Not to push the women’s college thing but my daughter too was the “I don’t want to go to an all girls school” but I made her at least visit one and now one is in her top 3.
@thumper1 from my post above: "Again, my d won’t apply to all these schools, these are just the schools currently in consideration. "
@Dolemite interesting, she attended something at wellsley, hated it, still, I’ll see if she’d be willing to look at one.
My daughter visited one women’s college and expected to hate it. She didn’t hate it, but didn’t like it either. It was not the school for her. She’s currently at a 75% male/ 25% female school, so talk about a swing!
I would have liked those odds in college!
^^still took her an entire year to get a boyfriend, and now he’s graduating on Saturday! (she’s actually pretty shy)
I’m another very conservative, risk averse person – so here’s my take on your current list.
Case Western’s acceptance rate is 38%; Tulane’s is 27%; Rochester is 35%. I would be uncomfortable calling any school with acceptance rates like those safeties. I would call those matches. UVM is a safety. McGill is probably a safety. If she applies early somewhere and gets in, then of course she’s golden – but if she applies RD to Case, Tulane or Rochester, then I would not classify them as safeties. If she’s happy with UVM and McGill, and will be happy to attend, then really, those are all the safeties she needs.
Emory’s acceptance rate is below 25% and Colby’s is below 20%. I would never call those two matches. They, too, are reaches.
So, she’s got two safeties (UVM and McGill), three matches (Rochester, Tulane and Case) and a whole bunch of reaches.
If she likes Amherst and Williams, what about other LACs that might be matches – Muhlenberg or Wheaton, etc.?
“Looks like we need more matches”
With many colleges’ accepted students’ stats rising and admission rates falling each year, and schools rejecting solid applicants for “yield protection,” I wonder if “safety, match, reach” is even a useful paradigm at all anymore. Is there such thing as a match, and is it necessary? We basically had a list of schools with a line drawn through the middle. For the schools above the line, we felt sure of admission; for the schools below the line, we didn’t. Kid would have been happy at any, so no need to pursue true “matches” any further.
@Aida , good point. It is very important to express interest at all schools, especially safeties and matches, IMO. There are many examples of kids at my D’s school alone, never mind the countless times this comes up on CC, who were rejected or waitlisted at schools they should have got into comfortably, and I am sure it was due to not expressing interest. We made a well-thought out list that included enough match and safety schools (7 in total). It mostly went to plan, but she was waitlisted at one match school in which her stats were in the 75th percentile and she had interviewed and expressed interest. It just shows why an appropriate number of “possibilities” are needed. That number doesn’t need to be huge though. I think most students should be able to craft a list of all three levels if the list has about ten schools.
Don’ want to add any more chaos to your list, but look at Pitt instead of Penn State and/or Delaware for safety. Good support for pre-med students, great availability of shadowing/ research/hospital volunteerism. May also be able to get an in with the Med School there. It has been mentioned in many other threads but you might want to consider the degree of difficulty of the school if she is sincerely interested in medicine. Taking the required pre-med courses at Duke is almost certainly going to result in a lower GPA than Pitt or similar.
Pitt also has rolling admissions so if you get things in early you can know mid October from what I’ve heard.
@fireandrain On the safeties, understand where you’re coming from and, at our own peril, we’re going to leave them be. My analysis is that if rochester has taken 31 of 33 candidates where the candidates gpa is >=90 and sat >=1800 and my D’s stats are significantly stronger than that baseline, it should be treated as a safety. I can’t worry about yield protection as there’s a chance that will happen with every safety (except state schools). Same goes for tulane.
Otoh, I’m much more in tune to colby and emory not being matches but I do think if she mixes colby and emory with some of the more likely reach schools (wash u, cmu, middlebury) she has a good chance to get into at least one of those schools. And in the end, if she has a rejection apocalypse, she’s very happy to attend rochester or mcgill.
@MAB222 thanks, we’ll definitely look at pitt, have consistently heard good things about it.
by way of update, u mich seems to rise every day in her estimation. I think it’s her #4 choice now and probably most realistic given her stats. Her big brother is there and providing lots of inside information, I’m sure that helping drive the uptick in interest.
she has APs, SAT IIs and the act coming up so we probably won’t visit any more schools until the fall. we have two fall trips planned, one to colgate, hamilton and cornell the other to wash u. Will post updates to this thread through acceptances/rejections.
@quietdesperation I read this entire thread, and I found it both helpful and interesting. What struck me was how well your public school does in college placement. I’m still learning, but it seems they do as well as many good private schools in NY. You don’t have to answer, but is your dd going to one of the specialized hs’s in nyc? We live in nyc, and my dd attends a school that seems to have great matriculations, but I haven’t seen our Naviance yet. I think you have to be a Junior in order to do so. Anyway, please keep us informed. It’s tremendously helpful for those of us trying to learn the ropes. Best of luck to you daughter. She will do very well, no doubt.
Very enjoyable, thoughtful thread so far. Looking forward to following along. Definitely show interest in your favorite safeties to guard against yield protection.
@citymama9 my D attends a well-regarded public school in westchester…fwiw, it was rated in the top 1% of public schools in the country by us news. You might be interested in my thread from last year for my middle child’s search for a “quirky” school, outcomes are posted at the end of the thread:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1687953-quirky-school-list-p1.html
@lindagaf started a similar thread this year:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1658573-where-do-the-cool-kids-go-to-college-p1.html
interestingly, there’s a lot crossover between the schools we considered.
@quietdesperation, my DD14 (lower GPA, similar SAT scores as your DD) applied EA to Tulane and found out in October that she had gotten in. They used to have (and might still have) a “sort of” rolling admissions for top students. We actually visited when we went to a wedding the previous summer, which showed demonstrated interest, but she didn’t do any additional work other than the application. She received quite a bit of merit aid. She loved the campus, the people, and the honors dorm. She didn’t particularly like the city, so didn’t end up attending.
If your DD can manage to demonstrate interest (or even visit) I think it would be a fabulous safety for her. Their honors program is really pretty good for strong students.
Good luck with narrowing down the list!
Thanks, @quietdesperation ! I know there are some sought after districts in Westchester, so you struck gold! I will most definitely read your other thread. As for @lindagaf I read her threads like they’re my bibles, lol. Another person who’s thread helped was earthmama.
Don’t treat CWRU like a safety or you wont’ get in (or will get waitlisted)…they take your interest into account.
@quietdesperation not to get off track for your D but I just read through your quirky kid list. I’ve a quirky kid (and no you can’t quite describe it) and see some overlaps in our lists. Somewhat similar stats, higher gpa, similar trend on the gpa but lower test scores in our case (ADHD kid who can’t complete in time, sigh). 6 AP’s, 3 honors, one DE. Working on that test score but…
Liberal west coaster, more hipster than preppy, will not be studying music or theater but would like to keep both in his life (those are his peeps). Jazz, Wind Ensemble, Theater Tech, Pun Club and Sustainability type EC’s. Could care less about sports but it isn’t a deal breaker either.
Do you mind me asking where all he ended up applying/visiting? Did he stick with your original list? I see where accepted but as we work through our list I need to determine what is worth attempting to tour, or if applying and touring upon acceptance is a better route. I just checked our schools results for Oberlin and ouch…large Public HS in Seattle area (which does quite well with west coast schools) is definitely not on their short list. 0/5. LOL! It sounds lovely though. Based on your original and final, UVM may be the only overlap but a lot of schools were tossed around that we are evaluating so would love to hear a full list.
Sorry for the hijack but thanks for posting the link!
@eandesmom I’m not the OP of course, but I have some thoughts. Have you looked into Hampshire College in MA? Lewis and Clark? Earlham College? Eckerd College in Fl? They seem like good fits from what I have read about them
@citymama9 and @eandsmom and anyone else interested, let’s move this discussion over to my quirky school thread:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1687953-quirky-school-list-p1.html
I’ll answer eandsmom questions there.