Is 1510 SAT good enough to get into the door of the reaches for North NJ Junior? [top 2% rank; Columbia, Chicago, etc.]

Applying to College
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So those are the sorts of Scoir graphs where at our feederish HS, we are in fact encouraged not to overinterpret the data as there are a lot of things that can happen such that a given applicant will get rejected or waitlisted in those ranges, and sometimes in a correlated way, meaning a bunch of what Scoir said were 50-75% chances will all break the same way.

You can see, by the way, that your kid’s particular GPA/test combination is pushing them into somewhat unusual territory, meaning most of the kids with such a GPA at your HS applying to at least BC and Emory appear to also have higher test scores. Just as a technical matter, this is another reason to be cautious about overinterpreting these data sets because you really have very little data representative of that combination. And frankly, I would not be thrilled with what I was seeing, say, in the immediate vicinity of that Emory dot.

Finally, it seems to me a lot of your thinking is based on assuming it is very likely your kid will either have an Honors offer from Rutgers, or a Johnson offer from W&L, or possibly both. I could see why on that assumption you might have a short list generally. The problem is I am not sure the chances of all that are as high as you think.

Again just by way of analogy, at our HS, Pitt is a popular “Likely” option, and in fact with good enough numbers, the applicants are in fact very likely to get admitted to Pitt. However, a lot of the kids casually assume they will also get Honors at Pitt, big merit, possibly a Chancellor’s interview, and so on. It doesn’t always work out that way, indeed we can see kids getting accepted to highly selective privates who don’t get any such offers from Pitt, or at least only a small amount of merit with no Honors. I have some theories about what is going on, but the bottom line is there is not the sort of strict correlation of results that some kids assume.

So personally, I would treat such things as a possible bonus, but I would not just assume they will be forthcoming. Instead, I would think about other Likelies and Targets assuming your kid did NOT get an Honors offer from Rutgers, and did NOT get a Johnson offer from W&L. If not, what others colleges might they want to consider?

And then if your kid does get one or both of those offers, great, and maybe they will choose them.

But then your kid is also in great shape even if neither comes through, nor any Reaches.

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Better than Rutgers for whom? For some people, Rutgers is a fantastic choice. But if someone doesn’t like spread out campuses, prefers small seminars to larger lecture classes where maybe only 1/3 of class time is spent in a discussion/recitation section, and wants a more intimate student body, Rutgers is unlikely to be better than a small to medium school. There’s not necessarily one standard for all and a school is better or worse than others when compared to that standard. It’s what’s best for the particular student. That’s why I asked those questions earlier to see what is important for your kid.

If there is a price point that these highly selective/rejective colleges are meeting via an NPC (and/or that you want any school to meet), it would be helpful if you would share it. Even if a school does not come back at that same price via need-based aid, there are schools that are very generous with merit aid, and people can offer suggestions of schools that stand a decent likelihood of meeting that price via one form of aid or the other.

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I really want to emphasize the importance of this issue. Other colleges that would be suitable Likelies or Targets for this kid may not be objectively “better” than Rutgers, but they can definitely be different. And different sometimes means for some kids they could be subjectively “better”, which is actually the most important kind of better to begin with.

I also understand the concern about paying more for a college that is only subjectively and not objectively better, although I do think that a lot of savvy families who can comfortably afford the difference happily do that, because they understand the potential value of going to a college where the kid is most likely to thrive from the start.

But even if cost is a concern, you can chase merit. And again, your options with merit may not be objectively “better” than Rutgers, but they could be subjectively better.

And finally, choice is nice! Every year, we see a bunch of kids on social media who followed the strategy of applying to a lot of Reaches and then just their in-state flagship as a Likely/Safety. Then they end up only having that public as an option. Objectively, they are fine, because that is an affordable good college. But subjectively, they often express a lot of regret, feel like they wasted a lot of effort in HS, and so on, all because they are going to the same university as a lot of other kids they know with less in terms of academic qualifications.

OK, so if it isn’t that hard for such a kid to have some different choices, including with merit, why not? They may well even choose their in-state option in the end, but then they won’t feel like it was forced on them by a bunch of Reach rejections, they will know they had options but are choosing this option as the best for them.

I really think that ending up with choices like that makes it all so much better for kids. And who knows–sometimes they end up actually choosing one of those options even over an offer from a Reach. It happens more often than you would think, when those are really carefully chosen options, merit is offered, and so on.

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I think it might be helpful for you to zoom out a bit on the admissions landscape. According to Google, there are 40,000 students with an SAT of 1500+ in any given year, and 125,000 students in the top 5 of their graduating class. That’s a pretty big pool your son is competing with! Furthermore, you live in an overrepresented area, which doesn’t help.

I am surprised no one has brought up the CC concept of “average excellent” because your son seems to fall into this category. Excellent for sure!! But one of many such excellent students.

Also, if you want better chancing you would need to give info on extracurriculars and awards, because these are the things that can make a difference when most applicants have very similar statistics.

Finally, I’m totally fine with prestige!! However, I truly cannot see someone wanting a school like Columbia being happy at Williams or W&L. Really think about this! What about a Wesleyan or a Vassar, both of which are prestigious and also closer to “civilization”.

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FWIW: I personally know New Jersey students and parents who applied to a long list of very reachy schools, plus Rutgers—claiming they’d be fine with Rutgers if nothing else worked out. Unfortunately, several of those students ended up with only a Rutgers acceptance, and it turned out they weren’t actually okay with that outcome. They had assumed their exceptionally strong kid would get into at least one reach school, so they never seriously considered the possibility of attending Rutgers.

“I know those schools are reaches for most kids, but my kid is exceptional” is something I’ve heard many times. Sometimes that gamble pays off—but many times, it doesn’t, because admissions to such schools are very unpredictable for high stats unhooked kids from over represented regions.

OP, it’s smart to have a few solid options to choose from even if right now you think you don’t need them.

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We recognize that our son’s profile is somewhat skewed—his SAT score (1510) doesn’t quite match the strength of his GPA (4.75–4.80/5). Based on Scoir scattergrams, an ACT score of 35 or 36 would better align with his academic profile, so he plans to try the ACT this summer. Fingers crossed.

We’re considering adding Boston College to the list, especially since it offers merit scholarship opportunities via the same application (deadline: November 1, like ED). That said, we’re trying to be strategic with the number of applications, thus he may put more effort into the super reaches.

He has some solid ECs that we believe are competitive for schools like Emory, Boston College, W&L, NYU, and University of Richmond. However, we also understand that for super-reach schools, these ECs may not move the needle much. For that reason—and because we aren’t trying to “chance” him for those schools—I won’t go into detail on his extracurriculars here.

If none of the merit-based scholarships (honor college of Rutgers included) come through, we expect to choose from Emory, Boston College, W&L, NYU, University of Richmond, and Rutgers. And if it turns out he doesn’t even get into these except Rutgers, then so be it—Rutgers is still a strong option, and he’s comfortable with that outcome.

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What is the uwgpa? Schools weigh differently (our HS went up to 4.4 weighted, my daughter topped out at 4.2 w, 3.95ish uw, 9 AP’s and mostly honors for the rest). I have one just graduated from SC, I think the schools go up to 6.0 fir weighted.

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I think I’m still battling to see how you consider a department with near-Ivy-like acceptance rates (under 5% for CAS at NYU) as “likely”. It would be interesting to know (but you don’t have the data) how many of those NYU admits ended up being in the significantly less-competitive (but still 20% ish) Liberal Studies department which is often listed as a second choice. NYU is also one of those schools that leans more heavily into ED, but your son is ED’ing elsewhere. It’s quite possible some of the other schools are similar if you kick the tires, such as spring admits at BU.

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I think a lot of us are cautioning in our own ways that many kids who say that sort of thing going into the process end up regretting that being their only choice if it actually comes to that. And it really only takes something like 2-3 more carefully chosen applications to make sure your kid is at least choosing Rutgers because they want to, and not because they feel forced to by being rejected everywhere else. That to me is very cheap insurance.

But we have made our pitch and if none of that resonates with you or your kid, then that is fine.

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I just glanced at these responding posts and the question I have is whether Scoir provides a history of past acceptances from your child’s high school into the colleges he is applying to. I found that very helpful to know whether or not your child at least has a punchers chance at these schools.

If you already shared this and I missed it forgive me. However, if you have not looked into this, it might alleviate some of your concerns.

As we all know, your son is very competitive. He has given himself a chance to get into these programs, no guarantee, but he is in the ballpark. Whether he gets a 1600 or 36 probably will not be the deciding factor as to whether he gets into Columbia or NYU or any other reach school.

However, if his school has never had a student get into Columbia, or Emory, or NYU, or any of the schools he is applying to, then the odds and the chances of he being the one person in 10 years to get into that school, to me, is drastically statistically and historically reduced.

But, if his high school has a history with certain colleges and every year, there are five students who get into Columbia or 10 students who get into NYU that do not have hooks, then I think your son has a real shot at getting into one of thee schools if he truly is a top 2-3 student. As long as he keeps up his rigor and scores with the other students from the past.

For example, my D24’s school has not had a Notre Dame acceptance in 10 years. And last year, that trend continued. However, they do have about 4-5 students get into USC and that trend continued.

We are out west and Harvard Westlake is the big feeder school here. They annually send probably half the class to top40 schools, at least, and it would be expected that if you are top in your class, you will very likely get into a top college. If not, I’m sure that family would like their $60,000 a year back.

If your son’s school does send a number of students to top20 schools annually and regularly, then although never a guarantee, as long as your son keeps pace with history and does a great job with his applications, he has a better than average shot (average being 3-10% of course).

Also, I’d recommend that he check out the ED acceptance rates. We all know UChic loves yield and so, if your son decides to ED at UChic, it may give him a much better chance at getting into one of these top schools rather than Columbia which may not move the acceptance scale much with ED. By the way, I don’t recall off hand the advantages so take this with a grain of salt.

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I don’t fault the OP’s strategy if Rutgers w/o Honors is an acceptable outcome. A lot to be said for focusing on a few reaches as carefully customized essays can make the difference. That is what we chose with both kids with auto admit into our flagship. They only applied to schools that they ranked higher based on the kids’ criteria and they skipped “equivalents” to focus on half a dozen reaches.

I also think a 1510 puts your kid in contention at the reaches. It will not be the reason for a “no”. The hard part to get to a “yes” for the reaches will be whether the academic performance (grades, rigor, test scores), LoR’s, EC’s and essays together picture a candidate that will fit some need for the college better than other similar candidates – what makes the applicant more desirable than the other 5-10,000 average excellent applicants.

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Thanks for your suggestions. Our school is a highly competitive school and attached are the results from 2024 (a good year), which may give more context. Other years may be similar or a little worse.

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These stats are very helpful. Again no guarantee, but your son sounds very competitive. Thoughts about applying to UMich? Looks like there’s a good chance there?

Also, see if you can get the 5-10 year history.

Also, any hooks?

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The scattergram I posted before is from 2020-2024. We consistently feed to T10-T20 schools for sure. Hard to know the hooks or not.

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I guess I mean for your son. Also, the scattergrams will be skewed with test optional being prevalent and so, that will be helpful to your son.

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One question to ask is how many unique individuals do the acceptances represent. I am guessing a few kids had multiple admits.

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Yes, I always look for enrollment records rather than acceptance. You might have the same individual accepted to all the Ivies and everyone else rejected.

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Yes, that is legit concern. I checked admission and not big difference. Maybe most top kids have ED or REA, which does not occupy too many spots.

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One point I would re-emphasize is that some percentage of those students accepted to those institutions were hooked (most likely athletes or legacies), and you have no way to know how many. My generic guidance on this at schools with affluent families (not sure if yours is) has been about half - that there are equally academically qualified students who had this additional advantage that your son does not. This shuffles the odds considerably.

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As someone who lives in northern NJ like OP this is rarely the case for our kids. Athletic and legacy admissions are extremely rare.

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