My NJ daughter with only a 33 act got enough merit from Bing to get it below Rutgers (Rutgers gave her $0). She didn’t go to either.
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Haha, her list is wide and varied! Chemistry/physics/philosophy/English (creative writing)/public policy. And an outside chance of engineering (chemical or materials science). And it’s now March of her senior year with college decisions coming. She still has time to decide (except engineering which isn’t offered at all the schools she applied). And a lot of that is interdisciplinary as well with a cross between science and public policy as one combination she’s particularly interested in today. Or maybe it’s physics and philosophy…
All to say, that the option value was somewhat more important for her because she just isn’t sure what she wants.
Woah!! Can I ask where your daughter ended up at? Did cost play into a role?
Oooh that’s really cool :00 Best of luck to your daughter :DDD
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Clemson, out of left field! Last minute application, no one from our HS ever went there, she only got $10,000 a year (they are not known for good merit, many other schools were less expensive), but it was spring of 2021, no normal senior year, college visits, she visited Bing but it wasn’t a tour, just a walk around, her twin brother committed to Rutgers and she didn’t want to go to college with him (they get along great, overlapping friend group). She flew down the end of April and fell in love with it immediately (finance major). She has loans but works in actuarial science which pay well starting out.
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As a future-looking comment, consider the Hamilton College Summer Program in Philosophy at the appropriate time. The program is open to students from other undergraduate institutions and provides a stipend to those who attend.
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Wowww amazing that she loved it immediately!!
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Thank you so much!! That sounds like the perfect opportunity :0
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I think there’s no downside to taking your best shot at one of your reaches with SECA. You will have a great peace of mind if you get in.
Do you have any suggestions on which school maybe? I think it would be okay with me as well considering I would be able to apply to rutgers and upitt regardless…
If I were to scea it would between Yale, Princeton, or Stanford maybe? And then I could shoot my shot elsewhere as needed rd
I think you’d have as good a chance as any other applicants applying SECA/EA to reach schools on your list. To which school to apply to SECA, that will be totally your choice.
Sorry for the additional question so late!!
I’ve been looking at maybe cutting down my reach list. If 11 reach schools are too many, what would be a reasonable number? I think some schools like Williams doesn’t have any additional supplementals as they just ask for a writing sample– could I keep those schools without much trade-off?
Thanks a bunch!!
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It’s all about workload. Get an definite in (Pitt and Rutgers) and you can apply where you want.
So you can take your list, see how many extra essays each has, etc. and prioritize so that if you do get worn down, you hit your most desirable at least.
But it’s independent to the person. Some can apply to 40. Others crap out at 8.
Keep a spreadsheet so you know - and don’t forget many essays are either repetitive or close to repetitive so can be used multiple times, etc.
My daughter even had one - a supplemental - that her common worked for so she used common for the supplemental, and then moved a supplemental for another school into common - using the write an essay about anything.
But it’s all about your workload at the time - but given Pitt and Rutgers are home run admissions for your interests, you can adjust as needed because those two might be the “best” schools on your list anyway.
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If I were applying now, or in the near future, rather than cut the list of reach schools I might prioritize it. First I would send in applications to at least two safeties, and possibly to all of my safeties. Then I would pick two or three or four of the reach schools that were my top choices, and apply there. Then I would pick a couple more and apply there. Then I would see how long this took and how much energy I had left.
If it were me, I would first make sure that I had a solid safety on the list, and assuming that your four “likelies” include at least one solid safety would apply to all four. Then I would probably send in applications to Stanford, Princeton, and Williams, but that is just because these are schools that would be high on my list (I actually got my masters at Stanford and loved it, and for a while have had Princeton on the top of my list of “schools I never applied to and cannot figure out why not”). Your list might have a completely different prioritization. Then I would think about which schools to apply to next.
And yes, how difficult the application is might impact my list a bit.
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Did you look at the Shepherd schools I posted upthread. Those tie in directly with your interest in social justice / poverty, etc.
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I see!! Thank you sm! Also– yes on the Shepherd list!! I think I’ll also be applying to W&L because I asked a couple questions about it and it seemed to fit up really nicely with my needs in a school :DDD Middlebury is also pretty cool because of their language aspect (if I do get into NSLI-Y that would be a really nice pairing to see if I’m still interested in like international diplomacy and that sort of field)!
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I see!! So maybe rather than having a hard list just like maybe group them into how high on the list it would be, and complete them in batches/stagger them and just see how things play out as you’re applying?
That’s so cool that you got your masters at Stanford :0 I think it’s definitely one of my tops along with I’d say Yale and Swarthmore? I haven’t had the chance to visit Princeton yet so things might change… Could I maybe ask a bit more about your experience at Stanford/what was your favorite/least favorite part of it?
The issue with Midd is money. No merit aid. W&L has the Johnson Scholarship and others. So if you are serious about Law School and no debt, then Midd shouldn’t be on your list - for that reason alone.
If you are interested in language, you should actually look at a language flagship school - which will give you mad merit and put you in good shape for a political/global type job should you not go to law school. You may not love the schools on the list (it’s language of interest dependent) but it’s a great path.
The College of Charleston International Scholars (in addition to the Fellows) also works for a language lover. Indiana U will be too much (unless in the Language Flagship) but is very strong in languages - but no doubt Rutgers/Pitt will have the languages you need.
You really have to decide on budget - because schools like Yale….and most likely Swat (although they have hard to get merit) - they will ruin your debt free law school - so if you don’t want debt, you don’t want Yale. There’s no gray area there.
Not sure your language but if it’s Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese or Russian - and you want to be fully immersed, this might be a program for you to consider.
Classes go fast. There is a lot of homework. They are on the quarter system so the end of the quarter comes up more quickly than you might expect. You better be ready. However, this also means that you get to take more classes in a school year. When I was there I wanted to work that hard, and wanted to prove to myself that I could do it (and yes I did prove this to myself). The desire to work that hard came from inside myself, and I loved it.
I was there during a drought, and it did not rain one drop the entire time that I was there. This meant that the weather was very mild and kind for someone who was used to weather in the northeast. I did get mildly surprised to discover that frost is just barely possible, and a couple of plants suffered because I did not predict this.
One thing was specific to the fact that I was a graduate student: Every class was either in my major or a closely related field (with one exception). My field was a subfield of applied math which is specifically what I like and I am good at. The one exception was econometrics, which is quantitative economics. Econometrics uses quite a bit of applied math. Thus even for me as a math major the hard part of the course was the mathematical content, rather than the economics content.
Overall I liked the classes, liked the weather, and liked being able to do well in tough classes. There were a few exams with some VERY hard problems on them, which to me was sort of like a fun puzzle. When you know that 80% of the class will not be able to solve a particular problem the pressure is off, and you are just trying to solve it for the thrill of solving it.
You need to want to do it. At the time I did want to do it.
This was a long time ago so the cost of attendance was way lower than it is now.
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None of the schools on OP’s original reach list offer significant merit aid. Should OP discard all of them as well?