You could pull the parent card. We live in PA and I know Cali schools are a different ballgame but our rule was our sons had to apply to one of our state flagships no matter what.
Do some research about the school, campus, students and apply. Neither ended up in-state but they could’ve if they had to. One would’ve been fine with Pitt or PSU. The other would’ve figured it out.
I would most definitely add more schools. There are tens of thousands of kids with perfect stats, and many are over achieving in other areas as well.
Your school may have a great record at the schools you mentioned or no one may have been admitted in a decade. Everyone on CC looks around them and perceives that they are in the top 10% of their class and therefore will be accepted across the board. The reality is very different.
The schools just below the very top can recognize someone who is likely to attend and someone who is using their school as a safety ( the Tufts effect). They won’t accept kids they think won’t attend. Good luck convincing them. Plus you have two kids so having a bunch of solid schools where you are really likely to be admitted is the best bet. Then you can apply to a bunch of reaches. Make sure your kids’ EA schools give feedback early so you have time for regular admission. Most EA schools are floating it so kids end up doing EA’s and regular.
Don’t convince yourself that your kids are going to get admitted somewhere. If the school is less than 40% admit and your high stats kids apply don’t assume they will be admitted. They likely won’t. Just being
Perfection is the enemy of good enough.
Just because you are not enthusiastic, doesn’t mean that you will be depressed. Protecting against a low probability event means it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Personally I think visiting and getting excited about the safeties should the first step. It’s easy to fall in love with the reaches.
To wait until acceptances, or rejections, come in means that you could have disappointed and dejected kids going to visit the safeties.
One of my D’s favorite schools was a safety. Falling in love with a safety makes th entire process stress free.
There are no safeties. That being said, both your children have a range of schools. Use your EA to have a better sense of how they are being received. Stats are fine but what is going to set them apart is an interesting story, something about them that will complement the grades,a achievements etc. Good luck!
I think you also really need to know your child and just how willing/able they are to scramble in December. We know a ton of kids who either consciously or unconsciously waited until their SCEA/ED answer came out and spent December doing applications. I knew that my daughter had zero bandwidth to do applications in December (an extremely busy time for her ec) and that it would be very difficult if her first college response was a no. I insisted she pick one rolling school - she went with Iowa. Because of her schedule all of her applications were done in October, which was a lifesaver when a ton of scholarship essays came up that we weren’t anticipating. We worked HARD at finding match, likelys that excited her - sometimes it was because of merit, but there’s a whole lot worse reasons to like a school. She did end up getting into her ED school, but one of the benefits of the early work is I really do think it strengthened her overall application and essays for the ED school.
I also insisted both my kids apply to 1 instate school - just in case things changed. I didn’t really anticipate either of them staying in state, but it’s pretty cheap insurance, particularly as both of them found schools that didn’t require extra essays - just food for thought.
Here is an out of the box suggestion. Sit down with each of your kids, and have them draw up a plan for what they will do if they do not get accepted to any of the colleges on their application list. This can include.
NACAC list.
Gap year possibilities.
Community college (and please don’t think I believe this is a good choice for your kids)
Work full time.
Make sure they think about all the options including NOT getting accepted to the colleges on their list.
Perhaps this will encourage them to open their minds to schools other than ones where acceptance could be iffy.
Check VCU in Richmond VA for film. It’s a city school with a well respected arts program, but also has the full offerings of a big college. Should be a safety. I loved the city of Richmond. VCU is an urban campus, walkable to all sorts of things. It’s a little gritty in places, but very funky and beautiful too and the James River is in walking distance too. She could be up for good merit here.
For your son, definitely check out Elon. Sounds like his vibe. Also check out College of Charleston.
If the student would be positively influenced by a tour, why not tour some prospective safeties first?
The lottery analogy does not work too well, because college admission decisions are not independent events. You also do not know the odds of admission to many reach colleges to any useful degree of precision, nor do you know how well correlated they are with each other.
This relates to the foundational math. However, it would be the particular student’s chances at the various schools that should be used as bases (which must be estimated, and can be greater than, equal to, or less than a school’s general acceptance rate). The degree of independence of events also must be considered.
Just a plug for putting some UCs/cal state schools on the list for now. Kids can change a lot between junior and senior year, and it may be that a bigger school or in-state school fits next year better than it does now. There’s little cost to keeping some as viable for the time being.
There’s plenty of time before the application deadline to take them off the list or after the deadline to confirm they truly don’t fit. But to take them entirely out of the running now cuts out options you might find you want later. Especially if you are looking for safeties anyway. If U of Wisconsin or U of Washington are on the list, then big schools are in play, and the in-state versions shouldn’t be tossed aside yet, imo. Yet.
Unless they truly would rather not go to college at all than go to a cal state school, in my opinion it makes sense to have at least one on the list.
That assumes that all decisions are fully independent of each other, which is not true, since most colleges consider most of the same criteria in similar ways (e.g. GPA higher → better). You also do not know with enough precision what the specific student’s actual chance of admission is to each reach college.
Two more ACT sittings to try and improve on a 34? That is a waste of time and money. Please don’t do that. Test scores are really de-emphasized right now. No one is submitting unless they have a really high score anyway, so it’s pretty meaningless at the moment. Their test scores will have little bearing on admission. Certainly, test scores are not going to tip the balance in their favor in comparison to almost everything else in the app.
A lot of these schools, particularly small private ones, will track demonstrated interest. When I look at our Naviance I can see that the stronger students often get waitlisted. You don’t have to visit in person, but make sure you engage through virtual tours etc. Also, if they have interviews sign up for them early, even before you apply.
My D23 agreed to apply to 2 or 3 safeties but does not want to visit them unless she does not get in early to a “better” school. D says she just won’t be enthusiastic about visiting them until she is forced to narrow her choices. I know there are those that will disagree but I am not wasting my time looking at a campus if she is not open to it right now. We will chose her safeties wisely and hope for the best.
It’s a simple supply/demand ratio. When 100 students apply for 10 spots many qualified kids will not get a spot.
I’m not saying that every institution on a student’s college list needs to be perfect. In every category of school, from extremely likely to unlikely, there are going to be “imperfections” or things that could be improved. Could be the climate, cost, sports enthusiasm, lack of direct admit to the major, architecture, Greek life, whatever. But it’s making sure that overall, the package works for someone. Kind of like when looking for a significant other/spouse. There is no perfect, but there’s definitely good compatibility. Ditto with colleges.
I think for your daughter she has to consider what she will do if she gets accepted to a school but not into a film major. Those are tough. Would she like to go to Wisconsin not in film or Indiana in film? Would she go to FSU if she doesn’t get into the film school? Would Fordham be okay with the religious aspect if she was in the film school?
It looks to me like her list needs more safeties than her brothers since his major is more common and usually a much bigger program than a film program.
IU also has a quant-heavy Public Policy Analysis major that might fit her other interest area.
Also, how about Ohio State? Their Data Analytics major would fit her quant interests, and they have a film studies program with a screenwriting minor. And it’s urban.