help with finding college matches

College Search & Selection
41

If your EFC is roughly at the level of UC costs (i.e. mid-30’s per year), then you don’t want to be looking at OOS publics (i.e. UWisconsin-Madison, UMichigan, Georgia Tech, UNC) - they will not give aid and your costs will be 50K+ There are a few excellent ones that would be less expensive (Minnesota-Twin Cities, U of Utah) and I agree with @Twoin18 that Utah would be a better choice than Oregon. (Great Honors College, great city + nature… and UofO doesn’t have engineering - you’d have to go with Oregon State + Honors College for that. Also, UofU is a WUE school - neither UofO nor OState offers the WUE discount - and Utah also lets students establish residency after the first year, so it’s a terrific financial deal.) UDub is hugely attractive but even with max OOS merit will come in 10-15K over UC.

For the most part, you need to be focusing on private U’s that meet full need; and she stands to be competitive for many of these.

I rarely do the “jump in and market my own kid’s school” thing, but your daughter sounds like a Rice kid. It’s a single flight to Houston from any CA hub. The flexibility among majors is a huge selling point. It’s important, when applying, to identify a major that makes sense in the context of your academic record and EC’s… but within that zone of things that make sense, there are no worries about not being able to switch into any major (except architecture and music, which have additional layers of application process) that you like. My daughter had a friend who started out as a music major and switched into engineering after one semester. There’s no barrier. This is a big deal for multitalented kids who aren’t sure of their path yet.

Socially speaking, Rice is mid-sized - small enough to be personal but big enough to have all the resources and choices you could want. There is no Greek system, but rather a fully-inclusive Residential College system. Each has its own internal governance/leadership. They compete in intramural sports. Each hosts its own signature campus-wide events. This system facilitates intergenerational friendships and peer mentoring in the same way that Greeks would, without the whole rushing aspect.

Academically, STEM is top-notch across the board - very rigorous, but with a good balance of competition/collaboration. (i.e. there are plenty of premeds/etc. gunning for top grades, but the competition isn’t toxic). Research opportunities abound… the MechE Design Kitchen is particularly cool… and there are many opportunities through immense Houston Med Center nearby. Finance-wise, Rice also has a business school that makes a business minor available to undergrads in any major.

That’s probably enough of a pitch, lol.

Also look at UChicago and Northwestern. UChicago has the intellectual intensity and a residential college system like Rice has, but no engineering - not sure if that’s a deal-killer for your d or not. Northwestern has more of the big-college, rah-rah, Greek life, pre-professional vibe - which it sounds like your daughter might enjoy (think USC with snow).

In the “amazing STEM + intellectual intensity but no engineering” category, look at Reed in Portland. It may be too small and quirky for your d, but a visit would make that clear quickly, one way or the other.

Tulane has decent financial aid and merit aid potential (not that you can stack the two - it’s just two different shots at a good deal) and she might love the vibe of both the school and the city. Likewise Vanderbilt, which is more competitive for both admission and merit, but also probably more generous on the need-based side. Run the NPC’s and see.

UMichigan would be amazing, but they only give OOS financial aid to lower-income families than yours, so $$. Michigan State could be worth a look - she could get some great merit there, and the research and mentoring opportunities for Honors College kids are fantastic, and the school spirit and campus life seem like they’d be a fit.

Then there’s the whole universe of east coast private U’s. Forecast for Carnegie Mellon is dim: they don’t meet full need, and Pittsburgh isn’t as easy to get to from CA as the more major east coast hubs. Cornell sounds like potentially a great fit academically and socially, but a slog-and-a-half to get to. But Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Penn, JHU… and especially Duke seems like it could resonate. (Possibly Wake Forest as a slightly-less-reachy choice, if you don’t mind beta-testing their new engineering program. Boston College is newly launching engineering too.)

Stream-of-consciousness signing off :slight_smile: Good luck - I’m sure your d will have terrific options!

42

Wow, thanks everyone! The comments are so helpful! @aquapt most of your comments are so spot on to my thought process. I have suggested to her that I am open to any where, but I will seriously question any place that isn’t one direct plane flight away. The one thing great about the UC’s is she is open to most campuses which has some built in high reach to matches and maybe a few high safeties with Riverside and Santa Cruz. She said if things go really wrong and she doesn’t get into those she is willing to do a community college for a year so we don’t need any safeties although I am still looking at Arizona and Oregon options (I think I need more safeties). She is probably looking at what would she be willing to leave leave the state for. I know she said U of Chicago, but I really think she is more Northwestern then Chicago and she has never been to Chicago. She gets totally integrated in campus life, will go to all the games, plays, activities, will probably get a student job just because. She is a suburbanite by nature, thought she died and gone to heaven when she was on the Stanford tour, although she has been all over Boston this week and loves it so urban might fit too, and I would love her to broaden her experience. She also liked USC probably it is in its own little world and she loves the strong community spirit. She is a work very hard play very hard kid. I don’t see her at Utah. Not diverse enough, She would prefer a more diverse student body or at least more diverse city nearby. I am from Washington, so she probably will apply to Udub but suspect it won’t compare financially. Of the ivy’s she will probably throw her hat in the ring with Princeton, I looks like the best match academically and location. She decided against Duke or Vandy. Will apply to MIT. I wouldn’t have thought she would have liked it, but she seems to love the stem creative nature of the school, and although it is a really high reach, by going through the summer program and being one of the few schools that needs females, she might have a shot. Carnegie Mellon is still hanging on the list as is Columbia, but I am not sure they will stay on. Oh, lastly, she doesn’t want to go to any school smaller then her high school (2600) so that knocked out a lot of the east coast privates as well as local schools like Harvey Mudd and Cal Tech.

This is such a wild exciting time and big decision it helps to have both question decisions and throw out additional ideas.

43

If she’s liking Cambridge/Boston, she might also consider putting Tufts on the “worth traveling for” list too.

Honors College at Washington State would be a WUE option, so that could be a good safety. Also Colorado State which has great STEM and particularly good research opportunities for Honors kids. Can’t vouch for the diversity level at either, though. I still haven’t gotten past helping my kid agonize over the diversity essay for CU-Boulder, only to receive a big admissions-offer envelope bedecked with a photo of about a hundred cheering white kids. :))

And as a 5C’s parent I could make the “but there are 6000 undergrads in the consortium!” argument about Mudd, but of course you know that, and personality-wise I’m not sure Mudd quite fits anyway. If you can get her to visit Houston, though… :smiley:

44

“Can’t vouch for the diversity level at either, though. I still haven’t gotten past helping my kid agonize over the diversity essay for CU-Boulder, only to receive a big admissions-offer envelope bedecked with a photo of about a hundred cheering white kids.”

CDS says for 2017-18 freshman class:
Colorado State 71% white
Utah 68% white
CU Boulder 68% white
Oregon State 67% white
Washington State 63% white
Oregon 58% white
Arizona State 50% white

Only Washington (37% white, 25% Asian) approaches California diversity levels (UCLA 27% white, 28% Asian).

45

@19Parent – honors college at CU Boulder? The honors program is good and getting better all the time.

Great STEM, very social, a very pretty mountain town, a bigger city 45 minutes away on a free bus, 2.5 hour flight to CA. (And, at times, absurdly cheap airline tickets. This year, I flew twice to LAX for $160 round trip.)

Oh and yea, Boulder and diversity? Not so much.

46

Yep… SLO is the whitest in the whole CA public system at about 55% white.
Rice is right up there with the UC’s in diversity stats, though. (29% white, 29% Asian)

47

As a grad of Wazzu, I definately don’t see her there. Way too far from city and not enough diversity. I don’t think I can talk her into giving a second glance at Oregon State (she went there once for a camp). I do have Arizona State on our list and she would probably be fine there if she found the right group to socialize with. I should also specify that while she is very social she is not a party girl at all, and no not religious. Doesn’t drink or like to just “hang out”. Social for her is attending everything, taking recreation classes,playing intramural sports, going to art shows, athletic events, dances, etc… She won’t do well at a school where the students don’t challenge her. She hangs around the brightest nerdy kids at her school, the kids doing science fair, not the kids going to all the parties (which many of her fellow cheerleaders do).

48

Northwestern does seem like it might be a good fit for her. Lots of kids who are involved in multiple activities. Definitely do the tour and see what she thinks.

49

We made a midwest college trip and saw U Chicago, Northwestern and Wash U in St. Louis. My daughter had never been to either city. She loved Chicago but wasn’t so keen on STL. If you go, allow a few days in Chicago to sight see and tour the schools. U Chicago is a good distance away from Northwestern so it would be hard to see both in one day. The schools are all beautiful and great institutions, but have very different vibes.

50

Thanks for the advice. I am not sure if we will have time to make any additional college trips. I am going off of the tours we have been on already and her reactions and my experience with seeing the campuses before. We might have to do a good online tour and leave time in April after she sees where she is accepted to hit any schools she gets into. I wish we had made it a point years ago to visit a few more college cities

51

If she does an online tour and really likes the school, she can do other things to demonstrate interest if she can’t visit - she can sign up to receive mail and express interest in particular departments, and when she gets emails she can click through and read them (some schools apparently note that). She can read thoroughly on their site about programs she might want to participate in, and then discuss them in her “Why This College” essays. And she can look for college fairs in your area and be sure to go talk to the representatives of schools she is interested in.

52

FWIW, after our D completed her college list, we used both the Parchment and Cappex sites to predict her chances of admission. Despite the heavy criticism these sites get, in our experience, they were very accurate in their predictions of admission chances for our D.

53

@Genevieve18, thanks for the suggestion on ways to show interest. I have that on our list of things to do.

@ARTCC I appreciate hearing your experience and will check those sites out. I know my daughter will has many high reaches, but we have a safety and match plan of attack so we have decided to go for any others that seems like a possibility. She has several different unique aspects to her life that might hit a box or two. This past winter she applied to a few summer programs and got in the most difficult one, one with a admission rate that rivals the reach schools, so if she is willing to spend the time on the essays, I told her I would pay for the application.