Hi,
My D was rejected at Stanford REA. shes now to other top schools in their RD, but I know chances now are lower than in the early action round. Can anyone tell me how bad are her chances at Harvard, Upenn, Columbia, Northwestern and other top schools… her stats are:
SAT: 1520
ACT: 35
SAT II:
Math 2: 750
US History 750
World History 780
Spanish 800
Unweighted GPA 4.17 (school does not say whats the max)
Weighted GPA: 4.68
Rank: School does not rank but she is going to be her class Valedvictorian (class of 96 ppl- small private Jewish school with good record but kids have only applied to few top schools like Penn or Columbia, and gotten in…)
AP (place score in parenthesis):
AP Human Geography (5)
AP US History (5)
AP Calc AB (5)
AP Leng and comp (5)
AP Comp Sci (4).
AP world (5)
AP Physics (4)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Lang, AP Compsci 2 AP phisics 2 AP Gov Hebrew honors 7
Subjective:
Harvard Book Award
National Merit scholar semifinalist
National Honor society
Book club (Founder)
Lifegard - has worked for the past 3 summers at the local JCC
swim instructor (WSI certified) - works 1 to 2 h / week during the school year.
Dance instructure (Folkloric Israeli dance) - works 3h / week during the school year
More than enough social hours
The best answer to that is that her chances are equal to the school’s admissions rate. Your D seems very much like a typical applicant to all these schools, so it will just come down to chance and whether her personality and achievements shine through on her application. None of the listed schools are a lock, but none are ridiculous reaches either. If I had to guess, she would probably get into one or two of the top schools.
Nice stats, I actually put your D as an above-average applicant to her top choices, but that’s no guarantee of admission. While I think she’ll get in to at least one of her “reaches for everybody,” she does need to add a couple target schools, and at least one really great safety.
Strong stat profile, but EC’s are just ok. Stats are only typical for an unhooked applicant at these schools. So assuming D is unhooked, take the acceptance rates and cut them in half - yes, all are low to mid-single digits…
Assume there are 4 matches and 2-3 safeties in the mix as well - for someone with this profile, matches are where stats are well within top-25% and acceptance rate is in the 15-25% range.
Take a look at the admissions stats for Stanford and Brown, more or less a peer school (not all schools present them this way, but it’s helpful perspective even if it’s not the specific school you’re looking at).
So you’ll see that being valedictorian is great, but Brown, for example, admits only about 19% of valedictorians who apply.
Similarly, a 35 is an excellent ACT score, but Stanford admits just 4% of those that apply with a 30-36 score. Brown admits just 11% of those with a 33-35 score.
You can go down the list but the point is that chances of admission are very small, even for very highly qualified applicants. There are a lot of highly qualified fish in the sea. Maybe she’ll get in to one of the others. Maybe she won’t.
But the good news is there are a lot of great schools out there, and all those other great students are going to be at those schools too. Your D should broaden her horizons and find an assortment of appealing schools with a range of selectivity. Many schools where she’ll get an excellent experience would be thrilled to have her. And she will absolutely find her peers there, too.
agree with @porcupine98 as 35 ACT / 1550 SAT students are at all of the top-20 universities and LAC’s - and not small percentages, as typically 30-40% of admits and 25% of attendees.
@NFMOM, your D stats is strong and she PROBABLY will get in one or two schools from Harvard, Upenn, Columbia, Northwestern or other top schools BUT she MIGHT get NONE.
I suggest your D adds Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Duke, etc. for the 2nd SafetyNet and
some top public schools, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, etc. for the 3rd SafetyNet and
one of your local state U for the final SafetyNet.
Agree with @porcupine98 on top-100, and on a need for a wisely crafted list as the current admissions field is full of high stat students that over-reached, didn’t have any real matches, and ended up at a safety that they never envisioned themselves at…
“I suggest your D adds Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Duke, etc. for the 2nd SafetyNet and
some top public schools, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, etc. for the 3rd SafetyNet”
I respectfully disagree that any of these schools could be considered a “safety” - maybe UMich if in-state, and likely UNC if in-state.
OP, your D has great stats but I agree that she needs to have some matches and safeties in the mix.
@bsmdegree, there is a 95% chance that she won’t get into any, and no you can’t apply to 10 more similar schools and increase your odds.
agree with @suzy100, there aren’t any SafetyNet2 or SafetyNet3 schools in posting #9 - ALL of the “SafetyNet2’s” are a reach for EVERYONE. Some of the “SafetyNet3’s” are still low reaches for an OSS - Michigan has a combined IS and OSS median ACT of 31-34.
Duke has historically been (and continues to remain) more selective than NU and is occasionally more selective than Penn. I’m not sure how the previous poster arrived at the conclusion that Duke and Cornell are safeties while Penn and NU are super-reaches. The trouble with websites like this one is that people are swayed by opinions that have no basis in fact. OP, you would probably be better served by doing your own research using publicly available data from college websites and newspapers like the WaPo.
I’m sure that your daughter will have a great experience at a world-class university. I wish her nothing but the best.
@JenniferClint Duke is not more selective than Penn and has never really been more selective in recent memory. If anything Penn has been slightly more selective through the years. But yes, for all intents and purposes they are similarly selective. I agree the above comment is bizarre. Not just for Duke but also for Cornell and JHU.
I’m very familiar with both schools and their overall acceptance rates are usually within 1-2% of each other. You’re correct in saying that Penn has been marginally more selective for the past few cycles but there have been years when the opposite has been true. I guess it also depends on your definition of “recent memory”. These things change very rapidly. For example, while Dartmouth was more selective than both Penn and Duke for a few years. It is considerably less selective today (in relative terms).
@JenniferClint Dartmouth is within 1-2 percent of Duke’s acceptance rate this year (9.2 Duke vs 10.4 Dartmouth) with Duke taking 50% during early decision, so idk what you mean by “considerably less selective.” Also, last year Duke’s acceptance rate was 10.7 while Dartmouth’s was 10.5. The two are pretty equally selective.
Going from being 1-2% more selective to 1-2% less selective is a 4 point swing. That’s a big change as far as college admissions are concerned. The difference between Harvard/Stanford and Penn/Duke is 4-6 points. Also, Dartmouth accepts virtually 50% of its class in the ED round (47% this year) and the difference in ED acceptance rates is now 6% (vs Penn) and 4% (Duke).
Just to clarify, these differences are obviously pretty insignificant from the layperson’s perspective. I used “in relative terms” for a reason.
These differences make absolutely no different from the perspective of any given applicant, and distract from the larger issue.
While there is no problem with the OP’s daughter INCLUDING some extremely selective schools in the list, since she has a strong profile and any given one of them MIGHT choose to accept her; she also has to include some significantly less selective (yet still excellent) schools in the list to be assured of admission to a school at which she will be able to thrive.
Note that “less selective” does not mean “third rate.” Schools with higher admit rates are still fussy about student qualifications, they just don’t have everyone banging down their door because if the name brand. Perhaps “less competitive” is a better word? In any case, find some schools with strong student populations but 20-30%+ admit rates, and a few with maybe not quite as strong student populations but still excellent teaching where your kid would be a star (but not bored). Help her make sure she has options when April rolls around.