Or ASU or Univ of Arizona, where you’re an auto-admit if you graduate from an AZ high school, have a 3.0 unweighted GPA, and have taken the required high school classes (all listed on their website 
).
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Or just a 22 ACT
To be admitted to ASU, you will need one of the following:
- top 25% in high school graduating class
- 3.00 GPA in competency courses (4.00 = “A”)
- ACT: 22 (24 nonresidents)
- SAT: 1120 (1180 nonresidents)
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Or the University of Kansas (“KU” for some reason):
Assured admission standards
First-year students are assured admission into KU’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences or School of Social Welfare if they meet one of these combinations:
- A 3.25 GPA on a 4.0 scale, no test scores required or regardless of test score submitted
- An ACT score of at least 21 or an SAT score of at least 1060 plus a GPA of at least 2.0
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As a Utah native I can tell you UofU >>>>>>> Utah State for most OOS kids (at least IMO). If your daughter is an actively-practicing Mormon or really focused on a major not available at the U, then Utah State and Logan could be fine. If she is not - it will be a very different experience for her there. You might not notice it on a quick campus visit though. The UofU is great and will be far less of an acute culture shock. Logan is lovely, but it is far from all of the activity and will feel very different culturally. (If you happen to be California Mormons who haven’t lived in Utah among Utah mormons - Logan will still feel like a culture shock). Just my 2 cents. (Among Locals the vibe is - Utah State is where mormon kids end up if they didn’t get into BYU, but have higher stats than Utah Valley U, and think the UofU or SLC is too liberal or too “urban”.)
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It does seem crazy. I think there are a few things at work here - first, because of the uncertainty among kids targeting, let’s say, top 50 schools/T25 LACs, kids are encouraged to apply EA wherever possible. For the most part that means public schools (with a few privates thrown in for good measure). These often high performing kids are typically targeting the usual suspects: UVA, UNC, Michigan, USC etc. But, because things are so uncertain, they might also throw in a Rutgers or UMass or Wisconsin which they see as more likely - sending numbers skyrocketing at those schools as well. However, at the end of the day these hordes of kids applying to many of the same schools can only attend 1 which means that yields at many are likely to be quite low. At some point the crazy has to stop . . . right? I mean if you had told me S24 would feel the need to apply to 14 schools I wouldn’t have believed it.
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Right. The core of the problem is that for a high stats, highly accomplished, unhooked kid, there are no longer true “target” schools. Especially if the kid is a STEM applicant. What used to be targets (like Michigan or GT 7-8+ years ago, or UIUC or Maryland or Purdue 3-4 years ago) are now deferring/waitlisting/rejecting many of these kids because they aren’t sure they’ll actually attend and they are receiving so many more applications after going TO. This unpredictability causes these kids to apply to a larger set of schools, which in turn causes more unpredictability, and so on. It’s a vicious cycle.
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I don’t think there will be any significant changes to reduce stress for students and parents. SAT/ACT requirements coming back might help to reduce overall application numbers. And maybe change the college ranking system so that a higher acceptance rate gets you a higher ranking.
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only 14?
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Ha! I know, he’s a slacker . . .
I would push back a bit and suggest this is true if you are looking for an affordable engineering powerhouse like the ones you mentioned. But outside that box (admittedly a very important box)–there are so many great liberal arts and sciences colleges (including ones very good at the S & M parts of STEM), independent or within universities, which are potential targets for high numbers kids, including many with robust merit programs.
The tricky bit is if you stick only to the most popular markets, like Boston or California or such, then a lot of those colleges are very reachy and way more stingy with merit.
But if you look outside those markets, I think it is actually still a big, wonderful world of options for high numbers kids–outside of that engineering powerhouse box, at least.
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I disagree. It’s just that what school are targets shift cycle to cycle, so students/families need to be parsing out CDC data that is only 1-2 cycles behind. And, looking at admission trends.
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I think it’s very hard for the average applicant or parent to correctly gauge what schools might be targets in a particular year.
Some may shift, but Michigan (for example) isn’t ever going to be a target anymore for anyone OOS.
@NiceUnparticularMan - agreed, I was referring to big name STEM schools. All public, because their private equivalents have been reaches for a long time.
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What we can take away, is if a school has joined common app for the first time, don’t assume it’s a safety!
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I think that’s right – because of the Common Data Set lag and the growth in applications, I think everyone is 1-2 years behind the data. So S24s “target” would probably have actually been a target if he had graduated in 22 or 23. But I think it is actually a reach for him (and part of that may be major). He ended up with 5 schools that are very similar in many ways (all flagships), two of which were safeties, two were big reaches and one was originally identified by the school counselor as a target (but I don’t think is).
U Mich (OOS) was a back up for kids at our high school up through 2021. Starting in 2022, the kids who thought it was a target, didn’t get in … then it was like they all shifted to Wisconsin as the new target, and in 2023 Wisconsin deferred everyone. And yet, I heard today about 1/4 of our senior class applied to Michigan and 1/3 applied to Wisconsin. So either no one got the memo or everyone is hoping we are going back to the old days. Either way, there’s going to be a lot of sadness at school next week.
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I honestly don’t think there is a such thing as safeties anymore. The whole admissions process has become a Pandora’s box.
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Well, there are still some auto-admit schools, which are a safety if you meet their threshold. And in states like TX you have auto-admit if you’re top 6% in your school (although no guarantee you’ll get your major). I also consider schools to be safeties if they have a greater than 60% acceptance rate and your stats exceed the 75th percentile.
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Lots and lots of safeties - both public and private - but the students who believe they are higher caliber wont’ necessarily consider them.
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if SAT/ACT becomes a requirement again, it will bring down the total number of applications somewhat.
More transparent admission data would enable students and parents to make better decisions.
If I know no one with 30 ACT Math/Science was accepted at Caltech, then I might have a second chance applying with 30 ACT Math/Science. But right now, the college is selling a “holistic review” that no one knows how students are selected.
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Its the crazy high cost too, the reason we applied to so many was because of various scholarship possibilities, so a bunch of schools we would apply to if we were paying/ loans etc., and then a bunch of schools that kid would attend if received various scholarships. I think for kids who are high need and excellent but maybe not ivy level, they have to apply to a ton of places because it can be unpredictable which schools will give merit plus need, or end up giving financial aid, will admit and meet need etc.
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Or they can apply to schools that share that info in advance - so you know how much you’re getting and where.
But they have to be open minded and flexible to the names and locations. More schools that people realize have merit tables…