D’s have been accepted), while at Barnard, it is well below their acceptance rates (12% over the past three years, while acceptance rates were 14%-15%, and only about 33% of the applicants with stats similar to my D’s have been accepted). For most kids in the country with the same stats as my D, though, Carleton would be a reach, and for kids from many high schools in NY with similar stats as my D, Barnard could be a low reach.

Aside from your GC, Naviance scattergrams for the college are a good source of that data.

20

“I take IB a year early, like about 100 other kids at my school, and so I’m doing all my IB tests rn, and I was hoping for a 40, but after this past week and a half, I’m feel like it might be more like 36, so that sucks.”

I think i go to the same school.I got 2 B’s in Ms. H’s class so should i do Spanish 4 next year? Any advice?