If your daughter is willing to expand her geographic parameters, she should look at Agnes Scott College, in suburban Atlanta.
interesting college in Toronto: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendon_College
Also, check out the U of Ottawa.
@AlmostThere2018 – RD is different than ED. Your daughter’s higher ACT scores combined with an essay that didn’t convey fit would have worked against her in the RD round, because admission isn’t going to offer a RD spot to a student unless there is a high likelihood of attendance. So top-of-the-range stats combined with an essay or profile that does not convey a strong sense of fit or desire to attend the college is going to tend to result in a waitlist offer
College admissions is not a linear, hierarchical process. They didn’t waitlist your daughter because they were choosing students with better stats; the put her on the WL because they were choosing students who were well qualified and clearly more likely to attend.
During ED the primary agenda for the college is to fill the class with a core of full pay students who also have stats within their target range. Higher stats may be an asset, but anything in range is fine-- because all that matters is the overall numbers in the end, not what an individual student’s score is. So every student with a mid-range or above score is appropriate for admission-- and all are essentially guaranteed to attend.
During RD the agenda shifts to choosing students to round out the class to fill whatever needs are unfilled after ED. Yield protection becomes more important, and reportable stats may or may not have diminished importance depending on the numbers they’ve already locked in during the ED round.
Barnard currently accepts about ~30% of ED applicants --which would make it a match for OP’s daughter, given that her stats are clearly in line with Barnard’s expectations. Not a guarantee of admission by any means – but given that it seems a clear top choice for her and the family is full pay, very appropriate for her to apply. Of course her chances would rop in the RD round, simply because the competition is keener then and she doesn’t seem to have any particular hook other than being full-pay. (And since Barnard is need-blind, the way to play the full-pay hook is to apply ED)
@calmom - I can’t argue with your logic, but seeing it laid out that way lays bare the whole calculated nature of the crazy admissions game. Truth be told, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have chosen Barnard over other options she had even if she had gotten in, so in that sense they were right.
This has been hashed over many times on CC, but man the whole ED thing is tough. Great for full pay – or low EFC applying to 100% need – kids who REALLY know their first choice. But that’s not how it’s always used. Anecdote: I have a wealthy NYC friend and she said the private school counselors pretty much force (or scare) all seniors into applying ED. [The school has an incentive to have as many top20 acceptances as they can muster.] Her D. really wasn’t sure where she wanted go and completed 3 ED apps – and decided at literally last minute which one to submit after agonizing. She was accepted, she’s going, and hopefully it’ll be great. But you gotta figure that kid could have used some more time and would have benefitted from having things like accepted students’ days to make her decision.
I think her parents should have backed off and let her do RD, but they were too worried about losing the ED advantage and not getting into a ‘top’ school – and everyone around them was applying ED.
On the flip side, we couldn’t let our D do ED b/c we needed to see the final costs and weigh financial options, so even if she’d had a strong first choice (fort., she didn’t), it just wasn’t an option.
There are bigger problems in higher ed than this, for sure, but sill…Sigh.
Sorry – I’m digressing from OP!
But the point isn’t that everyone needs to do ED. The point is that it makes sense for a full pay applicant like the OP’s daughter for a school that clearly is her top choice.
I think the scare tactics are in this thread, where posters are telling the OP that a very strong ACT composite isn’t good enough. Anyone who has familiarity with Barnard admissions would know that they value GPA & other factors over test scores. (This information is readily available in the CDS as well – Barnard indicates that test score are “important” but ranks GPA and other factors as “very important”)
I think Barnard has to be especially wary of high stat applicants in the RD round, because of students who are thinking they can use Barnard as a backup for Columbia – the vast majority of cross-admits choose Columbia. So Barnard is definitely going to want very clear signals that the high stat applicants have a sincere desire to attend Barnard.
My kids needed financial aid and couldn’t apply ED either. But, like it or not, ED is the way that so-called need-blind college like Barnard bring in the core population of full-payers, which enables the school to give financial aid dollars to RD admits like my daughter who need to be able to compare awards. Barnard was a top choice for my daughter. She let them know that by traveling on her own from the west coast for a campus interview, and by the strength of her essays. She worked hard on the supplemental questions – she put a lot of work into the Barnard app-- and into the apps of other colleges that were high on her list. And she got into all her reaches. Where did she get waitlisted? At the college she thought were matches that she was adding as backups – colleges which on paper had higher admit rates, but for which she lacked enthusiasm.
I’m not saying that it’s simply a matter of a student writing a better essay… but the point is that that the college is evaluating for fit. My DD was a clear fit, as is the OP’s daughter, based on what the OP has posted. And that comes through clearly in the initial post. Does that mean that she will be admitted ED? I don’t know.
If she doesn’t apply ED, then the equation may change for her. Certainly the competition will increase, and even though I saw lots of evidence of fit in the OP’s description, I didn’t see any standout quality, anything that provided a reason to accept that student over other students. And for RD, the NY residency might work against her, because RD is an opportunity to diversify the class, including aiming for geographic diversity. She is every bit as deserving if she applies RD, but at that point she would have to do more to make the case for admission. (Something to keep in mind if she is deferred in the ED round). But that “more” isn’t going to be a higher ACT score at Barnard. Not that a 2 point increase would hurt her … just that it probably wouldn’t be the information that would move the needle on the “defer” decision.
It’s been a year since the OP’s daughter visited Barnard. It would probably be a very good idea for her to revisit now and arrange an on campus interview.
I did not realize “need blind” schools would give even the slightest preference to “full pay” applicants.
For what it’s worth our daughter did another official Barnard College campus visit on 8/2/18. She has her on campus interview scheduled for October. She opened her Common Application account and is starting to input information. Thank you to everyone for sharing your thoughts.
The preference for full-pay is built into the ED system — students who need to compare financial aid awards cannot afford to apply ED. Students who are very poor (0 EFC or Pell Grant eligible) – can expect to have generous aid, but those students tend to attend schools with fewer resources and less overall awareness or preparedness for the ED option, so stastically most of those students will apply in the RD round. The middle class students need to wait.
Barnard has a limited endowment, so not a huge reserve of funds for financial aid. Generally 55% students are full pay. That’s the number of full payers they need to keep afloat. They draw almost half their class from ED The 2017 CDS shows 595 students enrolling, with 289 admitted ED. Even ED has a little bit of melt, but the only official reason for turning down an ED spot is due to insufficient financial aid, so that just nudges the percentage of full payers in the ED pool even higher If we assume that 90% of ED admits do enroll, that would be 260 out of 595, or about 44% of the incoming class. The higher the percentage of full pay in that round, the nearer they are to meeting financial aid targets.
The CDS also shows 51 students coming from the waitlist that year, and Barnard is not need-blind for waitlist admission. It shows 61 entering international students - roughly 10% of the class – and Barnard also is need-aware for international admissions. So basically, out of 595 enrolling students, 112 (19%) came through need-aware channels, and up to 289 (almost 49%) came through a system structured to favor full pay (or near full pay) applicants.
So yes --full payers do have an significant admissions advantage. It’s just built into the admission system rather than applied on an individual basis during the RD round. So basically there’s a door called “ED” that provides a big admissions boost but generally is closed to families like mine, and then there is the RD pool that is filled with everyone else. If Barnard is the top choice and the parents can afford to pay full cost, then the way to exercise that preference is to go the ED route. (For you, “need-blind” means that you lose that preference if opting instead for the “RD” door, though you could have a second bite at the apple if your daughter were to be waitlisted).
I do think your daughter has excellent prospects for admission to Barnard. That does not mean that I am doing the “chances” thing as claiming that she will get in. Just that it is definitely worth a shot and with her profile ED makes a lot of sense. The strategy of applying ED to Barnard and early to whatever schools on her list offer either nonbinding early action or rolling admissions will probably result in at least one admission in hand by December, if only to an acceptable safety --which would avoid a lot of angst in December if your daughter is turned down or deferred by Barnard,and more flexibility as to which colleges to apply to RD or ED II at that point. Also, of course, there are many colleges that are need-aware in admissions— so that would be something to take into consideration down the line.
Update - Our daughter sat for the ACT a second time in September and received a composite score of 31. She submitted her University of Pittsburgh application today. Still hard at work.