What are my daughter's chances for admission to an elite college in the Northeast? [NY resident, 4.4/1580]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US citizen/domestic
  • State/Location of residency: NY
  • Type of high school (current college for transfers): Private
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Female/mixed asian-caucasian
  • Other special factors: legacy

Intended Major(s) : Stem

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.4/4.5
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system):
  • College GPA (for transfers):
  • Class Rank: No ranking, but probably top 3
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1580 (780M and 800V) (not super scored)

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))

6 AP courses 10th and 11th grades:
Computer Science: 5
World History: 5
US History: 5
English Language: 4
Psychology: 5
Chemistry: 5
5 AP courses 12th grade

Awards
1st place at national dance competition (also selected to the best of show dancer group)
French gold medal each year
Math outstanding student
Chemistry National Honor
NHS

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
13 years of dancing and competetive dance at the national level
National food pantry volunteer organization 4 years
Student government all 4 years of high school
Student ambassador 4 years
President of NHS
President of Asian club 4 year member
3 years of volunteering at the zoo and Captain of the teen volunteers this year

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)

Cost Constraints / Budget No constraints

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability)
    RIT
    SUNY Binghamton
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
    Boston College
    RPI
  • Match
    Dartmouth
    Hamilton
    Notre Dame
    Georgetown
  • Reach
    Harvard
    Yale
    Brown
    Princeton
    MIT
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Congrats on the achievements. But IMO you need to reclassify the colleges on your list. I would call SUNY Binghamton a likely, BC a high match, and reclassify all of your match schools to reaches.

You have a shot at all of the colleges on your list. The issue is that there are more well qualified candidates than spots available at the elite colleges so they must be considered reachea for any unhooked student.

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Thanks for your reply. I kind of think so also, but her counselor does not agree. As a comparison, her siblings had worse transcripts and ended up at one of the HYPSM (no legacy)

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She can consider adding a school with non-binding early decisions like UMichigan in order to lock in an acceptance by December.

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Your title is interesting - I was expecting a sub par student; not a stellar one.

I’m glad you mentioned the HS counselor. At a private school, that’s the go to.

So not sure how your grading is done but a 4.4 of 4.5 is about a 3.9 or a tad less - and 1580 SAT and fantastic ECs. And you are full pay.

So RIT and Binghamton are both safeties. I agree. I’d put RPI in that category as well. As a guy, I’d still say it - but as a female, it’s as likely as the other safeties.

I guess I’d ask why RPI - the major is STEM but there’s a difference of say engineering to chemistry, etc… It will be gender imbalanced vs. the others.

I’m not sure that BC is a match. In theory, it’s a yes but with stats like yours, you never know. They can pass on you thinking you’re going to a higher level school. We saw a student this year in at MIT but not BU. We’ve seen this at GW/American with 25 ACTs in but 34 turned down. Some call it yield management :slight_smile: We’ve also seen it out west - in at Berkeley but not at SDSU, etc.

But given the quantity of schools you have, you’re going to get into some reaches.

I’m not going to call your matches as such - just because they’re all very rejective.

And I’m not sure if you plan to ED or not - but that could help. It’s just most of these if not all will be RD - and you just never know.

I guess, to me a match might be a Rochester or Brandeis or sticking with the jesuit theme a Villanova - but I don’t think you need to go there. But I would ensure that RIT or SUNYB are “satisfactory”- just in case. Otherwise I might add a match.

Very strong student - congrats.

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Congrats on an accomplished hard-working child. She’s done very well.

My question though is - why these colleges?

There is little that is in common between them all. MIT is very very different place than Brown, and they have very very different students, Georgetown is not know for STEM, Notre Dame is a universe away from Hamilton, and RPI is something else entirely.

They are all different sizes, from Hamilton being a LAC with 2,000 students, undergrads only, while the rest have between 6,000-8,00 undergraduates and usually as many graduate students. Some are urban in large cities or urban areas, like Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, while Notre Dame is in a small city in Indiana, far from everything, Dartmouth is very rural as is Hamilton. The other aspects of geography differ: Georgetown is in DC, which is a very different place than Boston area, which is, in turn different from upstate New York (RPI, Hamilton), while Notre Dame ins in rural Indiana.

There are many many more differences between them I really cannot see that a student who would be happy at Brown would find Notre Dame to be a good fit, while a students who would be happy at Hamilton would really not fit well at Georgetown.

What does your daughter want in a college? Size, location, liberal/conservative, open curriculum or set curriculum, STEM heavy (including heavy engineering and tech), or a liberal arts focus (meaning mostly Science + Math + Humanities)?

The list makes little sense as it is.

The fact that your other child was accepted to HYPSM with a worse transcript does not mean that it wasn’t a reach. Your daughter has an outstanding transcript, and many students are accepted with worse ones.

However, even if the high school is well regarded among these colleges and has acceptance rates that are higher than the standard, in the past few years acceptance rates have dropped substantially, so most previous calculations are not as relevant.

Boston College’s acceptance rates in 2018 were 34.3%, this year they were 26.8%.

Dartmouth’s 2018 acceptance rates were 11.5%, the past two years they were 6%.

Hamilton’s acceptance rate in 2018 was 21%. This last year it was 11%.

Georgetown and Notre Dame also had drops in acceptance rates, but not as dramatic. So counselors may be overestimating chances. BC should be upped to match, Dartmouth should be a reach, and the other three matches should be placed at least as low reaches.

To which college is your daughter a legacy?

But first, she needs to decide what she wants in her colleges.

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I agree that application list looks odd by the typical dimensions of preference, and thin in the middle.

As in, SUNY Binghamton I get, but are RPI and RIT really the best fits for other likelies? I am struggling to understand that given the stated selection of more selective schools. Like, why include schools like Yale and Brown but not the University of Rochester? Or if RPI/RIT really are the best fit, why no CMU or Cornell?

And then I can understand a combination of BC/ND/Georgetown, or Hamilton/Dartmouth, for core harder matches/nearer reaches (or whatever you want to call this range) but I don’t really get both of those combined. And one or the others of those would imply to me different additional likelies, matches, and reaches to consider, and some to drop.

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Admission to top colleges isn’t necessarily based on grades and test scores, though they do need to meet a benchmark for most- and your daughter does.

Is she going to submit a dance supplement with video , resume and letters of recommendatio?

I was interested in what she does at the zoo and why she volunteers there.

These were the positives that jumped out for me.

I think Dartmouth is a reach, possibly Hamilton and Georgetown too- for anyone.

Does she want a small LAC or a university? Rural or city or town? Is she still going to dance? Are there cost constraints? Is financial aid needed?

Maybe look at Barnard, Vassar-?

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Your daughter is a very strong applicant. Your safeties look good (as long as she likes them) and I also think she’s in at RPI. She also has a good chance at BC, although, they sometimes yield protect. I think your matches are reaches even if students from her school do better than the norm since the admissions landscape is shifting all the time.

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This is my opinion. I think your daughter has excellent credentials for college applications. But I think this is a reach heavy list. Very reach heavy. Remember, many of these colleges have extremely low acceptance rates, and of those rejected, there are many well qualified applicants…like your daughter.

I think the following should be moved to the “reach” list. Boston College, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, Georgetown. That means you have a LOT of reach schools.

As long as your daughter would be happy to attend RIT or Binghamton…or maybe Hamilton or RPI, then fine. Apply to all of those reaches and hope for an acceptance to at least one.

This doesn’t matter one bit. Every new year brings new (and it seems stronger) applicants. Just because kid one got accepted is not a guarantee kid 2 will be. I can give you some examples. Triple legacy at Dartmouth was denied admission in our family. Triple legacy at Princeton was denied acceptance. In both cases the rejected kid had what seemed to be a stronger application…but the admissions folks didn’t think so.

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This is even more important to keep in mind if those siblings applied before 2020. With test optional/test blind policies, no subject SATs and an increased focus on diversity of all kinds (including FGLI and picking fewer kids from private HS) at the top schools, the admissions scenario for highly accomplished, unhooked kids is much more unpredictable now than in the past.

Your GC may well be right about this categorization, and your daughter does have a competitive chance at most of these schools, but it’s better to err on the side of caution and add more match schools.

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I agree with this general advice, but UMich EA decisions aren’t released until end of January, so later than RD deadlines.

Perhaps OP’s D can add an EA school like UVM to get a decision before the holidays.

For OP, it would be helpful to know possible majors. I agree with other posters who have said they defer to the private school GC’s categorization, but just know it is industry standard to generally categorize sub 20% schools as reaches for all unhooked applicants, but there can be exceptions, especially among private school students.

I wouldn’t worry about what some have said about the disparate list. Many students would thrive at different types of colleges. Just make sure your D has a reason for every school on this list and would be happy to attend each one. She will have many essays to write, and if the passion is not there for a given school, the application won’t be as strong as it could be.

Is your D applying SCEA/REA/ED anywhere?

Good luck.

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You said she is a legacy, but that her siblings were not legacies. If a sibling is at a school, it doesn’t necessarily mean your D is a legacy for that school.

Bing and RIT appear to be safe. RPI is a match.

All others are reaches, and all but BC are very high reaches.

You have to account for selectivity, not just average GPAs and test scores. I have worked with a lot of kids with stats just like your daughter’s who were rejected from BC.

Your D is a good student, but I am seeing nothing here that makes her stand out from all the others with similar grades and test scores. The dance award might give her app a bit of extra attention, but the rest of her activities are par for the course.

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What about adding a rolling admissions college to the list? That could give a very early answer on admission. I will say, it’s very nice to have that first acceptance. Perhaps Pitt?

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Boston College fills half its class in the ED rounds, which means it’s not a likely for any unhooked applicant who applies RD.

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Because your D is a strong applicant AND has good safeties, it’s probably okay to have such a reach heavy list. I agree with others that you may be characterizing several schools as easier admits than they are. With that said, I also think that your D will have some choice next spring, but it’s hard to say what that will look like.

I’m also guessing, based on your GC comment and the schools on the list, that you may be coming from a catholic prep school with a strong history with several of those schools. That’s not a guarantee but it can add helpful insights while the landscape is shifting. As several folks here have mentioned, it continues to be difficult to use the past as a good predictor of the future.

So while you are probably overestimating odds, the list is fine.

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If her dancing is truly top notch (you mention her having won a national level dance competition), this may be the EC that sets her apart from all the other superior applicants. Schools want vibrant performing arts on campus, so they might admit the high stats applicant who can also act, dance, play music, etc. If at all possible, I’d recommend making a brief (about 3 minutes) video of her dancing, as good a video as you can manage, to showcase her dance capabilities. I hate to say it, but I think that admissions committees can be swayed by professionally done supplemental videos. I remember a video supplement of a rural applicant, showing I think his farm life, and it got the kid into a tippy-top school. When I watched the video, I agreed that it was worthy of acceptance… for his older brother, who was the professional videographer!

Her essay is also going to be an opportunity to set herself apart. After a couple of tries at an essay that didn’t work, my spouse asked my kid to think about what kid loved, what kid loved doing, what brought them joy. That led to an essay that showed a lot about who kid is. Your daughter might want to get some help with the essay, certainly at least feedback from a trusted English teacher, possibly some professional help.

No one knows how the recent Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action will affect applications from over-represented minorities, but I don’t see how it can hurt her, might help.

I think that you and she need to do some more research about the individual schools, and whether they’re a match for her intended major, and a match in other ways, too. Your list is very diverse, meaning that there are schools on there that have nothing to do with each other. Small liberal arts college, Ivies, engineering schools, a big flagship state U. We need more info to be able to help guide the list. But the fact is, your daughter’s credentials are fantastic. She has a chance at any school, but based upon admissions in the test-optional era, she could very well not get into any of her matches or reaches.

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The acceptance rate for the Class of 2027 was actually 15%. Last year (Class of 2026) was 17%. The 27% figure was from four years ago (Class of 2023).

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My bad - you’re correct.

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