Thank you! I replied to your initial post and then just realized you had replied here. We talked about Greek life, and although its not her ‘jam’ she’s not particularly opposed to it. I’ve heard W&L is different - I think she would actually LOVE that kind of Greek life.
Glad to see that MOST of the targets are still targets. Skidmore always seemed like a less likely option -but everyone raves about its location (versus Union -haha) so thought it was worth a shot.
I can no longer remember if I have run the calculators for Drew, Wheaton, and Gustavus Adolphus! Sigh -we’ve run a lot of calculators. I’ll go run them –
ETA: Wheaton is 37K (NPC), Drew 29K, Gustavus 30K – for those prices -we will just leave KU as her safety.
I agree. For my older kids, we used roughly a 40-45% acceptance rate as the dividing line between reach and target – assuming the kid also fell roughly within the school’s stats (test score, gpa, rigor, etc.). In other words, a match/target based on stats still fell in the reach category if the acceptance rate was below 40-45%
IMO putting schools with a 15% acceptance rate in the target/match bucket is asking for trouble!
I consider the hard targets to be a more realistic reach school. It’s based on College Vine, but given the results here (my general observation not a scientific analysis) – students tend to get into the College Vine Targets but not the hard targets or reaches. I just like to classify the reaches into different groups because obviously Skidmore is not the same as applying to Brown.
We were turned off by religious schools as well–had visits to Gonzaga and Saint Louis U. You could feel the religion there, especially in the student body. Not the case at DePaul at all. We are an atheist family for the most part. Can’t speak to Loyola…
Thanks for saying that about DePaul. I’d love for S26 to find a school in Chicago that he likes and is an easier admit than UChicago. DePaul seems really great but he doesn’t like any whiff of religion. If they can keep it on the DL during the tour, it would go a long way with him.
I think West Chester University in southeastern PA would be a really good fit. The city of West Chester is a very nice, clean, small city with a vibrant restaurant/arts scene that is an easy walk from campus. The school/campus is a good size (neither too big nor too small). It is also nationally ranked (#220). They have a beautiful music school (which they are very proud of) and a theatre program. And the school is pretty affordable, even for OOS students ($22k with $10k average need-based package). The main downside is that they have been having issues with dorms (running out of space), mainly because applications are really on the rise. They are working on a plan to fix this, but I’m not sure about the timeline.
Happy to share! They do have pretty nice scholarships and the full out-of-state tuition isn’t terrible. It’s actually nearly the same as in-state engineering at U of Michigan. Crazy.
On a whim, I ran an NPC at a bit of a reach school. LOL. They think we can afford twice as much as we actually can. HAHAHA! Waste of time to even apply.
As an also ran thought, if COA is a major consideration for undergraduate studies - one might consider running their numbers for their child attending local Community College, Vo-Tech and/or one of the smaller schools in their state system for 1 or 2 years -and- then for 2 years at the State Public Flagship or other options. This can dramatically bring down the COA of a 4 year degree, especially if the child can live at home as well during the first couple of years.
Most schools require the equivalent of between 3 and 4 semesters of on campus credit hours, and specify how many max transfer credit hours you can use along with their credit hours. While the ‘college life’ experience can be an important factor, and living at home may be a lesser ideal… if economics are the major consideration - then non-traditional pathways may also be considered.
In the end, the degree awarded from the granting institution is from that institution…and doesn’t say anything about ‘transferred from’ or ‘used 60 credit hours from Community College’.
Options like this can be especially important for kids who either are Academically quite strong but won’t qualify for scholarship (notice not saying Financial Aid as a lot of ‘Financial Aid’ mentioned by colleges is simply loan aid to be paid back) and can’t afford 4 years at their Flagship or if their plans already include graduate or professional school and they have to minimize their undergraduate COA.
As an example (though their transfer acceptance rate is quite low) UNC Chapel Hill requires a minimum of 45 Credit Hours at UNC and will accept up to 75 Hours from transfer.
