Chance Me (International Relations & French) For Yale REA, Brown, Princeton, UVA, Penn Huntsman

What a solid record! The party line here is that — with hyper-rejective schools like the ones on your list — there’s no way that we can give an accurate “chancing”. That being said, you’ve done a terrific job in high school, and I hope the application process goes well for you!

One area where we can be more helpful is with the request for targets.

The first place I like to look is College Navigator, which pulls IPEDS data and gives you a clunky-but-useful interface to filter it. I’ve done a preliminary search for you, to find schools on the east coast that accept more than 20% of applicants, that have a 25th percentile ACT score of 30, and that have an international relations major. That search (you can see it, or tweak it, here) returns 14 schools that meet those criteria (though one, Mount Holyoke, is a women’s college). (Five of them are medium-sized (like Yale, Brown, Princeton), and I’ve bolded those in the list below.)

Bennington College
Bucknell University
Clark University
Connecticut College
Fordham University
George Washington University
Lafayette College
Lehigh University
Skidmore College
University of Maryland-College Park
University of Rochester
Villanova University
William & Mary

I’m not sure if you’ve investigated any of those already, or if any have stood out as schools you want to explore more deeply, but all of them are worth a look.

Another thing that would be helpful in terms of recommendations would be noting what your budget is for school. Have you had that conversation with your parents yet?

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