Please critique son's chances

Parents Forum
1

<p>South Florida resident
Super Reach: Princeton, UPenn
Reach: Duke, Wash U at St. Louis, Notre Dame
Safety: U of Florida</p>

<p>Statistics
SAT: 770M, 740V, 680 WS
SAT II: Math II 716, US History 770, Literature (taking)
Weighted GPA: 4.84 Top 5% of class of 500+
National Merit Semi-Finalist
10 AP Classes during high school
Student Council 4 years,
Class President Sophomore
Class President Junior
National Honor Society
National Latin Honor Society
Forensics Team(4 years)
National Latin Exam: Maxima Cum Laude
American Legion Boys State
Golf Team 4 years
US Soccer Federation Referee (grade 8) 4 years
over 500 hours community service</p>

<p>Your comments are welcome.............</p>

2

<p>Hmmm, five reaches and a safety. Clearly he's in at U of Florida. But the remainder could be "five for five" or "zero for five" acceptance wise. Please find three matches.</p>

3

<p>It's OK to care when you're spending up to 200 grand and it's your child.</p>

<p>With ivy schools all I'd say is he has the qualifications their looking for, after that who knows, he'll be in the running. Same with Duke and WashU. Notre Dame is less reachy than the others but still a reach/match imo. Need matches, at least a few.</p>

4

<p>My daughter has the same problem that your son has -- lots of reaches and a safety. Of course, this is OK if the student doesn't really mind the prospect of going to the safety.</p>

<p>But if the student really would prefer to avoid the safety school, it would be a good idea to have something on the list that's less selective than Wash U or Notre Dame and more selective than your state university.</p>

<p>If you find any good ones, let me know. I'm looking, too.</p>

5

<p>I hope you guys don't mind if my son crawls in the boat with your D Marian and Cateye's S because they seem to be floating on the same pond. I feel the best I can do is find every little tidbit of good news coming out of the safety school and play it up for all it's worth so by the time all those reach rejections come in he'll think he hit the jackpot with good ole state u.!</p>

6

<p>Hey--my D. is in the same boat. Top stats, etc, ranked 2 or 3 in a class of 350, all around great kid, lots of leadership, athletics, etc. Going to be the contrarian here and say if you have a state with a really desirable flagship, what's wrong with the strategy of only applying to really stellar, top ranked schools figuring that the worst outcome is a spot at the state school?</p>

<p>Why apply to a bunch of second and third drawer schools at great expense and hassle if the state school is better and cheaper?</p>

<p>This safety for the sake of safety strategy doesn't make any sense for a certain group of students, who are qualified for top schools and who live in states with excellent flagship public schools. Chances are they will be in with a higher achieving crowd at the state U. than at a private school where their stats are far above the norm.</p>

7

<p>I sure would like to see more matches on the list. There are so many great schools between the reaches and U of Florida. The list feels like there hasn't been much effort to find them.</p>

<p>With that list, the applicant must be fully prepared to attend Florida. Notre Dame is the only other school where I would say there is a good shot.</p>

<p>The shame is that with those test scores and class rank there are so many really great schools where admission would be pretty much a sure bet. Make sure there isn't buyers' remorse about overlooking them now should Florida be the only option come April.</p>

8

<p>cateye:
I presume you're ready to pay full price at all those if you don't qualify for financial aid? If not, this student would be a shoo-in for merit money if you put together a better list.</p>

9

<p>"what's wrong with the strategy of only applying to really stellar, top ranked schools figuring that the worst outcome is a spot at the state school?"</p>

<p>Yes, Mombot, this is the conclusion my son has reached, and I don't necessarily disagree - but I also agree with interesteddad's point that there are many great schools in between. But it's his decision - and so far he's sticking with it! He's pretty easy going and figures the only downside is not really "going away" - but I do think there would be a tinge of disappointment. </p>

<p>Weenie - I don't know about cateye and UF (sorry to hijack her thread) but our state u is extremely generous and gives so much to the high stats kids it's almost embarrassing.</p>

10

<p>backfin, Yeah, I didn't mean to include U of Florida.</p>

11

<p>OK parents-Question-when your child is in the top tier for GPA,tests, EC's yada yada, are the Ivy's reaches-or matches? What kind of school would be a safety? The state universities? or? D wants to be in a academically challenging environ. We live in California-the state universities of UC Berkeley & UCLA are equally difficult to get accepted as the Ivy schools. Ideas?</p>

12

<p>Duke and Wash U are really hard to get into. Put them in the same category as Princeton and Penn. Duke admits 22% of applicants, Princeton 11%, Penn 19%, and Wash U 21%. Princeton is the super reach of the bunch but the others are comparable.</p>

13

<p>APOL:</p>

<p>Ivies are never matches. Perfect, wonderful, fabulous kids get rejected from them all the time.</p>

<p>I feel that a safety is a school where your kid is in the top 25% of the admitted students' stats (and has the usual strong ECs etc). But - it sort of depends on the school. At the top schools this is still not high enough to be considered safe. You can look at the percent of kids who get admitted to help you think about that.</p>

<p>Not all kids can rely on their state U for a safety. Some of them are very selective. (As you have noted.)</p>

<p>You can access information on selectivity either on College Board, by paying ($15) for the premium US News, or by going to the school's data sheets, some of which can be found here:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=76444%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=76444&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>There is nothing wrong with your son's list provided he would be happy at UF. Frankly, UF has a lot to offer and many students with similar stats (believe it or not), so I think it's a great safety. It's also free! Your son will certainly get into UF, so he doesn't need other safeties. Odds are he will get into at least one of his reach schools...maybe more. Select one reach for Early Decision, if you can. Good luck!</p>

15

<p>Top 25% of admitted students match D's stats are considered safety.I will check out the link you have listed.Thank you weenie-</p>

16

<p>
[quote]
OK parents-Question-when your child is in the top tier for GPA,tests, EC's yada yada, are the Ivy's reaches-or matches?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>First...it's really a mistake to think in terms of "the Ivies". Odds of admission at Dartmouth, Brown, and Penn are very different than they are at Harvard, Yale, Princeton. </p>

<p>It is not possible for a student to be a "match" at Harvard, Yale, Princeton (well, a normal student, anyway).</p>

<p>It is at least conceivable to be a "match" at places like Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, Duke, Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, etc. -- these schools are all roughly comparable from an admissions standpoint, some favoring one type of applicant, others a different type. However, to be a "match" at any of those schools, you would need top class rank, very high test scores, AND something else very impressive like ECs, diversity, athletics, etc.</p>

<p>It may come as a shock to the original poster in this thread and I hate to pour cold water on admissions odds, but the ECs, as listed for the applicant, aren't really strong enough to make Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, Duke, Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, or WashU a match. Top 5%, 2250 SATS, class presidents don't really stand out in the applicant pools at these schools...and we aren't even talking about kicking it up another notch up at Princeton.</p>

<p>Schools that would be solid matches on a list for that applicant would be Emory, Vanderbilt, Haverford, Bowdoin, Davidson, and so on and so forth. With those SATs, merit money is even a possibility at some of these schools. There are so many great schools between Duke and UFlorida that I hate to see nothing on the college list.</p>

<p>I can't comment on Notre Dame. Not being Catholic, it was not a school that my D looked at and I don't have even a shred of understanding what makes ND tick from an admissions standpoint. I do know a couple of friends of hers considered it and had zero chance of admission. But, I'm inclined to think the original posters' kid would have a good shot based on strong class rank and strong test scores.</p>

17

<p>APOL:
Note that you can search that thread for a specific school by using the little search box that says "Search This Thread" and putting in the school's name.</p>

18

<p>


No, they aren't. They are tough to get into - certainly harder than campuses like Davis or Irvine -- but admissions is far more predictable and the stats as to overall percent admitted are very misleading because of the way California applications work.</p>

<p>My kids both were accepted to UC Berkeley (though neither attended) -- I was quite certain my son would be accepted and he was; with my daughter I calculated a 65% chance of admission- more "match" than "safety", but with the odds favoring admissions. I did this by looking to see where the kids stood numerically on the rather voluminous statistical charts published by the UC's. I could see that my sons GPA + test scores put him in a category where admission rates were extremely high -- add to that a particularly strong academic record (5 years of high school math & science, 4 years of a foreign language) -- and I knew that by the numbers he would be ok. My daughter's test scores and school record were far weaker, but she had another "hook" -- she was ELC (top 4% of her class), and the ELC admit rate at Berkeley is around 65%... hence my seeing her has having almost 2 to 1 odds of getting in. </p>

<p>The raw admit rate (around 23%?) reflects an applicant pool that is very broad. The kid whose stats put him in the top quartile for admissions at an Ivy is probably safely within the top 10% for Berkeley/UCLA pool. Berkeley and UCLA get applicants by the thousands from kids who are UC eligible but whose GPA & test scores wouldn't even be considered by the Ivies, and would never consider applying there. This is because of the system of using one application to select multiple schools -- the kid whose target should rightfully be Santa Cruz merely checks an additional box on the form, and he has now applied to Berkeley as well. So why not? Berkeley and UCLA are also located in urban areas, making them very attractive to commuters or kids who want to stay close to home as well.</p>

<p>So the bottom line is the ~23% admit rate you see published for Berkeley/UCLA is against a much broader applicant pool in terms of stats than the Ivies. So if you have a kid who is competitive for Ivies, then you have a kid who stands even higher in the Berkeley/UCLA applicant pool, and the UCs are far more by the numbers than the Ivies, though not entirely so. </p>

<p>Again, look at specific admit stats based on your kids' SAT & GPA and you will see that the picture changes. </p>

<p>-
I agree with the other posters about the level of competition for Ivies -- they are reaches for everyone, except perhaps for Cornell and for ED applicants for Penn. Brown also publishes statistical data about its admitted students that breaks things down by different factors.. and things start looking pretty dismal for kids who aren't among the top 2 or 3 students in their graduating class. </p>

<p>IMHO, if a college takes less than 20% of its students in the category that the applicant fits (such as RD), then it is a reach no matter what the stats. A very significant number of spots at the Ivies go to specialized categories of students, like recruited athletes, so the number of spaces for unhooked applicants is even smaller than the raw admit-rate statistics would indicate. When there are 5 to 1 odds against being admitted, a school is a reach, no matter who the kid is. </p>

<p>You get into "match" territory when your kid has excellent qualifications for a school that takes a higher proporortion of applicants. With my son, with his very strong stats, I considered colleges that accepted between 35%-60% of students to be matches.</p>

19

<p>Late Friday night-just now getting back to this forum. Calmom, weenie and interesteddad-thank you for taking the time to provide guidance and feedback. I feel like I am working at a 90 degree angle of learning. I shall start to "search the thread", and check out the acceptance rates of 35-60% for students with D's stats.</p>

20

<p>APOL, you have to read weenie's post in context. It doesn't matter if your kid is in the top 25% at the most selective schools , they are and will remain reaches for everyone. (They are reaches for 1600, 36 Val's ). </p>

<p>I have commented on my serious disagreement with mombot's position re: state school safeties and private reaches before, but I must say - I still find the position "interesting". I can't really see how the same kid could enjoy mega U and Princeton but I guess it happens for kids who care little (or at least less) about campus fit. And there are plenty of first tier schools (both LAC's and Uni's ) that would love to entertain your kid for 4 years. You wouldn't be limited to second and third tier schools. (I have no idea where that idea comes from.) </p>

<p>5 private reaches and a state school safety? Rah-rah. Are we ready for some football? ;)</p>

<p>I like interesteddad's list. I'd add Tufts, and the Claremont schools, maybe CMC. They are much closer in size and feel to the reaches.</p>

<p>Your kid has a lot a good choices to consider. He just needs to decide what it is that he likes about his reaches and where best to recreate that feeling in a more accessible place. For some kids, that would certainly not be a huge state Uni. For some , like mombot's kid, it apparently is.</p>