Match Me: 3.58 W, 35 ACT, First Gen, Chem major [WI resident, 3.46 GPA, <$60k]

[eahud126]

@tsbna44

OK - and has to be an LGBTQ friendly state - so states like AL and MS are out. That’s where the money is.

Agree! He would ideally like to stay out of the south.

@tsbna44

Hopefully he gets into UMN. I don’t see UW and UMN will be tough due to the GPA but possible. How about Michigan State too - it’s on the left side of the list attached below (most PhDs not accounting for school size)?

UMN is his top-choice, he is really, really hoping to get into there. Based on his stats it does seem he would get into at least the college of liberal arts and could transfer into college of science and engineering. We’ve toured UMN already as well. If 9th grade grades were not a factor he would have a 4.0 unweighted ugh.

@tsbna44

Honestly, where you may get your best bang for the buck are the small liberal arts colleges - and they are on the feeder per capita PhD list. A school like Juniata (#4) and Kalamazoo (#6) should get you close to budget. K is down the street from W Michigan (another to look at) - so while it’s small, it’s at least adjacent to larger life, etc. Lawrence in Appleton might be in that same vein.

Obviously, you have UW branches - and again, not knowing the distance - but other liberal state schools could be Colorado State, U of New Mexico….but are these too far? Delaware would be a home run for Chem (think all the chemical companies) but I’m not sure you can get to budget - but you can try.

He’s already been auto-admitted to all the other UW branches that offer it (Madison, Eau Claire and LaCrosse are the 3 that don’t auto-admit WI residents), he has no interest in any of the branch UWs. He was direct admitted to SUNY Buffalo and Brockport via common app. He’ll be applying to Madison but knows it could be a reach. His LORs and essay will play a big factor in it I think, based on what we’ve read about… he’s brilliant and hard working, his teachers will attest to this. All of his math and AP science assignments and test scores are 100%, every single one. His teachers have spoken to me about how they ‘all’ talk about him and how incredible he is as a student. It literally sickens us how much his 9th grade struggles will hurt his chances at more competitive schools.

@tsbna44

I don’t think that matters - but if the student were open to schools in the South, it’d open the list more. For example, Alabama, if you have a 3.5 (not sure if weighted or unweighted) would be low 20s with auto merit. Now, Campus Pride gave them a 4.5 out of 5 but yes, the current administration and state are putting in laws.

Our daughter is a senior at Bama, our son does not want to go there, though he realizes he could get a significant auto-merit scholarship, he doesn’t want to go south

I’m thinking Iowa University or Iowa State could be good safeties for him. I’ll definitely encourage him to explore both. I’ll check out the feeders link you shared too!