Interest in STEM, but from a low performing school. Advice? Dream schools are Brown and Barnard

Applying to College
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Great student from low performing school. (not first gen, will apply for financial aid)

2nd in class
4.5 weighted, 3.95 UW
2 sport varsity athlete (regional and state qualifier)
lots of service and science related ECs

My daughter has excelled in her low performing school and has worked hard to find STEM things outside of what her school offers

semester study abroad
climate conference planner
local environmental award and work
hospital and vet volunteer

The down side is that her science and math instruction has not been very good (teachers leaving mid year, lack of knowledge of subject). She has taken AP classes, but most students do not sit for exam and teachers do not often cover all the material. Her grades are As, but her SAT is low. 4 on APES, didn’t take Stats (no one in class did). Is taking several other APs senior year (bio, calc, lit, gov, art, DE physics). Humanities classes have had better teachers and the AP scores for the school show this (5 on APUSH and APLang) Does this close the door for schools like Brown and Barnard or selective LACs like Bowdoin? She thinks she is interested in some sort of science focus, but not totally sure.

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Bowdoin is test optional
but Brown won’t be anymore.

So
how “low” is her SAT? And has she tried the ACT?

Brown will reinstate the standardized testing requirement beginning with the next admission cycle for the Class of 2029, whose students will enroll at Brown in the 2025-26 academic year.

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5s and the occasional 4 are excellent AP scores.
3.95 U/W is about as good as one realistically can get (depending on if the school hands out A+‘s and how those are counted numerically).

Realistically, odds are <10% for Barnard for all applicants (specially during the regular decision cycle), even with 36 ACTs, or near-perfect SATs. High scores alone are not really distinguishing criteria at these kind of colleges.

Excelling in a different academic environment, taking the few available AP classes, showing consistent commitment to an area of interest through multi-year extracurricular engagement can help making an application stand out a little.

So - there may be nothing disqualifying for your daughter, if she wants to make it one of her few „reaches“ and understands that it won‘t help „falling in love“ with colleges that simply don‘t have room for >90% of high achieving applicants. It‘s nothing personal - just odds of the dice.

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General rules.

Don’t start with reachy schools you love. The top20 have said they could easily admit 5 to 10 class fulls of suitable qualified students out of who applies so they are all low probability. Falling in love leads to disappointment.

Do start with a financial discussion of what you can afford. Figure that out first. Are you need based? Full pay? Hunting for merit? How much in loans are you willing to take?

Do start with target (middle 50 percentile stats) and safe schools you can afford and reasonably get admitted.

Then go to the reach schools.

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Once you have two affordable safeties that she can see herself at (if she likes Barnard or Brown, those certainly exist - once she’s passed those two, the where she applies doesn’t matter as she has a fallback.

No doubt she’ll have plenty of opportunities - budget depending.

Start off with the net price calculators for each - to see - if what they show you will be affordable - before putting any school on a list. These schools with no aid - you’re getting closer and close to six figures - and what you can or want to afford and what they say you can afford may not match. If they don’t, you have to remove them from consideration.

Good luck.

Welcome | Net Price Calculator (collegeboard.org)

Welcome | Net Price Calculator (collegeboard.org)

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As pointed out, 4s are perfectly fine. Yours is the case sited by colleges as why need scores. The AP scores she has will confirm her preparedness.

This takes me to the TO issue. Why is she going TO? Colleges have said over and over that they are not interest in high scores, but in scores that are high for their school. If her score is significantly higher than the schools average, it will likely help her.

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What is her SAT store? Note the schools going back to TR have as @TonyGrace posted said they will be looking at scores in context. Definitely submit anything around a 1400. If it is below 1300, then she might consider testing again or going TO where available.

Some of the most reachy schools have the most generous financial aid. Run the NPC’s to get a more accurate gauge of the costs vs just looking at sticker price.

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If she really likes Barnard, look into Agnes Scott (women’s college, urban, partnership with Georgia tech& Emory though not as close as Barnard is to Columbia.)
If she likes the open curriculum at Brown and the artsy feel, Grinnell would be less selective though not a safety by any means. If she likes the setting, perhaps Macalester (match if she demonstrates interest) or Bates (less reachy reach?)

Might be worth it to look into Skidmore, Lafayette, Dickinson, Denison, St Olaf.

Is she recruitable at the D3 level in either of her sports?

Based on the NPC, do you qualify for financial aid? Pell?

If she likes Bowdoin (where being test optional won’t hurt, especially if she has some AP scores*) she should think about applying ED.
Would she qualify for Explore?
https://www.bowdoin.edu/admissions/visit/explore-bowdoin/index.html
Or other similar fly-ins?

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High GPA at a low performing schools just makes your daughter stand out. Some might frown upon the study abroad in high school since that can be viewed as a privilege type of thing unless she worked and used most of her own money.

If her scores are higher then the mean at your school then submit. Your judged on your schools performance. But they shouldn’t also be in the lower 25% of said school your applying to. She’s separated herself from the crowd academically. She sounds like she’s self motivated and goes after opportunities. Colleges like that. As stated reaches are reaches for a reason. After doing your homework don’t put down a college you can’t afford or she wouldn’t love to go to.

My go to in these situations is Miami of Ohio. Great outcomes. Great merit for your daughter and maybe close to a free ride. Beautiful campus and every student /family that I have ever talked to loves this school. Did I mention great outcomes?

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Is she able to work on her SAT score? Maybe try the ACT? Some kids fare better on one over the other.
FWIW, my kid was accepted to Brown and other more selective schools and WL at Bowdoin. So everything is a crapshoot. Just try to do your best. :slight_smile:

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Rochester is another less reachy university that tends to be popular among kids I know that also are applying to Brown. Not quite an open curriculum but definitely encouraging of lots of exploration of different disciplines, and generally a strong university for sciences.

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To me it sounds like your daughter is doing very well.

However, Barnard, Bowdoin, and Brown are reaches for pretty much every strong student.

The first two things to do are to figure out what your budget is, and find at least one and preferably two safeties that would be a good fit. Once a student has picked out two solid safeties, picking other schools to apply to might be a bit more relaxed. A good fit is more important than ranking. There are a LOT of very good universities and colleges in the US, and more outside the US.

I also wonder what your daughter’s SAT score is, and whether a class or a small amount of tutoring would help her get her SAT score up. This is something that could be done over the summer.

Also, if you tell us a bit more about what your daughter is looking for in a college or university, what state you live in, and your budget, then people here on CC can suggest quite a few other schools to consider.

I might also note that I did attend a highly ranked university, and there were plenty of students there from mediocre high schools. They had done very well in their mediocre high schools (“2nd in class” did apply to a few of us). It is possible to get into a highly ranked university from a mediocre high school, and it is also definitely possible to get into a very strong graduate program from a more “ordinary” university (such as “top 100”, or even “top 200”) or LAC.

This is exactly the right thing to do.

By the way, one daughter similarly took a semester abroad. On the one hand this solidified her language skills. Probably more importantly, I think that it made her feel more confident in her ability to do well when she went away to university a year or two later.

Is either medical school or veterinary school (DVM) a possibility in the future? Is this something to be determined later? If so, there are people here on this web site who have experience in both (mostly as parents, I think that the doctors and veterinarians may be busy treating patients :slight_smile: ).

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Thanks for all these great suggestions. We have done tons of the NPCs and are only looking at schools that would cost us roughly the same as our in state options (under 30k). Almost all of the NPCs have us qualifying for a very small Pell Grant.

She definitely knows that a school like Barnard or Bowdoin is a reach for almost everyone. A lot of the schools that were mentioned are also on her list. If she applies to Barnard or Bowdoin, it would almost certainly be ED.

She is doing some online prep to try to get her SAT up (current is 1330. The school average was around 1100 the last time I looked). Fingers crossed on that.

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For further ideas, this site offers suggestions as alternatives to Brown:

Skidmore places highly, as do NESCACs Wesleyan, Hamilton and Amherst, for example.

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Speaking for Hamilton College, a selective LAC often compared to Brown, there is the Opportunity Program, which is especially designed for high-achieving students from nontraditional and/or low-performing academic backgrounds. https://www.hamilton.edu/offices/opportunity

I have many friends who went through the program and found it intensive but very rewarding. Plus, it ensures you have an additional support network throughout your four years, not just the summer before freshman year.

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I think it might be useful to search for signs of support for either first-generation or low-income students by school name. I found a page on the Wesleyan website, I’m sure there are others:
https://www.wesleyan.edu/fgli/

ETA: I found pages for
Bowdoin - THRIVE Joins National First-Gen Program to Scale and Sustain its Offerings | Bowdoin College

Barnard - FLI @ Barnard | Barnard College

I found something for U Rochester, just not sure how inclusive it is in terms non-first gens - https://careereducation.rochester.edu/channels/first-generation/

But you get the idea.

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Just out of curiosity, why those two? They seem so different.

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