After much searching, touring, etc. my D has her list set but I think we need another safety or two. Here are her stats and list. Any thoughts on safeties would be appreciated. Side note: we live in the Midwest…she really wants to go out east or out west, smaller - med. private. Possible majors: Psychology, International Relations, minor: Theatre.
Stats:
GPA UW: 3.71
ACT: 32, superscored, 33
AP Psych: 5
AP Env. Science: 4
AP Lang: 4
extra curriculars: heavily involved in theatre, forensics, Jr. director and director in forensics.
Community Service includes mentoring, directing younger kids in community youth theatre, summertime hours cleaning up inner city neighborhoods.
Reach schools:
Colby College
Wesleyan University
Vassar College
Reed College
Bates College
Match:
Skidmore
Boston University
Lewis & Clark
Occidental
Connecticut College
Fordham - Rose Hill
We need to know how much you’ll pay in order to suggest safeties. many safeties don’t give great aid. Some give merit scholarships, but we’d need to know how much you’d need.
A safety isn’t a safety if your child can’t afford to go there.
Check out Clark (strong in psychology), and Sarah Lawrence (strong in theater). Both have similar vibes to some of the other schools on her list as far as I know.
True. Our EFCs are coming in right now at approx. $30,000, some came in lower but I do realize that’s not necessarily a given. We’d like to see it go down to $25,000
funny Clark is mentioned. We actually had that on our list of schools to tour while we were out there. We drove past and didn’t get a great vibe (mostly about the city) but I’m really sorry we didn’t see past that and stop to tour. We may be adding it back to our list.
I don’t know if L&C or Skidmore will give enough aid to make the schools affordable, but those are academic safeties IMO. Your daughter sounds like she might be interested in Hampshire if she’s okay with a non traditional style of learning. Willamette might also be a school of interest.
Muhlenberg came to mind for me as well – good merit aid and good theater dept. I think they like “demonstrated interest” especially for merit aid so if you can’t visit then consider emailing admissions, saying you are too far to travel there and asking for an alumni interview. You can also get on the school’s email list and if they come to give a presentation or attend a college fair locally you might want to show up.
And Fordham has non-binding EA so if she gets in there then you have a safety.
You run a risk in using less selective but expensive private schools (like Lake Forest) as safeties. If your EFC is ~$30K, then an in-state public university might offer you a lower cost even without aid.
Tk21769 : the problem is that Illinois public universities are very expensive in state and financial aid is poor, so that Lake Forest may end up being the same cost as an instate… OP should run the npc in any case !
I think Drew gives out fairly generous merit aid, and it has a lot of what she is looking for. It is criminally expensive without a good aid package, however. Goucher is another possibility.
