Hi guys! I’m an uprising senior who is a little bit too worried about the admissions process. After a lot of changes, I finally narrowed down my list to 14 colleges(no particular order/not final):
WUSTL(ED)
Duke
Emory
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Pomona
UIUC
USC
University of Rochester
Notre Dame
Boston College
University of Virginia
Tufts
Rice
Northwestern
My stats:
ACT: 33 C(35 E, 33 M, 33 R, 29 S, 34 W)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.97 UW
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): school does not rank
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP World(4), AP US History(5), AP Biology(3 yikes), AP Language(5), AP Micro(5)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Psych, AP Lit, AP Comp Sci
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): not really going to go into details but basically I have several average ECs with a couple of state and school awards, but no leadership which I'm really worried about.
State (if domestic applicant): MO
School Type: public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: >200,000
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): not sure if this is a hook but both of my parents are employed at WashU, so I am a faculty child. WashU covers full tuition if I go there and half tuition of any other college, so I'm basically super worried if I don't get into WUSTL bc then my fam will have to pay a LOT more.
*Intended Major: Not completely sure, but I'm thinking of double majoring in Econ and History
***My parents are okay with paying for college, so cost is not a huge factor. However, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to go to a school that gives out a lot of merit scholarships to save some money
Honestly speaking, I’m not sure exactly what I want in a college(my parents aren’t taking me on any college visits before I apply), but I want a collaborative atmosphere and not somewhere that is extremely uptight and competitive. I also want a well-rounded education and not somewhere that is super focused on like one particular field. I’m fine with anywhere around the U.S. but I’d prefer a college that isn’t rural/in the middle of nowhere.
Ideally, I would like to narrow down my list to about 12-13 colleges, but it’s so hard to limit all of these great colleges! Sorry that this was super long but basically I’m just wondering if my college list is reasonable or not. Thanks!
@ClarinetDad16 WashU covers half tuition of the original price, and then merit scholarships apply to the remaining amount. Example: X college costs 50k, WUSTL covers about 24k(since that is half of WUSTL’s tuition), and then I get say, 5k in merit scholarships. Final price would be about 21k(excluding room and board)
Yeah you have a great shot at all of the schools you listed, BUT add one or two super safety schools( acceptance rate over 50%). It will save you a lot of worry if things don’t work out!
You have a good shot at washu ED even without your parents, but given they are faculty you have a great chance at getting accepted
What is your major or areas of interest?
You do not have any schools which give out tons of merit so you may want another financial safety.
You may want to add up all the writing supplements for the schools on your list and see if it’s more than you want to do.
Even if you cannot visit all the schools on your list, you can visit stand-in schools within driving distance of home. A visit to Mizzou will tell you something (not everything of course) about how you might like a huge state school like UIUC or Madison. You can visit one small liberal arts school and use that for how another might feel to you.
The CC school forums and college review websites might be useful as well.
@AroundHere I’m more humanities-based, and I’m thinking of double-majoring in Econ and History. I’ve seen Mizzou many times, and I don’t really like the school that much. However, I’m fine with a big school but I’d prefer it to be a really good school where a majority of the students are interested in learning/investing themselves to change something in the world. I know it’s bad to generalize because there’s definitely those kinds of students at any school, but I just really didn’t like Mizzou in general.
You should add in one or two true safety schools that you could be happy to attend. Often finding those safety schools is a more difficult task than finding reach/match schools.
With your deal at WashU and through WashU I would take shots at schools where you have a chance at 1/2 tuition merit. Find a list of those and substitute them for the ones on your list where you won’t get merit.
You have a very solid GPA with an appropriate level of course rigor. You already realize that your EC’s aren’t super strong but part of the game with EC’s is how you describe them in your application. My first reaction in looking at your list is that it is too top heavy. UIUC, Rochester, and Wisconsin are close to sure things but other than these 3 it is hard to say whether you will get in or not. Having both your parents work for Wash U. is helpful this might mean your file is read twice. Don’t worry about the one AP score you can simply choose not to disclose it. If I were you, I would consider taking the ACT again because a 3.97 is a very high GPA and if you had a 34 - 36 it would increase the probability of getting significant merit aid. Of course you need to apply to colleges that offer a lot of merit aid. You are applying to about the “right” number of colleges in my opinion but it’d be better if you had more safety and target schools
i agree that there aren’t enough safeties on the list…I think Boston, UIUC, and Rochester could be matches. But they’re definitely not safeties. if you are humanities focused, shouldn’t you apply to a few LACs at least? I mean you have Ponoma, but look into LACs with higher admission rates to balance the list…but good Econ programs can be found at a lot of state flagships too. Pitt, Penn State, Ohio State, Chapel Hill…
I think your list has a lot of reaches, but as long as you are comfortable with your matches (I think WUSTL is a match since your parents are faculty, but it’s a very selective school so it’s not guarenteed) and add safeties, then you should be fine!
Thanks for all of these super helpful replies! You guys are definitely right that I should have more safeties…I was thinking of a place like Indiana University-Bloomington maybe? I’ll definitely have to do more research.
@“aunt bea” My parents would be fine with paying for USC if I insisted, but they would probably push me to go to another school if that particular school offered me more money and/or is cheaper. In general, my parents just really want me to go to the best possible school that fits for me.
@ClarinetDad16 Could you explain what you mean about the 1/4 tuition merit from USC? I heard that USC gives out some good merit scholarships, but I’m kinda worried because I feel like I’m pretty average among the many applicants that apply…so would it be hard for me to get some merit scholarships?
@Wje9164be TYSM for the thorough advice! I was wondering how do you guys know exactly what makes a “match” school. Is it based on whether or not if you’re in the middle 50 of the 25/75 percentile of students, or do you have to be comfortably above the 75th percentile? Also I’m probably not going to retake the ACT-- I’ve taken it 4 times and my score seriously doesn’t raise at all T_T
My D is now a sophomore at Notre Dame so we went through the college admissions stuff a couple of years ago. I don’t think determining what schools for safety, target, and reach is an exact science. Probably any school with an overall admissions rate of less than 15% is going to be a reach school by definition. We used Parchment.com to try to assess my D’s stats relative to other admitted students. In her case, here UW GPA is a little on the low side (3.82 if memory serves) but she had a 36 ACT and strong subject test scores. Her safety and target schools I think she was admitted to all of them but she applied to 7 reach schools and was only waitlisted at 2. You can look at the profiles of admitted students on parchment.com and sort of compare yourself objectively to those who were admitted and those who were denied to get a feel for what type of EC’s, grades, and test scores it takes to get admitted to a particular college. Look at standardized test scores as a necessary but not sufficient condition for admissions at most of the schools on your list
