I think it’s interesting. For someone wanting something off the beaten path, it’s worth investigating. Meets full need too
I think the OP is very smart about thinking about this now. My D19 had similar high stats. The thing I didn’t consider was how time consuming the admissions process was. She ended up writing 44 essays, because it doesn’t stop after the basic applications, there might be additional requests, scholarship supplementals, major supplementals. At one point my daughter said “no more”. Our strategy was to use the University of California Schools for reach to safety (she got into all including Berkeley and UCLA) and then target 8 top privates, she got into one of those. If I had it to do over again I would have tried to find more interesting full pay options and less T20 where unless you have a good hook, international level award or full pay or fit within some other high need your chances are lottery slim. We found out about UT Dallas in December. They offer not only a full scholarship, but housing, travel, development money to a select group under one scholarship program but it involved several essays and recommendations that my D19 just couldn’t fit in. I also wish we would have applied to a few of the honors college. As mentioned Arizona State and Oregon or Oregon State has them but we really didn’t understand them until too late. As mentioned it would have taken a trip to visit as well as lots of discussion about not listening to peers about what school your daughter would attend. Sit down with your daughter and confirm a few basics and then go through each school in those areas one by one and see what they have go offer. Good luck!
She might give University if Richmond a try. Our first and second child attend/attended the school on scholarship. They both found their niche and really enjoy the school. They had similar feelings about top 20 schools and wanted to be someplace they felt more comfortable taking some intellectual risks.
Clark has a very accepting campus and we were surprised to find they met need despite not being a full need school. Maybe Hamilton?
She needs to understand that college is not high school no matter where she goes
@socaldad2002 I don’t put a lot of stock in Niche. Most people who seek to review schools are either over-the-top fans or miserable and that can be as much about personality as anything.
Certainly UofR has a some crazy wealthy students as a Greek scene but it also has a lot of kids on scholarship, a strong first generation program, and a rapidly growing program for students who are often marginalized in society. There are a lot of financial programs to balance opportunities. It’s pretty balanced in regard to liberal and conservatism.
No school is good for everyone but if OP is looking for a school that meets full needs but a little off the beaten path, it’s still worth a look.
This seems to be a good suggestion, particularly with respect to structuring an approach for reviewing the many colleges mentioned on this thread.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-grad-rate
When looking at the USNews four-year grad rate, be sure to double check the school’s CDS disclosures. Some schools (like Lehigh) have a lower grad rate in four years because many students opt for a master’s degree in five years.
^^ or schools that require co-ops like Drexel.
If straight A student (assuming he has near perfect SAT, SAT II and high AP scores as good grades doesn’t mean much without those)doesn’t want or can’t get in challenging T20 schools then go for next tier schools where acceptance rate is below 25% and 4 year graduation rate is above 50% and they give merit scholarships.
@Riversider UChicago Bowdoin Bates and more are going test optional. So even that is changing rapidly.
Every college wants to go completely holistic as abandoning standardization testing gives them freedom to do whatever suits their institutional interests without any legal liability. Unfortunately, GPA is utterly unreliable without supporting evidence of PSAT, SAT, ACT, SAT II, AP, IB, MCAT, GMAT, GRE, LSAT.
@Riversider,
Schools have always done what was in their own best interest. Those who believe standardized test scores are predictive of success college at their college require them. Those who don’t find much correlation don’t. Bates, an early test-optional school did a study comparing students who were admitted with testing with those who were admitted without. Among the findings were that students admitted test optional were more likely to graduate on time than those admitted with scores. The difference was very small, but in any case seemed good evidence that kids admitted TO were finding success at Bates.
@turtletime I completely agree about Niche information not being very accurate. Several of the schools we looked at did not match in person what was being ‘said’ about them on that sight so I had disregarded it as being slanted and untrustworthy. I apparently need to be more cautious when considering opinions on CC now as well because until he said that I assumed I was getting first hand experiences and information here, not googled off the cuff remarks.
Also although my daughter had a great 1st year at the school we made her go to and is very satisfied with her friends and the school, URichmond will forever be our ‘what if’ school. We were so very impressed with it! Just need a little more aid than they gave (especially having two more still to put through!)
@Riversider, I’ve been thinking about this issue in light of the recent stories about parents and kids gaming the SATs/ACTs. My son is just graduating with an IB diploma, and I think this is one situation where grades may have additional credibility, as the exams are the same for IB students everywhere and a lot of the grading is done by the IB examiners rather than the local teachers. A college looking at IB grades can have a high degree of confidence that a 6 is really a 6. There are a lot of good things about the IB program, but I hadn’t really focused on this particular aspect until recently.
I’m sure gamers are gaming IB as well.
@CupCakeMuffins Do you have personal experience with a student in IB? I have D18 who has finished and is off at college, and S23 about to start in the Fall. While the classes are done by in house teachers, and your grade on your transcript for those classes is given by your local teacher, all of the testing and very lengthy papers are graded by an international panel… your local teacher doesn’t see them and they do not administer the tests (which are all taken basically at the same time around the globe). Granted nothing is fail proof, but IB Final Testing is definitely not an easy system to ‘game’.
That being said… you don’t get your paper scores back until mid summer once college applications and acceptances are through and you are already looking for a roommate or buying dorm bedding. So @tkoparent the theory that colleges can trust you really got a 6 is great but they would have already accepted you by then. A 6 just gives them the confidence to give you the college credit and move you up to the next level of classwork in a particular subject.
I do know that at the selective colleges we visited, we were told by administration that being in the IB program does set students apart from other comparable applicants with the same scores. Top20 Admissions are looking for students who stretched their academic chomps as far as the could for what is available to them. For instance, since our public school is offering it, our students are put on equal if not higher playing ground to our many private schools so as they are competing for spots at top colleges, our public school IB kids are sought after as much or even more like the local private schools students.
@ASKMother I agree with you about the challenges in “gaming” IB, I was going to respond to the earlier poster but did not get a chance. The entire process of IB exams is quite regulated – the exams are in sealed envelopes which have to be opened in front of the students right before the exam begins; completed exams are immediately sealed upon completion, and sent the same day overseas to different graders – different graders for each subject matter. There are seating charts documenting what students sat where for each exam and, as the exams are given in the school, usually with the main proctor being the head of the program, the chance of a “proxy” sitting in to take the exam for someone else would not get by the proctor or the other students. Plus, the exams are mostly essays, only a few have “scantron” type. The exam schedule is identical around the world – IB History HL is given on the same days in Chicago as in Geneva and in Dubai.
Plus, the structure of the program is that, while a student may have some SL scores the summer before senior year, for exams taken in the spring of junior year, the HL exam scores won’t be out until July after graduation so the overall IB testing score is not part of the college application. In the US, the benefit of IB is the critical reading, writing, thinking emphasis, plus a research project, and the time management that goes with the demands of the curriculum. Internationally, students get “predicted” IB scores, based on their coursework through the program, and those predicted scores are used as part of college admissions for US colleges and elsewhere. But US IB students generally do not follow a “predicted” score system.
What I have noticed with score optional schools, is that without a tremendous hook, merit money is even scarier than for those who have a good high score. Yes, colleges “buy” those test scores.
The IB exams seem to be very similar to the AP ones. Sadly, yes, there can be cheating on both.
I don’t disagree that IB is more difficult to game than standardized tests and cheating is more difficult than the AP - I will correct one misconception, if you have testing accommodations you ARE allowed to use those same accommodations on the IB exams. So someone with 20 or 50% time increases, is able to have that for the IB exam as well. Same with using a keyboard instead of writing. I do think the structure of the exam makes those exams much more difficult to game than say the ACT where really time pressure is a huge aspect of the exam.
I proctored IB exams, but I wasn’t the IB director. The director relied on a small number of volunteers to assist with exams. Although, I wasn’t allowed to proctor exams that my D was taking.
It is true that students would instantly know if a proxy was taking the exam.
As with the AP curriculum, students can take any number of IB courses; it’s achieving the IB Diploma that elevates a students’ college application.