help with classifying safeties, matches and reaches for my D

Parents Forum
161

another quick update, she visited cornell, colgate and hamilton this past weekend. Cornell has now replaced duke as her top school and she plans to apply ED to the CALS school. Applicants from our school have about a 3% success rate at duke and 30% success rate at cornell so from a probability pov, seems like a smart move. The 30% admit rate has been constant over the last five years. If admitted, she’ll save about $60k over 4 years for grad school as the CALS school has a SUNY tuition. So with a little luck, she’ll be done by mid-dec.

In addition to cornell, she’s readied EA applications to wisonsin and u mich. She also loved colgate but is passing on hamilton.

162

^ @quietdesperation That sounds like a great strategy! Cornell sounds like a good fit and the Naviance data is also very encouraging. A price break in tuition and greater proximity to home also sounds very attractive. Good luck to your daughter!

Your commentary on your son’s experience at Oberlin also has been very helpful to me as my D has submitted an application there.

Coincidentally, a family at D’s school has a daughter, now a junior, at Cornell and a son who just started at Oberlin. The daughter has been extremely happy, looking forward to an update from the son.

163

Sounds like everything is falling into place! Can you share what she didn’t like about Hamilton and what made Cornell move to the top? Thanks so much!!

164

So if i read the past few posts correctly, your list is looking something like this (?):

Cornell ED

Michigan, Wisconsin EA (both OOS?)

RD:
Duke
Washington U
Colgate

That’s a nice list of reaches and matches. Do you have a true safety in mind?

165

If she is open to McGill, may want to consider UBC and UofT as well. McGill is wonderful as is Montreal - I think that UBC and Vancouver fit a similar bill. Your daughter has excellent stats and the Canadian schools are largely stat driven.

166

@mamaedefamilia My S will be home from Oberlin next week for fall break, will be interesting to catch up with him. Good luck to your D!

@citymama9 fwiw, she described hamilton as a cross between colby and oberlin. she was very turned off by Oberlin when she visited her older brother, so she’s passing. She decided on cornell over duke because she feels cornell is more economically and racially diverse. Also, we’ve given each of the kids a college budget, any unused money can be used for grad school so she likes the idea of saving around $60k over four years.

@my2caligirls good idea, but her head will explode if we introduce more schools at this point.

@prezbucky here’s the latest list, copied from an earlier post. I’ve added parchment probabilities.

basic stats:
caucasian female
4.0 unw, 8aps by the time she graduates, two languages
act - 33, 34 superscore, plans to try one more time
sat II bio - 790
languages, spanish and chinese since 8th grade, taught herself latin this past summer
attended Tufts vet summer program, shadowed vets, attended lectures, etc. competitive admittance.

ecs -
since 8th grade worked with partners to help raise money and awareness for girl’s education in developing countries. Chose a different country each year
varsity tennis captain
destination imagination - 4th globally in 10th grade
chinese club vp
mount holyoke book award
no hooks

safety

mcgill 14/14 with gpa>=88 and 2075 sat Parchment%=89
rochester 31/33 with gpa>=90, sat >= 1800 Parchment%=94

match

colby 5/6 with gpa>=95, sat >= 2000 Parchment%=72
wisconsin 9/9 gpa >=90, sat >=1800 Parchment%=82
Colgate 6/8 gpa >= 93, sat >=2050 Parchment%=79

reach

u mich 20/24 with gpa>=94, sat >= 2000 Parchment%=81
middlebury 8/12 with gpa>=95, sat >= 2150 Parchment%=38
wash U 5/5 with gpa>=95, sat >= 2200 Parchment%=49
cmu 8/10 with gpa>=92, sat >= 2150 Parchment%=63
cornell 8/9 with gpa >= 95, sat >=2200 Parchment%=46

far reach

duke 1/25 with gpa=99, sat = 2200 Parchment%=23
dartmouth 1/19 with gpa = 98, sat=2275 Parchment%=20
williams 1/12 with gpa = 98, sat=2300 Parchment%=24
Rice 1/4 with gpa=94 sat = 2050 Parchment%=35
berkeley 2/4 with gpa>=95, sat>=2200 Parchment%=58

167

Every college at Cornell is different. See the stats for ALS here:
https://www.suny.edu/media/suny/content-assets/documents/summary-sheets/Admissions_qf_stateop.pdf
This bodes well for your daughter - but from what I hear a lot also depends on the essay and the “fit.”

Naviance doesn’t break down stats for Cornell by college so it can be deceptive. Many of the land grant colleges (like ALS) are also big on the “Conditional / Guaranteed Transfer” option - that’s usually for kids with lower test scores so may not apply, but be aware that this might happen. You go to another college for a year and if you get a certain GPA you are pretty much guaranteed a transfer sophomore year.

And here’s a second link about size off class:
http://cals.cornell.edu/sites/cals.cornell.edu/files/shared/documents/academics/CALS_exchange_PPT.pdf

I think your D has a good chance - but she’s hopefully happy with safeties and matches, too.

168

thanks @4Gulls , She read about the “fit” requirement, so she’s mulling that over now and how her “Why CALS” essay might align with their mission statement.

169

Sounds perfect.

170

just a quick update, here’s what’s going out tonight:
cornell ed
u mich ea
wisc ea
uva ea

I’d like to think (hope) Cornell is 50-50, with some luck, hope to be done mid dec.

171

Good luck!!

172

thanks @thumper1, what a difference between her and my sons. My sons pushed submit at 11:50pm on the due date. Last week she told me there was no way she’d go into halloween weekend with the apps hanging over her head and true to her word, she got them out tonight.

173

Good luck! I bookmarked this thread. Keep us updated:)

174

Ha @quietdesperation. My son managed to beat your sons to the punch by, oh, 5 hours. I can already predict how different it will be with my daughter.

175

OP, best of luck to your D with her ED application to Cornell. D3 applied ED (HumEc) and is now a junior there. Fabulous school, community, area. She loves it. Was a bit of a stretch for my D but the ‘fit’ was there and we’ve all assumed ED helped.

176

thanks @collage1 , her stats are on the money but I’m not sure what cornell will think about fit. I’d feel much more confident if she had some research under her belt. Well, it’s out of our control now, we’ll know soon enough!

177

My D asked me an interesting question the other day, thought I’d post here for opinions. She’ll hear from cornell (ed) mid dec, she’ll either be accepted, deferred or denied. If she’s denied, is that a message about the relative strength (or weakness) of her application? should it effect her list of schools?

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll have heard from any other schools before that, so the outcome at cornell (and possible u mich ea) will be her last data point.

The list of schools is in reply #165 of this thread.

thanks!

p.s. she decided to swap wiliams for vanderbilt on her list.

178

If it was a match or safety school and she got denied, I’d recommend revisiting the list and/or revisiting the application for weaknesses. However, for a reach like Cornell, I wouldn’t panic about it. As a reach, the odds are low by definition, right? As long as you feel she has a balanced list with multiple matches and safeties, I wouldn’t worry about a rejection from an ED reach school too much.

179

^I agree. Because of holistic admissions, a denial from one highly selective school doesn’t automatically mean denial at another.

My D did meet the EA deadline for a couple of match schools for the purpose of using them as a bellwether. We think she should get in, but if she doesn’t, it will definitely give us a better sense of her chances at her favorite school, a reachier one. She plans to apply RD but if the matches come in as rejections or waitlists, she may switch to EDII.

180

thanks! it will be interesting to see if she decides to try EDII somewhere if not admitted to cornell. I think conventional wisdom is that the EDII school should not be quite as selective as the EDI school.