My son and I are finalizing his college list and I would like to hear from everyone. We listed up based on his academics and test scores.
ACT: 35 (36E 34M 36R 36S)
GPA: 99.8 UWGPA/ 103 WGPA
Rather competitive public school in NJ (We don’t have a ranking system)
10th: AP Euro (5) AP Stat(5)
11th: AP ush/ AP Bio/ AP psy/ Ap Lang. He is confident for all 5 but 4 for AP bio.
12th: AP Lang/ AP gov/ AP Mac/ AP Spanish/ AP phy
Extracurriculars: In-school
-Debate- Secretary
-Mock Trial- Jr. Captain
-Ethics Bowl- Secretary
-NHS-Secretary
-NSHS
-WLHS
-JV volleyball for 1 year and dropped due to a schedule conflict with another club
Extracurriculars: outside-school
Founded and running a local community-based project website with 6 other members
not many outside activities due to his academics and school clubs. He can only spend a few hours during weekends…To be honest I am having a hard time to understand other students who do many outside school activities…maybe my son is doing something wrong???
Regional debate: 1st place (x2)/ State octa finalist (x2) / Harvard invitational speech rank 22nd out of 129
Regional Math fair: 1st place
Regional research competition: 3rd place.
Prospective major: Not declared yet but any majors for pre-law related…
Family of 4
Single income source: $150K AGI
Home Equity: $450K
Mortgage: $400K
Line of credit: $60K
Mutual Funds: $65K
529: $38K
We ran every NPC for below colleges and avg EFC is about $50K
Does that sound fair???
That would not be easy since our school profiles show that most of the students are privileged…and the school district is in a high-income neighborhood
Most people here consider schools with an acceptance rate of less than 20% as reaches for all. So even though your son’s stats are exceptional, I still would put Rice and Wash U in the reach category. UVA for an OOS student would be a reach and probably UCLA as well.
Does he have preferences in terms of school size or location (urban/suburban/rural)? Your working list consists of many different kinds of schools with diverse campus characteristics.
Given his academic interests, you might look to U of Richmond and its PPEL program:
Richmond is also getting increasingly competitive but I think your son’s chances would be reasonable and it also offers merit scholarships from 1/3 to full tuition.
I think most of your matches are reaches except maybe W&L. Assuming you are in NY, you will be full pay at UCLA. Tulane historically has been wary of kids with high stats using it as a safety.
If he can pin down a first choice I would suggest ED for one school. He has excellent stats but those schools are reaches for just about everyone. I think he’d stand a great chance at ED for Emory, Vandy, and possibly WashU.
Based on your son’s career interests, you may want to search “Top Lawyer Producer Schools – Infographic.” A marginally less selective school than some of the others you’ve listed such as Middlebury could make a good addition to consider.
No , I do not believe that state flagships of the best states are safeties anymore (UCs, Florida, Rutgers, U of M, Penn State, North Carolina, U of Virginia, poss others). Defining superb student is now up for grabs with SAT moving to qualify scores and unbelievable grade escalation across the country. Without superb Hooks/ECs/Awards , I expect average excellent students will have more more difficulty in this arena.
Thank you everyone…Now i know my son’s super reach and reach…Just can’t narrow down the list… frankly I don’t know what is match school for my son’s stat…also If in-state is not the safety, can you guys suggest schools in east coast, please?
“I do not believe that state flagships of the best states are safeties anymore”
Wow. I fear that you may be correct.
“If in-state is not the safety, can you guys suggest schools in east coast, please”
We thought that our in-state flagship was a safety (and D1 did get accepted to it). Our other safeties were in Canada, where admissions is largely based on stats. We do live north and east of you, although NJ is not all that far away.
I can’t imagine that your son would not get into Rutgers, assuming you are in state. I have a relative who was admitted this year with stats far below what your son has. I also suspect that SUNY schools and Fordham are likely within reach. For Rutgers if your son applies by the early deadline (Nov. 1), he has a good chance of getting a response by the end of the year, which will take some of the stress off.
Frankly, I believe that it’s likely that your child will probably get into some of his reaches. I think the main point here is not that your student is not competitive. Of course, he is. He has great grades and test scores and coherent ECs in the area of public speaking. He should feel very proud of his accomplishments and I can’t imagine that any parent wouldn’t be bursting with pride to have such a hardworking and academically focused child. But with single digit acceptance rates at many of the colleges you listed, it’s impossible to predict outcomes given how many qualified students apply.
While this may seem like an overabundance of caution, this past admissions cycle seems to have been especially competitive, with acceptance rates dropping very dramatically in some instances, like Rice. It does not necessarily follow that your son should rush to an ED application to give him a bump. Rather, he should have matches and safeties to balance out the reaches so he will have choices next spring and it’s great that you’re addressing this aspect now.
Question, did he make the cutoff for National Merit for your state? That opens up many options.
It looks like he is favoring LACs (Liberal Arts Colleges) and mid-sized universities. If you want some safer LACs maybe look to Dickinson (Carlisle PA) and College of Wooster (OH) which would be very likely for admission and merit scholarships in the area of 20-30K. Wooster has EA and he’d likely have a response before January 1. For a mid-sized university, maybe Ithaca College (safe) or U of Rochester (match/low reach) or Richmond, as mentioned previously.
I think Rutgers would be a safety, and with those stats, most likely Full Ride at the Honors College. Which is an amazing deal if he’s looking at law school. So many kids I know go there for their undergrad and then go off to amazing places for PhD programs. You really can’t beat it.