Agree with this, your daughter can get into some great schools with her profile, but most of the schools in your target and reach category are very unlikely with her gpa and class rank. Maybe pick one as a long shot, but if your daughter struggles with anxiety I would not have her apply to a bunch of schools she most likely won’t get into.
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I am not at all concerned about the lack of rigor. Anyone who is spending 50 percent of her energy on …what, self regulating? Keeping herself in check? Whatever it is you are referring to…is a bad fit for a college filled with Uber self confident superstars and alpha male/females.
My view wouldn’t change if she had aced calculus or taken topology DE.
Mental health IS health. And pretending that she’d be ok in Edinburgh…where she could have a three week wait to see a mental health professional…seems like an unnecessary distraction right now.
The east coast is filled with great colleges. Filled with strong students interested in philosophy and asking hard questions about the world.
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OP I’m reading what @Baltmom23 wrote and I’d looked back at what I wrote in my first note and what others wrote and it’s all similar:
“I’m not saying not to apply because you can’t get in if you don’t - but this student has very very very little chance at Northwestern. And that’s the same for every reach school.”
I do worry about the pressure/stress implied from your writings. Mental health is real. Suicide on campus is real, especially for those not meeting self defined expectations. You say the student, not you is this way, but when I read what you continue to write it does scare me for this student. I hope they find a small school where they can establish strong social and academic bonds. It needn’t be a small school with a big name.
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Folks, I know from personal experience that top schools (like Harvard) have a lot of students who are anxious and depressed. I have read that 50% of Harvard students seek counseling at some point.(sorry can’t cite, read while my kid was there). If the daughter wants different schools, fine, but it is kind of discriminatory to imply that kids with anxiety in high school- so common- should limit their choices due to mental health. Again, the kids can make that choice if they prefer.
Experience as a classical vocalist may trump lack of calculus. But I would wonder about access to Bienen for a non-music major and the voice experience may count for less there for a non-BM student.
I think the Colleges that Change Lives website would be a great resource for this student.
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Does a kid who has an anxiety diagnosis benefit from a reach-heavy list???
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We don’t know the level in voice - could be a game changer for Yale… or a shrug.
The essay also can be a tip (or a nonfactor).
Rigor is within range, with some weaknesses.
I think that for a Humanities major lack of advanced Foreign Language and a C+ in APUSH are going to matter more than lack of Calculus. But it may not matter if they see something unique.
Northwestern is a strange choice since it’s like a very large Penn State Schreyer on steroids.
Yale, Wesleyan, Vassar, W&M all make sense as reaches.
This kid knew herself enough not to have Wellesley, UChic, and Swarthmore on the list.
However I agree there’s a real concern with how many reaches there are-she definitively should apply to reach schools she likes - but the level of stress applying to all of these + knowing odds of admission are very low (very low for everyone! 18 or 19 out of 20 applicants are turned down, that’s almost all of them) and thus promising rejection after rejection.
The list needs more colleges with ~35-40% acceptance rates to make the rejections hurt a bit less.
Seconding the Colleges that Change Lives website.
(Already suggested StOlaf for classical vocalist +Enduring Questions program but it seems to be too far away).
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You daughter really sounds amazing, like many other students on this site (and out in the greater world). Her amazing-ness isn’t dependent upon applying to or being accepted to schools of a certain prestige level. Yale (or any other school) will not make her more amazing, nor be proof of her awesomeness. She already is wonderful, and no school acceptance, or lack thereof will effect this.
It sounds like she also has specific needs beyond her educational desires that are most important to take care of with whatever school she chooses to attend. Making sure she has a accessible health team, making sure there is a support network in place before she starts college and that she is feeling in control of herself and her mental & physical health are all, imo, more important than the name of the school she attends.
College is stressful. The admission process doesn’t need to be. If your daughter is stressed about what to write in her personal essay…before she even gets to all the supplemental essays required at many of the schools she is currently considering - it just seems like its a lot of added stress that might not be helpful or necessary.
Maybe it might help to have her list out all the things she wants in a school - without listing any school names. Find out what schools have what she wants that might have names she hasn’t heard of. Maybe making sure she can access her current health team even while at college might help focus her search where that is possible.
The application process is always going to have trade offs. Creating a more balanced list might make those trade offs more readily understood now so that when she is ready to make her final choice she has a better idea of what she is getting and giving with each school.
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I think the issue is if you know there’s an issue up front, address it.
Maybe Harvard has the level of necessary support - great. If not and it’s not the right environment, then shame on the families for sending kids there, especially if the reason is - because it’s Harvard.
In this case, there’s added stress because the student only is willing to attend schools that many of us on here don’t think will happen. And then what happens to the student’s psyche.
There’s no doubt a lot of stress, anxiety and other issues out there. And people volunteer to put themselves in a bad position.
Doesn’t mean they should.
But let’s say the students at Harvard only wanted to go to a Harvard level school and couldn’t , then what ?
Or how many at Harvard feel they don’t measure up and commit self harm, etc.
I think there’s more to people’s comments then - half of a school has mental health issues. That is not acceptable and if there was any way to avoid it and I can’t say there was, but if there was, then shame on families for allowing it to happen.
There’s a global arms race - not just in nuclear weapons but collegiate prestige.
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Are you going off the naviance ratings of safety, target, and reach? Don’t use them, they are wildly off. For instance, they had every Ivy as a a target for my child, and while she is an excellent student, she would have had a super low chance of acceptance at any of them, they were in reality high reaches. The scattergrams should give you better information, but many schools still include data from before the advent of test optional, so that info is also overly optimistic.
The absences are likely to be considered when her application is evaluated, admission committees will even make note of a high level of tardies. I don’t think there is anything to be done about this, but it should probably factor into your calculations of how competitive a candidate she is.
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When I say lack of rigor, it’s not just math but anything STEM. There’s not a single DE or AP STEM class listed - which is why I made the comment about running around your backhand that I did. Thx
" but it is kind of discriminatory to imply that kids with anxiety in high school- so common- should limit their choices due to mental health."
I had a roommate freshman year who progressed from anxious to depressed to suicidal…and her parents were actually angry that it took “so long” for me to call them and insist they come and get her. Really? You’re expecting a 17 year old with no training who also has to go to class and do assignments and papers to know the magic moment when someone who is struggling is about to harm themselves???
I still remember as a first generation four year college student at a state school decades ago, how unnerving it was to have a girl on our floor cry and cry loudly for days about wanting to go home. It was very upsetting and a stressful way to start my first time away from home. I was anxious myself about the process. I felt for her but frankly I was relieved when she left after 2 or 3 days of loud wailing, as were most on our floor. I feel a little guilty admitting this after all these years, but I do think some kids are just not ready at 17 or 18 to go away. And extreme reactions to adjusting to school can and sometimes do affect those around you. Not sure what the answer is.
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Humanities kids are uncommon at high level schools (nowadays they all want to major in sth premed-adjacent, CS, perhaps Engineering or Data science, short of thàt Economics, or if offered which few top schools do, Business) and STEM APs aren’t necessarily expected if they excelled in their chosen fields.
If they took Honors Calculus and AP Physics 1 good but top colleges are very interested in kids that demonstrate depth in the Humanities even if they only have solid-but-not-STEM worthy STEM classes. It’s the same for kids applying to Engineering, they’re not expected to have AP Lit and AP Foreign Language. The difference is that top colleges have fewer high stats kids applying for a humanities major.
Taking Philosophy and AP Art history is a smarter move than taking AP physics for this student.
The C+ in APUSH (a key class) and AFAIK no AP FL would thus matter more than not having STEM APs.
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Perhaps but I think most schools want well rounded kids. Even a school like CMU have 90%+ with RW 700+ SAT.
Even my kid at a lower level regional had Calc AB and had to WD her first college math class. Not everyone will be ready and high end colleges will understand a potentially challenged student - at least I believe.
The point is - at top schools - and maybe I’m wrong but a blind spot and this one is apparent - likely matters, at least I believe.
Of course I wish OP luck. I just hope the student, all students, realize college choices are important but not determinant on their own of future success. There’s so many successes and non successes from so many programs, likely every program.
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I think that @MYOS1634’s suggestion about writing about the first book that blew her mind is a great suggestion. Alternatively, if she’s really wanting to write about herself, I would think about how she is sensitive and attuned to things that many others miss, and the WONDERFUL things that she observes/notices/experiences that other people never do because they don’t have that same wiring.
Someone, I think @tsbna44, recommended looking into schools with few (if any) core requirements or an open curriculum. I don’t know if you need to go that far, but I would recommend doing a deep dive in the curricular requirements at any schools that interest her. If there are math/science requirements, look and see what classes she could take that would qualify. Maybe she’s not a fan of chemistry or physics, but a historical geology class or bioanthropology would work for her. Taking more math sounds terrible? Maybe the college will allow logic or computer science as an alternative that your daughter would find more interesting. But if a school has a number of requirements and your daughter doesn’t find any of the classes that would fulfill the requirements appealing, then that is probably a good clue that the school should be removed from the application list.
As your family thinks about what is important in your D’s choice of a college, one thing you may want to look at is what kind of orientation or pre-start programming is available. Some schools will have a trip to the outdoors with first year students, others have a week-long orientation with the kids living in the dorms and acclimating. I attended a program where I came to campus a month early and took a 3-week class with an assortment of activities to help acclimate. Having a longer runway to get used to a campus, make friends, perhaps get used to college-level work, etc, BEFORE the full semester starts and everyone’s on-campus who seemingly already has all their friends and know where they’re going and “have it all together” can make a HUGE difference. If School A only has a 1/2 day orientation and School B has a more in-depth experience, that would be a huge plus in my book for School B.
Done.
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Adding on to AustenNut’s great post - check those foreign language requirements. They can vary wildly from school to school - some schools we looked at had none, others required all students to take a foreign language through the intermediate college level. If your daughter doesn’t want to take a foreign language during college, that’s definitely something to have on your radar.
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Highly recommend The College Essay Guy on YouTube, your daughter might enjoy doing some of his brainstorming ideas as well as other more in depth topics. Here’s just one of many
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I think William and Mary was mentioned as a potential? They do have a foreign language requirement through the intermediate level and a calculus requirement. Consider if that’s something that would be a dealbreaker. WM does have a 5 day orientation period that is fabulous as well as pre-orientation programs.
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Good point about the foreign language requirements. It’s always important to understand what is required by each individual university. Unless something has recently changed, AP stats should satisfy the W&M math proficiency.
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Yes, that’s right. I forgot about stats. A 4 or 5 on the ap stats test will get the credit.
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