@lookingforward In relation to volunteer work, I have attended a week long mission trip the past two years that requires extensive volunteer work to even go. I volunteer regularly at a retirement home, and I’ve been captain of a Relay for Life Team for the past three years. I’ve held some unique fundraisers for Relay, this year organizing an improvisation show with a live band, lights, etc. that sold out and made more than 2,000 dollars. I’ve been heavily involved in theatre ever since I was a freshman, participating in every show w/ a couple of leading roles. I’m helping to teach an adult improv class this summer too with our improv director. I also have a couple of clubs, like Mock Trial and German Honors Society, w/ leadership positions in both. I did sports up until sophomore year (JV teams) but quit both; do I even mention this on my Common App?
I’m also very conflicted about LoR. I’m asking one of my academic English teachers but I also wanted to ask my improv director, who is also a teacher at our school who I have taken two theatre classes with. She would write a glowing letter of rec because she is very passionate about the people involved with improv (she was at Second City), but she is not technically an academic teacher. Should I ask her for a LoR? @lookingforward
Most schools want 2 LoR’s from academic subject teachers. That was emphasized at a number of the info sessions and my S’s school even regulated it. Many colleges (though not all) will allow an optional third rec from someone else (plus your counselor gets to submit one). My S was torn between the head of drama, head of band and the person who runs the community service and peer tutoring programs since he was strong with all of those. Your drama teacher could be this optional rec but doesn’t supplant one of your academic ones. Note in my S’s case they used Naviance to electronically manage the two academic recs but kids were forced to selectively manage (school-by-school) their optional recs separately through Common App (or whatever a school not on common app used).
You usually can. And still get a math or sci rec. But find the colleges with improv, strong English, arts, writing. Not just good schools that match stats. Skidmore comes to mind, check them. Then, with the Fiske guide, you can search for similar colleges. Good aid.
You’re going to make a “self a presentation” via the app, supp, and your record. Approach this wisely.
As a student, you can only take $5500 or so per year. The rest of the 60K+ tuition has to come from your family’s EFC + financial aid (could include both loans(like Parent Plus) and grants)+ merit aid.
Colleges typically give merit aid to attract students in the top 10% of their pool. That’s why there were some posters who indicated you should apply to schools where you can get merit. Before you get extremely invested in falling in love with the top schools, be sure to check the NPC and see what your family can afford. You have not answered any posts regarding this issue. You don’t want to be one of those students who works hard to get into a dream school, only to find out it’s not affordable. Financial aid can and should be gauged beforehand.
Colgate’s aid was really helpful! I can’t guarantee it’ll be the exact same for you as things seem to be different for everyone nowadays, but their grants were good to the point where not accepting the loans is a possible option. I think the loans they offered were under $2000 per year, with the majority of the package being grant money. I would run the Net Price Calculator (be very careful you plug in the right info), and, if it is tells you a price you are able to afford, definitely consider ED or at least RD.
They do not, however, offer merit scholarships, as with most other selective colleges. Colgate and these other colleges that don’t offer merit make up for it with their financial aid. I got merit scholarships + financial aid from three of my EA schools before I heard back from Colgate. All three, despite having gotten $20k a year in merit at each one, plus financial aid were more expensive than Colgate, especially considering more of their package was in loans. Colgate is not need blind (yet) but if accepted they generally do do a good job of giving the aid. Remember that this is specific to me, and may not exactly be the same for you. Just some perspective, I’m typically considered solidly middle class by most people, but feel closer to lower middle class due to living in an expensive coastal city with high rents. So yeah, run the NPC and see if the number is affordable.
@SeinfeldFan1 What you don’t see from the CDS is the average stats of students who were rejected. We have no idea how strength of the admits compares to strength of the applicant pool.
It’s also going to get another bump in selectivity (and be more difficult to demonstrate interest unless it’s a student’s first choice) because they’re switching from having SCEA & EA to having ED & EA.
Since your love is theater, look at schools with strong theater programs. Vassar is a reach but your 32 ACT is very good. Schools like Vassar will look beyond your stats and they love people who take the most rigorous courses offered and are passionate. Also check out Bard - they do a ton of writing there even in the science majors and theater is strong also. Hamilton is another great choice and maybe check out Brandeis and Tufts.
Being a female doesn’t help at most LACs. Lafayette might be a good match, with a 30% acceptance rate. It’s one of the few Lacs where more men than women apply. And of course, if you want to improve your chances, apply ED. A college like Bates admits a lot of kids ED, but RD acceptance rate for women is about 13%.
Have a look at the CDS for the colleges you are interested in. You will find that many on your list have more female than male applicants. And the numbers are significant. Brown has nearly 25% more female than male applicants. Bowdoin had nearly 800 more women than men apply. So all the more reason why you need some match and safety schools. I would be extremely leery of assuming that Tulane is a safety if you express interest. 16,000 women applied compared to 10,000 men. But you said you have U Conn as a safety, so as long as you will be happy with that, that is at least one safety on your list.
I see someone suggested Tufts, with its 14% acceptance rate. 11000 women applied versus 8000, so that is definitely a high reach school. Not trying to dissuade you from anywhere, it is important though to see the numbers so that you can make informed choices.
I remember seeing somewhere that the Tufts dean of admissions said 78% of the applications this year were qualified students. We don’t see the exact stats, but the quote shows that college admissions are unpredictable. On a related note, a school might not perceive interest accurately. Last year I remember a fair number of students were rejected from Tulane despite 75th percentile+ stats and high interest, while others with the same stats were accepted despite using it as a safety.
Tufts accepts about 44% of the class ED, so its acceptance rate RD is especially low.
Yes, as I said earlier, the only person admitted to Tufts at our school this year was ED. And there are many very selective colleges that accept a large proportion of the incoming class ED. This is easily researched in the CDS for any college. Kids from our school got into Harvard, Brown, and Cornell, all ED. However, ED is a big mistake if you are not 100% certain that you want to attend that college.
OP likely needs merit aid, interested in theater and improv, as a girl? Take a look at Denison – very good merit aid, not as unbalanced gender-wise as some LACs, so female applicants may not be at as much if a disadvantage, and perhaps most importantly, has Improv group where Steve Carrell honed his skills.
But more broadly, sounds like OP must sit down and run NPC at U Conn and a sample of schools like Colgate, Hamilton etc, to see what aid package might look like. If the predicted need-based aid is not feasible for the family, time to search for merit. NESCACs, including Trinity, which was mentioned, as well as Hamilton, do not give merit aid.
@SeinfeldFan1 Yes, they’re keeping the normal early action but replacing the single-choice EA with ED. I am very interested to see how this changes admissions next year.
First, think twice about going OOS to a public school, especially if you have a decent (or better) flagship – with few exceptions, you’d probably pay over $20k more annually to attend UMich or Berkeley OOS than you’d pay to attend your flagship.
Secondly, as others have mentioned, your list is heavy on reaches and low reaches and very light on matches and safeties. I think it would be a good idea to add a couple of match-range schools and at least one true safety.
Finally, try to only apply to schools that you believe you would enjoy attending and which you can afford. Figuring out both, especially the former, requires research. If you do that – and make sure some of them are matches and safeties – you’ll have only good options when the results come in.
Unless we know the EFC and and the family’s ability to pay that amount we can not really suggest schools. The student might be better served in a school that meets need than in a school that gives Merit unless the schools belongs to the set of schools that gives full tuition or full rides for stats. For families that live in affluent communities is hard to judge in which category they fall and how much actual need they have because they might feel they are hardly keeping up but in reality they make more than qualifies them for great aid.
OP, ** you really need to figure out the financial situation**. What happens all the time here is that kids think they will quality for more need than they actually do. So they apply to generous need based LACs, and their state school as the safety. After they are accepted and the FA comes in, they are shocked at how unfair and cheap the school is being because the FAFSFA says they EFC is 30K and the school costs 60K - and they really could only afford 15K. Guess what, most of these kids end up at their state college.
Also, the admit rates for LACs are deceptive. LACs are small, so they have small numbers of seats, yet the number of athletes and musicians etc… they bring is not substantially smaller than universities that have 25,000 students. Remember, a D1 Lacrosse team has X number of players, regardless of the fact that that D1 team is at Holy Cross (3K undergrads) or Boston University (19K undergrads). Even D3 schools have this issue - although they don’t officially give athletic scholarships, If they need to beef up their lacrosse team, they are going to admit a star Lacrosse student with FA that has mediocre grades before admitting a non-athlete with FA with great grades (all this in the name of ‘holistic admissions’.
All this to say if you are an ‘average excellent’ white female without an athletic or other EC hook, your chances at a LAC are going to be lower than your chances at a big university with the same or similar admit rate. Example, Holy Cross and BU have similar admit rates (HC generally has a higher admit rate the BU), however, I bet a 33 ACT 3.75 GPA female has a better chance of being admitted to BU than HC because HC is trying to jack up their diversity numbers and recruit a lot of athletes - even though the HC admit rate (43%) says otherwise.
WaPo and NYT drive me nuts with their slice of view. Lots of factors go into an admit. Plenty of women will be admitted to LACs, based on their own individual strengths, how they match themselves and show that in their whole apps
I think OP has some work to do, finding an appropriate range of colleges. Yes, its time for her to dig into the NPCs, what her family can pay, how aid may work best for her. Her 3.72 and scores may- or may not- be low for some colleges, more appropriate for others. But she has to work on this, with eyes wide open, learning who offers good financial for her specific situation as well as offering the program strengths she wants.
OP, do some of the research, talk to your family, and let us know what you (start to) find. You can’t put pieces together until you start to focus on those pieces. Later, you refine the list based on different factors, such as gender.
@suzyQ7 thanks for referring to my thread. I agree with all you just said, which has been my stance the whole time. OP for reference, I have attached the thread, which has a lot of useful insight from many posters. As I said, your stats are very similar to my daughter’s, who applied to some of the schools you are considering.