How do you know if your child would be competitive at top schools?

calmom
Mon, 24 Apr 2017 01:33:43 +0000

I think OP’s son sounds like a wonderful, talented kid who will probably do very well for himself. Whether or not he also manages to get himself admitted to a super-reachy, single-digit admit, prestige school doesn’t really matter – and I think that kids sell themselves short early on when they focus on those school, instead of focusing on simply making the best of their high school years. With the OP’s son’s stats he might also be looking at very serious merit aid from schools that aren’t even on their radar.

I don’t think OP has told us exactly what her son’s research interests are - those could really change the shape of his college search. As a high schooler, I was attracted to a particular OOS public U. in part because of the presence of some well-known researchers at the school. Once you get seriously interested in a particular research topic, you very quickly learn the names of the luminaries in the field and the opportunity of studying with them, or within the departments that they anchor, may become much more of an enticement than the US News rank list. (In my case, my interests had shifted by the time I went to college, but I did have the opportunity to attend a lecture given by one of the researchers I had idolized - he was quite elderly, and was an emeritus – but the lecture was astounding and just one more piece of confirmation that I had chosen the right school.)