Michellerekuc, great profile. Great essay idea! I agree that it’s worth looking into Questbridge. I think Penn is going to be tough admit due to class rank and the Cs in math. I wish I could give a different opinion. I would not ED there. Rutgers is very good and will have a greater diversity of economic backgrounds. I know you said you have worked every summer. Working is an EC and will be respected by admission readers. Make sure you list out the jobs on your applications as activities.
Justing adding as an aside to what Mwfan1912 has touched on - you are really going to have to drill down to the details of what you can afford and map out the exact source of all your needed funds. No acceptance is going to do you any good if you cannot afford the school because there is some type of gap.
I have been looking primarily at schools that meet 100% of financial need, though for the most part they are pretty selective ( or schools that are known for giving high percentages of fa such as Syracuse).
My other schools are NJ state schools which I should be able to get some additional grants and scholarships for and should have an easier time getting a loan.
The list of schools I put together were very much predicted on the cost.
The question is whether I can get into them, or if I can’t, what are some other schools that I should look into?
From the current schools on your list in #4, none of the NJ publics meet 100% of need, nor does Syracuse.
It sounds like your budget will be $13K-$14K, based on the below. At some schools you may be able to get a work study job, and earn around $1K-$2K per year.
Family contribution ~$2,000
Pell Grant $6,195
First year student loan $5,500
Do you have a part-time job? Many meet full need schools will also require some level of student self-help (typically from a summer job) of $3K-$5K
I strongly encourage you to not take out loans greater than the $27K max in undergrad Federal Direct Student Loans ($5.5K first year, then $6.5/$7.5/$7.5).
Before you put any school on the list you have to run the NPC to see if it will be affordable. You shouldn’t apply to a school that won’t be affordable, or will require more loans the $27K. Do some people do this? Sure. And it can make sense in certain situations…but, if you are looking at a business major such as finance, or marketing, or management, I would limit the loans to the $27K.
It would be great if Rutgers were your affordable, highly likely school. The NPC result of $15K seems high, so not sure what’s going on there, you might double check that.
No one here can predict your chances of admission at these schools. I agree that UPenn, especially Wharton, is likely not attainable and I wouldn’t waste the ED there.
BU and Lehigh are reasonable reaches. WF is a reach too…and it’s competitive entry into the business school after frosh (?, maybe after soph) year there. Syracuse might be a high match. It’s hard to categorize without having a test score.
Make sure you are demonstrating interest at the schools where that is considered in the admission process. Lehigh and Wake do, not sure about BU and Syracuse. Look in Section C on their common data sets to check this. To demonstrate interest you sign up to receive emails from the school (and open and read those emails), participate in virtual programming (tour/admission session/student panel), do a zoom interview with someone from an admission (or sometimes an alum).
I don’t have a good sense of what you are looking for in a school (let us know!) but here are some more ideas (run the NPCs):
U Richmond
George Washington U and American U if you are interested in DC
Barnard
Marist
Elon
LACs - Washington and Lee, Haverford, Bryn Mawr (many don’t have biz majors, but W&L does), so you would have to major in econ for example). Posters can give you more LACs if you are interested in them.
Go to your local community college for a year. You can probably go for free. Knock it out of the park with a 4.0. Then apply to Penn and other transfer friendly schools. Your prior HS grades won’t mean as much. You will have a much higher chance of acceptance as a transfer.
I'm really not looking to go to community college. I know that it will be free but I have had so much pressure on me for so many years to give up so much time and energy to helping my family out that I for once in my life want to be able to put myself first. I honestly think the same thing would happen in Community College that happened in high school, that being that I have to invest so much time, energy, and stress that It had a major impact on my grades.
I honestly don't know what "I'm looking for" in a school. What I do know is that before the virus I got to visit a few colleges and my favorite was UPenn (duh), but I also liked Rowan. I was neutral on NJIT, and really didn't like Seton Hall (its a long list, but I especially didn't like the gated nature, with not that nice surrounding area). I expected to visit more, but obviously, not too likely I'll get the chance.
-I just did a bit of research into the NJ TAG Grant, and it looks like after that…
Rowan - 6k
Rutgers - 5k
Montclair - No Cost
I can understand. Community college is not a lot of fun. Its more like 13th and 14th grade.
But with the COVID situation, most colleges will be virtual anyway for 2020-2021. Not sure what it will look like when you graduate. Hopefully things will improve by fall 2021.
@sgopal2 This, coming from a very experienced poster, puzzles me a great deal.
Admission officers at top school go to a great length at information sessions to debunk it, as do many posters here.
ED is when recruited athletes and legacies get admitted, right? And OP is neither. When you subtract these two cohorts, the ED admission rate is usually barely above RD for places like UPenn. If you can give any examples of places when these rates are indeed significantly higher, after accounting for these factors, please post them.
Not sure I would blindly trust what admissions officers say during info sessions. After all, their job is to put their institution in the best possible light and encourage as many apps as possible. Colleges with EA/ED programs definitely give a boost to those who apply early. While many hooked applicants apply during the early rounds, it also benefits non-hooked kids. The extent of this benefit varies from school to school.
How do I know this? I’m a Duke alum interview and I heard this directly from Dean Christoph Guttentag at a lecture that he gave in 2016. ED rates were higher for both legacy and non-legacy admits: 35% and 23% respectively. RD admit rates were 16% and 10% respectively.
You want more hard data? Look at the recent Harvard lawsuit. Google the Arcidiacono report. In particular look for Table B.7.2. Prof Arcidiacono displays the order logit values in this table. To convert to odds take the natural log of the logit for each model. The odds of admission for various factors are listed. One of them is an early application. The odds of admission for an early application was between 3.6 - 5.0 x higher as compared to a RD application. The way logistic regression works is that all of the factors listed on this table are considered independently of each other. So having multiple factors (legacy + URM + early) increases the odds even more.
Absolutely apply to UPenn. I am not sure about ED, I will leave that “strategy” to others as my Daughters both applied RD. My oldest Daughter, Valedictorian, High Test Scores (SAT - one and done), State and National Champion Dancer - danced since she was 2, Habitat for Humanity, not many ECs, but the ones she did, she stuck with from a young age (dance was 20 hours a week), which I feel Colleges view as more important - shows commitment and true interest not just “application padding”. She was admitted to her Dream School, Princeton. My youngest Daughter, 2 years younger, straight A, not straight A+ student like her Sister, test scores at lower end of Princeton admitted range (took the SAT and ACT 3 times each - she was never “test taker”), number 5 in class, same ECs. She fell in love with Princeton after visiting her Sister for 2 years. Princeton was not on the list approved by her HS counsellor. At the last minute, she applied (what did she have to lose), submitted application and Dance video on December 31, despite her counsellor telling her she would never be admitted. Fast forward - she was admitted, graduated Magna Cum Laude , Psychology Major, Certificate in Dance, Thesis Prize. She is now a PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology at UCLA. My Daughters had no 'hooks", white Girls from a Private High School in a fairly wealthy suburb, their Father and I both went to State Universities and Law Schools - facts that I feared would work against them. My point - you have a wonderful story, bring it out in your essay, never say never. I think you will kick yourself if you do not apply and give it a shot! If you are not admitted, at least you tried. If you do not apply, you will never know.Best of luck!!!
Michellerekuc,
I hope you didn’t read my post as a discouragement. By all means, go for it! Powodzenia! @sgopal2
Thanks for posting some numbers. But where are recruited athletes in your statistics? These are also EDs, and from other posts, I saw that their acceptance rate at Harvard us 96% - wouldn’t that account for (almost) all the difference? I don’t want to turn into a debate, and I’m actually hoping you are right - but 5-10x higher acceptance rate is something that begs for solid proof because these numbers are quite extreme.
OP: I like your list of schools, but I think that UPenn is an unrealistic reach even if you earn a 1500 on the SAT. Grades matter. (A “C” in pre-calc & a “C” in computer science are going to get you in the reject pile at Penn in my opinion.)
If you want to study business, then make sure to apply to several schools which offer direct admission as a business major–although many focus on math grades.
@artsykiddad: Basically the way logistic regression works is that a list of factors are identified. In this case ED/EA status, legacy, major, etc. Arcidiacono explains this in the report. The factors are independent from each other. So its possible to quantify the effect of an early application while keeping other factors constant. If you need more background, let me know. There is a clear benefit of applying early. Its not just limited to athletes and legacies. Also you are confusing odds vs probability. Odds are like horse race betting.
If you’d like a more indepth discussion about the Harvard data, please PM me. I don’t want to derail the discussion here.
@mommalis I don’t understand your post at all. Thinking that going to a wealthy private HS and being at or near the top of class is a negative? I bet your daughters can now name every elite private school on the east coast. The Ivy+ schools have been making progress, but the type of background your daughters experienced is still way over represented. The OP is ranked 158/486, not 1 or 5 at a wealthy private. If 25%+ normally get into a T20 school then maybe. If it is more like a normal HS where a few to none get into a T20, the OP should move on.
