I am trying to find additional options (reaches and matches) for my junior daughter. We are in California and have visited and created a list of the schools in our state (primarily 5 UC’s but also a few other safeties). Would love to also add several OOS schools that might be good fits that we could visit this summer. My daughter is a 4.0 unweighted that will have 10 AP’s by graduation. She is a 1500 SAT (might take ACT or SAT again if need to increase a few points). Not a NMSF, but on the PSAT, Math II, and two SAT she scored 800 on all Math sections. Definitely a Math and Science Girl. EC - She was a dedicated gymnast from age 6-14 but needed to retire from injury so put that interest into coaching (15 hours a week) and cheerleading at her high school. She is also very involved with Math Circle and on board for a girls math tournament that has recently wrote a book and developed international satellites. Has participated and received awards in science fair and photography and is in National Charity League volunteering at a hospital 10 hours a month. Her interests are in math and chemistry and is thinking she might go the science route, or finance. Very focused, independent and motivated. Doesn’t need personal attention so would do just fine at large school with lots of options or medium size school. Very competitive, likes hard classes. Also very social kid, might like to be part of sorority. She thinks she would like to stay close, but I want her to open up right now to some schools out of the area, but schools that are two flights and a few hour drive would probably not be good matches.
If there are a few colleges that we should make sure we don’t overlook, I would be grateful for suggestions.
No way she needs to increase from a 1500. My D, a math nerd looking at small schools, attended Lewis and Clark. One Bio major in her class went direct into the PhD program at UCB. However, the issue with LACs is their offerings may not be broad enough for accelerated students.
Thanks Erins Dad. She probably won’t but she is focused on UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, and UCD right now and the number of high scoring students getting rejected from those is staggering. That is why I would like to have a number of non-uc schools that might not be obvious to us, but good matches that might entice her to broaden her options.
Good question. That is the challenge with trying to do a search, there are so many variables and so many colleges! I have done some initial calculations and at some schools she will qualify for enough aid to be competitive with the UC’s. I am an older single retired parent with a pension and good size 403B. I also am open to coming out of retirement and getting a part time job if it is a dream college for her. She is my only child. So I thought I would start with a master list of colleges and then look at the schools calculator. I know there are strong opinions on this board about cost, but I would first like to create a matching list based on her interests and abilities and work from there.
Thanks! I will check it out. Is there is a reason you think that is a good match? Any more suggestions? I am especially interested in hearing about any private college options. It doesn’t have to be a large school, but a good science or finance school with an active campus life.
My son and I were incredibly impressed by the math department at UMichigan. In another post I called it a “hidden gem” and someone rightly pointed out that it’s very highly regarded, so not exactly hidden, but what I meant was that it’s a small oasis of excellence inside a big university. UMich overall is great, but there are certain places like their math department that are even more great, if that’s possible.
Since your dd is a math girl who doesn’t mind a big school and would like some of that school spirit and social life, seems like UMich would be worth looking into. Ann Arbor was one of the nicest towns of all the places we visited on our college search and the head of their math department was very kind to my son in all their communications.
The only downer as far as we were concerned was the price for OOS students. We’d likely be full pay and to me, it seemed very expensive. If we’d been in state, though, DS and I agree, he would have happily gone there and not looked back.
Thanks. We are in Southern California. We are aware of Harvey Mudd and we have visited. We have a good handle on all the California schools. I am interested in out of state schools to add to the California school list.
Princeton, WashU. Both reaches but she’s in position to be a candidate. WashU has the Compton scholars program - highly competitive but it’s a 4 year full tuition merit scholarship. Check it out.
@19parent I mentioned Wisconsin-Madison because it is an excellent school, with strong academics, a vibrant fun and diverse campus and a very social city. The campus is embedded into Madison, though there are quads and green spaces, and it is nestled between 2 huge lakes. It’s a really unique place that has it all.
Strictly in terms of your daughter’s academic interests, you could read through this list of colleges from a Princeton Review sampling, “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors”:
Harvey Mudd
MIT
UChicago
Caltech
Harvard
Haverford
Hamilton
Bowdoin
Reed
Rice
Carleton
Grinnell
Macalester
After screening by the more general criteria you included, you might find that one or two of these colleges could be excellent for her.
Thank you everyone! I love this forum! I am writing down every suggestion and have my daughter look over each college websites to see if she can add a few out of state options to her current list.
Brown University- strong in math, STEM, more undergrad focused than the other larger Ivy League schools
Wellesley College - women’s college strong in STEM (and everything else) with strong ties with MIT