Match and Safety schools for HYP applicant

College Search & Lists
1

My rising senior son is a realistic HYP applicant - #1 in class, 35 ACT, 800 and 780 SAT II, 2-sport captain, etc.

He wants a school with an undergraduate focus, a size of about 5,000 undergrads, in or close to a city, and “not too fratty” though school spirit/decent Division I athletic programs would be a plus.

Yale and Princeton are his top 2 choices. But we know that his chances of getting into either are a toss-up at best, and probably less than that.

The challenge has been coming up with a list of match and, in particular, likely schools that he feels excited about. Match schools on his list are:
Georgetown
Tufts (though I worry about him getting wait listed)

Likely schools have been hard to come up with. The one he’s liked most has been UVA, even though it’s bigger and more fratty than is ideal. So many of the other schools that fit his criteria - Duke, Northwestern, Chicago, Vanderbilt - also seem to fall into that “match” range, and he’ll probably end up applying to at least a couple.

But I am worried that we haven’t come up with any other likely schools. GW is too urban (and expensive), BC felt too Catholic, and he’s really not interested in the smaller liberal arts schools. Any suggestions?

2

Wake Forest, Tulane and Rice come to mind, although, they all do not hit on every single point you mentioned.

3

They don’t have big time sports but perhaps Johns Hopkins, William and Mary and Wash U? Mabye Villanova as a safety (they have non binding EA I believe) but you may run into the “too Catholic” issue again. Too bad he didn’t get a great vibe at BC because that was my first thought for urban/sports/non-frat plus I believe the school has non-binding EA.

I would go through the USNWR list of top colleges with your S and see what schools might make sense.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/page+5

4

Really for a typical viable candidate for HYP - everything is a reach or a safety. Tufts, Northwestern and Georgetown are too selective to ever be considered safeties. Both have admissions practices that are holistic enough that you just can’t think you have a better chance than the acceptance rate. Last year Tufts admissions acceptance rate was 17%, SAT ranges for each section for the middle 50% was 680-750 and most students are in the top 5% of the class. Rice, Georgetown and Northwestern have acceptance rates that are even lower.

Don’t despair. The critical thing is to find a couple of safeties the student likes. Consider applying EA everywhere that has it. Don’t do SCEA which doesn’t provide that much of a boost anyway. If some acceptances from the EA schools come in, great! If they don’t consider adding some other safety schools.

The suggestions for schools are all fine, they just are also reaches.

As for safeties, the best safety school is the one you get in early. My younger son got into Chicago early - at that point it was his safety school and he dropped everything he didn’t like as much as Chicago. My older son - more techie - got into RPI early. For him smaller tech schools were almost sure bets. Younger son’s original safety school list was Syracuse (too big) and American (which he liked a lot and offered a big merit award.)

5

I wouldn’t call Duke and Chicago ‘matches’. They are probably low reaches at best. Also, Chicago doesn’t have D1 athletics.

6

UVA is not a safety if you are out of state, although my guess is that he would get in. The other schools you mentioned ( Georgetown, Vanderbilt etc) look like a match on paper, but they are reaches for all/most. Tulane, Wake Forest ( big Greek life), U of Rochester, Lehigh ( big Greek life), Emory, Pitt honors ( bigger than 5000 but the honors college gives it a smaller feel) may work, but they might not meet all of your criteria. Just remember that for the schools on your " match" list, many of the applicants will be #1 in their class with high test scores, and many will get rejected or waitlisted.

7

@mathmom I love your comment “for a typical viable candidate for HYP - everything is a reach or a safety.”

That really seems to sum up the situation. Hopefully I didn’t imply that I thought Georgetown, Tufts, Northwestern, etc. are safeties. Our school’s counselor called them “matches” which in his view means there’s a 50-50 chance. But I totally understand your point that they’re reaches for everybody. Where my son’s list is weak is in those schools where we can feel confident he’s likely to be admitted.

8

Claremont McKenna group is worth checking out. WashU and Bucknell if their vibe suits him.

9

U Chicago, Duke, Northwestern and Vanderbilt are not true matches for anyone. Looking at their admit rates and average test scores, the competition is pretty fierce.

Your son’s chances at most elite private universities, IMO:

High Reach (< 5% chance): None
Reach (5-15% chance): Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Columbia, Caltech, Penn-Wharton
Low Reach (15-25% chance): Penn (non-Wharton), Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Duke, Northwestern
High Match (25-40% chance): Johns Hopkins, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, WUSTL, Georgetown, Tufts, Emory, CMU
Match (40-60% chance): NYU, USC, Boston College, Brandeis, U of Rochester… maybe also BU, Case Western, Wake Forest and Tulane toward the lower end.
Low matches (60-99% chance): Most of the rest…

Just don’t forget to include an application to a safety. Usually your state’s flagship will fit that bill nicely.

10

Is cost an issue at all? If if is, you need to factor that into your reach-match-safety choices.

11

Thanks for all the replies. Very helpful.We live in Maryland and he’ll definitely apply there. Unfortunately Hopkins is out because he won’t go to college 3 miles from home. Emory and William&Mary are great ideas although neither can really be considered a safety for anyone either. Maybe Richmond? The idea of UVA being a safety comes from his school’s Naviance and that his counselor said DS would probably be their Jefferson Scholarship nominee. Apparently that designation has been a de facto “hook” coming out of his school in recent years

12

Georgetown like BC and Holy Cross are Catholic/Jesuit schools.

13

U of R, Northeastern, BU sound like good schools on the edge of match/safety. Basically, as previously posted,

This category. That’s the level of I would pull from. It sounds like of those, NYU would also be good for the given criteria in addition to the ones I mentioned. Tulane is very fratty, I personally know someone who transferred out for that very reason.

14

In our experience, Georgetown felt dramatically less Catholic than BC. The BC tour started with a visit to a statuary of an angel stabbing the devil, surrounded by icons of Jesuit martyrs. Then we walked by the Jesuit residence on the way to the Library as the guide told us that BC was very accepting of non-Catholics. Just wasn’t my son’s vibe.

Any thoughts about McGill in Montreal?

15

I disagree that Northwestern isn’t a match for some people. I suspect that it is a match for your son, it would have been a match for my D1 (actually, Naviance had it as a safety, but we didn’t believe that and she didn’t like it anyway). They tend to not play games with admissions. Actually most of the schools you mentioned are matches in that I think the probability of admission is between 40-90%. These would include Tufts, Johns Hopkins, Washington University, Brandeis, Rochester, USC, Wesleyan (larger than Brandeis if I recall), etc. Rochester is almost a safety, they are unlikely to reject your S.

Lehigh is actually a reach, and will likely not accept your S unless he puts a lot of effort into demonstrating interest. It does have Division 1 sports though so if the effort is made, he will likely get in.

Tulane seems like a great safety option. They have early action, though I assume that your S will apply SCEA to Harvard or Yale, in which case, I don’t think Tulane is allowed.

The size thing creates a problem because many schools that would be matches are larger than 5000 students. There aren’t too many 5000 student schools that have division 1 sports that would also appeal to a top student.

I would suggest going larger for the safeties. My D1 who was a tip-top student with stats similar to you S, used Wisconsin as a safety. It was rolling admissions, in a beautiful place, urban, top academics, and she applied at the beginning of September and was admitted by the middle of October. Safety was bagged before the EA applications were due. Pittsburgh is also a potential option for a nice rolling safety. Michigan, though not a safety, has EA and is very likely to accept him. Both of my Ds preferred Wisconsin to Michigan.

If BC is too Catholic, then Villanova will be way over the top! My D2 could tell that it was too Catholic for her without even getting out of the car. It hits you in the parking lot! We had stopped for gas nearby on our whirlwind college tour while driving from to UDel, and were just turning around in their parking lot, LOL!

Another strategy that might be worthwhile is to skip SCEA altogether since it doesn’t provide much of an advantage, and apply EA to Chicago, Georgetown, Tulane and maybe Wisconsin. Northeastern requires no essay so it’s easy to hit that EA also. He will likely have a very attractive acceptance before the Harvard/Yale applications are due, and with a Chicago or Georgetown admission, might actually save him some time filling out applications by eliminating choices lower down the list.

16

What a great suggestion about EA at Georgetown @ClassicRockerDad

He really, really likes it. Definitely his top choice after Yale and Princeton. If he were lucky enough to get in early there, then - as you say - he could scrap all his other applications except those 2. And, in the likely event he is rejected from both, the blow will be cushioned because he’s already set to go to a school he’s excited about.

Does applying EA give any kind of a bump at Georgetown? It seems that non-binding Early Applications don’t do very much at all to move the needle.

17

Wake Forest meets much of your son’s criteria. Add to it:

Tons of personal attention from his professors.
A student body that is super nice, outgoing, and focused on service.
Beautiful, classic campus.
Good weather.
Attractive merit scholarships.

However, I think Wake would be a match, but not necessarily a safety. The admit rate this year was down to 28% and I saw students with stats similar to your son’s get wait listed or outright turned down. Tufts syndrome? I don’t know. I think Wake gives a lot of weight to personal interest (required interview) and they are looking for students who are going to be actively engaged on campus (they take Pro Humanitate seriously).

18

For kids at my daughter’s school with high stats and ECs who are applying to HYPS and the like as reaches and who want that @ 4000 to @8000 undergraduate range, some of the schools I have heard mentioned as “likely” are University or Richmond, various state schools, University of Rochester, Case Western, GW, BU but for some of them (Rochester and Case Western in particular), I have heard that you do need to demonstrate interest.

19

If he’s just applying EA to Georgetown, he might as well apply SCEA to Yale or Princeton. Certainly getting into one of those would eliminate a lot of applications too. The point of doing EA to Georgetown was to allow multiple EA applications like Chicago and Tulane. With multiple early applications, even with just Georgetown and Chicago, the probability of getting in somewhere is significantly higher than the probability of getting into a school with one EA application. This likely solves the safety problem along with eliminating additional applications. The reason I mentioned Wisconsin and Pittsburgh was because those applications are almost trivial, admission is virtually automatic, and there are a lot of high achieving kids - Wisconsin because of the high caliber of academics, and Pittsburgh because of their generous merit scholarships that attract top students. The reason I mentioned Northeastern was because if he was going to do a common app early action, adding Northeastern is trivial because there is no supplemental essay.

20

Northwestern’s average test scores are too high (~2200 average SAT among admits, about equal to Stanford and Duke), and their admission rate is too low, for it to be considered a match. For it to be a match, an applicant would have to be at least four times as impressive/“admittable” as the average admit.

I suppose an applicant could be impressive enough to have a twice-as-good chance of admittance as the average admitted student... which would put Northwestern right on the border of Low Reach/High Match. But a true match? No.

Georgetown is really excellent, especially the world-renowned SFS. He might get into Yale or Princeton, but having Georgetown and a handful of other quality schools as cover will help to ensure a successful application process.