I have a 32 ACT; 35 Super-score. (Pomona super-scores and Brown doesn’t)
Race: hispanic (Spain), asian (Chinese, Vietnam) white (Portugal). Yea i’m mixed…
CA resident
4.5/4.55 (second highest in class)
good extracurriculars (not going to expand but a lot of national awards + create my own IOS apps)
No, I’m not going to apply to both since I have one week to write 8 essays.
I researched both schools and I like them equally; but I only have time to apply to one (SO MANY ESSAYS!)
***** btw: prestige doesn’t matter to me. I just want to know which one I will have an easier time getting into.
I think CA resident will hurt me for Pomona; ACT will hurt for Brown.
That’s a really good question and I think it would matter based more on the applicant themselves and whatever the school needed for their applicant class that year.
This is what I would do- go to the CDC for each school and look at your stats and I mean everything- test scores, GPA, sex, minority status… See how you compare.
Does your school have Naviance? Consult your school counselor- how have similar applicants from your high school fared at each of these colleges?
Do you have a safety that you have applied to and like?
@goingnutsmom Thank you for the advice. According to Naviance, no one in the past of my school has ever got into Pomona (but only 3-4 people apply each year), Around 25 people apply to Brown each year and one usually gets in. The average ACT of that one person is a 35.
My safety schools are Cal-Poly, UC merced, riverside, santa cruz, boston university, northeastern, etc.
Matches are: Wellesley, Washington and Lee, NYU, UMich, Berkeley (letters school),
Reaches are: Emory, UChicago, CMU, JHU, Cornell (the only Ivy if I choose not to apply to Brown).
For comparative perspective, you can read through here:
Each school has a different type of student they like to admit. You will never know what type they will want each year, but I would say that both schools require very high qualifications.
I will be honest- those are bad signs. I would check in with the school counselor to make sure that your schools Naviance is reporting all the information. The counselor may have some inside knowledge of who has been accepted without breaking confidentiality. Sometimes information does not get into the system because of backlogs, inefficiency or a request from a student to protect their confidential information.
I would say apply to the one that really speaks to you- the one where you really want to attend because usually this creates better essays.
Those are too many schools.
Northeastern isn’t a safety. And I would go with Pomona, you have the scores to make up for the fact that you’re a CA resident.
I think this may be your main problem.
Which school do you prefer? Based on stats, I think they are probably about equally hard to get into. Pomona seems a bit more test score-conscious, while Brown – to arrive at their average SAT, they must be turning down a lot of 1550+ kids – may be more relatively into the EC/holistic side of the app.
I think your best move is to choose between them based on fit: academics, environment, social vibe, and cost (run NPC).
pomona isn’t as test-conscious as it was in the past, it’s more diversity conscious. the sat averages for the recent class is lower so it seems they’re minimizing the impact of scores, though high scores are still required.
ask your guidance counselor if someone has already been admitted to brown ED. if not, I’d apply there since they seem to only take one person from your school and you seem to be a very strong candidate. if they did, I’d apply to Pomona because you are ethnically very diverse + have a good profile.
Based on ACT , Pomona is the better choice. Being from CA won’t help you at Brown. Won’t hurt, but will not be an advantage
16 schools already? Wow. Thats more than enough already. That said, trying to crank out one or 2 at the last minute can be a challenge, but its surprising that you can’t recycle or retool essays from some of the many other applications for these. As for Pomona vs Brown, you claim prestige doesn’t matter, but you comment that you have only applied to one Ivy thus far. If prestige doesn’t matter, why mention it at all? Do you want to stay in CA or go to the other coast? What do you want to major in? Do you want a freshman year without grades? The schools have differences- focus on that, not what makes them similar.
Your state of residency is irrelevant between these two schools. Their acceptance rates are virtually identical, (9.3 at Pomona, or 9% at Brown) so it’s almost impossible to answer your question.
You have applied to far too many colleges. What’s done is done, but this is for the benefit of other readers. BU and NE are not safety schools. IMO, no school with an acceptance rate below 40% is ever a safety. Both those colleges are at 30% and below. NE is notorious for deferring great applicants right now.
In a word “yes.” Admit rates are similar between the schools, about 9% for each, but lower for Pomona if you are a girl. (more like 5%). From CA, Brown may be easier to get into. Unless you have a bigger hook than diversity, Pomona is nearly impossible without high test scores.
BTW, Berkeley is a reach for everyone. I have one student at UCB and the other at Pomona.
Your bigger issue is all those essays- b/c you are applying to so many schools- and they don’t all make sense. In particular:
While agreeing with the other posters that NE may not be a safety, the bigger point is that nobody needs 6+ safeties. Two, three tops- or they aren’t really safeties.
Wellesley and Washington and Lee are nearly opposite schools in terms of culture- and as LACs, the culture matters a lot. Similarly, would the same student be equally happy at W&L and NYU or UCB? hard to imagine.
- Pomona or Brown. Fwiw (which isn't much), Emory seems like more of a match, and -depending on what you are applying for- CMU may be more of a match than a reach as well.
You sound overwhelmed by essays & app deadlines, and I think you can help yourself by taking another cut at your list. Ask yourself the “why X” question for each of them. Or pick out your top and bottom choice from each set (safeties, matches, and reaches) and compare them to the top/bottom choice of the next group (so, your least favorite reach next to your most favorite match, your most favorite safety to your least favorite match, etc. If those two turned out go be your choices, which would you choose? Also, if finances are an issue, be sure to factor that in. Aim to cut at least 2 schools from each category.
Good luck. We are doing this exercise in our house right now, and it is hard!
ps, don’t be afraid to admit the role of prestige: it is passing rare for an achievement-oriented person (which you clearly are) to be completely disinterested in relative rankings; owning that can actually reduce the weight it carries, b/c you can name it as a factor, along with geography, size, culture, etc.