My kids have/do attend (1 graduated last year) a high school that’s ranked in the top 50 by US News & World Report. For last year’s graduating class, the majority of seniors applied just like your student is planning on applying - they applied to about 20 top 20/top 25 US News & World Report ranked colleges/universities + 1 or 2 in-state public universities.
They all had stellar GPAs and test scores. 1 student got into and is currently attending Georgia Tech. But the rest of the seniors who applied in this way (i.e., only applied to highly ranked colleges except for 1 or 2 in-state schools) got rejected everywhere. And they’re all attending an in-state public university.
So as long as you’re ok with the possibility that your student will ONLY get accepted to Rutgers, then go for it.
If your student would like to have more than 1 option, then expand your search. Also, make sure that your student spends sufficient time on what will be a very large quantity of supplemental essays for each of the colleges on the list.
After looking at the table given for 2024 admissions, I am still not sure why Emory is on the list of schools the OP “expects to choose from” at the end of the process; I’m seeing 23 applicants and one admission to Emory. The other schools on the “expects” list (BC, W&L, NYU, and Richmond) also aren’t shown in the table.
No one is saying that the student can’t get in to these schools (or even the high reaches). He might get in to several reaches, or he might not. The concern being raised is simply about assuring that he’ll have some choices, if the process doesn’t go as well as hoped.
Why not try to take it one more time, especially since he can superscore? My daughter originally got a 1510. She took it again without studying more due to schedule contraints and got a 1540, so you never know. Each test is different so your score can change. It’s also possible that he could study more this summer since he has time. My advice would be to study a little and take the SAT once more. My daughter’s school counselor at the time advised her not to submit the 1510 and go test optional, although I did not agree with that advice and we had planned for her to submit. Thankfully with the 1540 we were confident in her score.
Here is another part of 2023 admission. We have high confidence in schools similar to Rutgers, like Villanova, Lehigh, Wake Forest. But he said he will just choose Rutgers. Applying too many similar schools would be kind of distraction.
Such lists of acceptances don’t say a whole lot about an individual kid’s chances. Our HS has multiple kids going each year to every school in HYPSM (including some of my kids’ friends) and any other famous school you might name, but we have also known “average excellent” kids whose list was too aggressive with only reaches, and who ended up at UC Merced or community college, or who had just one unaffordable private school admission requiring big loans.
We know for super reach schools it is very hard to predict. We can only say we have high confidence we will have more than one offer from Emory, Boston College, W&L, NYU, Richmond, and Rutgers.
None of these colleges are remotely like Rutgers- except they all have biology labs, music studios, professors of poli sci, dining halls, etc.
If your kid would RATHER attend Rutgers than these schools- fantastic. One and done. But do not confuse anything having to do with their “statistical likelihood of admissions” with the actual experience of attending these colleges.
Man I wish I had your confidence!! I am legitimately concerned my D26 with a 35 ACT ( not super scored) 4.0 unweighted 4.8 weighted with National level leadership might not get into her # 1 choice and it is a school that has a high acceptance rate. I have seen that the class of 2025 has had very unpredictable acceptances. So I will definitely look to craft a realistic list of schools and hope for the best
A 1510 SAT score might be fine for these colleges. We don’t really know. If your son does or doesn’t get accepted to the colleges on his application list (beside Rutgers), you will never know why. These colleges mostly have holistic application reviews, and the SAT isn’t the only metric they use.
I also find it interesting you describe those as “schools similar to Rutgers”. At least in my circles, they would all be considered quite different from Rutgers–and actually different from each other.
And then there are all the LACs that would be considered even more different from Rutgers.
Of course different does not necessarily mean better–that depends on the individual kid.
I’m a parent of a BC kid (sophomore) and am pretty knowledgeable about its admissions process, having followed it closely for several years. It has under a 13% acceptance rate (which includes it’s ED results, so for RD it likely nearer to 10% or under). If you look at the prior years’ CC threads on BC’s RD acceptances, you will see many, many posts of super high stats students (similar to yours or even with higher stats) who are rejected. You’ll see many parents and students expressing surprise over this result, but it’s just become really tough to get into regular decision, and each year it gets a bit tougher. Of course your son has a chance of being accepted! But, I certainly wouldn’t feel confidence about it.
The only merit scholarship offered is Gabelli. It is offered to 18 students out of 40,000 applicants. Other than that, BC doesn’t offer any merit aid, so if the main reason to keep BC on the list is the merit aid, it’s a very remote chance, even for a strong student like your son.
All in all, the “one-safety, lots of reaches” strategy seems unnecessarily risky, given the relative ease of adding in a few additional targets and safeties. Even if you are very confident now that your son would be absolutely fine and have zero regrets if Rutgers is the only acceptance, there’s at least a possibility (even if small) that he could feel differently once the reality of just one acceptance hits. Why not mitigate that?
When my daughter was applying to college, I had her use several of the writing exercises on College Essay Guy’s website & Youtube channel. The exercises were very helpful in getting her writing juices flowing. Writing a personal introspective essay is a totally different type of writing than writing an essay for a high school english class.
Can’t praise College Essay Guy enough. My kid ‘22 did his virtual course during the pandemic. He focused on expressing values, and it transformed their essays.
Correct, for the list on white background. The spreadsheet screenshots with yellow and beige background (see posts earlier in the thread) show acceptances.
