If your daughter would be happy to attend Rutgers, then applying to reaches is a fine strategy. Penn is a reach and may even be out of reach for statistics. The statistics major is in Wharton and for those applicants Penn would like to see:
An interest in business to fuel positive change to advance the world’s economic and social well-being
Demonstrated leadership
Strong preparation in mathematics, particularly calculus
Unless the research projects were business focused, there is nothing in your child’s profile that indicates a strong interest in business or a compelling reason why your child would need to attend Wharton to accomplish her professional goals.
To me, with her strong background in research, math, and theater, your child seems more suited to the College and I feel she would have the best chance of admission there especially as an early decision applicant.
Pitt is a great option because if she applies right now she should get an acceptance is a few weeks and possibly a merit offer a few weeks later. Even if she ultimately gets in nowhere else but there and Rutgers (honors for SAS seems likely) it’s nice to have options. It’s a great city and I wish one of kids had landed there.
My high stats kid from NJ is at UMN for his PhD and loves Minneapolis! Don’t rule out Midwestern cities.
UCs (and CSUs) do not use counselor reports. Course work is self-reported into the UC (or CSU) application, and high school level math and foreign language courses taken in middle school should be reported. For math, this commonly means algebra 1 and/or geometry (or high school level integrated math) when starting the high school level math sequence in middle school.
UCs do require having taken a geometry course (which cannot be validated by higher level courses like algebra 1 and 2 can), so be sure to report those two semesters of geometry taken while in middle school.
That’s why I keep asking the students interest - because stats is one of those - can be pivoted to natural or social sciences, business and likely even other areas.
Given the area of interest, it might impact the list of schools that fit best.
If money is no object, providing options for similar schools with dissimilar costs could make sense. If money matters, the 100k in one’s pocket could provide one’s kid all kinds of opportunities for choice (vacation $, grad school, better apartment, investments) that might not be available if that money is spent on a different state school… So it depends.
I’ll just underscore that if an applicant would prefer, and possibly benefit from, a different format of school than a large public, there are very likely going to be affordable alternatives that do not require shooting for the moon. But these alternatives are mostly going to involve colleges that are not necessarily talked about a lot in certain peer circles (kid or parent).
Of course if you like the large public format best, then this is a non-issue. But I hear a lot of people say some form of, “I will only pay more than State U for Ivies” (or whatever), when the premise that all alternatives to State U will cost a lot more is not necessarily true.
Yes I should clarify that I would endorse the “flagship or shoot the moon” approach IF the state school is a good option. If it’s not, for whatever reason, then realistic alternatives should be sought.
It seems that this poster would be likely to get merit aid at many schools, bringing the cost close to in-state flagship. But if they didn’t have stats quite as high, I would still recommend applying to more than one safety - even if it is just a different in-state public. I’m not familiar with their state’s public schools so I couldn’t suggest one, but many states seem to have more than one in-state public. I just feel like - for my kids - it would be important to feel like they had a choice if all of the reaches didn’t work out. But I fully recognize that all kids are different!
Yeah, at our feederish HS, the high numbers kids are encouraged to have at least two of what we call likelies. Usually one is an in-state flagship (where they may also be gunning for honors colleges and merit and such). The other could be a second in-state university, but it could also be any other sort of college which would be very likely to admit and comfortably affordable for that family.
In part this is just because kids like that are often technically not applying to any “safeties”, just colleges we know are very likely for them based on the past experience of our HS as applied to their profile. So two of those feels just a bit safer than only one.
But I also think the posters here pointing out the benefits of the kid likely having multiple admittances/choices are completely right. At a minimum, it is going to feel better. And it is definitely not uncommon as well that how the kid thought they ranked their likelies is not how they end up ranking their likelies once all the offers and just more information rolls in.
Still, some kids are one and done at a certain likely college that just makes perfect sense for them and their family. Kinda hard not to envy that, frankly, but I think for good reason that is relatively uncommon.
Congrats to your daughter. I like her list and strategy. She’s right to think of Rutgers honors as better options than medium OOS publics. I wouldn’t think about schools like GW but rather save your $ for grad school.
If you’re looking for something that’s a little bit easier than maybe look at an ED2 - vandy, Emory, Chicago, Tufts?
If not, I also might add Georgetown to the list and definitely OOS for UCLA.
I know people have mentioned Emory- and while the student has excellent stats, isn’t that really a somewhat reach due to the lower acceptance rate? I would think Emory is only a target if she applied ED. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention this, and I’m not sure myself, but would Georgia Tech be a target for stats? (I know it’d be a reach for engineering}.
I came here to say this as well. My DS2 (HS class of '22) had similar stats, Gov School in Engrg., and did not get accepted to Rutgers Honors. One of his gov school friends went to the Gov school dean to get admitted to Rutgers Honors (initially denied), b/c they wanted to go to Rutgers, as other choices did not pan out.
Agreed. I have a couple of acquaintances whose kids applied to Wharton ED thinking their high performing STEM kid would be a shoo-in for the business school. Both denied. Possibly for not reading what it says in their website as plain as day. And Wharton has enough competitive applicants meeting their criteria that they don’t need a pool of STEM kids to fill their class.
Gtech is a reach for all OOS applicants. GTech does not admit by major, even though the student does share two majors of interest in the app.
I would call Emory a reach too, as ED does have many hooked students (Recruited athletes, Questbridge, disadvantaged students, etc.) in the acceptance number.