Chance me/Match me for my daughter [AZ resident, 4.0 UW, 36 ACT, biochemistry, $80K/yr]

Your daughter is a very strong student, and is likely to do very well regardless of which university she attends. She appears to be academically well qualified to do well at Princeton, if she gets accepted and chooses to go there.

However, somewhere between 80% and 85% of the applicants to top universities such as Princeton are similarly very strong students. The acceptance rate for Princeton is probably somewhere between 4% and 6%. Also, of the students accepted, a large number (perhaps half or slightly more?) will either be athletes, under-represented minorities, or legacy students. This suggests that your daughter’s chances for admissions to Princeton is probably no better than the overall acceptance rate.

With a degree in biochemistry, it is possible to get a good job with a bachelor’s degree – particularly if the recent graduate has quite a bit of related research experience that can be obtained through internships and research projects while an undergraduate student. However, quite a few students with biochemistry degrees go on to some form of graduate program, such as an MD or a master’s degree (either of which is typically not funded) or a PhD (which typically is funded by the university). If some form of unfunded graduate program is likely, then saving some money in a college fund is a good plan. Avoiding or minimizing debt is usually a good idea for any student, if this is possible.

Princeton might or might not cost more than $80,000 per year depending upon your family’s financials. You might want to run the NPC to find out what it is likely to cost you. If you Google “Net Price Calculator Princeton University” you will find the NPC for Princeton.

Students should think about what they want in a university, and look for schools that would be a good fit for them. What is a good fit for your daughter might be completely different from what was a good fit for either of my daughters (and my two daughters went to universities that were quite different, but both were good fits for them).

The most important “job one” is to find at least one or preferably two safeties to apply to. Given that you are in-state in Arizona, these might be in-state public universities. You are also in a WICHE/WUE state, so various universities that participate in the WUE program are possibilities as well.

Also, it sounds like your daughter is doing very well. I expect that you are very proud of her.

2 Likes