<p>My daughter has 2200 SAT and 34 ACT and I think should be an all-around great applicant in all other respects... rigorous schedule, perfect GPA, good EC's, leadership positions, music awards, marching band, community service, etc. On Princeton Review's "counselor-o-matic", many highly selective schools come out as "good matches" for her. How many applications do you recommend for her, considering that these are the schools she likes, based on our visits, etc. (she's not finished narrowing them down):
Good Matches: Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Davidson, Vanderbilt, Wheaton (IL), Emory, U Chicago, Furman
Reaches: Princeton, Yale, Washington University
Safeties: Hillsdale, Centre, U Kentucky
She could easily narrow this list down to 5 or so, but all our visits and everything she's reading about makes her worried she may not get in, so she thinks she needs lots of backups. She's tentatively thinking history major, and possible pre-law or pre-med. Any comments or suggestions?</p>
<p>I say shoot higher - More Ivies (Dartmouth, Columbia) and more top 15 schools. My philosophy was apply and see where you stick.</p>
<p>My D has a long list too and it helped to divide the schools into ones with rolling admissions, EA, ED, RD, etc. Then we were looking at a strategy of which schools to apply to rolling and EA and a timetable of when she would hear back from the schools. So if she got an acceptance early from certain schools then she wouldn’t apply at all to other schools with later deadlines. I hope that makes sense.</p>
<p>The list looks good. I see no reason to add more Ivies unless she likes them - just because they’re “Ivies” or “higher ranked” is no reason to add schools. (I don’ tknow much about many of the schools on her list - I will accept your estimates of her chances.)</p>
<p>Are the safeties schools that she actually wants to go to? If not, find additional safeties. Remember the definition of a safety is not just a school that is likely to admit the student, but one that the student wants to attend.</p>
<p>Are any of them early action (not binding) or rolling admission schools? It makes a huge difference to have an early admit in how the rest of the senior year goes. If you can find one of those, then some other schools can drop off the list later as she’ll know that no matter what she’s going to college!</p>
<p>Good luck to her!</p>
<p>Notre Dame, Davidson, Vanderbilt, Emory and U Chicago would not be matches for anyone. Those are reach schools. They are all highly selective.</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about Wake Forest, Wheaton (IL) or Furman to judge whether they are true matches. </p>
<p>The landscape of reaches/matches/safeties has changed this year – many students were rejected from their matches and safeties. Applying somewhere that has rolling admission or Early Action is a really smart move.</p>
<p>I suggest you post this question on the parents forum; you’ll get some great advice there. The first will be that it is most important to find a couple of safety schools (at least that is a financial safety) that your daughter loves.</p>
<p>I agree with Chedva – it’s a good list. I think expanding the target/good matches is a wise strategy these days. Remember that Yale is SCEA and Chicago is EA, so she can’t apply to both early. </p>
<p>My feeling is that five is too few, fourteen too many. S had 10 on his list – applied to three EA, one priority decision and three RD. He dropped a reach, match and safety after EA, and added a different reach for FA purposes. </p>
<p>EA/Rolling Admissions are a great way to get a sense of one’s strength in the applicant pool, and it is a HUGE stress reliever to have an acceptance in hand by December. </p>
<p>Be sure your D has schools on the list that your family can afford even if you don’t get merit money or FA. If you haven’t had The Money Conversation yet with your D (and run EFC estimates), I strongly recommend that you do so before she refines her list any further.</p>
<p>WashU is more matchish, while UChicago is more reachish. Everything else sounds about right</p>
<p>This may be surprising, but that counselor-o-matic was spot on for me! I think your daughter should really look closely at what it is recommending. As a safety I only applied to my local state university because there wasn’t any need to apply to more. I knew I would get in and probably wasn’t going there anyway. Then from my good matches I applied to Tufts, Northwestern, College of William and Mary, Georgetown, and Carnegie Mellon. And from the reach section I applied to Harvard and Stanford. I got into all my good matches except waitlisted at G-town, and I got into Stanford. Right now I am at Carnegie Mellon on a full tuition 4 year scholarship. The Princeton Review was my guide through the entire admission process and it is totally worth listening to. Of the good matches, probably notre dame, vandy, emory, chicago, and davidson are the toughest. She should apply to those though if she really likes them and plan on getting into half of them. Those were my expectations and it turned out really well. If she is looking at school like that though, has she looked much a duke? It just seems like it would fit in well with the others.</p>
<p>Counselor-o-matic was useless for us - said Princeton and Harvard were my ds’s matches! They aren’t matches for anyone…anyone at all!</p>
<p>I think you’ve got a good list. How many you apply to depends on two main things: Do you have a <em>true</em> safety (a college your child would like to attend and is certain to get into and certain to be able to afford) or have they been accepted somewhere through EA or rolling admissions? If so (obviously this would come in the fall), then you need fewer schools. The second factor is money - if you are paying full freight, then all you have to consider is getting in. If you need substantial financial aid, or worse yet need merit aid (because of appearing able to afford it on paper, but not really - business owners are often in this spot), then you need to apply to a higher number of schools, and be sure you have several where your child is a standout.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Tell that to all who were rejected/waitlisted this year. It really is a reach for everyone. But I second UChicago being a reach.</p>
<p>But if your daughter would be fine going to one of her safeties, I don’t see any need to change the list around. As others have said, take advantage of early action and rolling programs (and definitely apply ea to schools that offer it - don’t wait for the rd round).</p>
<p>Edit: has your daughter looked at Tulane? I would consider it a safety/match for her, but if she likes it she’d easily be in the running for a lot of merit aid - Tulane’s definitely known for this.</p>
<p>I’ll second huguenot’s money considerations. D’s stats show that she can get some serious scholarship money at some schools. It’s no good being accepted at 5 great schools that you can’t afford. With the economic uncertainty we are experiencing, schools that meet 100% of need should be on the list.</p>
<p>My thoughts:</p>
<p>Reach: Yale, Princeton
Slight Reach: (none here)
High Match: WashU, Chicago,
Match: Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Davidson, Vanderbilt, Emory
Safety: Wheaton, Furman
Super Duper Way too safe safeties: Hillsdale, Centre, U Kentucky </p>
<p>I think you have way too many matches and safeties and not enough slight reaches and high matches. Your daughter is likely to do well with schools like Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Williams, etc and I would seriously consider “slight reaches” like these.</p>
<p>I don’t think 14 is necessarily too many–IF your daughter is serious about getting merit money. If merit money is not a consideration, someone with her record* could probably get by with fewer applications.</p>
<p>I do question some aspects of the list. Hillsdale and Wheaton on one hand and University of Chicago and Princeton on the other? Very different kinds of schools. I’m a bit more understanding than many about including a wide variety of schools if a student is really flexible (both socially and intellectually) and especially if the student is including the possibility of merit money in the calculation, but it seems to me that this list could be more focused.</p>
<p>Some of the schools on the list saw a big decline in acceptance rate this year, with a concurrent increase in the formal statistical aspect of applicants’ records (e.g., Vanderbilt). So, don’t assume too much about “match” status.</p>
<p>I do not agree with some of the posts that the record, as you have presented it, warrants putting a lot of energy into a bunch of high reaches, especially if they are not of interest. (Since she seems to like small LACs, then perhaps Williams would be worth investigating.)</p>
<p>*The record: How about SAT subject exams, AP record (if available)? Some schools do not require, but do recommend, SAT subject exams. If you are considering applying for merit money, it is my opinion that good AP records and subject exam scores help.</p>
<p>FireandRain is correct that in the college admissions game as it has evolved, Notre Dame, Davidson, Vanderbilt, Emory and U Chicago (and a number of others that you don’t have on your list) cannot be considered as matches for anyone (other than children of senators, presidents, and famous child actors).</p>
<p>The definition of a match school is, as I understand it, a school in which the prospective student is within the qualifications of the middle 50% of the school’s previous recent admits (or enrolles?). However, what we are seeing these days is that many, many students who would be considered a “match” don’t get accepted. There are simply too many students applying to the top-tier schools who meet those qualifications and are a “match.” What we really need is to delieneate somehow between true matches and the highly selective matches. There wouldn’t be a problem with the current Reach, Match, Safety designations if everyone just realized that those top-tier schools are a reach for everybody, but due to a combination of ego/ignorance/naivete some people will insist that they are a match for those top-tier schools. The various college finder systems (College Board, Princeton Review, etc.) don’t help when they tell people they are a match for the top-tier schools without a very large type, bold, flashing red disclaimer that there are no sure-thing matches. </p>
<p>So, maybe we need something like:
Reaches
Highly-Selective Matches (or maybe High Matches? Crapshoot Matches? Maybe someone with a better knowledge of probablility and statistics can suggest a more appropriate term.)
Matches
Safeties<br>
(and I see that some posts that have gone up since I started writing this do use some more refined categories).</p>
<p>Of course, there is a similar problem on the safety end as I’ve seen many posts and met many students from my kids’ high school in which they overestimate where they are a sure admit – “My matches are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, and my safeties are Duke, Emory, Vanderbilt, and UVa.”</p>
<p>I think that you and your daughter have a good perspective on this - you did ask the question after all so you’re obviously thinking about it. I’ll put in a plug, though, for Wheaton College. I have a good friend who teaches business ethics there and got a tour of the campus a couple of years ago and was very impressed. But all of the schools on your list that I have any familiarity with are reasonable, good choices.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your responses! It probably would have helped if I would have shared some of my daughter’s personality with you, and not just her credentials. I would describe her as…quiet, friendly, serious christian, conservative yet open-minded. Voted into leadership positions because she is well-respected and friendly, even though she is quiet and thinks herself “awkward”. Takes school and everything she does very seriously and is very hard on herself. She likes all of the schools on the list for different reasons. I feel she would get along fine at all of them (if they accept her!) but there are a few I would definitely feel most comfortable about. Also, to answer some of the questions about her credentials, took 2 AP’s this year (her school doesn’t offer many), AP History test today (thinks she did good) and AP Lang next week. Taking AP Lit, AP Bio, and AP Calculus next year. PSAT score was 222 which for Ky should be very good for scholarships. Planning on US History, Lit and Math II subject tests next month. She isn’t sure enough about any of the schools to do ED, but we’ll see which have EA. Any other advice is greatly welcomed!</p>
<p>I really would consider a few schools right below Harvard and Princeton. I think she might have a great shot at these types of places. She also might like Haverford or Swarthmore which seems to fit her personality.</p>
<p>I found princetonreviews’s counselor-o-matic (or whateve it’s called) notoriously unreliable. The Ivies and other highly selective schools kept popping up on my daughter’s ‘good match’ list – even though she really was not an Ivy-caliber candidate. </p>
<p>I heard that actually, Harvard, Princeton and Yale rarely used to appear as ‘matches’ on princetonreview, and that those schools put pressure on princetonreview to change that – because they felt it was discouraging students from applying. This probably is an urban myth, but stranger things have happened.</p>
<p>“Notre Dame, Davidson, Vanderbilt, Emory and U Chicago would not be matches for anyone. Those are reach schools. They are all highly selective.”</p>
<p>I don’t agree with that at all. If you have 1500+/1600 SAT, perfect GPA in the hardest courseload, plus decent EC involvement, I would expect to get into these places. They aren’t automatic like safeties, but I would say they most probably would get in.</p>
<p>Chicago is really more of a reach, not so much more because of stats than because applicant pool is increasing at such a fast rate that more and more they are more likely to waitlist people they would have taken in 3 or 4 years ago – basically, admissions is becoming more arbitrary (characteristic of any reach school).</p>
<p>^^perhaps, but I think it’s a little bit much to characterize all of them as reaches.</p>