Where are the best matches for my child? [international, 3.95, swimming athlete, environmental science]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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I think you’ve gotten some good advice already. In looking at your list of schools it appears as though you prefer the west coast, northeast, or midwest. There are also schools that range from small to large, so that doesn’t appear to be a deciding factor for you.

In looking at your list, I don’t see any schools that are religiously affiliated, so that might be an important factor for you. (Not all religiously affiliated schools have religion play a strong role; it often depends on what the affiliation actually is.) Thus, I’m separating my list into religiously affiliated and no religious affiliation, all of which have varsity women’s swimming.

These schools have no religious affiliation:

  • College of Wooster (OH): About 2k undergrads
  • Juniata (PA ): About 1300 undergrads
  • Pacific (OR): About 1700 undergrads
  • Salisbury (MD): About 6700 undergrads
  • Wheaton (MA): About 1700 undergrads
  • Whitman (WA): About 1600 undergrads
  • Willamette (OR): About 1200 undergrads

If you are open to religiously affiliated schools, then you might want to consider:

  • Loyola Marymount (CA): About 7100 undergrads
  • Seattle (WA): About 4200 undergrads
  • Xavier (OH): About 5100 undergrads

Most of the schools would be likely or extremely likely acceptances for your daughter.

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Thanks for your comments, amended as per comments. Outside of UCs together counting for 1, High School limits applications to strictly 10, so substantial pruning required to bring the list to UCs + 5 stretch/reach + 2 match + 2 safeties. Fully understand the list is stretch/reach biased.

Demographics

  • international student
  • State/Location of residency: Asia
  • Type of high school: Private
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Female-Euro-Hispanic-Asian
  • Other factors: swimming athlete (Ivy D3 swimming)
    *Schools in West, Midwest, Northeast

Intended Major: Environmental science

  • GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.95
  • Weighted HS GPA: n/a
  • Class Rank: n/a
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1480 test optional

Coursework
*IB: English, Math, Physics, Biology, Econ, Chinese
*Fluent in English, French, Chinese, German

Extracurriculars
*Swim team captain, Swim coach for Low Income NGO, Sports coach for disadvantaged children NGO, Leader of Environmental Club, Natural/Regional swim competitions, Summer Job in Food and Beverage, Club leadership
*30% probability sports recruit
*Essays/LORs/Others: strong
*Cost Constraints / Budget; unconstrained
*Double legacy: irrelevant

Schools
*Stretch: Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Dartmouth, Williams, Carnegie Mellon, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Claremont, John Hopkins, Brown, Barnard, Chicago, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Colby
*Reach: Washington St Louis, Wesleyan, UCSD, UCSB College of L&S, University of Washington St Louis
*Match: Franklin & Marshall, Toronto
*Safety: UBC, McGill, Loyola Marymount

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Wouldn’t the Common Application count as 1 application? If so, that is 20 applications right there. So 1 for UC and 1 for Common App = 2 apps as far as your school is concerned.

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unfortunately not, they count based on number of official transcripts & recommendations.

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  1. Should one apply these rulesacross the board, which seems to be suggested, including admit rates for foreign students (as in our case)
  • schools with admit rates below 10% Stretch: Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Dartmouth, Williams, Carnegie Mellon, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Claremont, John Hopkins, Brown, Barnard, Chicago
  • schools with admit rates 10-20%: reach: Bowdoin, Middlebury, Colby, Washington St Louis, Wesleyan, UCSD, UCSB
  • match: Franklin & Marshall, Toronto
  • safety: McGill, RPI

my opinion is that any school with a 20% or less admit rate is a reach. But I see you have added those schools to your reach list. I have to say…that’s a lot of reach schools. Can it be better vetted?

  1. is legacy or double legacy in a stretch school a hook, or is it completely negligible?

totally depends on the college. At some colleges, legacy doesn’t benefit you at all.

  1. Predicted IB scores are not released until the fall. expect 41-42 out of 45

Others can comment on this…but sounds strong academically.

  1. budget: unrestricted

This will help at schools that are need aware for admissions…but schools that are need blind won’t have info about your ability to pay.

@AustenNut in other threads, this parent has indicated that they will only fund what they view as excellent colleges. Hoping they clarify that here.

@NiVo thank you for clarifying…it’s Washington University in St. Louis. That’s a reach also.

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Perhaps others can correct me if I’m wrong, but for official transcripts and recommendations, they all get submitted to the Common App. So the teachers and counselors would upload their recommendation (and transcript) one time to the Common App, and the student then selects where the uploads get submitted. Then at the end of the process, once your student has graduated, an official copy of the transcript gets mailed to the university. Can others confirm that this is the case?

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The high school contribution will include transcripts up to junior year, predicted IB scores, and recommendations all submitted by the school. there is no shortcut around this process (besides UCs), unfortunately

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I guess it depends on what OP views as an excellent college. If it’s based on a low admit rate, then the schools I mentioned won’t be contenders. But College of Wooster, for instance, gets lots of positive talk on CC for the research and academic vibe on the campus. Salisbury was recently listed as the #1 producer of Fulbright scholars in the U.S. among schools whose highest degree is generally a Master’s. For strong applicants interested in schools out west, Whitman and Willamette are often colleges that make their short list. Other schools on the list also definitely have their fans.

But yes, this will obviously come down to OP’s family to decide on what they consider worthwhile.

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Generally yes.

Some US high schools also limit apps and count each common app school as one app. I don’t understand why parents don’t push back on these policies but that’s for a different thread.

ETA: I do understand prestige can be an important consideration for international students. I respect OPs position that US schools that are less prestigious than Toronto and McGill seem to not be of interest.

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Many US Prep Schools restrict to 1 single stretch Early Round application, which is understandable as the want to ensure many students apply REA to Stanford/Princeton/Harvard/Yale

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Thanks for all your comments, attempting to answer a broad range of questions regarding the current list:

*for foreign students, who’s access to the US job market post graduation can be limited, it remains important to combine both academic strength, reputation and international name recognition
*the cap to the number of maximum applications nearly forces the inclusion of UCs
*Canadian schools provide a high degree of certitude with admission focused almost exclusively on expected IB grades/school grades. Canadian tuition is also very substantially cheaper for Environmental Science. This encourages the selection of an aggressive American stretch/reach list

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Yes CommonApp is ONE transcript+school profile uploaded and ONE recommendation per teacher uploaded. The student then chooses whether it goes to one… ten… or 20 schools. The recommendation CANNOT be “customised” and the school cannot manage the number of schools applied to.
Same as the UCs - it’s one application, then the students decide if it goes to 1, 3? or 8.
I would imagine that if UC’s= 1 regardless of how many campuses you apply to, the same would apply to CommonApp?
Some public universities use CommonApp (like UVermont) but some don’t, thus requiring a separate app.

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U of T tuition alone will be $60K CAD. Add an extra $18K for room and board. This does not include any travel expenses, books etc which generally gets included in the way US colleges give you a cost of attendance. Add an extra $12K for that, especially with the cost of flights to an from Asia. Total = $90K CAD which is roughly $68K USD.

McGill’s tuition on the other hand, is lower. This year’s class’s tuition was $29K, but it has been going up $3K/year, so I estimate it to be about $35K for your student beginning 2024. So, total of $65K CAD, roughly $50K USD.

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Congrats. I know there’s a lot of feedback I haven’t yet read but will take my guess.

F&M is not an easy admit but as a full pay, your odds go up.

I’m not sure UCSD is likely.

Your matches seem reachy.

Good luck.

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Admission rates for Colby and Bowdoin are single digits - not 10-20% range.

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I agree. The OP was the one saying the higher %age. I was just saying that even at 20%…these are reaches.

Let’s just say…more than 80% get rejected. and amongst the rejected students are some very very well qualified applicants.

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Adjustments have already been made to the list. the goal is to thoughtfully shrink it to UCs + 5 stretch/reach + 2 match + 2 safeties.

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What are the new targets and safeties ?

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This post includes brief comments on several of your daughter’s current LAC choices in the context of comments on a few other liberal arts colleges: Struggling with D21’s List. ED & ED2: Amherst, Hamilton, Wellesley, Vassar - #7 by merc81 .

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