Hello,
I’m looking for help with my son’s list. He has plenty of reaches, but needs some matches.
SAT 1470 (750 EW, 720 M)
UW GPA 3.6
AP Lang 5, AP US history, 4
ECs - pretty average, part time jobs, theater, ski club, some leadership, etc. Essays and recs will be very good, but no major hooks.
He doesn’t need financial aid, of course merit is nice but not needed.
He wants to study business at a big school with good spirit. His home state in NY, but he doesn’t like any SUNYs because they don’t have that big spirit environment. I think his current favorite is Madison, but you never know if he’ll get in. He’s also looked at UIUC, which he liked but it seems hard to get to, since it is far from an airport. He’s visited all these schools. Also, he liked a lot of other state schools which are too hard to get into, such as UNC, UVA and UT Austin, so not worth applying to.
His current list:
Michigan (reach)
Notre Dame (reach)
Boston College (reach)
U Wisconsin Madison (match)
Tulane (match)
The Ohio State University (safety)
U Maryland College Park (safety)
Considering adding Penn State or Syracuse if Ohio doesn’t work out, but he loved it when we visited.
Any input is appreciated, thanks so much!
I knew I would forget one! He also has Indiana University on his list. It’s tricky because Indiana would be a safety, but he is not a direct admit to Kelley because of his GPA so I’m not sure what to think of that.
As an OOS applicant, I would not consider OSU or UMD as safeties, and certainly not IU for a business major.
My D is an engineering student so hopefully folks with business focused kids will chime in with some true safeties.
And Tulane is certainly not a match.
Really? @Muad_dib and @momofsenior1 ? I was just going off naviance, which has OSU and UMD as very safe, and Tulane as right there. I guess it could be just the difference in majors, maybe those other applicants weren’t business. I know IU Kelley isn’t a safety, but regular IU would be, which is what makes IU confusing. Thank you for your help!
Agree. They have a 13% acceptance rate for the entering 2019 class and 42K applicants.
I can only speak to UMich, but at least in terms of the students who posted here on CC, no OOS or in-state students with a 3.6 GPA were admitted. The caveat here is that kids who post on CC skew towards the higher end. I noted a couple of in-state students with 3.7’s who were accepted. According to the UMich website, the average GPA for the entire UMich Class of 2023 was 3.9 (unweighted). GPA and course rigor are the two most important factors listed in the UMich CDS. UMich should be considered a “high reach.”
Naviance is not always accurate.
For state flagships, you need to ignore the overall acceptance rates and dig deeper into the OOS acceptance rates for business majors.
Yes, I guess I put too much faith in Naviance! Thanks so much for your help. So if everything on my list goes up a level or two- reaches to don’t bother, matches to reaches, safeties to matches, than what would you suggest for safeties?
Naviance is a good tool, but as momofsenior1 mentions, more digging is needed.
Just a singular example, but from my kid’s HS Class of 2018, three students enrolled at UPenn. At least two for sure were recruited athletes. I can’t recall the third student. Naviance doesn’t give you details like recruited athletes, kids who parents are employed by the university, legacies, etc. And then there are the errors.
University of Colorado - Boulder, Indiana University, SDSU, University of Washington.
Since his GPA is a little low for direct admit for some of these big public colleges, he might have to be pre-Business, do well in his classes and than apply to the Business school. Not ideal but certainly an option for the motivated student.
Also, if the Naviance does not list applied-to major or division at colleges where that matters for admission selectivity, it can be misleading.
Consider: SMU & Texas A&M.
University of Pittsburgh & University of Minnesota.
Auburn University Honors College. University of Mississippi Honors College.
You are coming from NY. These schools receive plenty…and I mean lots and lots and lots of applications …from NY area kids who have really, really high stats and accomplishments. Your son also has a competitive major.
I would put his reaches into the mega reach category.
Wisconsin and Tulane are reaches
Ohio State and Maryland are low reaches. The OOS kids from our school who were accepted to the business school at OS had higher unweighted gpas. These schools have gotten tougher.
Penn State and Syracuse would be matches …high match? (again, major may make it a harder acceptance)
I would add a few schools such as UConn, Pitt, Delaware, Michigan State, Indiana (note that some of these acceptances might be tricky due to major). Take a look at JMU, Clemson, and College of Charleston.