What she likes is a competitive school that will challenge her academically, with a student body of high ambitious students. She doesn’t care in the least about rankings, but obviously there is a correlation between rankings and being an academically competitive school.
To give you a sense, in this years graduating class, the kids with her GPA have committed to, 3 to Harvard, 1 to Yale, 2 to Brown, 1 to Duke, 2 to Wash U, 1 to BU, 1 to UVA, and 1 to Amherst. The level slightly below her GPA are largely Dartmouth, Cornell, Emory, NYU, Northwestern, etc.
Most of those schools are not on her list, but it reflects the types of students she is typically surrounded by.
We live in a similar district. It is about more than gpa…as noted above. This does not take anything away from your daughter.
FYI: the students who are in Binghamton honors are very smart kids. Does the GC feel your daughter would make honors (kids not in honors are also very good students)?
I’m sure they do. But extremely few go to SUNY, especially from the top half of the graduating class.
she has safeties which she is willing to go to, if she didn’t get in anywhere else. She doesn’t have any safeties she would pick over the more competitive schools.
Same here. Most in the top 30-40% do not attend SUNY. No interest.
SUNY does not need to be her safety. But…she needs safeties that she likes in the event those are her only acceptances.
Has she looked at Rochester? It’s a nice match. Have you visited Syracuse to see if it’s something she might get excited about?
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Of course, about much more than GPA.
They didn’t discuss the details of Bing honors. I’m sure she would be fine with it. It’s funny, about 70% of last years graduating class applied to Bing, over 80% got accepted. So of about 150 accepted, I think 2 or 3 enrolled. Very low yield rate. I don’t get why so many of the kids would rather go to Indiana University, or UVM etc, but most tend to pick going out of state.
Because it’s not SUNY LOL. We get the same here.
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She has been to University of Rochester, it’s on her list. She likes it enough to attend. Doesn’t like how far or cold, but likes it enough.
She has no interest in touring Syracuse but she might apply and then tour if it’s 1 of the only places she gets accepted.
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Is Rochester further or colder than BU? I know she liked it, then didn’t ? To me…they have similar temps although Rochester might get more snow. And she likes Cornell…which is bitterly cold and snowy.
I used to hold the position that if you weren’t going to Harvard, MIT, Yale, or a school with a super specialized program, you should just go to SUNY. Because those other schools aren’t giving you enough of a career advantage to be worth the extra money.
But alas, we saved for 20 years and my wife insists they can go anywhere they are happy.
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That would be a conversation in and of itself…and has been.
She really needs 2-3 safeties that she likes, and then she can apply anywhere she wants. As you see- safeties are the hardest to find, are the most important, and tend to be the schools that many spend the least time on (unless they need merit).
Rochester is significant further than BU.
5 1/2 hours versus 3 hours.
But you have to understand her logic, the bits I can decipher. She has no school she loves. She has different schools she likes for different reasons, but they each have negatives.
Cornell has the best fitting program, best academics, it’s cheaper… but the campus is too big and she doesn’t like that it has active Greek life.
Vassar is really close to home, she feels like the people are her fit, and it’s a very pretty campus, but it doesn’t fully have the programs she wants.
BU, she likes the academics, she loves the city of Boston, and she has a great time attending a summer program there but she would miss having a pretty campus, and the student body is kinda big.
So throw in Amherst, maybe Brown and a couple others, those are the schools where the pros for her are enough for her to really like the schools.
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There is no perfect school. If she doesn’t have a school that she loves, I would not consider ED.
Reach schools are a lot easier to find. The issue is that kids get shut out of them all the time.
Was Skidmore mentioned? Is it too small?
This is the level of competition (besides very high stats) at some “top” schools:
We met one student who was a pilot. He was also a chef and spent time delivering food to food pantries throughout the country.
Kids at one honors program published in several physics journals.
One student developed a club from scratch…and that club expanded to various high schools throughout the US. She still helps “run” these clubs.
One student directed a fundraiser that raised over $30,000 for a well known national organization that she worked for.
I found that once we stepped outside our HS bubble (of exceptional kids) there was a big world out there…filled with exceptional students.
That is why safeties are so important….imo.
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Yes, pretty sure Skidmore is still on her list.
She hasn’t toured or evaluated it at all, but her counselor added it to her list.
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Thank you, those are 3 schools that might make sense for her to consider.
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Still is? If I somewhere suggested it wasn’t, that was a typo.
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She was ok with the number of undergrads at UVA (too far) but not BU? There are similar numbers at both schools.
I am just trying to figure out a preference so I can suggest schools. I think you mentioned that there was no pattern…which makes it hard?
The size of the student body is a negative, outweighed by the positives. From what I can decipher.
Remember, to her. Schools are falling into 3 levels
“Overall I like it.” — only 4-5 schools so far.
“Eh, I’m ok applying there” — about 20 schools right now.
“Cross it off”— many others
Has she created a list of what she wants in a school, going from most important (must have) to least important (I can do without it if necessary, I refuse to attend a school with this, etc).
If she has a couple of “must haves” maybe a pattern will emerge.
Example of 1: my kid wanted a school with strong research (one of her “must haves”). She crossed off one school because despite advertising research, the prof never returned her emails and after speaking to over 40 students…none knew anybody who participated.
She did not want a school with fewer than 5000 kids. Those schools were removed.
She wanted a school where the students were very, very active in clubs and similar activities. She did her research, spoke with students, and chose accordingly.
Etc……
yep you said distance - but it sounds like she liked it - except for that. So maybe there is something out there like it. I don’t know. Many speak highly of UNH, in addition to UVM.
It doesn’t have the rep or profile but again these are safeties - so the plan isn’t to use but you never know.
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“Because those other schools aren’t giving you enough of a career advantage to be worth the extra money.”
For public policy, GW and American are worth the extra money. And Albany is worth another look- extraordinary opportunities for kids to get involved politically, policy wise, governance, actually see the guts of a state government which is bigger than many countries in terms of GDP, budget, etc.
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