I have a young relative who is a junior at a Chicago magnet school. He has a well-developed interest in languages, began studying one independently at a young age, and added a second in HS. He has maintained an honors status as being one the top 50 students of his roughly 1,000-kid class every semester. (I don’t know where within the top 50 he falls.) He was initially accepted into and has been following one of the honors STEM curricula at his HS. Just took the SAT, so results aren’t known, but apparently practice tests indicate something like the 1380-90 range is likely. He’s taken one language SATII, scored 750. I don’t know his PSAT.
Despite his STEM-heavy preparation, he is strongly interested in languages, political science, and international affairs. He apparently prefers an urban or semi-urban setting. Most likely full pay.
At the moment they are looking at NYU, Georgetown (Walsh School), the U of C, McGill, maybe Middlebury (despite its location), IUIC although he has no desire to go there. Also exploring the Science Po/Columbia program. I suggested they consider Tufts and GWU.
Does anyone have any other suggestions, preferably in the match and safety categories? They are going to be doing some additional visiting this summer and would like input.
If he’s looking at Georgetown, which is a reach for anyone, he definitely should also look at American and GW. My son liked AU better than Georgetown and they gave him a 1/2 tuition merit scholarship. They make it very easy to intern during term time if you want to and they have an honors college.
Tufts is certainly an obvious choice. We got many suggestions for William and Mary with similar interests, but in the end my son decided he had enough on his list so we never went down to take a look.
Middlebury of course has the reputation for good language instruction as well as lots of overseas programs.
I suggested William and Mary, but his mother didn’t think he’d go for the location.
If they are going to DC they might as well look at American also, and it would certainly be significantly “safer” than some of the others.
We talked about BC and BU, in terms of Boston as a great college town. What do people think about those, for a kid with his interests? Although he went to a Catholic school K-8, his mother thinks he would be turned off by the crucifixes in the classrooms aspect of BC. (It remains to be seen how he reacts to Georgetown.)
St. Andrews and Toronto are interesting suggestions.
St.Andrews is a tiny town that will not fit his urban/semi-urban criteria. If he has 3-5 APs with 4s and 5s, London or Edinburgh might be a better fit location-wise.
St.Andrews is a tiny town that will not fit his urban/semi-urban criteria. If he has 3-5 APs with 4s and 5s, London or Edinburgh might be a better fit location-wise.
St. Andrew is known for IR. It is smaller but very much a college town and the town/university blend right into each other. Plenty of stuff catering to the students. Edinburgh is only 30 miles away and public transportation options in the UK make it very easy to get around compared to the USA. Plus, easy access to the rest of Europe and all it has to offer with discount european airlines. The SA student body is very cosmopolitan. Acceptance is very stats driven compare to US colleges and could be very likely with his stats. Several of my kid’s classmates go there and they love it. My kid had it as an option, choose a very different college but would have been very happy there as well.
As far as BC/BU, I don’t think they would be as strong in IR and poli sci as American nor would they present the same internship options and access due to location. American has seen a substantial increase in interest the past few years.
Looking at the stats, I think that with his anticipated SAT GWU and American look like matches of some kind; Macalester and McGill low reaches;Georgetown, Middlebury, U of C (strong legacy), and Tufts all reaches. the Columbia/Sciences Po program seems like a wild card, but most likely a reach. St. Andrews: I really can’t tell, but it looks as if admissions to IR might be more competitive.
I don’t see any true safeties, except perhaps IUIC. (Not engineering.)
I agree that JH si strong in the subjecct area, but the last thing he needs is another reach.
It would be REALLY helpful if his SAT at least broke 1400.
@Consolation I guess it depends on how one defines safety. A lot of CC folk define it as an absolute admittance. My kids’ school defined it as greater than even odds or “likely”. I tend to veer towards the latter and think that if one applies to at least 2 or 3 Likelies, then one will have options. Plus, if he picks a rolling or EA school or two, he could hopefully lock in an early acceptance.
Is he interested in picking up more languages, or does he want to focus on continuing to improve his Spanish and German? Particularly if he’s interested in less commonly taught or critical languages, I’d suggest checking out the Language Flagship programs (https://www.thelanguageflagship.org/). They’re mostly at large state universities, so perhaps he could use one as a match or safety? If he’s interested in the DC area, Maryland might be a good choice because he’d have access to the big DC internships but also to the UMD Arabic and Persian Flagships (and generally I think they have strong language programming overall).
Plus although a lot of the schools mentioned here have excellent language training for the languages they do offer, if he’s interested in less commonly taught languages at all state schools tend to offer more (and more years of study). IU is the one I’m most familiar with: I believe it might offer the most languages of any school in the country, but even UIUC has several that you won’t find at any LAC.
I tend toward your definition also, but I don’t think his expected SAT puts him definitely in the top 25% at any of these schools, which to me is required to be a safety. I’d like to see him find a safety other than IUIC, where he really doesn’t want to go (for legitimate reasons, I think).
His GPA and rigor will be tops, he has genuine long-term involvement with a social services organization, etc.
But I think he needs a school where he’s in the top 75% in standardized testing.
Some plausible places have been mentioned. I’m going to suggest a couple more. Washington University (St. Louis) is strong in political science and many other fields, including bio sciences. For a change in climate, consider Univ of Texas (Austin). Very good polisci, among other fields.
UChicago (which my son attended) is such a tough admit strong across the liberal arts curriculum including polisci, econ (which my son majored in), languages and literatures, sciences, etc. But haarrrrd to get into these days. I’ll also second UWisconsin, great university strong in languages, arts and science (including polisci – which I studied there in grad school).
I agree with some of the recommendations: GWU, American, Johns Hopkins, Macalester, Tufts.
For a “safer” college, I’d recommend St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire, if he isn’t absolutely opposed to attending a Catholic college. Read its Wikipedia entry to see why. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Anselm_College
@jonri, what an interesting school! I never really knew anything about it. Thanks for the heads up.
I am fairly sure that it would be “too Catholic” for him, and the location wouldn’t thrill him either. But I will suggest that he take a look at it just in case.
I know that UWisconsin is on the radar, but UT Austin has probably not crossed the screen. I’ll suggest it.
I have the sense that he would rather move to the DC/Boston corridor, or to France, where he has strong family connections. He is not the kind of kid who is looking for a big college sports scene or Greek life.