Thanks for the really lengthy message. As you said, I do indeed have much “homework” to do regarding the college application process and I really do need to diversify the schools at which I’ll be applying to. I’d probably add 2 or likely schools but I wanted to ask for your recommendations on some “match” colleges. I’m not really sure where I want to apply because I’d like to go to a competitive university but am blinded by the prestige of top institutions. A school similar to the university of michigan or university of virginia would be an ideal school but i’m not sure whether I’d be able to live in those areas. Do you know of any other schools that fit my preferences that I should apply to? As for the financial situation, I will have to sort that out with my parents and really go over how I plan on paying for college, though my parents have said that they are willing to take a loan and pay for my education at a prestigious university. Also, I guess 11 reaches was reckless but do you think that Stony Brook would be a target and UVA a reach. I’m above the 75th percentile for SAT scores at Stony and am near that percentile at UVA. So, would UVA technically be a target/match. I’m still really confused on what schools I plan on applying to. Thanks for all your advice and the thought you put into that message, I appreciate it.
Thank you!!! I was told that I can’t qualify for any in-state tuition rates if I move schools senior year so that’s out of the realm of possibility for me. Yes, i’ll definitely have to talk everything out with my parents and get a better understanding of financial possibilities. I just threw Georgetown on there as I know they’re a prestigious university and my mom likes the school (she hasn’t been there though). I just assumed that georgetown would have strong academics across the board. thanks for your response.
Yeah, I received a 730 on the reading section (typo). I wanted to ask for advice as I know that Cornell is a reach and understand that I would certainly not have a guarantee at being admitted. However, I have only recently prioritized Cornell as a top choice and that’s mainly due to it’s prestige (ivy league). Additionally, I wouldn’t want to be heart-broken knowing that I wasn’t a competitive applicant to begin with. It’s just that I haven’t yet decided where I want to ED and only selected Cornell as they offer one of the highest ED rates and are among the least competitive ivy league schools. thanks!
I’d say that Stony Brook, Binghamton and Albany are likely among the three best schools but the SUNY system has expanded and there are a number of SUNY schools now. Farmingdale isn’t really a competitive or stand-out college but it’s a safety where I’m essentially guaranteed admission. thanks for your response
Farmingdale State does not have any ABET-accredited engineering majors (although it does have some ABET-accredited engineering technology majors). It has an applied math major, but no pure math major, and pure math upper level courses appear to be limited.
You may want to see how likely admission to CUNY City College is, since it offers several ABET-accredited engineering majors and a greater number of upper level math courses.
You may also want to add more of the SUNY university center campuses.
When categorizing chances for admission, I generally use these categories:
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Extremely Likely: 80-99+%
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Likely: 60-79%
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Toss-Up: 40-59%
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Lower Probability: 20-39%
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Low Probability: Less than 20%
When chancing a student, the first thing I do is look at a school’s admission rate. If the percentage is below 20%, particularly below 15%, then that school almost always remains in that category, no matter how amazing the student. (Sometimes if an admit rate is in the high teens and a person seems like a particularly good fit and particularly outstanding, then I might move it into the lower probability category.)
Additionally, if you’re looking at the admit rate for a public school, you want to take a look at its admit rate for out-of-state students, if it’s possible to find. Generally, admit rates for OOS students are much lower than for in-state students.
For categories outside of the low probability category, if a student test scores are above the 75th percentile, then I will usually bump the likelihood of a school up one category. If a student’s test scores are below the 25th percentile, then I will look at what percentage of students submitted a test score. If the majority of students submit a test, then I would move the school down a category in terms of likelihood.
When looking at GPAs, I do the same thing.
So essentially, if you’re looking for a school that is extremely likely to admit you, it will probably not have an admit rate below 60% (assuming that you were above the 75th percentile for GPA and test scores, it might boost you up one category to 80%).
If a school has less than a 20% chance of admission for people of your category (like out-of-state), then it should be considered a low probability school, even if you’re above the 75th percentile.
ETA: I realize I forgot to indicate what a school like UVA would be. In Early Action in 2023, UVA accepted 12% of the OOS applicants (source). In Regular Decision (RD) it accepted 8% of OOS applicants (source). All of this to say, UVA is a low probability school for any OOS applicant, even those that are above the 75th percentile.
I am hoping that you will qualify for in-state status in at least 1 of your 3 states (NY, MA or VA) because all of them have high quality public universities. I am even crossing my fingers you will qualify in more than one (as an example, my D25 has a friend who qualifies in both the state where she lives with her mom and attends high school AND in Virginia where her dad has lived for many years.) Then once I had determined in which state/s I qualified for residency, then I would apply to 2-3 public universities in each state I qualified in. I would make sure that ALL of these schools I applied to had Bio, Engineering and Math majors, unless in the next year I had 100% ruled out one of these majors.
For example, if I had residency in VA, I would apply to UVA, VTech, and 1 other (whichever one you like best of the remaining schools.) In MA, I would apply to UMass Amherst plus 2 others (Lowell, UMassBoston etc.) In NY, I would apply to Stony Brook, Bing, plus at least 1 other (Buffalo etc.)
I understand that you like Long Island, but I would not limit myself to only schools on Long Island unless for whatever reason you end up having to live with family there etc. I mean if you get into Stony Brook (and I think you will) then great. But if for some reason you don’t, I don’t think Farmington State is a suitable substitute in your case because they don’t offer most of your probable majors.
I see. IMHO, if you’re committed staying within commuting distance of Long Island after you get your degree, you should add Stony Brook.
So our HS uses the College Kickstart definitions:
Schools are categorized based on a combination of how your academic profile compares to college’s enrolled student distribution, and its admit rate. Both of those can be tricky to ascertain, including because you really want to use the right numbers for your type of applicant. So, like, both the academic profile and admit rate might be different for different specialty schools/direct-admit majors, it might depend on whether you are in-state or out-of-state, and so on. Sometimes you have to make educated guesses, in which case you should try to be conservative.
OK, so, UVA. Here is their Common Data Set:
In-state, their admit rate was 27.5%, OOS it was 13.2%. If you look at those Kickstart definitions, this means OOS, UVA can’t be better than a Reach, and then only if you have solid numbers for UVA. In-state, it could BARELY be a Target. We sometimes call these harder Targets, and similarly there can be softer Reaches.
So would you be in-state or OOS? Well, here are the rules:
https://vastatus.virginia.edu/virginia-domicile-requirements
Off hand based on what you described it seems likely to me you would be OOS, but you should determine that for yourself.
Taking a step back:
So this is not an uncommon attitude among some parents, but between us, such parents sometimes really need a reality check. Depending on what they mean by a “prestigious university,” they may be talking about only a small number of undergrad programs with a small number of enrollment slots available in total, with a much larger number of highly-qualified applicants hoping to get one of those slots. So necessarily, many highly-qualified applicants will not be able to go to one of those undergrad programs–there are far too few slots available.
And there is no strategy involving applying to a lot of these colleges, applying ED, or so on that can change that math. If such strategies worked like that, then all those applicants would do that and they would all get a slot–and that can’t happen because there are far too many applicants and far too few slots. So we KNOW that can’t really work.
That said, that doesn’t mean I think your parents should automatically take out a lot of loans for college. Indeed, I don’t really think they should do that for even those “prestigious” colleges, although that is a whole other conversation.
But what they, and of course you, should understand is that even if your really good numbers don’t get you into one of those handful of undergrad programs, there are still many, many different ways they can be used to your advantage besides that.
Again, broadly speaking, one thing you can do with such numbers is just be very picky about the type of college experience, academically and non-academically, you want. Just focusing on academics by way of example, it turns out the “prestigious” undergrad programs (if by that you mean ones with high generic rankings in the US News, or the ones peers and family members are likely to have heard of, or something similarly generic) do not at all have a monopoly on the top undergrad programs in any given academic field. Depending on what you are talking about, there may be excellent undergrad programs at a variety of public research universities, private research universities, and undergrad-focused institutions, aka LACs.
For this purpose, I sometimes like looking at PhD feeder studies. This is not definitive, and in particular you should not think if a college is not on these lists it can’t have a good program. But you mentioned Math, so let’s look at Math:
These have both totals lists and per capita list. On the totals list, it starts with some of the usual suspects, but right at #10 you have Minnesota. Minnesota in general is a very desirable university in many ways–Math is far from its only very strong department, it has a nice location in a very fun and friendly city, it is a Big 10 sports school, it has transparent merit for OOS kids . . . lots of good stuff. But it is also in Minnesota, so it is not flooded by applications, which means it can be a Target or Likely for higher number kids. So that right there is a great use of higher numbers.
OK, then per capita is on the right, and immediately you start seeing some smaller colleges doing really well. And some of those are Reaches too, but then once again I would single out the #10 school, St Olaf. St Olaf is a forum favorite LAC because it again has so many strong departments, it has a very nice culture, it has merit, but it is not flooded with applications . . . and guess where it is? Yep, Minnesota. Again, another potentially great use of high numbers.
OK, so as all this is illustrating, not only can you use high numbers to pick out academically strong colleges like Minnesota and St Olaf, you can also use them to get merit at colleges like that. Which can really help in terms of limiting how much your family has to take out in terms of loans and such. And all possible because of your numbers.
By the way, Stony Brook is at #15 on the totals list for Math. And if you didn’t already have it on your list, it would be a great one to add! Even if you aren’t in-state, and definitely if you are.
OK, so hopefully you can work your parents around to this way of thinking. If you want to take your shot at a few of those colleges the US News really likes and that get flooded with highly qualified applications, fine, but understand why many such applicants will not get into any such colleges no matter what they do. But then think about other great ways to use your numbers to your advantage, including being able to pick the absolute best college experiences for you, chase merit as desired, and so on.
Now that you’ve explained it, I would recommend that IF you select an ED school, you need to pick your absolute number one school after determining that it is affordable after checking the net price calculator. Visit if at all possible before applying. And yes, Cornell usually does have the highest acceptance rate in the Ivy League, mostly because it is the biggest. The ED acceptance rate at all of these schools includes recruited athletes, children of donors/alumni, and other hooked applicants. Cornell’s ED rate also includes a large number of NY residents who have applied to the handful of contract colleges that have lower tuition for New Yorkers.
I have no idea if Cornell is the right school for you. It sounds like you don’t know either. The good news is that you’ve got time to get it figured out.
You don’t have to go to a prestigious university to go to school.
What I’m concerned about is the fact that you think there’s an endless amount of money that will fund you.
When you’re talking about loans, they base the loans on the collateral that your parents present to the loan institutions/banks. So if your mom is going to take out loans to go to medical school, and your parents think they’re going to take out loans, to provide for your schooling, at some point, the bank says “no”.
You can run out of options in loans. What happens if you start going to a university and you’re relying on loans, and then you find out that no bank is going to loan you any more money and you’re stuck 2 1/2 years into your college education and you can’t pay your bill?
What do you do then? Please get this starry-eyed version of prestigious universities out of your system; apply to some of them but understand that there are so many students that have fantastic stats and they’re all applying to the same schools.
Our eldest daughter got into many prestigious schools. We’re in California. She got into the UC’s but she chose the University of Buffalo, a SUNY school, because they offered her a full ride at the time, and they offered her the chance to attend medical school.
She ended up choosing engineering, got a great education and came back to California and is killing it here. Most people think that Buffalo isn’t in a great location and gets a lot of averse weather. You don’t have to live there the rest of your life. You go and you get a great education there and you get employed and do what you love.
Our other two went to phenomenal universities and we ended up paying a lot of money, but they became aware that the university is what you make it, and there are great professors and schools everywhere.
You’re seeing the name of the university and that’s gonna be a hindrance for you. Take the advice of the posters on this page and learn some information.
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