<p>I think those colleges might be great matches, but with admit rates of approximately 34% (Oberlin), 32% (Colgate), and 22% (Wesleyan), they are not safeties. You might want to add one more real safety to the list.</p>
<p>If he’s applying to Oberlin, I’d recommend he pay serious attention to the “Why Oberlin?” essay and demonstrate his interest in that school. Also, if he has ECs…especially if they deal with community service/volunteering, play a sport, or does something artsy/creative that would definitely add a boost.</p>
<p>Also. gummybearmom, you’d initially asked about adding merit-aid colleges. Oberlin has very limited merit aid, and Colgate and Wesleyan offer only need-based aid. So, although your son will surely be a strong applicant at many colleges, you aren’t really fulfilling the objective stated in your initial post by adding Oberlin, Wesleyan, and Colgate, which are not safe for anyone nor will they provide the merit aid you’re seeking.</p>
<p>You might consider Boston University. While not an LAC, there is merit aid for top applicants and another school that also provides merit aid for top candidates and is an LAC is Skidmore. My daughters graduated from both Brandeis and the University of Rochester, both with merit aid however both schools appreciate demonstrated interest by campus visits and interviews either on-campus or with alum.</p>
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<p>It may be all academic (pun intended) :-)</p>
<p>I expect him to get into one of his top choices. Good luck.</p>
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<p>They could just reject him. Since they are high matches, or reaches, there is a very good possibility that they will.</p>
<p>I agree with Sally. By adding those three schools, you’ve not insured that your son will get into a college in April. </p>
<p>If you are OK with the possibility that he will not get into any school but the state school, and are OK with him taking a gap year and reapplying, then your strategy is fine.</p>
<p>^Yes.</p>
<p>OP, when you started this thread your concern was your child’s lack of safeties. None of the three schools you propose adding to the list is a safety, and with no possibility of a campus visit, it’s entirely possible that he’ll be waitlisted or worse at each of them.</p>
<p>Also, I can think of few LACs more culturally different than Oberlin and Colgate. Colgate and Wesleyan are pretty different, too. Every LAC has a distinct social/academic culture. When a student considers an LAC, it’s so important to understand and evaluate the predominant culture and see if there’s a fit. Without that evaluation, the student risks being miserable there.</p>
<p>^^^All three are fairly rural, too.</p>
<p>Beware the list laden with Ivies and top LACs – last year we knew of folks who were NOT happy in April, and they had super-high stats similar to the OP’s and the whole package. Kids from both my kids’ schools tend to shoot for the moon and the flagship (which is generous with merit $$ for kids coming out of these programs), and a lot were brought back to earth.</p>
<p>BookMama, I second your note about Skidmore, which was my D’s Safety and it was a good choice as such. Never mind that nobody less than Sally Rubenstone said she’d waltz into Smith and the first words when D got a “likely” letter from Wellesley were, “Oh good, I don’t have to go to Skidmore.” </p>
<p>A Safety is exactly that…a lower-ranked school that you would go to and could afford if you had to. If you liked it just as much as the other choices, it wouldn’t be a Safety.</p>
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<p>I would assign an 90% probability of getting into Oberlin. Not a safety, but an excellent addition to the list. I would have put Reed up there also. </p>
<p>The other two (Colgate and Wesleyan) I really don’t see the point of. The chances of him actually attending one of those is minuscule given that he likes the ones already on his list better. </p>
<p>The scenario that has to unfold in order for him to attend Colgate is that he would have to get rejected from an awful lot of schools that he has a fair-to-good chance of getting into (I would assign Northwestern at least 50%), AND simultaneously get into Colgate, whose admissions is more unpredictable than most based on our scattergrams. Think about what the probability of all of this happening is. I would guess it’s less than 5%. </p>
<p>I agree, that he needs a LAC safety to round out the list. Since Kalamazoo and Beloit have late deadlines (Feb 1), I would add one of those instead of piling on the pressure now to fill out applications for schools that he’s just not likely to be attending. But that’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, even with the strategy chosen, the chances of ending up at the state school are very very small.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad, have you read the story of Andison? He had excellent stats, and was waitlisted at Oberlin. If you look higher on this thread, you’ll find a link to his story, I don’t have time right now to look up the link again.</p>
<p>I don’t think Oberlin is a safety. A match, yes. </p>
<p>Granted, I am not a gambler. I am risk averse.</p>
<p>Reed would also be a match and not necessarily a safe one. They seem to look for personality matches more than stats.</p>
<p>I think Vassar could be a safety for a male with these stats.</p>
<p>While I am also risk-adverse–had slightly lower stats than OP but demonstrated significant interest in LACs, assigned Oberlin as a “match” for myself–Andison’s story is not the be-all and end-all of college admissions. It’s not a safety because the chance of rejection does exist–that’s what the other 10% is for, in CRD’s estimation–but I would be comfortable calling it a match (maybe low match, I haven’t looked at OP’s profile). And I do agree with recent comments on Reed and Vassar.</p>
<p>I agree that Oberlin and Colgate are not safety schools. A safety school might be something like The University of Delaware or UConn. When my older daughter was a senior in high school in a very high acheiving class of students. One of her friends was a Presidential Scholar , one an Intel finalist and ultimately there were many Ivy acceptances as well as rejections, the head of guidance stood in front of us at parents night and remarked that the only true safety school for all was in fact the county community college… previous to her year we had twins that were valedictorian and salutatorian. When one was rejected from MIT, the feedback was the MIT rejects 1 out of every 10 valedictorians… so remember that every high school has high-acheiving students, every high school has an editor-in-chief of the newspaper and yearbook, every high school has a head quarterback, star soccer, track star, the lead in every school performance, there are lots of kids nationwide that have pefect SAT scores, or doing high-level research, have extensive community service, are multi-lingual and more. One of my friend’s sons did not get accepted to his #1 or #2 choice school, but did attend Penn as he was the #1 in his track sport and on potential Olympics track so you never know, but you do need to be prepared for rejection and “loving your safety”.</p>