On a separate note, I’m helping out a nephew with his school list. For a variety of reasons, they’re behind the curve in the whole process…so trying to help him out. He’s an average student (some good grades, some really bad ones) with a fairly decent SAT score (1250). Has okay extracurriculars. Think he needs a private school with smaller class sizes and not too many distractions. He wants to study Business but that could change. Has looked mostly in the southeast, mid-atlantic and northeast…ideally he’d like a place with internationals (but hopefully not with an overactive party scene).
Any feedback on the following schools:
St Edwards
Clark
Loyola NO
Loyola Chicago
Elon
High Point
Catholic
Any other schools in the Southeast or Mid Atlantic?
Technically, he’s considering UNC as a safety, even though its not a safety (obviously…Go Heels!).
Guidance counselor told him the same thing. s21 took a similar approach…applied to Texas as a safety…but they conveniently made an error in processing his application (so it didn’t end up counting as an application…heard its a thing with internationals). Think he could add one of the lower UC schools since its the same application.
High Point is a very odd place, I would investigate more before applying (though all my info is second or third hand). Elon is much loved. UDel is very popular. How about some other DC schools? GW or George Mason? How about Connecticut College?
The only one of those I know about is Clark. These days it seems like it is on everyone’s apply list! But we live nearby and it is one of my son’s top picks.
The CDS for Clark shows that very few people submit test scores, and for those that do your nephew’s are in the middle 50%. GPAs are almost all over 3.5 though, & 33% are 4.0!
If he does apply to Clark the AO gave us 2 pieces of advice—if at all possible do EA, it makes a big difference; and definitely do the “optional” interview.
@CRHeel94 - How was his rigor in HS? Have his grades improved year over year? Maybe St Johns or Seton Hall (solid Business schools with a good amount of international students.
Was wondering the same! Could end up with nothing. I have a very high stats kid and we threw in a sure thing with tons of auto-merit and a couple of 50% along with the single and teen admit rate ones. I have read too many stories of high stat kids not even getting into their safeties on here over the past year.
That’s a great deal. No, just a Commended award. But perfect ACT. She’s applying to U of Alabama as her big safety, but has others and potential TE scholarship schools too.
Has he looked at Suffolk? I think there’s a good number of international students, only 0.4% of classes have more than 50 students. It has about 4200 undergrads, so it appears to be around the size you’re targeting, and it’s in Boston (so it seems to work with the big city theme your nephew has for many).
TO and an increased push for diversity at the T20s and other “elites” have made admissions at these schools much more unpredictable for high stat unhooked kids. Parents who had a kid that got into one of these schools 2 to 3+ years ago may not see the same results this time around.
And this change at the top has caused changes at lower tiered schools as well. So it’s highly advisable to have 2-3 likelies in addition to safeties.
Terrible. Not a great deal of rigor…just two APs. No pattern of improvement. Kid is reasonably bright, very well liked but very un-motivated first two years of high school and had other things going on. Grades improved slightly in 11th, but not a significant breakthrough.
Thanks, some food for thought. He has a great profile (and in a way counts as a diversity candidate), but better safe than sorry. Its pretty easy to add another UC school without much work.
Maybe it’s the wine but I just read your comment 3x and still struggle to comprehend - I can tell I really really need to understand critical insight here! I’ll be sharper in the morning.
Clearly my hubby and I have not tackled the FAFSA and CSS yet!
I generally agree with this. However, for applicants with perfect, or near perfect stats, along with a strong overall application, there’re no real likelies other than their safeties, because those would-be likelies may think such applicants are using them as backups.