My Daughter's College list: Too many reaches? 30 ACT 95.6 GPA - Any safety suggestions?

College Search & Selection
1

Hello CC Community,
My rising senior daughter gave me her list of potential colleges for application. Your thoughts?

Her Fit: She desires an urban location. She wants on and off campus diversity.
Her Major: Something dealing with International Affairs/Relations, Global Health, Foreign Language
Her desired campus location: Northeast or mid-Atlantic

ACT: 30
SAT: She decided not to sit for the SAT.
Unweighted GPA: 95.6
Weighted GPA: Unknown
Class Rank: 6/68
Sophomore AP: World History - 4
Junior AP: US History - 5, English Language - 4
Senior AP: English Literature, US Government, Computer Science, Biology
Academic Counselor states her course selection has been most demanding, highest academic rigor.
Will complete Spanish 5 and French 3 levels in high school.
State Residency: New York

Top 10 Work/Volunteer Experiences/EC Activities
Rotary International Short Term Exchange - Language and cultural immersion in France.
Nicaragua :“4 Walls Service” - Experiential service program.
Aquatic Health Safety Technician and Lifeguard - Local water/amusement park, Summer job 2017 and 2018
Lifeguard - High School pool, part time job at high school during junior and senior years
Volunteer Coach - “Learn to Swim” program for children
Varsity Swim team(captain), Page Turners(captain), Color Guard(captain), Varsity Cross Country
Girl Scouts - “Gold Award” in progress

The Colleges:
Barnard College - Visited 8/21/17, Possible ED choice
Boston University - Visited 7/25/18, Likes international vibe
Cornell University - Visited 10/14/17, Not urban but has Global Health major she likes
The George Washington University - Visited 2/17/18, Likes internship possibilities
New York University - Visited 8/2/18, Likes study abroad options
Northeastern University - Visited 7/26/18, Likes co-op opportunities
University of Pittsburgh - Visited 4/20/18, Hopefully an urban match
University of Vermont - Visited 7/24/18, Not urban but a match she does like

Financial - Prepared to be full pay.

Questions:
Is she setting herself up for disappointment? Any other safer colleges she may like? Anything she should concentrate on when writing her “Why College X” essay? What might be holding her back for admission? How should she package herself for best opportunities for admission?

Thanks

2

Fordham?

3

Maybe take a look at American U. if she didn’t visit it when she was in D.C. to visit GW.
.

4

Other than Pitt and Vermont, they all look like reaches to me. Any school where admission rates are low, are reaches for all. She may want to retake the ACT. What about any of the Loyola schools? Marquette, Tulane.

5

I would say there is a risk that she only gets into UVM. Even if she like it, it is good to have choices to compare financial packages. Does her school have Naviance? Might be a good way to find some less selective schools that meet her criteria.

6

Her ACT 30 score will hold her back at several of those schools. For example that score places her at the 25th percentile for Barnard (30-33 mid range), and well below for Cornell (31-34) and Northeastern (32-34). Is she planning on re-taking?

7

Like mamom has implied, widening the geographic scope would be helpful. The better colleges in the Northeast get a ton of applications because there are so many people in that area and lots of people from across the country see it as a glamorous place to go to school.

Also, the size restriction might be eliminating some interesting options.

U of Cincinnati & Loyola of Chicago are interesting colleges she could use as safeties.

8

Macalester College? It’s not east coast, but It checks all the other boxes.

It might be a more likely admit. They accepted 42% of women according to common data set from 2017-2018. ACT range of 29-32.

9

Temple, Drexel, Catholic U, Loyola MD, Quinnipiac, could all be safeties. While the 30 ACT puts her in range for a lot of the schools on her list, the issue is that with NYU, BU and Northeastern, they get so many applications, that it becomes hard to stand out in the pool.

10

Look across the border at McGill University in Montreal. Very diverse student body in a vibrant city. For Arts it would be a low match. Admission is by GPA and SAT/ACT only.

11

I agree with other posters that UVM and Pitt are your only non-reach schools on this list. Fordham and American are solid choices for her.

12

The ACT score is in the middle for GWU - would that be a consideration for ED instead of Barnard? Concur with others to add Fordham, American and other matches.

13

Among her current schools listed: BU, Vermont & Pitt appear likely to admit her. GW as well.

14

“Other than Pitt and Vermont, they all look like reaches to me.”

That is my impression also. However, UVM is a very good university in a beautiful location. It is okay to only get into one school if you really like the one school.

I agree with @TomSrOfBoston that McGill sounds like a very good fit based on your description of what she is looking for.

We did the SAT rather than the ACT. However, based on what little I know about the ACT your daughter’s grades look slightly better than her ACT score. If she could get her ACT up, or get a 1400+ on the SAT (which would probably require preparation), then she might improve her chances at some of the schools. This might also improve her chances of a presidential scholarship at UVM which would be nice to get. However, UVM has a good NPC which should be able to tell you whether she is already on track to get a presidential scholarship.

15

Because she is not applying for financial aid, you should do well at need aware schools. Not sure which schools fall into that category, but BU & Pitt made the US News list for “Most Debt” suggesting that financial aid is limited & those schools may want more full pay students.

16

Barnard overall admit this rate fell to something like 14%. Def. a reach for pretty much everyone now, but if her heart is set then certainly ED will help! (Not sure what their ED rate was this year.)

Cornell and Vermont seem like outliers b/c the rest are urban.

If she prefers urban, I do think American and Fordham are good additions.

Moving away from urban, Bucknell could be a less selective version of Cornell to looking into-- though it’s a lot smaller and I think more preppy.

What about Leigh? I don’t know much about it but CC posters have a lot of positives to say about it.

Good luck!!

17

I think she has some reasonable matches there. Add another safety or two, but I think she is going to be in good shape.

American could meet her requirements for a safety.

18

Not a safety but Bowdoin is test optional. Like really test optional. Her strong gpa and other strong profile points might surprise you. But it’s a super reach but possible. Some of the others will be tough. I like American Catholic U del loyola Maryland college of Charleston Pitt uvm. Elon Perhaps unh. Fordham is a reach.

19

Not east coast, but given her Spanish proficiency and interest in languages and IR, maybe this St. Louis University program where you spend your first two years on their Madrid campus would be interesting to look at: https://www.slu.edu/madrid/academics/degrees-and-programs/madrid-st-louis-majors.php

20

She’s fine to apply ED to Barnard. I’d agree that she needs to add a couple of safeties, but she’s got a good profile for Barnard, which places higher value on holistic factors other than test scores. If NYU doesn’t admit her to her first choice school, there’s a fairly high likelihood of admission to their Global Liberal Studies program – which might be appealing to your daughter, given her interests…