@homerdog My D17 had an unweighted 4.0, a 35 ACT, two 750+ SAT subject tests, and depth in performing arts. She applied to 5 LACs in the Midwest of varying degrees of selectivity and got into all of them with merit. I think that a careful application that does a good job of responding to the “why this college?” question and that isn’t thrown together at the last minute is likely to yield success. While she had favorites in the line up, she genuinely liked all of the places to which she applied and I think that showed.
Data point of 1, I know.
She did not apply to any top 20 schools in the Northeast. But she did apply to LACs in the 25-75 range per USNWR.
A student looking at LACs may find that both safeties and reaches* among LACs are less suitable from a level-of-academic-rigor standpoint, if those LACs’ level-of-academic-rigor is targeted toward their midrange students, and they are small enough that there are not enough students in the tails at either end to have sufficient offerings for those students (e.g. honors courses for higher-end students who attended the school as a safety).
*In terms of academic qualifications, such as a 3.3 student gaining a reach admission to a school with mostly 3.5-3.7 students; does not really apply to a 4.0 student at a reach-for-everyone super-selective school.
I think that’s a rather narrow view of what an LAC can offer. Professors who are focused on undergraduate education working in an environment that provides the opportunity to get to know their students well can adjust teaching and expectations to fit the needs of their students.
Too often at a large university many of the classes will be large lecture environments; and students will primarily interact with TA’s rather than the prof. And quality of TA’s can be quite variable. (My daughter was once downgraded on an essay because she had alluded to a work of literature, and the TA thought the allusion was misplaced because the TA was only familiar with the movie version, not the actual book which differed from the movie. I don’t remember what the outcome was, but I know my daughter arranged to see the prof during office hours to go over the exam, and the grade was revised upwards. And that was at a very highly selective LAC, but the particular class was large-lecture format)
Lots of schools have automatic admission or scholarships for stats, without consideration of any subjective factors including level of applicant’s interest. So a high stat student can choose such a school as a safety without worrying about yield protection.
@ucbalumnus but the top LACs have a very narrow band of kids stats-wise. When you’ve got some schools with a 33-35 mid range, you’ve got schools where everyone is an “honors” program type student. Schools like Williams and Carleton and Bowdoin fall in that category.
True, consulting and investment banking have targets (where they offer a relatively large percentage of the class), semi-targets (where they offer to only the top-end of the class, possibly in selective majors at the school), and non-targets, so a high school student aiming for such elitist jobs may not have any suitable safeties for such goals.
But is it really the case that most top-end high school students are aiming for such jobs?
@ucbalumnus Maybe what you mean is that a safety LAC is risky because there will only be a very small number of high stat students. I get that. Good point. That would be a very important question to ask - will my student be challenged here?
@ucbalumnus thx again. I think it’s just hard to know how much interest is enough. We are visiting all schools that want to see interest. It goes both ways too. Getting to see the schools up close helps S decide what he likes of course. And we’re so glad when he likes schools that look like matches!
Well duh, most high end LACs and Unis do not care about your interest. It is the lower end schools that care about your interest. High stats students need to show a lot more love to their safety schools.
@ucbalumnus Take the information at collegedata with a grain of salt. For Muhlenberg, the say that level of interest is merely “considered.” However, at our information session, the admissions officer stressed the importance of demonstrated interest several times. I would guess that interest is actually extremely important there.
With regard to the fairness of schools taking a large portion of their class from the ED pool, it definitely disadvantages those of us who need to wait to compare financial packages. The online calculators don’t always do a good job of predicting honors offers and other competitive scholarships. That said, I don’t believe that private institutions owe me any particular type of admissions procedure.
Here’s what I have handy for level of interest, sorted by ED admission rate (or regular admission rate, if ED numbers weren’t on the CDS):
Not considered, from reachiest down:
Yale University
Brown University
Claremont McKenna College
Pomona College
Amherst College
Bowdoin College
Williams College
Carleton College
Wesleyan University
Vassar College
Scripps College
Smith College
Bryn Mawr College
Macalester College
Mills College
Willamette University
Earlham College
Considered, from reachiest down:
Princeton University
Pitzer College
Middlebury College
Rice University
Washington University in St Louis
Tufts University
Barnard College
Haverford College
Grinnell College
Oberlin College
Wellesley College
Case Western Reserve University
Whitman College
Southwestern University
Occidental College
Trinity University
Mount Holyoke College
University of Denver
Clark University
Knox College
Lawrence University
Kalamazoo College
University of Puget Sound
Important:
College of Wooster
Brandeis University
Austin College
Wheaton College (MA)
Very Important:
American University
Ithaca College
@ucbalumnus, actually, definitely for MBB consulting, the majority of the student body even at target schools (in undergrad) won’t get offered. They’re looking for the cream of the crop and take a fairly small number. Granted, IB tends to take in more undergrads so most kids aiming for IB at a target school and with the requisite characteristics (so no 2.5 GPA or lack of social skills) probably can get in to IB.
It may be intentional, if the college wants to claim that it meets full need and is need blind for individual applicants, but does not have a large financial aid budget. Using ED for more of the class reduces the number of students needing FA due to self selection of FA applicants away from ED. Other correlates to lower/higher FA need can also be used to adjust the overall class’ FA need without having to be explicitly need aware for individual applicants.
