Help to build a reasonable college list

Hi CC Folks,

My daughter is a junior at a public HS of VA and we are starting the college search.
Some of her stats:

• GPA 4.3/4 no unweighted available
• SAT 1500 (superscore)
• SAT- not taken yet
• ACT 34C (36/36/33/29, Essay is not released yet)
• APs World History – 5, APUSH – current, BC Calculus- current, Chemistry – current, English Lang – current, Psychology – current, all other courses honors
• Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): no major Violin at (2018 National Cappies Capital Area Awards), Presidential Gold Service Award, 5th place in Regional Science Olympiad

• Bullet Journal Club- Founder and President
• Science Olympiad
• Orchestra
• Summers- volunteered at Northwestern China for younger kids 2018
• Job/Work Experience: Tutoring for two middle schoolers

Intended Major: health or pre-med, graphic design as minor?

Current list of colleges
Reach: UPenn, Northwestern, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Notre Dame
Match: UVA, W&M, UNC Chapel Hill
Safety: UPitt, VCU, U of Minnesota

Is this a reasonable list? Net price calculators have our EFC around 5,000. Would like to not go over that. Any colleges we should take a look at that are not on our list? Is it reasonable to expect she’ll get into a couple of these schools?

Seems like a reasonable list to me.

You wrote that her SAT is 1500 superscored followed by SAT not taken yet. Is this a typo ?

Oops, I mean the SAT Subject is not taken. Thanks for prompt comments!

Yes, it looks like a reasonable list.

Since Pitt is rolling, it’s very worthwhile to get that application in early - between Aug/Oct. That way she can have one likely admission secured early, before her EA or ED (if she does that) apps are due. They also give merit money out starting early in the process, so students who apply earlier get higher merit offers.
She seems very likely to get into Pitt, VCU, and Minn. Hopefully she likes one of them enough to be happy going there - you her to have a safety that she would be happy with.

UNC Chapel Hill is very competitive OOS (the state mandates that about 80% of each class come from NC), so it’s closer to a reach than a match.

UVA and W&M are matches. Likelihood of getting in can change depending where in-state you are (more competition from NoVa). In-state acceptance rates on Naviance can be deceptive, as it seems like many Virginia schools had a higher number of applications/lower rate of acceptances in the last couple years - she’s an excellent candidate, but by no means guaranteed. She might want to add another match or two, unless she’s very happy with her safeties.

Since she’s interested in health or pre-med, take a look at Case Western and see if she likes it. They’re very strong in those areas, and it would be a low match for her (not a safety, but higher likelihood of admission than her other matches).

Do all the colleges on her safety list come in at $5k? They aren’t safeties unless they’re affordable.

Hi austinshauri, some school such as VCU and U Penn state the EFC around 5k dollars, while W&M comes in almost 30k dollars. so not very sure how financially to select college. Thanks

UPenn offers great aid. Their admission rate is in the single digits though. Is VCU a state school? Do they offer guaranteed merit?

Students can only borrow ~$5500/year. If you can pay $5k that gives her a budget of $10k. What’s your FAFSA EFC?

Congratulations to your D on her hard work and success!

The list is reasonable. Reach schools are reach schools because many, many more fully qualified students apply than there are spots available. Your daughter would be academically qualified for any school, AND unfortunately schools deny admissions to many, many fully qualified students. For example, one elite school, which then accepted 14% of applicants told us 70% were fully qualified–so 4 in 5 applicants the school thought fully qualified were not accepted. That’s why it can be so unpredictable.

I might suggest your daughter googles colleges that meet full financial need. These schools CLAIM to meet full financial need, meaning you’d pay $5k. Note, though, they may not be “need blind” but instead “need aware.” Also, they might not agree on what your family can contribute. But it is a great place to start and includes many of the most elite schools, which are also some of the wealthiest. I think that could ensure your reach schools are more likely to be affordable. Besides the big ones like Harvard, Yale, which are also extremely competitive, there are great schools like Holy Cross, which has academics as strong as anywhere.

You might also look at some schools that give significant merit aid. For example, Miami of Ohio, here’s a simple merit grid,

https://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-guarantee/

Note it is good to apply early.

Certainly use the NPC, I do know that W&M is very committed to ensuring accepted in-state students who are accepted are not barred from attending because of financial circumstances. The school has earmarked significant money for that purpose. Perhaps you could work with the school if the aid package is not sufficient, if she applies and is accepted.

Good luck!

Honestly, I have not studied these. Really need to work upon.

What I see missing from the first post is any mention of what is important to the kid. Does she want to be in a rural or urban area? Are large U’s the best fit for her? Does she care about class size? About the advising system? About the opportunity to take seminars? To do independent research or work in a lab? Are there things she’d like to do in college outside of class, such as take part in a marching band or orchestra since she is currently in orchestra? Is she looking for a school with a big greek system, or without one? Where kids live on campus? With guaranteed housing, or one where kids rent in the area? To participate in an honors college? And so on.

College selection is about more than just who will accept you. Many factors go into fit; for any given kid some are more important than others. Many good college books discuss fit as part of the whole application process; one I like is “Admission Matters”. Since you have plenty of leadtime I’d suggest reading thru a book or two, then visiting examples of various colleges in your area. Even if they aren’t schools she is applying to just being on an actual campus and getting a sense of what it is like can help clarify what matters; a kid believing “size isn’t important to me” may change her mind after sitting in an intro class of 400 kids, or standing in the middle of a rural area where there is 1 block downtown with pizza joints for the college kids and that’s about it.

FYI. It’s easy to calculate an unweighted GPA. Just look at the transcript and count As as 4, Bs as 3 etc. That’s what the universities are going to do. It’s helpful to know the unweighted GPA as every school weighs differently and many schools list GPA as very important.

I’d add St. Olaf to your list. She could see some good merit money there.

State flagships outside your own state are not typically the most generous with aid for OOS students.

I would take a look at Franklin & Marshall - they meet full need and it would be a good match for her.

But do the net prices come out to that for each college (especially the intended safeties)?

Also, weighted GPA is meaningless outside of your high school. You can calculate a basic unweighted GPA by adding semester grades (A = 4, B = 3, etc.) and then dividing by the number of grades.

Thanks for info. How to count A- or B+?

3.67 / 3.33 is common. Ignoring +/- is also common.

For a basic unweighted high school GPA, leave out +/-.

Some recalculations (more often for college GPAs) give +/- 0.3 or 0.33. But A+ is often 4.0 (instead of 4.3 or 4.33) in such systems.

Thanks ucbalumnus for inputs.
I am bit confused with terminology of EFC, thus sort out the ENP from the listed colleges:
• UPenn – $29,908
• Northwestern $36,952
• Duke – $29,800
• Johns Hopkins - $20,301
• Vanderbilt – not work for Canadian
• Georgetown – $38,033
• Notre Dame - $37,851
• UVA - $15,430 (in-state)
• W&M - $35,733 (in-state)
• UNC Chapel Hill - $41,033 (oos)
• UPitt, - not find on collegboard website
• VCU - $20,014
• U of Minnesota - $45,076 (oos)
• Franklin & Marshall - $33,720

It seems more than $30k be inevitable.

Do you mean all colleges would recalculate weighted GPA to unweighted?

Some schools recalculate gpa, some don’t. The ones that do recalculate GPA use many different methodologies. With that said, knowing unweighted GPA, in core courses only, will allow posters to identify a more robust college list by tier and merit aid opportunities for your D.

Are the figures in post 17 your net cost after running the colleges’ net price calculators? If you can only afford $5k/year then none of those seem affordable. Your child can only borrow ~$5500/year. Where would the rest come from?