IMO: a candidate as strong as OP should take her ED shot at an Ivy, or REA to Stanford as @hebegebe suggested. No doubt Tulane is a very good school, but an ISEF 4th place and USACO Gold winner should shoot higher.
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If you want to take advantage of your SUNY/CUNY price tag, why not Macauley Honors in addition to Binghamton?
Just clarifying that I wasnât suggesting an ED app at Tulane. Just speaking to chancing information regarding Tulane.
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I donât understand the high reach/low reach distinction on this list. The schools with single-digit admit rates are all high reaches where your compelling stats and profile will look somewhat common.
Would you prefer âhigh reachâ and âhigher reachâ?
I think the distinction is useful. Colleges like Cornell, Dartmouth and Rice routinely take unhooked students that are near the top of their class from well-regarded high schools. UPenn and Columbia less so. But admission for unhooked students to HYPSM is considerably harder.
The stats are routine, but the ECs and awards are less so.
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It doesnât matter what I prefer. The small marginal differences in admission rates and patterns between Dartmouth, Penn, Yale, Columbia and Harvard, etc. make the the reach/high reach distinction meaningless for those schools. Kids will get rejected by Dartmouth and accepted by Harvard, or rejected by Penn and admitted to Columbia. And the only detailed data we have about the disadvantage of being unhooked comes from the Harvard litigation, which is specific to Harvard and Harvard only.
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I was not necessarily expecting this, but the SCOIR data I saw for our feederish HS supported the thesis that at least for our kids, there was in fact quite a difference in competitive ranges, and hit rates in a given range, between HSM (I didnât have good enough data for Princeton, and oddly none for Yale), and whatever you want to call the next-most selective colleges.
But I do think part of that is effective steering, meaning the college counselors are helping kids understand who might have the best chances at a Brown, or rather a Chicago, or rather an Amherst, and so on.
So I am not sure I love the language of High Reach versus Reach, at least not without elaboration. But we would talk about things like, âX is a Reach but a good fit for you.â And I think at least for us, that was reasonably predictive of a better chance than if we couldnât say that.
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I agree with this, and in the rarified set of schools we are talking about, there are strategies that good counselors advise. For example, I think the OP would have a better shot at MIT than at almost any of the other schools listed in both her reach and high reach categories because of her interests, attainment of multivariable calc, and gender identity. MIT has a slightly lower admit rate than, say, Penn, but she fits the profile of what MIT wants.
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People, move on from talk of definitions of reach/match, etc. Thatâs not what the OP is asking about.
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Honestly, I didnât have any strict method in choosing schools, but I did consider prestige, distance from home, location near major cities, strength in engineering/business/medicine paths, and the overall âvibeâ I got if I visited or spoke with current students.
^ If I have a fighting shot at any high reaches, I decided I wonât be EDing anywhere since my top picks are REA (except Columbia, but Iâm still hesitant to commit without hearing from other choices).
Thatâs interesting what you mention about MIT, could you elaborate more? Do you think any other schools would also favor my profile, and if there are parts of it I should emphasize in my apps?
Should I be writing about my ECs in the additional info section? I was told that it was kinda overkill, and that I should reserve that section for extenuating circumstances (i do have a slight gap in my grades i need to speak about). Otherwise, I just barely fill up 10 activities and 5 honors.
Since the majority of the schools youâre considering are in the northeast, I assume your preference is to stay closer to home if possible.
Based on what you just shared, some options you may want to consider include:
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Rensselaer Polytechnic (NY): About 5900 undergrads, located just outside of Albany, and really strong in many of the areas you just mentioned. Business might be the weakest of your interests, but it still does well. It offers a major in business analytics or a variety of concentrations within its Business and Management major (i.e. finance, entrepreneurship, supply chain, etc). The origins of its environmental engineering program date back to the 1800s and was formally introduced in the 1950s (and it offers through a PhD in the field). And within its Science and Technology Studies department there are majors in sustainability studies and science, technology, and society. And within bio, there are majors in biochem & biophysics, computational biology, biological neuroscience, plus regular old biology. And with a campus thatâs a 15m drive to the NY State Capitol, there would be lots of opportunities to get involved in public policy matters.
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Duke (NC): This would be a reach, but Iâm pretty surprised itâs not already on your list. Two of the programs itâs most known for are the medical sciences and environmental sciences. Itâs also got ABET-accredited engineering (including for environmental science). And though it doesnât have an undergraduate business school, I doubt there are many business positions that would interest you that you couldnât gain access to with a degree from here. Durham is part of the Research Triangle and that area is booming with lots of development (including an Amazon HQ, among others).
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If you have big schools like Berkeley and Purdue, Iâd also give a serious look at U. at Buffalo. Its engineering program is very well respected (@aunt_bea had a kid there, I believe) and has an ABET-accredited environmental engineering degree. It has environmental science, environmental studies, environmental sustainability, environmental design as different major options. Its Urban and Public Policy Studies major might interest you as well. It has a variety of concentrations within its business program and it has all sorts of bio options to, like biochemistry, bioinformatics, biomedical sciences, biotechnology, biomedical engineering, and regular old bio as well (plus other fields that easily related to pre-med interests). This would be an extremely likely admit. And itâs SUNY pricing which you said youâd love to take advantage of.
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Students who have an unusually strong set of extracurriculars should use the Additional Information section to better explain them. One good use is to explain better explain and provide a link to a research project that resulted in a publication in a peer reviewed journal. Another is to show the progression or depth in an activity over multiple years thatâs not neatly explained in the Activities section.
Both my kids nearly maxed out the Additional Info word limit and together were admitted to several top 10 colleges.
Itâs really not necessary to fill up all the EC slots. Quite often the strongest candidates donât fill them up because of their commitment and demonstrated achievements in one or two activities.
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Because IPEDS and CDS data shows that women enjoy a ~2x admit rate advantage compared male applicants to MIT, which is atypical in higher ed. Also, you are accomplished in math and science, and you appear to want to apply your knowledge to change the world, which is something MIT values in alignment with its mission.
Other schools with a technical institute vibe tend to favor women in their admissions stats to achieve gender balance. Examples include CalTech, Georgia Tech and Harvey Mudd. Also, although it has no trouble enrolling women, Yale is trying very hard to attract more enrollment into engineering and the sciences, so that would work to your advantage there.
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My dataâs not exhaustive, but from the CDS reports Iâve gathered, these are the schools that have the highest relative advantage for women:
| School | Womenâs Advantage vs. Men |
|---|---|
| Olin | 211.31% |
| Harvey Mudd | 146.23% |
| MIT | 81.28% |
| CalTech | 71.76% |
| Georgia Tech | 69.43% |
| Carnegie Mellon | 58.96% |
| UC Berkeley | 53.71% |
| Cal Poly SLO | 44.64% |
| UIUC | 42.30% |
| U Mass Amherst | 37.27% |
Keep in mind that many of these schools have extremely low admit percentages. My goal is just to highlight a few more like the ones @Metawampe noted.
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Note that this does not necessarily mean an admission advantage â it could be that the female applicant pool at the college is stronger than the male applicant pool. For example, California publics are prohibited from using sex in admission, so the difference in female versus male admission rates at UCB and CPSLO is likely due to applicant strength and/or choice of more or less competitive majors (e.g. CS skews heavily male).
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That is what MITChris says as well. In summary, the women who apply to MIT are more highly qualified compared to the male applicant pool.
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Great points, @ucbalumnus and @hebegebe. Thank you for adding those.