help with classifying safeties, matches and reaches for my D

Parents Forum
21

I don’t think Rochester is a safety. They had their most selective year ever this year. You can’t call a school with an acceptance rate in the 30th percentile a safety. They very strongly encourage interviews and consider interest. They WLed a girl at our school with stats almost exactly like your D’s. Your three matches are reaches, IMO. Your “reach” of Wash U is as much a reach as Amherst if you are going by acceptance rate, give or take 1%. From what I see, I think UVM is your only true safety. CW is probably a good bet.

Here is something I learned this last year in helping my senior navigate the process: stats might look great on paper, but there are other super important variables that you aren’t considering. Essays are super important, so are teacher recs, ECs, and a bunch of other important and not quite as important factors, including interest as someone mentioned. They all work together to guarantee nothing for the vast majority of colleges on your list.

22

The challenge I see with your “safety” list is that while your child is a strong candidate for any of them they are each selective enough that if she really doesn’t wish to attend it could affect their acceptance. I would call schools like Case a strong match. They will have other students with stronger stats and accept many students with lower stats. I don’t think you can take acceptance for granted.

23

If any of these schools have an EA…early admissions…option…have your kiddo do that. Not early decision…early action. If any have rolling admissions…do that.

That way, your kiddo will know about one school at least early in the process.

Your daughter has fabulous stats, but I think this list is quite top heavy.

What is your instate flagship university?

24

I was just looking over my somewhat lower stats kid’s list, and also at how his results compared to my guesstimate of what was safety/match/reach (based on Naviance and other factors such as latest stats on admit rates) and I was pretty much on target, but there were some surprises, and I also saw kids with higher stats than your kid’s or his get rejected at several of the schools you listed as safeties (Case, URochester, Tulane) – probably out of sensitivity to being used as a safety.

So I think your list is good, but I’d be careful to express strong, consistent interest in the ones you’ve identified as safeties (and apply EA where possible – UVM was nice to have for us early in the game, as was Case).

And there will be surprises. Right smack in the middle of my kid’s list, above the safety acceptances and below a bunch of acceptances at schools I thought were high matches/low reaches (he did better in that category than I’d expected), a school I thought was a true match sent a rejection. (My guess is a meh interview and a couple of missed opportunities to express interest.) And a school I thought was a high reach admitted him. So brace for a bit of randomness in how this plays out.

25

Tulane is not a safety. Lots of kids with stars similar to your D’s were rejected this year.

26

She doesn’t like any SUNY schools? Bing? Geneseo?

27

^ I was also going to suggest at least one in state public option, just to cover your bases. Geneseo gets pretty high marks here on CC and elsewhere for high stats applicants.

28

@quietdesperation Just be aware that for a white girl from the Northeast the acceptance rate at Middlebury drops to below 10%. Good luck.

29

If she doesn’t like any of the SUNY schools, you might want to consider OOS state universities that are hospitable to out-of-staters. The ones that come to mind are Penn State (which has rolling admissions, so you get your answer early) and the University of Delaware. There are also lots of New Yorkers at the University of Maryland, but admission is too competitive for it to be considered a safety for an out-of-stater, no matter how well qualified.

The problem here, of course, is that in a lot of states the flagship state university is the almost-automatic safety school for students of your daughter’s caliber, but in New York, with its dispersed SUNY system, life is more complicated.

30

Naviance data should be looked at in context, which you may not know in a large HS. For example, the admission of the kid with a lower GPA and scores might have been due to being a recruited athlete. Naviance data older than a couple years may not be at all predictive for some colleges if they have become more selective in that period.

Does your D have a favorite where ED would be a possibility?

31

“From what I can see, the challenge is around finding matches that are not really reaches and safeties that are not really matches.” - Not clear to me what is a purpose of this classification. How this division will affect the application cycle?
We never thought of colleges this way, we just researched which ones will offer the Merit awards and D. applied only to them that also happened to be within 4 hours of driving from home as thatt one was her personal criteria.

Incidentally, my D. had exactly the same stats, she graduated #1 from her private HS.

32

I was surprised to see on CWRU board that >1 kid with high stats, including some that said they were actually interested in attending, had visited and shown them love, not be accepted EA. Maybe the kid had a fatal flaw that they did not disclose. Just FYI.

33

Duke ED acceptance rate is very high in comparison to their RD rate. If it’s truly her dream school I think she would have a good shot ED.

34

@WhataProcess she’s interested in bio/pre-med but she has a wide array of interests (hence the interest in LACs). the reason I propose listing it as a reach as opposed to a far reach is that 5 out of 6 people have been accepted from our hs with similar stats

@lindagaf It’s not that I’m not considering those factors, it’s that at this point, I don’t know what her essay and teacher recs will be like. The reason I’ve listed rochester as a safety is that in the last 10 years of naviance data for our hs, there have been 25 admits and zero rejections for kids that have a gpa > 95 and an sat >2100. if interested I’ll send the graph. (I know your D is considering Rochester). Similarly, wash u has admitted all five candidates with a gpa > 95 and an sat > 2200, so I’ve listed it as a reach. Our understanding of mcGill, is that if you have met the min stats, you’re admitted. the naviance data seems to back this up (15 admits, zero rejections for an 89 gpa and a 2075 sat). Would value your opinion given these datapoints.

@thumper1 we plan to ea at u mich, case and uvm. If I recall from S1, mcgill has a rolling admission.

@porcupine98 we expect rejections from matches, we think of a match as a 50-50 proposition.

@me29034 If tulane rejects, it will be to protect their yield and I’m not sure what we can do about that. she’ll write a good essay but we’re not going to spend the $ to visit. They’ve admitted 50 students from our school with a gpa>90 and an sat >1800. there have been two rejects in that group, the two kids with the best raw stats, so yes, my D may suffer that fate but not sure if that merits a move to match?

@momof2girls and @mamaedefamilia if we get to the rd round with all rejects, she’ll apply to state flagships.

@urbanslaughter I know!! the naviance data looks promising and she’s done very well in her two languages, so we’re hoping that plays well with middlebury. Also, since they superscore, she is above the 75% percentile for act. I think an ED at middlebury would be a smart move, but she has her heart set on trying for duke or dartmouth.

@Marian thanks, penn state is interesting, I’m not sure delaware is that much better than our flagships so I’m thinking she’ll move in that direction if needed.

@yauponredux we’re aware of the drawbacks of naviance data, hence asking the CC community. she has her heart set on duke ED though in the end she may decide on dartmouth. she understands there’s a very small probability of success.

35

So yes, it seems as though Roch is a good bet for your school. Just don’t assume, and you will be fine. I think you really need a safer school in addition to UVM. And you don’t have to visit to get in. In fact, my D was accepted to two of the three schools she didn’t visit, and WLed at one. But she showed interest by requesting interviews and meeting reps, and of course, emailing. Colleges know that students can’t always visit. I have heard that some colleges, such as WUSTL, very much expect students to visit. In fact, at one point my D briefly considered it and was told by her counselor that she needed to visit. This rumor has since been “verified” on various other posts, but I don’t know how true it is. I doubt kids in really far flung places visit, or int’l students. It is worth knowing about though.

I think she should be fine with McGill, but a major needs to be declared at the outset. Is she happy to do that? Great school in a great city.

36

Tulane has EA so you can find out if it’s a go or not around the same time as Duke ED.

37

A lot of people are talking about your safeties, which I think is appropriate, but I will express a little different philosophy about reaches. If her dream school is Duke, several of those high reaches are more Duke-like than the matches and safeties on the list. I see no reason to limit her to two high reaches. Your total list is 16, which is a lot, but not outside the norm these days for a kid who is really interested in a high reach. If this was my kid, I wouldn’t suggest dropping any of the reaches or high reaches. I might substitute a safer safety, though, because I’m paranoid that way.

38

@quietdesperation If your d doesn’t visit Tulane, have her reach out in some other way. And have her submit the EA app there as early as possible. The high stats early bird kids seem to do better than the high stats EA kids who lob the app in at the last minute. If the rep comes the your school, make meaningful contact.
As for Rochester, based on your naviance it does seem safe. Some high schools do have ‘relationships’ with certain colleges which are helpful and that seems to be the case for you.

39

@Hunt, thanks, actually the current plan is 12 schools: 4 safeties, 4 matches, 2 reaches and 2 far reaches. If she’s admitted ea to say u mich, we will drop the other matches and safeties, and perhaps apply one or two more reaches.

@lindagaf you’re starting to noodle around my hesitation with McGill. She doesn’t want to be in a city, she won’t have visited and she’s not sure about her major. I have similar reservations about case. it’s bears some thought on our part. I’ve agreed to visit one school via airplane and she’s chosen wash u which she describes as “best bang for the buck” in terms of visiting :slight_smile: We probably should visit Emory as well but don’t want to spend the $

40

Be aware that medical school is expensive. Would it be desirable to go to a lower cost school to save money for medical school?

Some scholarship opportunities listed here:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/ (potential safeties)
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/