It’s still hard to name names for OP in the sense - we have no idea of budget or their financial situation.
We can say Wesleyan - but we don’t know if they want to spend $400K over four years (assuming no need), etc.
They can really run the gamut of $20K to $95K.
And even if some schools have merit (Rochester, just noted), that may get a student to $60K - but it’s a may.
So @Zrinkanj , please work with your family to decide how much you can spend on four years of college (by year), don’t forget likely grad school with a physics degree in your planning, and then get back to us.
I’d also note - OP wants to be near a city. Schools like Oberlin, Denison, and Kenyon are near cities (within 30 mins to an hour) but they’re not city accessible on a daily basis - so OP might be looking for something more suburban than rural.
A U Denver, for example, or Colorado School of Mines are more suburban, not far from a large downtown…as is Arizona.
Can you expand on that too @Zrinkanj - in regards to is rural (Kenyon) ok even though it’s an hour from the city. Or is an Occidental College or Macalester College better because they are city adjacent - technically in the city?
The OP never mentioned grad school. You brought up the subject of “grad school with a physics degree”. And now you have him applying to law school, business school and engineering school. Let’s reel it in.
No - my point is simply - when someone is going for Physics (vs. say engineering), if you’re considering grad school, you have to consider the full of education - that’s all.
Physics as an undergrad likely translates to more schooling - so if that’s in OPs plan, they should account.
We don’t even know if they have budget concerns - just that they won’t get need.
My comment about law or business was just because you mentioned PhD but I imagine few that go to grad school end up in a PhD.
Hopefully OP will engage more with the questions asked.
I’m not sure what your point is. That a physics major is more likely to go into engineering - which costs money - than pursue a PhD which won’t cost anything?
I was simply noting to OP that if grad school is in the picture, which for physics likely is, they should plan appropriately. That’s it.
Yes, I’d imagine more physics grads get an engineering masters than PhD. I don’t know - just assuming - I know one now at Georgia Tech doing that and my neighbor’s kid did one at Notre Dame.
Not sure I agree re all schools other than the Ohio ones being reaches for science/physics majors or male or ED applicants, certainly not Bates and Vassar with OP’s grades and scores. The analysis on “reaches” on CC can oftentimes be a bit more nuanced than it is. The bright lines are not always so bright.
Why not? Bates class of 2027 acceptance rate was 13.7% with close to 67% of the class accepted in ED. We don’t know the Class of 2028 AR yet, but they received more apps than the previous year, so it’s going lower. It’s a reach for nearly all students with high stats. Similarly Vassar’s class of 2027 acceptance rate was 17.8%. Tough to call that a target for OP…maybe in ED if they were full pay.
Do you have the acceptance rates for male physics applicants with these scores at those schools? I don’t, but I would guess a student with OP’s profile has a better than 20 pct chance, regardless of what the aggregate acceptance rate is for all applicants. Stats may be readily available by gender. Reach or target “for everyone” is not a sufficiently nuanced view in the peculiar world of second-tier LACs, in the reasoned view of our college advisor, who is a former AO at such a LAC. Many second-tier LACs have historically had a hard time attracting male applicants as qualified as their female applicants, and do have male applicant pools with significantly lower stats. See eg Vassar.
OP should of course do his or her own research to test hypotheses, including the gender-specific information at LACs. Everything on CC, to be honest, is a guess as to what may happen behind closed doors.
On the “LACs don’t accept by major” point… that does not mean they accept students without keeping in mind institutional priorities re populating their majors and various departments. On a curious anecdotal note, every single one of the female students who got into an Ivy from our fancy prep school seems to have applied as a STEM major; random coincidence or institutional priorities at schools historically failing to attract female science-track applicants? Probably for another thread…
I mean for reference, I was a 35 ACT top 10% unhooked, full pay female who applied RD. I got WL from Vassar, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Haverford. Rejected from Williams (ED) Amherst, Midd, Wesleyan, Swat. Admitted to Colgate and Hamilton (enrolling).
I agree some of these schools for a male could be a target in the ED round, but you can only apply to 2 schools maximum ED. And the ED round is full of hooked kids who already got the “yes.” I’m sorry, but I don’t see a way in which a sub 20% acceptance rate school is a target. That’s simply not how it works.
At our feederish HS, my male S24 was “allowed” to view Vassar as a softer reach/harder target in RD due to his gender, and he was in fact accepted with qualifications that appear pretty similar to lilyesh’s. So they both might have been right in that zone where it can matter, and I agree the OP might well be too.
That said, the practical significance of all this is somewhat limited in my view, other than I think if you generally like colleges like Vassar and this is a bonus reason to keep Vassar specifically on your final application list, sure, why not?
As for the major thing, I am dubious it plays much part, if any, at colleges where you are going to explore and choose your major later anyway. I also doubt a STEM major, for a male applicant in particular, would be helpful even if Admissions was occasionally intrigued by some less popular intended majors.
Again, no way of knowing what really mattered, but S24’s HS college counselor (a very experienced one who had worked in Admissions herself) seemed to think his interest in Biology was pretty useless (she didn’t say it that way, but that was my blunt takeaway), but his interest in Latin, Classics, and eventually Philosophy/Ethics was a lot more interesting.
I’m not sure I understand, all the schools mentioned are below 20% acceptance rate. To me 20% was just to eliminate everything below that number. And I agree there is a lot more detail to look into. So that is exactly what I was looking for in answers. The new ideas/schools to then look more into.
I agree with the recs you’ve already been given about U. of Rochester, Case Western, RPI, Colorado School of Mines, Vassar (as a hard target for a male like your son), Occidental, WPI, and Brandeis.
A few target schools that your son may want to consider that I haven’t seen mentioned yet include:
College of William & Mary (VA): About 6800 undergrads and might be a target for a male
Oberlin (OH): About 3k undergrads
St. Olaf (MN): About 3k undergrads
And you said you already had safeties covered, but I’m just going to put a plug in for Gustavus Adolphus (MN, about 2100 undergrads) and Lawrence (WI, about 1400 undergrads).