@RockyPA
Your D’s school sounds a lot like my D’s school. Here are a couple of thoughts…
You need to ask the GC how the data gets in Naviance. Self reported or required. If it's self reported it's not great.
Check out the "Learn More" tab under overlaps from a college's main page. There you can see the acceptance % for your HS to that college. Compare that % to the college's overall acceptance % and it'll tell you how much the college likes kids from your HS. For example Vandy is 11% for everyone and 14% from our HS. That's not a very big bump. Northwestern is 8% vs 23% and that's a big bump.
Ask the GC if your D is a competitive admit to different schools and gauge their reaction. Generally, they have a good idea about hooks and differences in major at a school.
You need to always be on guard for hidden hooks like a great background for essays, URM, alumni, full pay in the ED round, paid for top level college advising, etc. I like to ask my D why she thinks certain kids got in. "He's 4th generation to Dartmouth" and "he has a really high AIME score" are two I've heard.
Be honest and objective about your D's weaknesses. A 1600 isn't different from a 1550. An A in AP Stats isn't the same as an A in AP Calc BC. Being an officer of a regular club at school isn't a big deal. etc.
The more holistic a school is the more the scattergram will look jumbled up. That's a sign the high stats are less and less important, and the ECs and essays were more and more important.
As for the schools you listed…
-GT is moving to more holistic review. Make sure her essays are solid and interesting. Female helps. From my D’s school high stats females with all A’s in math and a minimum of Calc BC always get in. Always.
-Vandy is all over the place with acceptances. I think they have a lot of wants beyond test scores and grades. They also like the ED round.
-Cornell is an Ivy so they get a crazy number of apps. They also have multiple schools and the standards are very different for each school. If your D wants engineering I would be very leery of the Naviance data.
You aren’t crazy to consider those schools with those stats and Naviance is showing you that. But you can’t assume they she will get in simply because they are so selective. Pretty much anything can happen.
I would definitely visit. And I would also find some safeties.
Since you mentioned Cornell, here are the female acceptance rates by college for 2019.
Ag & Life Sciences: 10.2%
Arch, Art & Planning: 9.6%
Arts & Sciences: 10.0%
Dyson School: 7.8%
Engineering: 19.3%
Hotel School: 22.5%
Human Ecology: 18.9%
Industrial & Labor Rels: 16.7%
To give another point of reference, the male Engineering acceptance rate was 6.9%
That fits my dd’s profile. She is taking Calc BC now, and will be doing linear algebra next year (online since the school does not offer anything beyond BC)
She doesn’t love it so I don’t think she will do ED. Plus we would like to keep options open for merit scholarships since it appears we are basically full pay. Her grandparents are also Cornell alumni so they are pushing for to apply too!
Re: small sample sizes. Unless at least 40 students (better 50+) are applying to a college every year from your school, you cannot learn very much from the stats. For colleges with acceptance rates of <10%, you likely need a few more.
So if your HS has 20 applicants per year to a college, you won’t be able to learn much about whether it is a safety, unless every single student has been accepted. If 100 apply, that will tell you a lot more.
For example, over 200 students apply every year from my kid’s HS to UIUC, so there are more than 600 data points of the Naviance scattergram for UIUC. The fact that all kids within a certain range of GPA and SAT were accepted (a solid green upper right corner) would indicate that, for kids with that range of stats from our HS, even Engineering and CS at UIUC was a safety, or close. On the other hand, there were fewer than 15 applying a year to, for example, Lafayette college, so even if all the students who were within a stats range were admitted, there were few enough that other factors besides stats + attending our HS may have determined admission for these students.
Yes sample size could be an issue. Obviously I am not saying these schools are “safeties”, more like matches (so not necessarily guaranteed admission). Since her stats puts her in the 75% percentile for admitted engineering students at the schools (per the profiles posted above by another poster) it make sense too.
I think female in engineering, high stats, plus double legacy (even in RD) could make Cornell a match, depending on how you define a match. You’re starting out at 20% already. I think Vanderbilt could still be a reach and GT could be a match given it’s 29% acceptance rate for women.
I don’t know about Cornell and Vanderbilt, since the acceptance rates keep falling. However, looking at @Eeyore123’s stats, and since your DD is a legacy, it could easily also be a match or low match.
The Vanderbilt seems odd, but data is data, and even if it’s a relatively small data set (say a total of 40-60 applicants in the past three years), it would indicate that high-stats kids from your DD’s HS are being accepted at a higher rate than expected, even if all the applicants were applying ED.
I wouldn’t think of them as matches in your expectations, but if I were you, i would feel comfortable with adding them to a list that already had three or four reaches without considering the list to be “reach heavy”. Personally, if it were me, I would put together a list with reaches and matches that were clearer, and then add those on as “extras”. But that’s me thinking what I would have done, but since I never had to make those decisions, you can take my advice with a couple of handfuls of salt.
No, we are not in-state for GT. Her GC thinks GT is a match though… based on her GPA and SAT, there actually has not been anyone from her HS that has even applied with stats as high as hers. The highest stats kids apply elsewhere. The acceptances are mostly with weighted GPAs 4.4-4.6 and SATS with SATs 1420-1550. She has a 4.7 and a 1570. Obviously stats are only part of the picture, but my dd has pretty strong ECs as well (both STEM and non-STEM).
The universities will be familiar with your daughter’s school and its rigor. Naviance is a good starting point, but admission to the tippy top schools has gotten crazy for almost every applicant. Your daughter should put some reaches, matches, and true safeties on the list from the start. Many top schools such as Vanderbilt fill at least half the class with ED/ED2 applicants. Ga Tech out of state admissions are much harder than in state admissions. Your legacy connections should help at Cornell, but if she doesn’t ED there, Cornell may assume she will not attend. https://cornellsun.com/2019/12/13/cornells-early-decision-acceptance-rate-increases-to-23-8-percent-for-class-of-2024/
She does not want to ED to Cornell… and since it appears we are full pay we don’t want to be locked in, as she may try to get merit scholarships elsewhere. Yes, we realize the legacy boost will be negated with RD. If she absolutely loved the school, she would do ED, but she does not like the location nor the weather.
I rarely give chances opinions, and what do I know, but as a fellow alum I think your D would be golden in ED for Cornell, assuming appropriate essays etc. But #33 is right for RD they may assume she doesn’t really want to go there. Which I guess from what you said is basically true. In which case she might want to “lie” intelligently on her essays.
But maybe she shouldn’t apply then.
None of my kids wanted to apply there, and they didn’t. But later one of them changed her mind and actually attended. That was great for me, because then I had a reason to go up there more. (She liked it too, FWIW).
I’m sure you are on top of this, but if it is merit money that is the key, then she should apply to places that actually give significant merit awards. Used to be RPI, Rochester, Case, free ride to some state U’s like Alabama. Oklahoma; not sure where this stands today . And if merit aid isn’t the “be-all”, I’m not sure why she wouldn’t lob in a “hail mary” to MIT, And give a close look at some other schools with the highest overall reputations, despite “worse” engineering programs, and see whether any of those might work for her. Like some of the other Ivy League schools, eg Columbia SEAS. Or even a prestigious LAC despite teeny engineering, ie Swarthmore. Depending on whether her interests might be met there.
My(unsupported) feeling is a highly qualified woman who wants to do engineering is in an advantaged position, to an extent, at basically all engineering programs.
We visited MIT last spring and she didn’t like the vibe… not sure if she will apply. While she is a STEM kid, her major non academic EC is ballet and she wants to be able to continue dancing in some capacity in college. She did like Harvard though… so that is on her “reach” list, as well as Princeton (both have relatively strong performing arts centers). Swarthmore is also another possibility.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! Glad your daughter liked Cornell! Which school did she attend?
Arts & Sciences.
FWIW she was also into ballet, in fact made her initial college choice more or less completely on that basis. I’ll link to some old relevant threads about it below.
Most schools had some dance but much fewer had strong ballet.
IMO the best bet for your daughter, based solely on those interests, is Columbia SEAS with Barnard for dance. The schools have basically complete cross-registration. Barnard is better for ballet than almost any non-MFA school.
And if that’s not enough there is Steps and other dance schools readily available. And professional ballet to watch.
Re-reading my old posts, you might suggest D check out Duke and Northwestern too. But if their program is MFA one needs to determine what is available for non-majors.
FWIW Cornell dance was good enough for D at that stage of her engagement.
She danced modern there, had some good classes, with performance opportunities through the classes. Also took some classes at Ithaca Ballet. Extracurricularly, there was one main (modern) dance troupe, as I understood it, that seemed to fill up at Fall semester, and when she came in in the Spring they only took one new student (competitive tryouts) who was not her.
@monydad yes Cornell does seem to have some dance options. Not much in terms of ballet though as you indicated. They don’t even have a student run ballet company (Harvard and Princeton both do). Duke is definitely on her list (we are going to visit in April). She really does not want to college in NYC so Columbia and Barnard are off the list, although as you point out would be the best option in terms of meeting both her interests. Thanks for including all those links. Very helpful.