A downside to the reach heavy strategy is the potential for a string of rejections clustered together. Tough for even the most resilient kid! A couple of acceptances along with the mega reaches seems to lessen the blow.
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Based on your son’s academic interests and career goals, he may benefit from considering schools with an available major in public policy, which relies on the fields of political science and economics for its foundation.
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Thank you for your suggestions. I’ll definitely take time to review the link.
We understand that top-tier (reach) schools are highly unpredictable. Our primary concern isn’t necessarily whether our son will be accepted to those schools, but rather that his SAT score (1510) doesn’t automatically place him in the “no-go” pile. Of course, we recognize the usual advice: “You’re a strong candidate, but reaches are reaches for everyone. If you don’t apply, you’ll never know.”
Our high school consistently sends students to T10–T20 schools. According to the Scoir scattergrams, there’s no clear pattern for T15/Ivy+ admissions—it seems very holistic. For other selective schools, GPA is more correlated with outcomes than SAT/ACT scores.
We would appreciate suggestions for additional colleges in the range between Rutgers and our current list of reaches.
Here’s how Scoir currently categorizes his schools, based on current GPA and SAT:
- Target: Emory
- Likely: NYU, W&L
- Very Likely: Rutgers
- Reach: Tufts (not sure why)
- Target: Boston College, Davidson
- Likely: Boston University
- Very Likely: Villanova
We initially excluded some of these because, from a pre-law prestige and advising perspective, they may not offer a clear advantage over W&L. For instance, Davidson could be a solid alternative, but it feels very similar to W&L—arguably a bit weaker in pre-law outcomes and national name recognition. We do not want to waste time to apply when W&L is better than them.
Our thinking is: if Columbia ED and other ultra-reaches don’t work out, we still have a solid list with Emory, W&L, NYU, and Rutgers as likely options to choose.
Emory, Boston College, BU and NYU should go in the reach category. NYU’s admit rate is below 8% now, BC around 13% , BU around 11% and Emory around 14%. Tufts is around 11%. These kind of admit rates are not targets and certainly not likelies. He may well get one or more admits among them, but you need more real targets.
Edit: judging by your first post he’d be applying to CAS at NYU, where the admit rate is now below 5%. I don’t know details of the others.
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Agreed. W&L’s admit rate was 14% last year and Davidson’s was 13.4% so I’d put those in the reach category as well.
I think all these schools are reasonable reaches for this student, but with admit rates under 20% they aren’t targets/likelies.
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I am not sure how Scoir categorizes schools (we don’t have Scoir), but this is how College Kickstart would categorize this list of schools based on the stats given. The grid-style graphic is helpful, because it shows why each school is in each category.
I agree (and College Kickstart agrees) that these are reasonable reaches, but they are reaches (except for Rutgers).
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Im confused about the “pre-law prestige” comment. You can go to almost any school in the country and major in almost anything and get into a top law school.
Law school admission is primarily focused on your college GPA and LSAT.
For example, if your GPA at a T20 school is 3.5 but at Rutgers it’s a 4.0 (assuming same LSAT and similar non academic activities, etc), you probably have a better shot at a T14 law school going to Rutgers.
If you cant break a certain LSAT score (or GRE for some schools), it wont matter where they went to school undergrad.
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So I’m a little confused by this, because I don’t believe Scoir actually categorizes schools in this way. I went back and looked, and I’m not sure where you got this from: I think you may be extrapolating %s from the scattergram, in which case I would strongly hesitate from doing that - you’re missing all kinds of information and dealing with a very small set. Also, in general, Scoir doesn’t let you know if a student was hooked (legacy, athlete, etc.) in some way. Without other information, it’s reasonable to assume that a real % of the students at your child’s school who are getting into T20/Ivy±ish schools are hooked, and you can’t tell that.
As others have said, any school where you’re unhooked that has a <20% acceptance rate (and declining) is a reach for virtually everyone. Emory, NYU, Davidson, BU, and probably BC all fall into that category here. I would certainly not, for example, consider W&L such a lock over Davidson that it isn’t worth having Davidson on the list - neither of them are locks.
To your question - I don’t believe the 1510 puts your son into the no-go pile at any of these schools, but I also don’t think it’s advantageous in the way that a 35 or 1550 might be. Combined with a few self-selected holes in rigor (which I understand, but still, this is a comparison situation), my guess that for most AOs at very selective schools, he’s a competitive academic candidate in a pool with some other students who will be seen as more competitive. (If it was a 5 point scale, he’s probably a 4. That sort of thing.) Which is fine and is also the cake that’s been baked - it’s just creating a real world situation for you, where you would benefit your son by having some schools where his academics and #s are a leg up and not just fine.
OK, he’s pre-law/poli sci/econ, let’s give you some targets. If he likes the Williams/Amherst vibe, and those aren’t just on the list because they’re two of the top liberal arts colleges - add Bucknell, Franklin & Marshall, Conn College, Trinity (CT), Skidmore. Something a little bigger that maybe has a Duke/Emory/Vandy feel (but not just in the south) - Lehigh, Brandeis, Rochester; if you’ll consider California, Santa Clara or LMU. Just off the top of my head.
Don’t want to be a Debbie Downer for you!
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I don’t want to give false hope but ops son goes to a highly ranked school in northern NJ as did mine. SCOIR is very accurate for these schools and many of these schools will send 10% of the class to NYU and Michigan and several to Emory, Tulane, Vanderbilt and all top 20s including. If they are comfortable with Rutgers as a back up then the list looks good. Maybe add Binghamton as an inexpensive safety.
And to answer OPs question 1510 should be good enough, esp with the removal of test optional at some of these schools.
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I agree…the 1510 isn’t a 1580, but many of these schools do holistic admissions…and they will look at all of the other things on your son’s application.
My guess is that both Villanova and Rutgers are likely.
Perhaps you should consider adding William and Mary (definite advantage being a guy). American University is another worth considering, and would be likely if your son shows interest. WM has a study in DC option, and American is right there. Maybe University of Richmond?
Look at schools located in state capitals. Perhaps there would be some good internship opportunities.
You need to determine your price point. Some of the schools we are suggesting do not meet full need for all accepted students, and the ones on your original list do…which implies you are hoping for some need based aid. Is that the case?
While it was noted that Scoir is accurate for the northern NJ schools, I would still be cautious. Holistic admissions can not be predicted from year to year at colleges with <20 admission rate.
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I would strongly echo the advice given by others to add in a few additional target schools. All schools on the list are reaches for everyone, except Rutgers. The list therefore creates the risk of all rejections but Rutgers. Some of the ones suggested (William & Mary, American, GW, Conn College, Lehigh, Rochester) could be great. Or you could consider University of Richmond, Wake Forest, Grinnell, Carleton, and Macalester for a slightly reachier set of schools (but less reachy than the ones on your list).
This is true. Law school admissions is very heavily based on LSAT score and GPA. So, the law school outcome does not depend on what ungrad school was attended, and in fact, it would bebetter to go to a lower ranked school and get a higher GPA. Students can major in anything and get into law school (and, in fact, they should major in whatever they like.). I’ve seen theatre majors, performance music majors, all manor of STEM majors, and all of the humanities be successful law students. And, in fact, legal employers can find hearing about those majors (as opposed to poli sci, history, econ) to be refreshing .
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In order to give suggestions that are more likely to resonate, it would be helpful to know more about what your son wants out of his college experience. There are a lot of medium-sized schools on your list, but then there are small rural liberal arts colleges and big urban colleges as well. There’s nothing to say that a student might not prefer a range of different schools, but I’m having a hard time figuring out the commonalities between Williams and NYU or W&L and BU.
Some questions that might help prod his thinking include:
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What size school would he prefer?
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Are there any climate preferences (including the amount of sunlight)?
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Are there regions of the country where he would prefer (or prefer to avoid)?
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What size classes does he do best in?
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How extensive of a core curriculum does he want?
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What kind of environment does he prefer (urban/suburban/college town/rural)?
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How does he feel about significant enthusiasm for intercollegiate sports?
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How does he feel about Greek life (fraternities/sororities)?
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Are there particular interests that he wants to pursue in college?
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Are there any factors (like politics or religion) that will impact his college decision?
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I am curious if you have been working with the counselors at your high school. They can sometimes help interpret Scoir data and such in a more reliable way.
But as a general caution, I note that barring unusual circumstances, the sample size for recent Scoir data for a given college can be dangerously low. So at our feederish HS, we always just used Scoir data in conjunction with other information, including observable recent admissions rates and such.
So, for example, all under-25% admit rate schools start as presumptive reaches.
But suppose a college had recently admitted 4 out of 5 of our applicants in a certain GPA/test zone, despite the fact its overall admit rate was 20%.
We would not in fact assume the admission chance for any applicant in that range was 80%. We would conservatively assume that could be overstated for a variety of reasons, including just statistical flukes, but also possible hooks, and so on.
What we might do, however, is assess whether that college was a good two-way fit–is it really suitable for the applicant in light of what they are looking for a college, and is the applicant really suitable for the college in light of what they say they are looking for in a student?
If yes, then taking that information combined with our Scoir data, we might conclude that for this applicant, this college could be treated as a softer Reach or even a harder Target. And those are good schools to have on your list!
But we would still want to make sure the applicant had some Likelies and Targets that didn’t depend on using Scoir data to categorize them that way.
Edit: Oh, to sorta answer your question: again understanding the data is too sparse to be overly confident about this sort of analysis, it did seem apparent that different highly selective privates were more or less willing to stray out of certain GPA/test score ranges for our applicants.
So at least at our HS, for some of those colleges we would probably go the other way and say that with a 1510, they are starting to look like really hard Reaches because while there may be an occasional admit with such a test score, they are sufficiently infrequent that they are likely mostly hooked applicants in some way. And frankly, our HS counselors would likely discourage a lot of applications like that. Like as in maybe none, unless there was a really good reason to want to take a shot at some specific school based on some special program.
But in other cases, a 1510 might put the applicant in the zone where there were still a lot of admits, not just a scattered few, in which case we could treat it as a normal Reach.
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based on your college list, you seem to be of the mindset, “if my student does not get into any reach schools, Rutgers (with or without honors college) is just fine”. if that is the case, i don’t really have a problem with your list because you’d just be adding schools you wouldn’t consider over Rutgers anyways. there is a tiny chance, you don’t get into Rutgers (very unlikely) but one more safety might be worth adding just for that fact alone. but if there are schools that you would consider over Rutgers, perhaps given enough merit scholarship that would be cost-competitive with in-state public cost, you might consider adding those schools. to answer your question: the SAT score will not be the reason you do or don’t get into any of those reach schools -it’s a perfectly fine score but nothing spectacular.
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Thanks for all the suggestions and advises.
William & Mary, American, GW, Conn College, [Lehigh], Rochester) could be great. Or you could consider University of [Richmond], [Wake Forest], [Grinnell](, Carleton, and [Macalester],
Bucknell, [Franklin & Marshall], Conn College, Trinity (CT), [Skidmore]. Something a little bigger that maybe has a Duke/Emory/Vandy feel (but not just in the south) - [Lehigh], [Brandeis], Rochester.
We did not research all those schools, but we would just pick Rutgers (>70% confidence in honor college) over most of these schools for cost reason and not convince these schools are clearly better than Rutgers. My original list schools most provide generous FA need based using NPC of each schools.
Some of these schools do provide close to full ride merit scholarships, but we are targeting for W&L with Johnson. Preparing for too many full ride merit scholarships would be time consuming, and do not want to be struggling to choose between such as W&L (Johnson), Boston College (gabelli), University of Richmond (Richmond scholar). But we may add University of Richmond since there is no need for a separate application.
My son has a great personality and does not have much preference for school types, and he will be doing just greatly in most schools we believe.
Also, we do not want to be overconfident or cocky, but some schools may be reach for some students but may not be reach for everyone. And there is another type of reach schools that are reach for everyone except a few.
We hope he will do better on ACT in the summer. If not, we will just bake what we have.
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So if the student is happy with Rutgers, it’s fine for the rest of the list to be reaches.
Here in CA, we have some students that apply only to reaches, because their backup plan is two years of community college and transfer to a UC. It’s not a conventional college list with likelies and targets, but it is fine as long as the student is completely happy with the backup plan. The main thing is not to set expectations that reaches are “likelies” and then disappoint your student.
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A 740 math score would be low for Econ at the most selective universities. Even for Political Science, at the most selective universities, with so many terrific applicants, they have to look for reasons to exclude students. Whether the plan is to just take the ACT or to retake the SAT, lots of math prep should be on the menu.
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That’s totally fine: you asked for target schools, but if none of the schools in that category meet your financial and/or personal requirements better than Rutgers, all good - Rutgers is a great school.
With respect, I think what we are all telling you is that, based on the years we’ve all spent hanging around here and with our own experiences, you are very likely being overconfident. That’s understandable, and overconfident doesn’t mean wrong, but given the profile you told us about, your student seems to fall into the reach for everyone category.
I’ll also accept @helpingthekid73’s point and localized knowledge - maybe SCOIR’s data is trustworthy enough that you can call some of these reaches targets. To me it looks like a huge number of applicants who never really had a chance and a few that did. But in particular I wouldn’t read that Emory chart and think likely.
Good luck! It sounds like you’ve raised a great kid with tremendous opportunities ahead.
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I hear a lot of confidence in your approach here, and I don’t mean to disabuse you of that, but I will say that, psychologically, I think it’s good for students to end up with at least three schools they’ve been admitted to and are picking from, to help them feel a sense of agency during that last step of the process. (Obviously, this doesn’t apply to ED situations.) The best way to ensure there are three+ schools — especially in a reach-heavy list — is to find a few more likelies and target schools that work.
Technically, yes, your kid only need one admittance, as they only end up going to one school. But there are a lot of psychological dynamics that can help or hinder your kid as they navigate senior year. (Applying to a rolling admissions school like Pitt in August is one of the easiest hacks on the table.) An extra $70 or $140 or $210 spent on a few extra applications is — depending on the mental model that works better for you — “cheap insurance”, or, alternately, “cheaper than therapy”.
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If Davidson stays on the list, it is worth the time applying for the Belk (full ride) and the James B Duke (full tuition).
With any of the competitive scholarships, it is essential to understand the goals of the awarding foundation and tailor your application and essays accordingly. My D21 was on a merit hunt and most of the competitive merit she pursued emphasized service and leadership, which was an area of strength for her.
I’m a big fan of having choices so I suggest adding a few safeties and targets. Some students find it demoralizing if they only have one college choice, the safety. So even if the reaches do not happen, it is more empowering to have a choice from multiple acceptances. You know your student so this may or may not be as important to your strategy.
I’m a bit unclear on how important merit is for your family… For targets that offer both “tuition discounts” to most students with your kid’s stats and competitive merit (in addition to need-aid), consider Furman, Rhodes, Gettysburg. You have other great suggestions upthread.
I look forward to following your student’s journey!
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