Our S19 likes quite a few LACs where his SAT (1540) and his GPA are above the 75th percentile for the school. All of these schools range from a 21-30% acceptance rate though. Any gut feelings out there about whether we can still consider these schools matches with their low acceptance rates? He is showing interest, both visiting the campuses and visiting with the reps when they come to his high school.
We do not want him to apply ED to any school as we are full pay and want to compare merit offers. Most of these schools offer some merit, but not all. Plus, we just want him to have more time to decide.
Thoughts on how we should think of these schools? Are his chances truly 21-30% with his stats? The Naviance from our high school makes it look like he’s got a better percentage shot than that for all of these schools.
I would guess that you can think of them as matches, but definitely not safeties.
I have seen a top ranked LAC reject two students with unweighted GPAs of 4.0 while accepting a student from the same school with the same classes with an unweighted 3.5 GPA who was 350 points lower on SAT score. After seeing this I sort of gave up trying to predict whether a particular student (whether they had ever gotten a B or not) would get into any particular LAC.
Also, I agree with you about ED if you care at all about the cost of attendance or if he is not decided with regard to which one he wants to attend.
Your naviance is probably correct. A high stats kid should have a better than average chance of acceptance. Not many schools release admit data by score, but for instance Hamilton does. Their score report shows that 53% of applicants who scored 1500+ were accepted, well above average. Gotta think other LACs are similar with regard to high scores having above average chances.
@wisteria100 I just looked up those Hamilton stats. Fascinating! I wish other schools would post acceptance rates based on distribution of SAT/ACT scores. Super helpful.
I agree with @wisteria100. While it’s not a sure thing at any one of them, I would tend to think he’ll have acceptances from several with acceptances in that range.
Brown posts something similar by test score. A little more daunting though. For those scoring 800 on the math section, acceptance rate was 16%.
@wisteria100 lol. Well, I think that’s double Brown’s overall acceptance rate!