Just want to repost your description of your daughter’s main extracurricular:
“on the community service front, maybe I undersold her a bit. Starting in 8th grade she and four friends have been raising money and awareness for girls education in poor countries. They choose a different country every year, learn about the roadblocks to education in that culture and partner with a charitable organization in the country. They’ve raised over $7k and held a number of community service events to raise awareness. She’s already started planning the events this year.”
Personally I think this is a really wonderful EC. Some things I like about it: it started early and has lasted a long time; it is international; it requires many skills; it is outside of school (it seemed your son’s activities were mainly school-based); it shows initiative, persistence, cooperation etc.) I am curious how she got into this in the first place. The tricky thing is getting it across to colleges. Merely mentioning it in one line on an application won’t do it. Perhaps she could cover it in a supplemental essay or send in a supplement with brochure, resume or list of skills learned/tasks accomplished, and a recommendation letter from someone in the organization. You can call admisions and ask them.
I also think the two languages is great, and taking Chinese is a big plus, regardless of whether she wants to pursue it. I know kids who used their language during a summer project, traveling to the country for a program for instance, but that is only a good idea when the interest is genuine (and the family can afford it or there is a grant!). A lot of musicians are going to China, for one thing…
I can’t emphasize enough that college admissions people are really good at sniffing out authenticity or the lack thereof. I think your daughter will do fine and you should encourage her to apply where she wants, with a safety or two that she could go to happily. I think she should reach high so to speak. Again, the extra point on the ACT isn’t that important but if it is important to her, so be it- as long as she is not too stressed. Good luck!!
ps a couple of books not mentioned: “The Gatekeepers” about Wesleyan admissions (I read this AFTER it was all over!) and Cal Newport’s “How to be a High School Superstar” if you can stand it. I think your daughter is already following the prescriptions of the latter book, naturally
Colby has a higher acceptance rate for females than males. Class of 2018 it was 30%. Bates for females is much tougher than males.
Colby eliminated its supplemental essay last year to gin up applications, so despite a drop in acceptance rate, its still on par with 2018 I would imagine.
The overall acceptance rate for Bates females was somewhere between 15 - 17% for Class of 2019.
Colby is the better risk among the two, higher acceptance rate and lower average ACT.
Not really adding much to the conversation here, but I have one more heartening data point to add. My D, also an unhooked white female (from New England, no less – perhaps the worst possible demographic), applied to several top tier LACs three years ago with very similar stats, and decent but not especially remarkable ECs. She was accepted into Middlebury, Bowdoin and Carleton and waitlisted at Williams. So, take heart! I think your D has a great shot at getting into at least some of the highly selective schools to which she applies. It’s easy to forget on these forums that stats like your D’s do not grow on trees. That 33 ACT score is top 1%. She’ll be fine!
And, as others have emphasized, there are some really tremendous LACs out there that are one notch down in selectivity from those in the top 15 or so (and some of them even offer merit aid!). In particular, you can find a lot of quality bang for your selectivity buck if you’re willing to look outside New England.
@TurnerT, yep. Nowhere near enough kids to fill the incoming classes of the top 20 national universities, let alone all the top LACs. Berkeley alone needs almost 7000!
@compmom - we’re a destination imagination (DI) family and have found it life changing for our kids. My D participated in a number of different challenges and since 8th grade, she’s been competing in the community service challenge. The community they picked was school age girls in need of education. Among other things, they read Nicholas Kristof’s half the sky, showed the documentary at their school and had q&a sessions with students. They learned of the work of Malala Yousafza and that influenced them to work with pakistani schools . The money they’ve raised has been used for books and classrooms. In addition to raising awareness, they have to create a project plan and a presentation that illustrates their project. So they learn sills around collaboration, project mgmt, time management, presentation and fund raising in addition to the culture/barriers to education in different countries.
we do think it might help with admissions. Our middle child, a strong writer, decided to add a resume to his app which consisted of two funny, well-written essays about his two top ECs. They were wonderful and I’d like to think helped him. Perhaps she’ll take the same approach.
