D21 had the ACT in July, so she knew I was putting together this list but wasn’t super involved while the thread was active. Then last week she worked a bunch of hours and spent the weekend camping with her close circle of friends. FINALLY today we went over the list. Still not finalized, but here is where I think she is at:
Likely to apply:
State U - auto-admit and affordable, this is the safety
Amherst ED
Hamilton possible ED2
Tulane EA, and possibly ED2 if deferred
Brown
Colby*
Vassar
Bates*
Middlebury*
Grinnell*
Rochester
Case Western*
Rice
Dartmouth
Carleton
Davidson
Macalester
Connecticut College*
Mt Holyoke
Richmond
Bowdoin
Northeastern*
Still thinking about:
Williams
Pomona
Haverford
St Olaf
Whitman*
Colgate
Not definitely eliminated, but I’m pretty sure will be:
Vanderbilt
Colorado College
Yale
Stanford
Bryn Mawr
Kenyon
Bucknell
Franklin & Marshall
Lafayette
Harvard
Barnard
There are still a few too many on the “likely to apply” list even if she maxes out the 20 slots on the common app. My guess is that some will get knocked off, and she may move up a couple from the “thinking about” list or she may not. If she has the endurance for it, probably she will end up applying to close to 20. That’s the plan today, we will see if she feels the same way in December when she still has essays to write.
She kind of likes but probably won’t apply to the others for various reasons. But she isn’t willing to say definitely no yet.
State U is a guaranteed admit, most likely into the Honors College. That is the safety. I threw out some other safeties to her, but she said she would prefer State U to all of them, so she doesn’t want to apply to any of them. She seems less negative about that than she was earlier. I’m guessing she is trying to get herself to a place where she will be disappointed but not crushed if that is her only option in March. She will proceed with only one safety, but it is an auto-admit so I think that’s fine. Otherwise it’s probably all high match/reach schools.
The ones with a * don’t have any supplemental essays, which could come into play in determining who stays on the list and who goes, especially as essay fatigue sets in.
Overall not many surprises when I talked to her, but a couple. One was where Tulane stands. It doesn’t fit in with most of the others, and since she keeps leaning more towards the LACs every time we talk I didn’t know if she would still want it on the list. She said it’s probably in her top 4. The other surprise was Northeastern, which is way different from the others. It’s twice as big as the upper limit she gave me, and doesn’t have the “post card” campus she is looking for. But she likes the idea of living in Boston and the somewhat unique structure with the co-ops. Not that there aren’t some differences between all of the schools, but I think those 2 are the outliers that don’t seem to fit in with the others.
She wants to get on a couple info sessions tomorrow to try to get things figured out. So that’s good. She has been avoiding this I think because honestly she tends to fall in love with all of them, and she doesn’t want to be crushed when they tell her no. But she seems to be ready to keep things moving finally, so I’m happy.