Thank you so much everyone - agree with a lot of the advice provided. I’m not worried about the money, but it would be great to have offers of aid. We would qualify for some aid I think, based on “online” assessments i’ve run, maybe 20-30/year - but a family member has offered to cover half of annual tuition and even if that offer wasn’t there, we’d take loans if necessary. So it was asked about as a “nice to have,” not a necessity.
Several things - her anxiety is social not academic, as I think her over 4.0 weighted GPA with over 2 months of missed school days is testimony to. She had 2 sets of horrific, undermining, social experiences with mean girl “friends” who were inconsistent and malignant. She’s sensitive, and it undermined her, and made school feel like an unsafe space. She did an IOP the summer between 10th and 11th, and has been in therapy for the past 2 years. She did Interlochen this past summer and after a rough start adjusting the first few days when there was no structure - not uncommon there apparently - she adjusted and thrived (even withstanding a boyfriend breakup). We think she may have ADHD, which would be hugely helpful to figure out before college because of the executive dysfunction, which anxiety also causes (but, confusingly, adhd can also cause anxiety). She has been great since Interlochen, taking a local college dual enrollment upper level English class this summer and maintaining an A. In terms of therapy teams, I imagine her current therapist would do telehealth while she’s in college as needed. Given how well she adapted to Interlochen, I’m inclined to think a lot of her anxiety is circumstantial “mismatch for her school environment,” and that given an opportunity to find like minded peers, would thrive there too. Could be magical thinking, but I see real growth this year.
There is much to digest, and analyze, most significantly the effect of “sidestepping,” as someone put it, challenging APs in science/math (she will be taking AP Stat next year - does that help?), whether an opera/music “spike” will help compensate for the lower GPA (we will be applying to all schools with an arts supplement), and factors like stress-level at the school which will and should play a huge role in our analysis. What may not have come through my original post is that she has a deeply embedded sense of herself as an intellectual and Ivy-league quality student. Her family is full of people who have attended Ivies for undergrad and/or grad school and she’s a legacy at Cornell (on both sides of the family) and at Penn (just through me). She had straight As freshman year and was “Yale or bust” for the longest time. We have had to do serious work to improve our list, to seriously consider the Umass Amhersts (over 90% likelihood) and say “I could be happy here” - to visit schools we think would be good matches (I love W&M for her from our visit last year). She absolutely detests PA and wants nothing to do with Penn State and the like (informed largely by the anti-intellectual academic environment and the percentage of her HS that attends these schools). Some of the reaches are there because of their music programs. Some of our deprogramming work with her includes “you’ll get in somewhere and you can always transfer.” HOWEVER, really appreciate hearing from all of you who are clearly experienced in terms of things to consider for their kiddos who struggle. Tuition insurance, for example, was a GREAT suggestion. Reaction to long string of rejections is another - we’ve been looking at those schools as a lottery, knowing very well that many perfect GPA and test score students are rejected each cycle and throwing apps in “just to see” if increasing the applications would increase her chances. She’s a writer so the essays don’t seem like they’d be an issue, but maybe I’m missing something because we are so new to this. And however prepared to be rejected we may be for the small chance of admission, will she really be ok? is something we need to consider seriously.
We posted here to develop our targets/safeties because we know we’re imbalanced - but our sense of what’s what has been informed by our school’s Naviance data and “chancing” data from Niche and Collegedata. (She’s over 80% at American, for example). I’m excited to dig into what you all have kindly provided here. St. Olaf and Univ of Denver are schools that I haven’t looked at and will consider. Elon is another one to keep in our pocket. She really dislikes rural - we arrived at Oberlin and she made us cancel our tour the next day and keep driving home, for example. Please let me now if anything here prompts any other good suggestions for schools that might be a good match.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply - I really appreciate it!