These stats definitely indicate he has a shot at W&L. The rest of course will matter and no one can predict admission to a sub-25% acceptance college.
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Your student would be a target at UGA and reach at W&L.
As long as you have a safety that is affordable and that youâd attend (youâd be amazed at how many have safeties they wouldnât attend) - as long as you have this - you can apply anywhere.
You may run the W&L net price calculator - because they only meet need. So your attendance would be based on winning a merit scholarship if you have no need.
My daughter got in, didnât get a scholarship and alas, she is elsewhere. Still, the effort was worth it.
To me, you are over safetied (again, affordability matters) - you need two - and you have many. You can and will know up front what a U of Arizona and ASU cost - and they are both safeties. If you prefer them over UT Dallas, for example, no reason to apply to all three. You can - but if you have a clear preference for one over another, you can save time and effort.
Good luck.
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He is thinking to take ACT again either this summer or Fall (is there a limit to how many times one can take? First he got a 31, second he got a 33) and try to get it to 34 or 35.
His reason is that if he can get high score, he can have better chance to get into better schools, honor colleges, or bargain for more merit aids.
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I wouldnât take it more than 3 times, more than that is overkill. A 33 is top 2% I think, and a 34 top 1%. It makes a difference for merit scholarships (especially at the state level) but at this level of scoring it doesnât really matter much for elite private colleges, especially since scores have become de-emphasized.
In other words, the decision will be made on other criteria.
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No - my 2first kid took it 6 (or 7) - which was too much - but the last time got him to a 34 SS but more importantly to a # he needed not superscore for auto merit and he got $4k more!!
Itâs unnecessary and depends on their motivation. If theyâre up for it and youâre willing to fund it, sure. My 2nd wasnât interested - I think maybe she took it 3 timesâŠmaybe twice. She got into W&L with a 32 SS but no $$. Iâm sure many get in with no score at allâŠ
A 33 is wonderful and no need to press. But if he has one area you see has enough growth potential to lift to a 34, then sureâŠbut only if he wants to.
In the end, you can max out aid at some schools not on your list - like an Alabama - already - where your tuition would be $4K so youâd be under $20K overall.
On the flip side - you want to be under $28K.
Have you run your reaches?
Because if theyâre well over $28K, you might as well save the time and not apply to them because if youâre full pay, you almost certainly wonât get there - and especially Gtown that has only need aid and not merit (why it came off our list).
PS - you have UMASS as a reach but Iâd go with safety. Not sure affordable though.
Good luck.
- Rice University
- Emory
- Duke
- Tulane
- Georgetown
- Umass Amherst
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I did ran the NP along with S24, thatâs why he thought he should up his ACT score to try to have mor ebargaining power. (For ACT, he can definitely improve on his Math)
Yeah, UMASS is not affordable, but its one of the school he wants to try, alogn with GTowb, Duke and Tulane. He kidn of gave up on Rice after few of his classmates didnât get in, and they have better score and stat than him.
Thereâs no bargaining - what does is show it would cost you? If it says you are full pay, itâs a hail mary school hoping for their full ride or full tuition merit. They donât need to bargain. They have enough 36s who want to go there and besides, they meet need and thatâs it other than their pre-valued merit.
Again, is Gtown, Duke or Tulane affordable per the NPC. Gtown has no merit aid - so itâs over $80K a year. What does the NPC say. Yes, Duke and Tulane have merit - but if you are full pay, you wonât get close.
It doesnât mean you shouldnât try - but you need to have those affordable safeties because itâs 95% likely you are wasting time and you need the fall backs.
But what does the NPC say? Thatâs step one. Run for each schoolâŠfor me, I was full pay so I developed a strategy to capture merit just in case - and it worked. For example, an FSU with a 33 will likely be very affordable (well affordable relative to others - in the 20s all in).
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If heâs considering UGA, read through the UGA Admissions Blog. David Graves is very transparent about UGAâs admissions process. Take note of how UGA calculates GPA and what factors they consider most important when evaluating apps. It is especially good option for kids interested in IR.
W&L is another good one for IR and/or premed. (Full disclosure, my D is a sophomore premed if you have specific questions.) W&L offers full ride and full tuition merit scholarships. In addition, the need-aid is extremely generous. Look up the W&L Promise⊠familyâs earning under $125k will at a minimum get full tuition covered.
Glad you enjoyed your trip to Austin!
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Thanks DramaMama2021, tsbna44.
Indeed, the top ranking like GTown, Tulane and Duke are not afforfible, but S24 still wants to give them a try. Wife fully supports him to try them out, so I am ok with that.
To what end though? If the school isnât affordable and heâs accepted and canât attendâŠwhy put him through that?
There is also a cost to all these applications, not just in terms of actual dollars, but in the time it takes to complete a top notch application and essays, and demonstrate interest at the schools that require it.
Also note with Georgetown, he will need to submit all of his SAT and ACT test scoresâŠthey are not test optional and donât offer score choice.
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Yeah, we know the cost of applying, and he knew about needing of both SAT and ACT, and is working on raising his scores. He also awared of how much we can contribute.
At the end, he still wants to try Gtown and Duke. Others he might not, but those two are only ones he really really wants to try applying. I guess it is more of a proofing to himself? If accept, great! Not aid? alright moving on. If not accept, its ok.
Thatâs fair but more Gtown is not on common app. So getting the recommendation etc itâs all duplicative.
So if youâre really going to turn it down if no aid, then run the NPC.
These kids get burned out. Applying to 8 or 10 schools. Gtown, if itâs just for ego but zero chance of going, will be crushing when youâre trying to get the last apps done and heâs burned out.
Or if he gets in, youâre going regardless of cost bcuz if you canât say no now ( if you know itâs not affordable), how can you say no then ?
Duke at least is on common and does have merit aid albeit highly unlikely. But those are the kind worth trying.
If youâre a merit hunter, you are going more apps so keep that in mind as you consider the work a Gtown requires thatâs far above common app.
edit - iâll add i learned about no merit schools on the gtown tour. that night, in the hotel, we removed a bunch of schools from consideration as we are full pay.
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Agree with most all of this.
(And, in fact, D21 didnât like GT tour at all and didnât want to applyâŠ.I pretty much begged him to consider doing so but he was adamant he didnât want to attend or apply even as a favor to me.
He looked at the essays and was like, I donât want to go, why apply and look at all this work Iâd have to do.)
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Just talked to S24 about no merit aid and GTown, but he stills want to give it a try. He knows even if he does get in ( a miracle), ther eis no way he can afford. But it is more of a thing he has been wanting to try since he was Freshman.
We would be happy for him to go to any in-state, the UNT rep we spoke to even told us with his stats he could be just paying $5k to attend there. He could finsih his four years, then go to other schools to get his master. Which will be muchg much more affordable. That is still on the table as UNT is one of the school on the list.
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Pain killer finally kicking in and I just realized I canât spell or type⊠Please excuse my spelling and grammar mistakes.
Seems odd that he wants to apply to what is effectively an automatic (financial) rejection. Or is he thinking that you will bend on the price if he does get in?
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He just wants to full fill his long standing objective, try to see if he can get in. He already said even if he gets in, without financial support he is not going to go. He already has other colleges in mind, ones that he knows he can get in. But Gtown has been his dream so he just really want to see if he can.
I hate to say thisâŠbut if this is his reason, I would have him pay for the application fees, fee to send his SAT scores, and fee to send the CSS Profile.
I would use my parent money for schools he knows he would attend, and are more realistic in terms of costâŠif you have established the budget with him for college costs.
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I get it - but itâs different essays and LORs (and itâs hard to ask teachers to do multiple LORs).
If thatâs what he wants - itâs your choice.
But these kids get burned out after 6 or 8 apps - and this is like duplicating common for no reason and falling behind.
But to each his own.
I predict once he sees the extra work, he wonât.
My daughter wanted to do this with Cornell and it was much easier than Gtown and she begged out when she realized - why would I do this, iâm not going
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My son applied to Georgetown in the 2021 cycle and was waitlisted, and we are so glad he didnât get in because then we would have felt TERRIBLE telling him we couldnât afford it. He was our first and we really hadnât done our research about understanding which schools would potentially offer merit aid and which are need-based-aid only (except for maybe a few super competitive scholarships). He applied RD to a ridiculous list of schools we couldnât afford (Georgetown, Pomona, Rice, Wash U, Emory, Boston College, Harvard, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, etc.) and got admitted to only one, waitlisted at most, and rejected from a few. We are SO glad he didnât quite make the cut because no matter how much you think he feels like he just wants to see if he gets in, I promise it will be hard to say no if he does. Why put himself through that? At the end of the day we were so relieved that he only needed to decline Boston College in order to pick UCLA (or a different UC, but UCLA is what he went with). If Georgetown or Harvard had let him off the waitlistâŠugh. Keep in mind too that Georgetown really isnât too test optional even if they officially say they are (Iâm not sure what the line is on that these days). They really want to see all of the scores from all of the tests you have taken. In my sonâs case he hadnât gotten to take a single SAT or ACT because of COVID, and Iâm sure that was a knock on his application overall. So be prepared to send test scores. That plus the separate application plus it being out of range in terms of costâŠall point to it not being worth the time, money, and energy. Just my opinion and YMMV, of course.
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