I would push you on your “no midwest or south” restriction. If you are willing to go to the Northeast from WA then the other areas should be under consideration as well.
If its some sort of political preference, its important to understand that the red vs blue divide is really rural vs urban. Take a look at how eastern washington votes and compare it to Atlanta or Houston, for instance. There’s plenty of very liberal places in the midwest and south, and plenty of very conservative places in the Northeast and West. Also, colleges are their own little world for the most part, almost are considerably more liberal then their surroundings. That’s the nature of academia.
Calmom - UC Merced is currently listed as 100% in state students . There is a reason for that, there are not many circumstances where UC Merced would be worth out of state tuition, even for a very wealthy family. Its not an attractive choice at OOS tuition, that’s empirical. Also Univ of Calif is one of the states that does limit OOS attendees, not that I think this student would not be admitted;she 99.9% would be. But she’s 99.9% at a lot better locales than UC Merced.
@aquapt - thanks for the info. Important clarification.
Looks like tuition would be 16K for this student. Pretty good discount. Fact remains that, even as a member of the WUE consortium, less than 0.5% of UC Merced students are from out of state. I dont think that’s an accident, nor is there much of reason for the OP to buck the trend.
@hackeysack I’ve been considering WUSTL recently after another person stated something about it. I’m still a little averse just also because of the weather, since I have very dry skin and the environment of middle America and the South are a little harsh on it. Furthermore, my parents are actually also averse to sending me to the midwest/South if it’s not an incredibly prominent school (my mom immediately wrote off the idea of Vanderbilt when she found out it was in Tennessee), so it would be hard to go over it with them.
@aliens20 - THe winters in the Northeast are no picnic, certainly more demanding than the South on dry skin. But sounds like your parents have their own agenda that you have to accomodate. I think they are being somewhat irrational, but it’s their money.
If your parents think Vandy isn’t a prominent school, they need to do some serious recalibration. WashU is notorious for waitlisting; I wouldn’t even think of applying unless it’s ED. You and your parents would be well-served to read some of the acceptance/rejections from this past admissions cycle. It is not pretty. Go ahead and reach – but you need to have a solid foundation of schools where the acceptance rate is high and you would be happy to attend.
An acceptance rate of <20% means that everyone who’s applying has stats and grades just like yours. Top 10% at your HS doesn’t mean you are top 10% in an extremely selective college’s applicant pool.
Colleges will not see your full IB score until you’ve already graduated – scores don’t come out til July. Colleges also are going to recalculate your GPA anyway so they can look at students apples-to-apples. They know IB is tough, so that will count in your favor.
@CountingDown I’m doing IB a year early, so I’ll already have finished and received my score before I begin senior year, so I can apply with that. My senior year is made up of college courses, other APs, and an internship.
But that is good advice. My parents recognize that Vandy is a very good school, they just would rather I don’t go South/Midwest if they can help it.
@hackeysack having lived in a variety of places, I’ve since learned that cold weather is usually kinder to my skin than hot weather is. Thank you for the insight though!
I agree Barnard and Wellesley are reaches for anyone. I’m thinking OP can confirm that UBC and UW are in the bag,(talk to GC) get those apps off as soon as they become available, and if they are early notification through rolling admissions, she can focus on the other schools. They can all be reaches if she’s got one school that has accepted her. Understanding that those are the likely schools, not only in terms of them accepting her but where she may be going.
I’ve seen kids do this approach and it works.
You might want to talk to your parents about finding schools that will certainly take you and that they will be in board as well as the reaches they seek. I’ve seen issues arise when s hard win admissions to schools like Rochester and Oberlin get met with parents refusing to pay the sticker price they gladly would have paid for Penn
@aliens - fair enough on cold weather vs hot weather on your skin. Of course plenty of cold weather in the MidWest. In the end, if you only want the West and Northeast, then that’s where you should look. At least it narrows the field for you.