Are my colleges a match for me? Or reach?

College Search & Lists
1

Hi, I’m a highschool senior and this is basically my profile:

GPA 4.0 out 4.0 throughout school, ranked 1, but have 1 B in English in a public examination.
8 subjects in IGCSE, 4 in Alevel.

As for ECAs I have:
Writing (commonwealth commendations, literary club in school, yearbook contributor, used to write for a weekly supplement of a daily newspaper in 9th -10th grade, 2 online publication for 2 years, blogging on my own and website content writer at present.)
Teaching (kids at an orphanage, a highschool freshman, and domestic help)
MUN ( cofounder of mun club, chairing several national ones, 1 international and secretary general of school MUN)
Voluntary service (orphanage, treasurer of Z Club of Zonta international, cofounder of a charity organisation, helping out classmates in school regarding studies personally and online via blogs)
National spelling bee finalist back in 7th grade
school soccer tournament organiser and head volunteer

Are the following colleges a right match?

• Colby
• Oberlin
• Bates
• Bard
• Wellesley
• Bryn Mawr
• Smith

• Grinnell
• Northwestern
• Case-western Reserve
• University of Southern California
• Rice
• Reed
• Skidmore
• Colgate

2

How does USC, with 43K students figure into this list of LACS? Most of these school are expensive.; a match school will be affordable for you. You might want to look at the CTCL type schools as well.

3

So you are female. Nothing you do before high school can be listed. Forget spelling bee. You are all over the country, and Reed and Oberlin are polar opposites in feel to Colgate and Colby. Yes, what’s with USC.? And Wellesely, and Northwestern too. The only college I can say you will probably get into is CWRU. You have a lot of reach schools here. You seem to be leaning towards the socially aware and liberal colleges with an arty edge. I suggest you whittle this list down to Reed, Oberlin, Bard, Grinnell, Skidmore, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Bates, Rice, and CWRU (but, this also is an odd man out, however it is a match) and consider adding College of Wooster as a match instaed of CWRU if you are looking for matches and safeties that are liberal and arty. Consider Clark University as a safety. Your list is a little too reach heavy, IMO, as you are an international. If you need money, please check to see what these colleges offer to international students.

4

What do YOU think?

Here’s a starting point… How do your SATs and/ACTs compare to the middle accepted student profiles of each school’s Class of 2020 page?

Here’s Colgate’s:

http://www.colgate.edu/admission-financial-aid/first-year-class-profile

Good luck with your college search!

5

With a 1430 on the new SAT (I looked at your other thread) I think you have a decent chance of admission at many of these schools. If you are depending on need-based aid, your chances will go down as few colleges and universities in the US are as generous to international students as to domestic ones. Clark U and Earlham are good small schools that are more generous than some others. As you are open to the idea of a woman’s college, you might also want to check out Mount Holyoke, where around 1/3 of the students are international. It is somewhat less selective than Wellesley or Smith and offers some high-level merit scholarships.

I’d say that your biggest reaches are Northwestern and Colgate. Reed has a very distinctive student culture - very intense and cerebral and on the more radical end politically - fit would be especially important here.

Good luck and congratulations on your very fine grades! As for the SAT essay, get a practice book and do some practice essays. Either the Prepscholar or Compass Prep website has a couple of articles about how to score well.

6

Thank you all for the feedback!

As for the location, I’m all over the country because I don’t have much preference there. Any good place with sufficient aid would do. I also know that it’s a mix of research and LACs but I want to keep my options open. I think by the end of August I should be able to pinpoint which colleges might be a fit.

7

Could you specify on the “polar opposite feel” please? Since I am an international student, I have no scope of going on college tours and understanding how it might really be. I’m going purely on info-based / popularity based searches. I do plan to ask current students / alumni about each college on my final list though.

8

Also look at the “Colleges that CHange Lives” schools

9

@bibliosmia , you might really benefit from the website Niche. Students submit reviews of,their College and rate it in many categories, including academics, guys and girls, partying,etc… My D relied heavily on it, rightly or wrongly. She cared what kids thought about their schools, not what adults thought.

I suggest starting with the guys and girls, and partying rankings, because I think that will give you a good idea of what your fellow students might be like. Oberlin and Colgate would be opposites, IMO. Colgate is preppy, probably a little more conservative leaning. Oberlin is quite edgy, liberal, with very in your face politically active students. CWRU is studious, tech oriented, some might say a bit lacking in campus life, Bard is gothy, hippie, lots of pot smokers, etc… (And before anyone yells at me, I am generalizing for the OP to give her an idea.) In short, I can’t imagine the student who would be happy at Reed would be happy at Northwestern.

From your list so far, you seem to be favoring liberal, socially aware, and arty LACs. This is why I suggested you might want to stick with some colleges and not others. I am not an expert, but if I were grouping your colleges in no particular order, I would put Colgate-Wellesley-Colby; Smith-Bryn Mawr-Bates-Rice; USC-NU; Reed-Oberlin-Skidmore-Bard-Grinnell; and CWRU in its own niche. Anyone, please feel free to rearrange my groupings as you see fit. Like I said, I am not an expert.

10

@lingdagaf-Why do you think she would get in CWRU but not USC, Skidmore, Bard or Reed?

I agree with your other comments about LAC vs USC and CWRU. CWRU is a small university but it is a university and feels like one (my oldest graduated from CWRU). It is studious. Although it is tech oriented there are other majors there. The school of Arts/Sciences is the largest school in the U. I don’t think it is lacking in campus life, but the students there are very career oriented. A student who likes that pre professional feel would feel at home there even if they are not tech oriented. My son was a dual major in economics/math and the social science departments are well attended.

Some students do like both LAC and small universities. My youngest has a list with Haverford, Swarthmore, U of Miami, U of Rochester on it. He likes the small LAC but also likes the smaller universities.

11

Thank you proudpatriot, I am considering going along the lines of Biology (research rather than medical) and possibly writing. Two very contrasting ones though, so I guess I am looking for places with a strong Arts and Sciences department.

12

@Lindagaf thanks a lot for your insight! Will take these into consideration.

13

CWRU is very strong the hard sciences. However, it does feel very different from a LAC. Lindagaf is right about that.

At CWRU the writing curriculum is all about writing in content areas. Students take seminars on specific topics and develop a writing portfolio based on those seminars. There are tons of different seminars. My son took one on Westerns and another on China and the Modern world.

You also have to decide whether you want to be in an urban or rural location. Some of the schools on your list are very isolated. Others are in urban centers. CWRU is often misrepresented on CC. Some of the generalizations are true (studious students, lack of wild parties). Others are partially true. There are a lot of STEM majors although they aren’t the only ones on campus. There are a lot of video gamers on campus. Others are completely untrue. There is a lot going on at CWRU. It is in Cleveland but the neighborhood isn’t the hood. It is a beautiful, urban neighborhood. You really have to see it to see if it is for you. You will either love it or hate it. There is no in between.

14

Just guessing @Proudpatriot based on acceptance rate and size. I didn’t say she wouldn’t get into the others, I just felt CWRU was the only one with the most realistic chance of a likely acceptance. No telling with holistic admissions though. Looks like Bard has a similar acceptance rate, but I suspect it is most definitely looking for a very particular kind of student.

FWIW, OP, my kid had some of your colleges on her list, and yes, she had a couple of outliers that didn’t fit with the rest at first glance. She applied to a few small unis and the rest were LACs. I am sure there are things that you liked about each college on paper, so delve deeper to see if you can see yourself jelling with the students there. For instance, my D was accepted to both Uni of Rochester and Oberlin. She ultimately couldn’t see herself at Oberlin because she thought the students were too extreme, while the students at Rochester were liberal, but not so “out there” with social causes. I do think fit is important, especially with these famously small and “incestuous” LACs. My D chose Bates in the end.

15

Be careful with acceptance rate. It doesn’t tell the whole story although it does tell you something.

I am in total agreement with your last paragraph, especially about Oberlin. We visited Oberlin with our youngest son during one of our game visits to CWRU and he felt exactly the same as your daughter. So-OP please carefully consider the type of school and read what you can about the campus culture before you apply. You want to have choices but you want to have choices that you will like.

16

"From your list so far, you seem to be favoring liberal, socially aware, and arty LACs. This is why I suggested you might want to stick with some colleges and not others. I am not an expert, but if I were grouping your colleges in no particular order, I would put Colgate-Wellesley-Colby; Smith-Bryn Mawr-Bates-Rice; USC-NU; Reed-Oberlin-Skidmore-Bard-Grinnell; and CWRU in its own niche. Anyone, please feel free to rearrange my groupings as you see fit. Like I said, I am not an expert. "

@Lindagaf , on what basis are you grouping them? I agree - there’s a lot of “what doesn’t belong here?” on that list, but I also tend to agree that it’s ok to like different things.

Wellesley is different because it’s very elite, but difficulty of admission doesn’t do it justice since half the population can’t apply. Of course, the other all-women’s schools have this same factor.

Colgate, to my mind’s eye, isn’t really any tougher admissions-wise than Bates, Reed, Oberlin or Grinnell.

If there is a reach on her list, it’s Northwestern. It’s so damn popular now; they really get the applications and their median numbers keep climbing. It’s a really tough school to get into.

But if you can get into Bates or Grinnell, you can probably get into Wellesley.

If it’s admissions difficulty we’re after, I’d group them as follows, hardest to easiest:

Northwestern, Rice

Colgate, Bates, Oberlin, Grinnell, Wellesley, Reed, Colby

USC, Bryn Mawr, Skidmore

Bard, CWRU

You could move a handful of these up or down a category. Does USC belong on the second row? Maybe. But I think the top two are pretty entrenched.

17

@MiddleburyDad2 , no, I was not at all grouping those schools by selectivity. That would be a crazy grouping system, haha! I was grouping by general vibe/types of students in terms of similarity. And as I said, feel free to regroup, as I am not an expert. These are just my impressions.

18

@Lindagaf , oh, ok. gotcha.

19

btw, I would completely include that you were a finalist in the national spelling bee…it doesn’t matter that it happened in 7th grade…that’s the only grade it could happen in…and its a big/quirky plus for you, I think.

20

Out of curiosity, and because I am fed up with NBC showing commercials during the Olympics, I googled the acceptance rates, and saw some surprises:
NU 10%
Rice 14%
USC 17%
Colby 17.8%
Bates 21.8%
Colgate 27%
Grinnell 28%
Wellesley 28%
Bard 32%
Oberlin 33%
Reed 36%
Smith 36%
Skidmore 37%
CWRU 38%
Bryn Mawr 40%

Bear in mind that I think every one of these colleges practice holistic admissions, except USC perhaps. As it stands, and as an international looking for fianancial aid, you don’t have a safety. A safety is generally a college with an acceptance rate over 50% and where your stats are well above the 50th percentile, and preferably above the 75th. Find out which, if any, of these colleges offer good aid to internationals. Remember too, holistic admissions are not predictable, so any number of factors can influence your chances, including essays, recommendations, interviews, expressing interest, and ECs, amongst other things. These unpredictable factors are the main reason why it is very important to have a balanced list of safety, match and reach schools.