Safeties/matches for a well-hooked friend

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm posting on behalf of a friend. She prefers northeast, urban/suburban, size flexible, prestige-driven by default. Interested in writing and literature. The school must be significantly "better" than UGA in her parents' eyes. I expect that she will get into a majority of even her current reach-heavy list--what with most rigorous curriculum, 4/550 class rank, 2100 SAT, bi-racial URM (Asian/Hispanic with an interesting story), TASP, wonderful essays--but she agrees that she needs some safer schools.</p>

<p>Financials: Full-pay anywhere except HYPS, but parents only willing to pay that much for high prestige. Applying for FA, but judging from income I don't expect them to receive anything.</p>

<p>The current list:
Yale (first choice, applied SCEA)
Harvard
Princeton
Stanford
Northwestern (journalism school?)
Duke
UGA (flagship)</p>

<p>Maybe's:
UChicago
Columbia
URochester</p>

<p>Eliminated:
Emory</p>

<p>Thoughts? Advice? My inclination is to encourage her to aim for merit aid at top schools--Duke, UNC, Vanderbilt, Rochester--but she'd prefer to get out of the South. Definitely out of Georgia. Oh, also a NMSF and probable NMF with her grades, but that doesn't help much except at Rochester because she'll always have UGA as a fallback and she's wants the Northeast.</p>

2

<p>Perhaps Kenyon.</p>

3

<p>UNC or UVA? She should apply for the Presidential Scholar program at UGA.</p>

4

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Bump?</p>

5

<p>Smith, Vassar, Dartmouth? Good writing/lit programs, smaller size which is important for literature, I think. St. John’s great books curriculum is great too.</p>

6

<p>University of Virginia</p>

7

<p>Why can they be “full pay” for everywhere but HYPs? HYPs costs the same as Stanford, Duke, etc. Why will they “full pay” Stanford or Duke, but not HYPS??</p>

8

<p>Five of her list schools are very hard to get into, so she really needs to add some. Chicago and Rochester sound good. How about Barnard? Rice? Columbia would be just another school that admits a very low percentage. How about swapping out one of the top five choices for say Dartmouth or Cornell, to up the chances just a little? How about Amherst or Williams?</p>

9

<p>Hmmm . . . prestigious enough for parents that they’ll pay full freight and that fit your friend . . .</p>

<p>Very few that parents will regard as being as prestigious as HYPed schools:
Vassar
U Chicago
Wellesley
Amherst
Williams
Barnard
Swarthmore</p>

<p>Not prestigious enough for parents to pay full freight but are great schools that give good merit aid:
Grinnell
U Rochester
Penn State’s Schuyler Honors College (tuition so low that merit aid not an issue)
Oberlin
Dickinson
Clark
McGill (tuition so low that merit aid not an issue)</p>

<p>Kei</p>

10

<p>mom2collegekids - I mean that their income is high enough to not get need-based FA anywhere except HYPS, which has exceptionally generous aid policies for the upper-middle-class. Therefore, any school must be 1) better than UGA, 2) prestigious enough that parents will pay full freight, 3) cheap enough through merit aid that parents aren’t paying full freight. Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly what the “cheap enough” threshold is; my friend hasn’t had the “financial aid talk” with her parents and is unlikely to (though I will encourage-encourage-encourage her).</p>

<p>I should add that HYPS are definites due to FA and prestige and parental pressure. She doesn’t actually have much preference, except for liking Yale, wanting urban/suburban, and strong academics in lit/writing. Unfortunately, I doubt the parents will consider any LAC prestigious enough to pay for. (Really it’s her dad making the financial decisions, and he has a typical Asian mindset.)</p>

<p>Some really good suggestions here; I’m compiling an updated list below with comments. I know that she would not want a rural/small-town environment like Dartmouth or Cornell, but vibrant college town might be OK.</p>

<hr>

<p>The current list:
Yale (first choice, applied SCEA)
Harvard
Princeton
Stanford
Northwestern (journalism school?)
Duke (full ride merit)
UGA (flagship; Presidential Scholars full ride merit)</p>

<p>Maybe’s:
UChicago (enough prestige? my Asian parents do approve)
Columbia
URochester (guaranteed 22k merit, competitive full tuition)
Vanderbilt (full ride merit)
Rice (merit)</p>

<h2>McGill (29k COA)</h2>

<p>Clark (merit, but maybe not enough; not particularly strong in English)
UNC (full ride merit; not urban)
UVA (full ride merit; not urban)
Smith (20k merit; not urban)
Wellesley (maybe prestigious enough? I know my Asian parents have heard of it; not sure how she feels about single-sex)
Penn State Schreyer Honors College (not urban; expensive at 38k with travel costs, some merit)</p>

<p>Eliminated:
Emory
Cornell (opposite of urban)
Dartmouth (opposite of urban)
Grinnell (15k merit; opposite of urban)
Oberlin (merit; opposite of urban)
Kenyon (merit; opposite of urban)
Dickinson (merit; opposite of urban)
Not affordable: Vassar, St. John’s, Barnard, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore</p>

<p>tldr: What are some urban or easy-urban-access colleges that offer significant merit aid (let’s say >15k) and are “better” than UGA?</p>

11

<p>Why did she eliminate Emory? St. John’s is a random one on that list.</p>

12

<p>Emory is out of contention for personal reasons, which I won’t elaborate on here; but it’s non-negotiable.</p>

13

<p>Keil- </p>

<p>Johns Hopkins has an excellent creative writing and english program (so I’ve heard) and is pretty well known? </p>

<p>I’ll throw in Sarah Lawrence as writing intensive but maybe not as well known (and they don’t do specific majors, but rather ‘specialize?’) at any rate they have ‘conference work’ which often involves tons of writing. </p>

<p>Does Barnard/Columbia appeal? Maybe Middlebury? Dunno if their English is top of the line or not…</p>

<p>What about Bryn Mawr? Boston College? </p>

<p>Kenyon is pretty up there for creative writing… D:</p>

<p>How about Wesleyan? It was in The Gate Keepers, and is a ‘baby ivy’ to some.</p>

<p>It’s hard to meet “prestige” + creative writing + affordable</p>

<p>(Heck, let’s be honest Afforable + Prestige is just plain Hard.)</p>

<p>Try Bard. Maybe. </p>

<p>Johns Hopkins might be the best fit I can think of in terms of Prestige + Creative writing and english</p>

14

<p>Tufts, Holy Cross.</p>

15

<p>[Hopkins</a> Undergraduate Admissions :: Financial Aid :: Overview](<a href=“http://apply.jhu.edu/finaid/finaid.html]Hopkins”>http://apply.jhu.edu/finaid/finaid.html)
[Hopkins</a> Undergraduate Admissions :: Financial Aid :: Merit Scholarships](<a href=“http://apply.jhu.edu/finaid/scholarships.html]Hopkins”>http://apply.jhu.edu/finaid/scholarships.html)</p>

<p>[The</a> Writing Seminars: The Johns Hopkins University](<a href=“http://writingseminars.jhu.edu/]The”>http://writingseminars.jhu.edu/)
[Undergraduate</a> Programs - The Writing Seminars](<a href=“http://writingseminars.jhu.edu/undergrad.html]Undergraduate”>http://writingseminars.jhu.edu/undergrad.html)
[The</a> Hopkins Review](<a href=“http://writingseminars.jhu.edu/hopkins-review/index.html]The”>http://writingseminars.jhu.edu/hopkins-review/index.html)
[Turnbull</a> Lectures-Upcoming Events](<a href=“http://writingseminars.jhu.edu/turnbull-lectures/index.html]Turnbull”>http://writingseminars.jhu.edu/turnbull-lectures/index.html)</p>

<p>[Expository</a> Writing Program Home Page](<a href=“http://sites.jhu.edu/ewp/index.html]Expository”>http://sites.jhu.edu/ewp/index.html)
[JHU</a> | English - Undergraduate Major](<a href=“http://english.jhu.edu/undergrad.html]JHU”>http://english.jhu.edu/undergrad.html)</p>

<p>Yeah, Johns Hopkins looks good.</p>

16

<p>At this point, any LACs that don’t offer significant merit aid are out. Though I’ll suggest Barnard, since she can play up the Columbia (=Ivy) connection to her parents.</p>

<p>Creative writing isn’t an absolute must… she’s an amazing writer, but I think her general interest is humanities (and she’s not sure of her major).</p>

<p>I am VERY wary of JHU’s writing seminars major, because a dear friend of mine (engineering major, writing sems minor at JHU) has not had a good experience with creative writing. She’s finding it almost impossible, even as a minor, to get into workshops–she said the majors have difficulty, too, and don’t bother trying if you don’t have a declared concentration–and once in, her actual instructors have been of mixed quality as well. Certainly she’s had much better experiences in summer creative writing programs.</p>

<p>But for this friend, with a general humanities interest, Hopkins might work.</p>

17

<p>NMF with a 2100 SAT? Full ride merit at Duke with a 2100 SAT will be tough. I’m just talking about SAT’s of course, but from what I can tell, that’s just barely meeting the admission threshold for URM’s.</p>

18

<p>Re: NMF, she lives in Georgia. And the SAT is 21-something, not flat, but not breaking 2200 either.</p>

<p>I added the notation about Duke merit but I think it’s “prestigious” enough that her parents might pay if she got in.</p>

19

<p>Why not Midd? Well known for writing…No merit, of course.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t bank on NMF if I was her. Last year GA’s cutoff for NMSF was 215… Unless her PSAT was significantly higher than her SATs are I wouldn’t say NMF is a certainty at all.</p>