Thanks for the lesson. I’m aware of the differences. The point is that you should not discount a school because it happens to be a “college” and not a “university”, especially given your intended major.
I happen to know students at both Harvard and Swarthmore. Their undergraduate experiences are not really that different.
Good luck to you. I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Hopefully by now this high school student has received enough feedback and can take some time away from CC and reflect on their options. As it doesn’t seem recent posts are sharing any new information, I’m setting this thread to close at midnight. If the OP would like it reopened they can message a moderator.
Best of luck to the OP.
I have a (social sciences) PhD from a T20 and fundraise for a nonprofit 
Never ceases to surprise me how many of “us” indulge these posts that jump the shark almost immediately. It’s great to try and help out a younger person who ostensibly has a fundamental misunderstanding of the landscape (Georgia Tech mediocre; Swarthmore is a college; Ivy = CEO; T20 = better future analysis) with a few efforts to re-orient. But once we’re told that the feet are taped to the pedals, it’s probably best to just let nature (with or without Darwin) take its course.
OP, good luck. Apply wherever you want. Nobody here can really handicap your odds to the T20 and provide what I think you’re looking for. Just do it the way you want to do it.
My points were that (1) USN does not provide a general ranking of post secondary institutions and that (2) any “T-20” designation can be clear only when associated with a particular source. Nonetheless, since it seems you would like to attend a large institution, with various divisions, rather than a purely undergraduate-focused school, USN’s National Universities list seems appropriate for you.
Irrespective of its categorization, Swarthmore fills its incoming classes with disproportionately brilliant students. Its academic standards and 7% acceptance rate make it inaccessible to most college applicants, however.
The audience isn’t just the OP as you well know. It’s other parents and other kids some of whom may have the same biases but not quite as fully baked. And for THEM- hey, maybe it helps to understand that smart and successful people go to all kinds of colleges with lots and lots of terrific outcomes.
So is the OP checked out? Probably. But if there’s one kid out there thinking “my life might not be over if I get rejected from Harvard AND Yale”- it’s worth it, no?
Hello helpful_poetry,
Congratulations on your many achievements!
I think you have an academic profile that makes you a competitive applicant to many top schools (as an aside I’m not sure if you are only looking at T20 universities or also LACs, but either way you are competitive.)
Most schools have a “why us” (or words to that effect) essay prompt. I believe you will be far less competitive at any of the top 20s if your primary basis for applying to them was their high rank. They want to see that you have actually studied the schools, studied your own self, and thoughtfully tried to match student with institution.
Please consider reading this paper from Stanford education researchers.
In a nutshell, it argues rank, selectivity, and perceived prestige should not be the primary factors in choosing a college. Instead they recommend selecting on the basis of fit, specifically in terms of potential for maximizing engagement.
You’ve probably heard the term “fit” in the context of college searches before. It can mean a lot of things, but this paper cites six key opportunities for engagement identified by Gallup-Purdue studies that are key to “thriving in life after college" (p17.) My advice is to research which colleges match your interests and learning style with regards to these recommended experiences. I believe that will help you identify what schools might be best for you personally as well as inform more compelling essays.
Here are the six experiences (also p17), and some suggestions on how to think about them:
“1. Taking a course with a professor who makes learning exciting.”
Ask yourself which teachers have made learning exciting to you in high school and why. Was it mostly because they were unusually expert? Unusually interactive in the classroom? Unusually personable outside it? Now ask yourself which schools might recreate what you liked most and what sorts of trade-offs you could expect. Some schools might have classes offered by leaders in the field, but in larger or less interactive classes; others might have smaller classes but the professors might not be as famous, etc.
“2. Working with professors who care about students personally.”
Smaller schools tend to have an advantage on this one, especially the LACs that only have undergrads but still offer research and independent study opportunities. However, it can happen anywhere, and the degree to which you care about being cared about might not be the same as someone else. Still, it’s probably worth asking yourself which teachers seemed to care most about you in high school, how that care was demonstrated, and at which colleges you think something like that is most likely to recur.
“3. Finding a mentor who encourages students to pursue personal goals.”
I think one way to research this would be to look at what profs at specific colleges are doing things you find of interest. Review their individual web pages. They might mention students they are working with or advising. If it’s a university, do they mention undergrads? Sometimes on their publications page they will denote which co-authors are grad students vs undergrads.
“4. Working on a project across several semesters.”
Most schools have options for independent projects. A subset have them built into the required curriculum. Still fewer have ways to peek at titles of past projects so you can get a sense of what students actually do. If you’ve done an independent project before, ask yourself what helped or was an obstacle. Some people like having more structure, which is probably more likely at a school where such projects are a standard curriculum component.
“5. Participating in an internship that applies classroom learning.”
What can you glean from a college’s website about the frequency and quality of internship opportunities they advertise? You might want to try reading the weekly newsletter for the departments of interest across different schools. They can reveal quite a bit!
“6. Being active in extracurricular activities.”
Which activities do you hope to continue or start anew? They are probably offered at all or most of the schools on your list, but some will be more regular than others, some will require competing for a spot, etc. Do you prefer sampling many different things or more selectivity in ECs? I will add that it might be helpful to consider the effects of living on or off campus in terms of engaging with student activities regularly. There’s a lot of housing variability, even within peer schools. A school may guarantee housing, but is it on campus, or 20 min away?
I agree with those (like the authors of the Stanford paper) recommending a focus on fit to drive long-term value from a college experience. Based on personal experiences and all sources I’m aware of, “why us” essays showing sensitivity towards fit will generally fare considerably better than those focusing on rank. I hope the above examples and suggestions are of some use to you.
Good luck!
Yeah, I get it. I’m not trying to bust anyone’s chops. But in these threads in particular - in which you run into a level of obstinance (and a few other adjectives I won’t share) that cause the whole discussion to become muddled and the salient points lost in a sea of distracting statements - I wonder if anyone is really served. It’s like trying to teach the finer points of driving while cruising by a 15 car pile up. There’s probably a good lesson there, but it’s hard to not be distracted by the spectacle.
Anyway, who am I to judge. I once got into in multi-post debate about Texas with a Texan who expressed concern about, among other crazy things, brown spots on the grass.
Anyway, I agreed with your post for whatever that’s worth.
Ah, timing couldn’t be better (LOL):
If you’re not responding to the OP, there is no reason to post here. A Chance Me thread is not the place for off-topic debate, nor is it the place to try to educate future hypothetical readers. Educating the OP is fine, with the caveat that she doesn’t seem open to contrasting points of view. But kindly refrain from simply piling on.
Further OT posts are subject to deletion without comment.
Actually, when you eventually attend a “mediocre” university for your MBA, you’ll probably come across a study that indicates otherwise (companies, including colleges, often raise prices to keep up with the competition.)
The reason I said it makes zero sense is that schools are different and how well you fit, and how happy you are, invariably affects how well you do. Fit matters! Someone who is happy at Princeton might not enjoy UMich very much, someone who loves Dartmouth might not thrive at Penn or Columbia.
I am all for taking your shot after you got a solid safety down, but the schools need to make sense for who you are and what you want to study. No one is going to be short of opportunities because they attended William and Mary, or Emory, or Kenyon, or U of Richmond, or Lehigh. In fact, they might do even better. Not to mention lower ranked schools are often very strong in certain fields. No one is going to dismiss a writer from University of Iowa or pass on a Marine Biologist from U Miami. A CS major from Rutgers has the edge on the one from Georgetown.
You are likely someone who is interested in getting an advanced degree. Being a big fish can open a lot of doors and the prestige of your graduate degree matters so much more. DD has a friend who is killing it a Richmond and another who is stressing out at JHU. I have no doubt who will be in a better position come time to apply to med school.
We know someone who did what you are doing. She is very smart and landed at one of these school but her results did not reflect her grades, because she wasn’t the type of student for many of the colleges.
Applying blind to T20s simply shows that you don’t know yourself.
This is not an absolute truth.
But it sounds like your mind is made up. So…what advice are you actually seeking here?
I will be honest here. I am actually a parent posting for my kid and just assessing various such forums out there that kids frequent in terms of what kind of advice people are putting out there. The academic profile is real though. I posted and was going along well in first few responses - but what riled me up was the tone of these so called “adult advisors with Doctorate” who supposedly while talking to a student - started using personal comments such as “uneducated” comment, reference to my culture and what not… so had to respond and engage in discussion in kind.
One thing is for sure, will advise my kid and her friends to stay away from such forums. People here just don’t get it that when a kid is posting his/her steller credential after doing their thorough homework… it doesn’t take much to offer encouragement and say something like “you go boy” or “you go girl” …“you can do it” “you have the credentials”… and at the same time offer suggestion for improvement. Instead people here seem like they have earned a right to give dream crushing advise in the name of tough love. Poeple here are simply attacking on a personal level…
My last comment, that was.
It did not help that in post #4, you stirred up the controversy with this statement:
And it went downhill from there with this:
Being an impostor / lying is not good.
In the end, I think you got sound advice
You only need one affordable and after that where you apply doesn’t matter. But be ready for rejection.
Schools are not all equal and I’m talking about in attribute and you went from top 20 and removed many in cold places, seemingly understanding that, so differing from your initial all top 20 statement.
Ranking are just that and they vary by publication. But those using US News are using a ranking that is the reason they are using it to begin with - $$. And yet both payscale and the WSJ better represent. In fact I don’t believe US News uses salary at all.
Honestly not sure your student needs unfiltered opinions. And that’s what these are.
You set the tone.
The questions were truthfully answered to the best of each person’s abilities.
Please don’t purposely lie - what does that say about you ?
Good luck
It is far more often superficial cheerleading that leads to crushed dreams when it comes to selective college admissions.
If a student would just like some validation, that is fine, and many members here are willing to provide that kind of moral support WHEN the student is upfront about seeking only that.
But when they ask for a chance me/match me, then make wild and inaccurate claims about the importance of a T20 to a future career (while denigrating other colleges and universities in the process), then that is a different matter entirely and in fact they are clearly in need of a dose of reality, which is what members here offered. And appropriately so.
Closing as thread violates ToS