You make a good point. And you are 100% correct about Chicago. They really look for the fit – It’s why they offer the creative prompts they do. They want to see how you think and write beyond conventionality. I’ve heard that the creative essay can make or break the Chicago application. And similarly, our Maia data has some bizarre admits and denies for UChicago if you’re just looking at the GPA + SAT/ACT numbers. As you said, very smeary and inconsistent data. It’s what makes Chicago so hard to predict, maybe more than any other school.
So I guess you’re right about the possibility… I’m just pointing out that Swarthmore doesn’t seem to be the type of school the OP is looking for to begin with, so it might be hard to fit that narrative of “fit.”
Thanks, we did look at Swarthmore. It’s a lovely campus, but my son felt it to be too small. It’s also a bit more exclusive as we’re looking at good “match schools”.
I wanted to throw another factor in the mix - ease of travel. We went to Bucknell last weekend, drove to our relatively major airport, then had a connecting flight in Chicago, then landed in Harrisburg PA, then got a rental car and drove 75 minutes to campus. So about 8 hours total. On the flip side, school in Philadelphia, DC, Boston, we could get a direct flight. In addition, DC is by far the easiest/best-priced option with several airlines and airports.
Given that feedback, I’d agree Wesleyan is a better choice for bigger and at least a little less selective.
Macalester seems like an even better fit in most ways, including being significantly less selective. But while it has a bit larger student population than Swarthmore, it is still a lot smaller than the colleges you originally listed, and actually might feel a bit smaller still just because it has such a compact campus. That of course is a function of it having such a great urban setting, but still, your kid would have to be willing to exchange some size for a good academic/selectivity fit.
In fact, one might even see that as yet another pro of a political type going to college in the nation’s capital. It is not at all coincidental there are a lot of direct flights back to all sorts of places.
Being at high-stats kid from KY will hopefully work to his advantage. Our son is a freshman at Brown, we’re from KY and he had similar stats to your kiddo’s. I’d consider moving EA to ED at UChicago, if he really loves it- such a great school and it sounds like a good fit. Something to consider- profs at small LACs will be a bit more open to their students doing hands-on research, and he’ll get the solid writing foundation needed for policy work or law school. My husband is a PoliSci prof at a LAC, he has students doing high-level research projects and regularly sends grads to top-tier law schools. If you think law school is his path, then definitely consider those LACs, especially if you can find ones in bigger metro areas. Check out all those DC schools- GWU, American, G’town. My son has a couple of friends at American, they love it. U of Denver does have a great PoliSci dept. Rice might be one to consider, although it sounds like he wants to be in the northeast. BU, Northeastern, JHU (reachy but such a nice smallish school!) and UMD College Park come to mind- UMD is huge, but also super diverse and close to DC. William & Mary, too. I’m sure he’ll do great- and I completely understand your kiddo not wanting to stay in-state. My son said he wouldn’t apply to anywhere in KY or any state that touched KY, he just wanted to spread his wings and experience somewhere else for 4 years!
I have one piece of perhaps useful input here, from one of the schools being discussed: Brown.
Our specific HS does not rank…but our school system requires the inclusion of a rank (using weighted GPA on a 5.0 scale) on the transcript. So officially we don’t rank, but schools will see the rank anyway. Our school counselor reached out to Brown to understand how they will approach this situation—school does not rank, but a rank is evident on the transcript.
They sent a lengthy response. Here are the two key excerpts:
“We would like to emphasize first that while Brown tends to attract applicants who have performed exceptionally well academically, there are no minimums or cutoffs in our application review process.”
[Lengthy interlude where they describe what they look for in their holistic review. It’s all the usual stuff!]
“When we begin to review an application we consider all of the information available to us at the time. If information, such as class rank, is included on a transcript than we will consider it within a holistic review as one of many factors.”
I take this to mean that they look at raw rank as provided by the school (or school system, in our case)…but that they also don’t apply arbitrary cut-offs, which supports the idea that the raw rank alone isn’t particularly helpful to them.
Given that 93% of Brown’s enrolled students last year were in the top 10% of their classes, we can assume that there is something of a cut-off at 10%. But then, that data point presumably reflects only those who provided a rank (which we know many schools do not) and includes all of the students from schools who give a #1 rank to everyone with a 4.0, etc. So it’s still not clear that it’s not super-meaningful.
Anyway…just thought I’d share this given that Brown bothered to answer the question!
I truly don’t think there is any specific cutoff. I just think the reality is that if you’re not in the top 10% of your class (in the majority of high schools), your academic record is probably not strong enough to be admitted to Brown. The remaining 7% probably accounts for athletes, legacy, and students from elite elite private schools that send half their kids to ivies.
The reason colleges want to see rank is because they want to see how your performance stacks up compared to other peers at your school – especially for lesser-known high schools, they want as much context as possible about your academic record.
Brown is my son’s strong #2 school, so it’s good to hear that kids with similar backgrounds have gotten in there! Likewise, he wants nothing to do with Kentucky schools at all. He switched his UChicago application from EA to ED1 last night, so hoping that will help. This thread has been SO useful for coming up with good match schools if his top choices don’t work out! He’s getting an application together for Wake Forest tonight. Its Greek scene isn’t desirable, but is a solid school. Wesleyan, William & Mary, John’s Hopkins, American, George Washington, Tufts, and Hofstra are all getting a hard look too.
Have him do something unique, memorable, and personal for the top 10 supplement for Wake. A student I know did “top 10 sunflower seed flavors.” Tell him to have fun with it!
I note Brown is among the colleges that marks “Class rank” as “Very Important” on their CDS:
I don’t personally think this is a contradiction, but I think it is a good idea to keep examples like this in mind when interpreting such CDS answers from colleges like Brown.
I note my S24 is generally not big into Greek life, and this is a bit of a concern for me as well. We’ve heard mixed things, including that fewer men participate than women, but also that the fraternities are more selective . . . . Anyway, he liked everything else about the school so he is applying, and if it is on a short list then he will likely follow up more with students there he knows.
We got the same advice about the Top 10 list, and I appreciate this is a truly fun one.
Yes, it’s called holistic. A kid with off the charts musical accomplishments or a ranked chess player or ballet dancer does not need to be valedictorian. A kid who grew up in a homeless shelter but has strong grades and scores does not need a lot of EC leadership. A kid who already has a scientific patent in an important sub-field of genetics does not need 10 AP classes.
Etc. All things are important- but each kid does not need to present each and everything to perfection. That’s why it’s called holistic.
“Test scores” being the only Academic factor they downgraded to Considered might be trying to communicate something.
I do think Brown, among other things, is trying to impress on potential applicants that they are very serious about your HS transcript, including grades, rigor, and all that, notwithstanding what they then do with their own curriculum and evaluation plans. Although again, people who really know Brown understand that is less of a contradiction than some might assume–like, open curriculum really doesn’t mean anything goes, that there are ways ambitious Brown students distinguish themselves, and so on.
“applicants for the Kentucky Governor’s Scholar Presidential Scholarship must complete the competitive scholarship section of the admission application to have their application reviewed for this highly competitive scholarship as a limited number of scholarships will be offered”
Our school counselor reached out to Brown to understand how they will approach this situation—school does not rank, but a rank is evident on the transcript.