My junior has a 33 ACT (will retake – expects to improve), UW GPA of 3.9x (not sure exactly what the x is – she was pulled down by a couple of A-'s), weighted GPA of 4.3, lots of extracurriculars (two instruments, varsity athlete, journalist for local newspaper, has participated in musical theater and drama, runs a writing group, volunteering, etc.), and was recently given a leadership award by her school. She is interested in Northwestern and U of Chicago. Please could you chance her for these schools. Thank you.
Northwestern and Chicago are reaches overall. Stanford is too, of course. (I’m mentioning S because it’s in the thread title). Stanford’s overall admit rate is about 4.5%, Chicago’s is about 7%, and Northwestern’s is about 10%.
This past year UChicago’s admit rate in the RD round was something like 2%, Stanford’s is always low (maybe about 3-3.5%), and Northwestern’s was something like 7-8%. These three are a reach for everyone who doesn’t have a strong hook, in the RD round.
If she develops a strong favorite, it would probably help to apply ED to Chicago or Northwestern or SCEA at Stanford. Early applications help, especially at Northwestern; then UChicago; and then Stanford. (I believe Stanford’s SCEA admit rate is still under or around 10%, while Chicago’s ED rate is in the teens and Northwestern’s ED admit % is in the 20s.)
Of course, she will also want to develop a list of matches and at least one safety. Every app should be to a school she likes and can afford without too much debt.
Solid chance if she applies ED to one or the other, almost no chance RD at UChicago, reach for RD at NW.
Thank you so much for the responses! My D has only taken the ACT once and did no preparation for it. She thinks she should be able to bump up her score to a 35 by going over old tests and revising her math a little. She’s increasingly interested in Stanford. I hope a slightly higher score will give her a better chance.
Stanford is a super reach for anyone. Even with a 36ACT. Expand the list and tour schools that are a match. NU and UChicago were both tough this past cycle
All of these schools are reaches, for anyone. GPA and (potential) ACT are target for these schools, her EC’s are pretty good, but not Ivy league level. EC’s are pretty much the main factor in admissions, so that might hold her back a bit. I would say find some safety and target schools.
Hello - I was actually accepted by Northwestern RD (regular decision). It seems like your daughter has some interest in writing and journalism, which is exactly what I applied for at Northwestern (the Medill School of Journalism). Like other posters said, NU is still a reach but if your daughter focuses on building upon her interest in English/journalism this summer (entering in online essay contests, submitting to online literary magazines, doing more journalism work, etc) than it’s definitely possible. Check out my profile here: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1929303-final-chance-me-to-wharton-ed-and-ivys-p1.html if you want to see more examples of the “spike” that I made for myself. Making sure that your daughter’s interests are defined and coherent will increase her chances of admission instead of throwing down on her application everything from varsity sports to music to theater.
IMO, a 33 on the ACT is fine. It’s a little low so if your daughter feels confident she can get a 34+ without too much trouble, than go for it. Otherwise, a 33 won’t be the reason your daughter gets denied from anywhere if it happens. Do you know her class rank?
Hi, D was accepted to Stanford (class of 2021). Also accepted to many other upper tier schools; Columbia, Rice, Pomona, UCB, UCLA & Amherst. Wait listed at Harvard. I can only speak about Sanford. It was not expected for my D to get accepted because RD is under 4% but D’s application essay was totally authentic and true from her heart. Her passion to learn and read all kinds of books from manga to epic classics to books written exclusively in Latin really set her apart according to our area AO in SoCal. Your D needs to have taken or will take the hard to hardest classes available at her HS. We had five from our highly ranked HS accepted this year and all of them are valedictorians. They compare students to students at their schools then compare them to like schools in your part of the state. Not all 4.0 are the same and they are pros at picking out the ones who excel. When most applicants are high achieving students with WGPA’s in the 4.5+, 2300+ (old sat), ACT 34+, awesome EC’s, multi-award winners and great recommendations from teachers, Stanford has a large pool from who they can choose from. It basically comes down to who was real in writing the essays and the area AO from the last few rounds of voting from the admissions panel.
D’s stats at time of application was 2350 SAT, 36 ACT, 4.0 gpa, 4.9 wgpa, lots of awards (nationally, state, local and school), 300+ hrs of volunteer work. Even with these stats, Stanford is a super reach school, and D was really lucky that the SoCal AO really liked her essays and advocated for D’s admittance. Check out Stanford’s admitted student profile for past years to compare your D to them. Only one in about 20 students get accepted in RD so you may want to make a list of safety schools because it is getting harder to get into top tier schools.
Good luck and best wishes.
Thank you, gr8pl8! Congratulations to your daughter! She sounds an amazing young lady. Yes, it is becoming more and more difficult to get into these top schools. My D took the ACT just once and went in without any prep having forgotten some of her basic math from long ago. She went through some old tests, brushed up on the Geometry she took in 7th grade, and scored 36 in a sample test. She will retake, but we shall see … She is also somewhat interested in Pomona and Amherst. I feel an LAC would be better for her as she’ll be younger than most of the other students and I feel she would benefit from some hand-holding, but she wants to go to one of the schools listed above.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts.
@Meggie777: What does your daughter want to study ?
Any career in mind ?
Which sport or sports does she intend to pursue in college ?
@Meggie777: Have you looked at recent “student/faculty ratios” among the top 20 LACs & National Universities ?
Among LACs (liberal arts colleges): Lowest student to faculty ratios among the Top 20 by US News :
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Williams College 7/1
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Wellesley College 7/1
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USMA-West Point 7/1
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Amherst College 8/1
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Swarthmore 8/1
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Middlebury College 8/1
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Pomona College 8/1
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Wash & Lee 8/1
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Harvey Mudd College 8/1
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Vassar College 8/1
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Bowdoin College 9/1
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Carleton College 9/1
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Claremont McKenna 9/1
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Colgate 9/1
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Smith College 9/1
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Grinnell College 9/1
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Hamilton 9/1
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Haverford 9/1
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Davidson College 10/1
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Colby College 10/1
Among National Universities:
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MIT 3/1
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Caltech 3/1
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Stanford 4/1
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Princeton 5/1
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Univ. of Chicago 5/1
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Yale 6/1
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Columbia 6/1
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U Penn 6/1
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Duke 6/1
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Rice 6/1
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Harvard 7/1
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Northwestern 7/1
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Dartmouth College 7/1
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Johns Hopkins 7/1
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Brown 7/1
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Vanderbilt 8/1
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Wash U. StL, 8/1
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Cornell University 9/1
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Emory 9/1
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Notre Dame 10/1
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Georgetown 11/1
Not sure about “hand holding”, but for those seeking direct contact with professors, it should not be assumed that LACs are better than National Universities in this respect.
To answer the question in your original post: Your daughter’s interests & strengths align well with Northwestern University. With a 33 ACT & 3.92 GPA, she is a competitive candidate for admission to NU. Chances are significantly better for those applying ED (versus RD), however.
UChicago has a strong preference for ED applicants as well.
Unable to handicap or guess at chance of admission to Stanford.
My son was similar to your daughter, a little higher in stats but in the ballpark (4.0 UW 34 ACT 1510 SAT). He applied ED1 to UChicago and was accepted but was considered a recruited athlete. I say that because that hook probably helped him. However, we initiated the contact with the coach and asked to be advocated for. Just because nobody has reached out to your daughter, doesn’t mean she can’t be a “recruited athlete” too. He goes to a large well respected public school that puts 2-5 kids in CHYMPS level schools every year. He also just won a NMS.
His ECs were also journalism, volunteering, and he plays in a rock band. I think the keys were his essays and his recommendations. I believe if you are in the top half of the stats band, that passes the first cut. They then look at the subjective parts of the application and look for fit.
So, is she capable of participating in athletics at the DIII level? For track and cross country (probably swimming) it’s easy to see because meet times are published. For the other sports might be a tougher question.
She should also make sure her essays and recommendations are complimentary of each other. My son wrote a nice note card to his recommending teachers telling them why he wanted to go to UChicago and how he really would like them to stress his love of learning and focus on doing his best. He chose two teachers that he thought really pushed him and who worked with him to learn. His essays also talked about a similar drive. I believe that AOs want to see a good picture of the applicant and not a hodge-podge of thoughts.
Also, an update on admission stats for class of 22 at UChicago
RD acceptance percentage was 4% (double the 2% quoted above, which was from class of 21, yet still steep)
ED/EA was lower teens, but realize many of the ED are recruited athletes. Nobody really knows what the unhooked acceptance rate is for these schools outside of the admissions offices of those schools.
Overall it has been quoted that the acceptance rate was 7.2%
That is my UChicago experience, which from an athletic point of view probably is the only one that applies as I believe Stanford/Northwestern the recruiting path would be different as they are Div1.
Good luck and I hope that helps.
@Meggie777 , don’t over-focus on the ACT score: as @doorrealthe said, it won’t be the reason that she gets denied:
Obviously, higher doesn’t hurt, but it won’t magically tip the balance.
Of course she is: what’s not to love, and it is really in fashion for ambitious students. But a 5% acceptance rate means that 95% of the students who apply get denied- and most of them are every bit as qualified as your daughter.
Your daughter wants the Lamborghini, is mostly likely going to end up with a Lexus, but could also find herself in a Volvo. It would be really sad for her to think that her top of the line Volvo is a failure b/c it isn’t a Lamborghini. It happens, every.single.year- and it is not getting easier. This year’s admissions season was brutal, with what (ime) is an unusual number of students finding themselves only getting offers from safeties and low matches.
Do what you can to push her to ID schools that are safe and match schools that she would seriously want to go to, and to discourage her from falling in love with one or two schools- the ‘dream school’ romance so often ends in heartbreak. If you haven’t already, read @CValle’s excellent post-admissions post (http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/2076513-a-big-thank-you-to-cc-as-the-journey-comes-to-an-end.html) about her ‘average excellent’ daughter’s admissions process.
Also: Imo, student/faculty ratios are not really a helpful metric in identifying the degree of support available (typical class sizes for first year students might be more helpful, for example), but are you are talking about the transition to college life? Is she a lot young? if so, would a gap year make sense (even a gap year with an acceptance in hand)?
@Publisher you said: “Not sure about “hand holding”, but for those seeking direct contact with professors, it should not be assumed that LACs are better than National Universities in this respect.”
I disagree. I have 2 kids, one at a school in the top 5 of your LAC list for student/faculty ratio, and one in a school in the top 5 of your national university list for S/F ratio. I can assure you that there is more direct contact with the professors at the LAC, even though the statistical ratio is lower at the national university. The National Universities ratio is skewed by large numbers of faculty who have virtually no contact with undergrads at all. Research professors in the medical complex, or out in a physics lab, or whatever. And the professors that do teach tend to prioritize thei research more than the LAC professors.
This is not to say that the top schools on that list have poor student/professor contacts. Far from it, they are very good, expecially when compared to large flagship state universities where the ratio gets far higher and TAs are doing most of the lifting. The professors are reasonably accessable and brilliant. But it does not compare with the top LACs. Every professor at the LAC who teaches my kid knows her by name, and interacts with her a lot. That is why those professors are at that school - they affirmatively want to teach and mentor undergrads.
Depends somewhat on the type of contact desired. If seeking close contact with professors on research projects, then National Universities may be the better choice; but for hand-holding, I agree that LACs are probably better.
Student: faculty ratios are very important for those seeking professor contact with respect to research projects, and National Universities tend to focus on research to a much larger extent than do LACs. Many write that LACs offer better prof led teaching, but seem to fail to understand that research
projects involve teaching as well.
@ThankYouforHelp: Personal experience & anecdotes are helpful. Thank you. I am familiar with many students who have attended most of the schools in the National University list that I shared above, and at many of the LACs. Most students graduated from elite private day & boarding schools. All seemed quite satisfied with the amount of & availability of professor contact at all of the schools. Can depend upon one’s major area of study, however, at some National Universities.
Only student who I know that had less than the amount of desired contact with professors was a recruited scholarship athlete with a heavy sports related travel & practice schedule at a prestigious Division 1 private university listed above.
Depending upon one’s situation, therefore, professor contact can vary. Also depends upon one’s major at some National Universities.
From my perspective, National Universities offer a wider variety of types of opportunities for professor contact.
Also, much depends upon the individual student’s interests & personality.