Political science/pre-law focus. 3.95 UW, 1540 SAT [CA resident, 4.23 weighted capped GPA for UC, NMSF]

Chance Me / Match Me
21

You’re not wrong - kids can like both - mine did W&L and UGa/Uf/U of SC/UND but this student is picking by name. Mine ultimately preferred smaller and went to #16 of 17 rank wise and yet met diplomats and had a DC mentor through the school and had a DC semester, worked at a top dc think tank, interned for the state, and has a great outcome. She had 7 DC intern offers so I don’t think the school name is as critical as people make it. You - not the school - will create the success. And so many schools have sub Honors programs or like my daughters school - institutes/ foundations / symposiums - so look deeper than a name for other opportunities.

If after they visit it’s true - they like multiple types - then great - but mine, in elimination, took the giants off first realizing that even though their rank was higher, the fit wasn’t as good. Each student is different. Yours liked the bigger UCLA for whatever reasons mattered to them. .

I’d encourage OP on fit over name.

Few know Mac, as an example but it’s a great school - for some better than a better known UC.

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I definitely did intend to suggest that kids could not consider different types of schools!

I think the point is more just to be intentional about whatever you are doing. You may be interested in a certain type of program–say PPE, in the OP’s case–that is available at a variety of types of colleges. That is fine! Or maybe you want to be in a certain area, and consider different types of colleges in that area. Also fine! Or maybe there is a student activity, or just a vibe, or certain types of dining or housing, and on and on.

And maybe you have more than one focus. That’s fine too!

In the end, it is entirely up to each kid what they do or don’t care about. I just think the goal is for the kid to have made very intentional choices about each college on their list, each Likely/Foundation, Target/Match, and Reach.

And that way when they get offers, each offer will be exciting to them for those reasons. And then they can pick their favorite, and be every excited about that choice.

Which to me is the goal, to have an (affordable) college you are excited to be attending, because you picked it for reasons that really mean something to you.

23

Fantastic information - thank you! Good to hear that a mix of college types is not unreasonable.

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I would encourage OP to focus on fit versus finances given they have explicitly said they have no financial constraints.

Schools like Alabama and Tulsa seem to be thrown out based on cost but seem to have no other basis for “fit”. Bama is the largest Greek school in the country, public, 40,000+ with a southern cultural vibe and very sports oriented. Students who go there should seek such an atmosphere not just go because it’s cheap.

Nothing at all in this description (or the schools on OPs list) suggests Bama as a fit in my opinion.

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Welcome to College confidential and congratulations to your student for an excellent and competitive profile.

For the UC’s, are the Dual enrollment courses calculated into the posted UC GPA’s if UC/CSU transferable?

Please note that the UC Capped weighted GPA equals the CSU GPA however when taking CC classes, the class grades for 1 semester CC classes are counted twice with 2 Honors points in the CSU GPA calculation instead of 1 grade and 1 honors point for the UC’s.

Here is the CSU GPA calculator: GPA Calculator | CSU

For SDSU, the average admitted CSU capped weighted GPA campus wide was 4.06 and had a 53% admit rate for Political Science.

For CSULB, the average admitted CSU capped weighted GPA for Political Science non-local majors was 4.02 and the admit rate was 60%.

With this data, I would favor these as Likely schools for your student.

Also note that SDSU admits some High stat applicants in December (December 17 for 2025 applicants) so you can hear early with a chance to apply to their Honors college with priority.

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Thank you - very helpful information about CSU GPA calculation - we were not aware and will try out the CSU GPA calculator. The GPA in my post does not include the grades from the dual enrollment courses.

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OP, since you noted National Merit, you might find this thread helpful.

Again, find the right school for you student first and foremost. You have large - 34,500 undergrads at Michigan, near 38k at Wisconsin, 39k at Purdue - these can be 50k plus with grad students - and then you have smaller which it seems you prefer.

You may find some insights here that are directly related to your mention of National Merit - a whole host of schools you may not recognize.

Congrats to your student. I’m sure they’ll find a great school.

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30

Just to put in a word in support of W&M, because we’re also from California and people out here really don’t know what to make of it — it has the relational vibes of a small LAC, but the research opportunities of an R1 … the population of a midsize school (7,000 undergrads), but the lower-than-most-midsize-schools cost of a public … top students (75th% SAT of 1530), but a far more accessible admit rate than any other school in its academic peer group (28% OOS). It’s an interesting one.

My class-of-2025 twins have a record much like your daughter’s (3.95UW/1520/NMS /// 4.0UW/1560/NMS) and were also focused on midsize liberal arts schools, in the vibe cluster I describe as “Warm Academia” — top-tier academics with strong undergrad teaching, excellent relationships with professors, and a kind, enthusiastically friendly, intellectually curious student body. Both kids found W&M to be excellent for all of that, and will be heading there in the fall.

[I cut out a story here (because it got long, but I’d be happy to share by DM) about how a professor gave my daughter (as a prospective student) his own lunch when she was visiting campus and running late for the campus tour, but the tl;dr is that the professors are remarkably nice, and accessible. Also a story about how a secret society there decorates and places literal welcome mats across campus for the admitted students’ day, as a way of highlighting one of the school’s values, of “belonging”.]

Anyway, as @NiceUnparticularMan pointed out, W&M’s Government department, and their Public Policy department, AND their International Relations department … they’re all excellent, and that doesn’t even touch on their History department, which is another favorite of pre-law types. There’s also a 5-year “BA/BS + MPP” program that might be interesting to your daughter, where she could get a BA in Government or IR or whatever department she wanted, and then get a Masters in Public Policy after another year, before heading off to law school or wherever her path leads her.

Anyway, you get the idea: academically and size/vibes/area-of-study-wise, it could end up being a really great fit for your daughter, and I think it’d be worth a look. Especially as she looks for target/match schools she’s genuinely excited about, which can be tricky in that midsize range. Oh, also, if she plans to continue singing, it has a laughably large number of a cappella groups. Anyway, feel free to ask questions on it if I can help.

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31

One follow up to W&M given the interests of the student - they also have a joint program (2+2) with St. Andrews - which might make it interesting for someone with an government/IR bent…especially as we may be getting more isolationist here, it can provide a more global perspective.

It’s a unique program to W&M vs. other like schools.

St Andrews Joint Degree Programme | How to Apply | Undergraduate Admission | William & Mary

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32

The first three schools that I thought of after reading your profile were:
Claremont McKenna, Georgetown, and the University of Michigan.

Additionally, consider any of the 8 Ivy League schools (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, U Penn, Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, & Harvard).

Also look at the course offerings at U Chicago & Northwestern University. (Easy to double or triple major at NU. Solid options if you want to consider Economics as one of your majors. Econ from either U Chicago or NU should open doors.)

Definitely consider UCLA based on your interests and residency.

If you feel the need to apply to a small, rural LAC, then consider Bowdoin College as you are a likely admit as a non-stem major even though Bowdoin does not admit by major; however, the school is overwhelmed by demand for STEM majors and probably would welcome a highly qualified government major.

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Do you estimate this is between 10% and 20%? Lower? Does the HS have a history of sending students outside the top 10% to the reach schools on the list?

For HS coursework, will your student have at least four years in each of the core subject areas? What are the senior year classes? Will your student be taking physics?

I defer to the HS counselor for the categorization of schools. I would also drop Purdue and replace with a school that better fits the intended major and desire to attend a ‘midsize, liberal arts-ish’ college.

Has your student requested LoRs from at least two teachers?

Data or not, the college investment decision is unique to each family. Many families do not consider this investment purely through an ROI lens (some don’t consider ROI at all.) People should choose what works for them. Personally, I often encourage people to not take out parent loans, or de-prioritize investing for retirement but again, fundamentally, it is up to each family to decide how much they can spend on college and their reasons for doing so.

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OP, I think you have a shot at all your reaches as an “average excellent” student based on the info you have shared. That means your academics (grades, rigor and test scores) and EC’s get you past any initial hurdle. The decision will be driven by your LoR’s and essays and how the AO’s picture you fitting in their schools.

If we were still living in California, I would not encourage my kids to apply to big out of state state schools, even great ones like UMich because the California system is so good and affordable. The exception may be well regarded honors type programs which allow you to study in a “small” community in the midst of a huge state university.

You should also realize that there is a divide in opinion on whether which undergrad program you go to matters for T14 law school admissions. While it is true that elite law schools like Harvard have students from a variety of undergraduate programs, a large portion of the incoming class come from about 20-30 colleges with a lot of onesis from lesser known schools. Of course this leads to a question of causation vs correlation. Do students from HYP get into Harvard Law in such numbers because they went to HYP or is it because they are probably good students and test takers to begin with. I think it is a bit of both. There are threads that debate this exhaustively in CC, and I don’t want to rehash the argument other than to say there is a difference of opinion among respected posters.

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Not necessarily. Just because a public school is competitive doesn’t mean that they have the resources to hire and retain counselors who are knowledgeable about college admissions.

My kids attended a CA public HS that was ranked in the top 3% in the state, yet one of my kids had three counselors in four years. Two were fresh out of school. That’s how I ended up on CC. :rofl:

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A public school counselor may have hundreds of students to counsel, and not just on college preparation and admission issues.

The dedicated college counselors found at academically elite private high schools are not the norm for most high school students.

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Yeah, I think at least often, even overworked HS counselors can give pretty good advice on state college admissions, but I would not claim that is always going to be true.

However, tamagotchi did say “probably”, and so that is not incompatible with “but possibly not”.

38

Our CA public HS has a graduating class of 850-900 students each year, and we have two college counselors. Most of our college bound students apply to CA state schools; some may also apply to privates and OOS schools. My feeling is that if our overworked college counselors can chance students for any schools at all, CA state schools are probably the schools where they understand admission best, since they are helping hundreds of students apply to these schools each year.

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@BKSquared Thank you, I think your post echoes some of our thinking around why we are interested in well regarded schools (that also have the right culture/feel) - we think there is at least some value in the school name for future opportunities while acknowledging that ultimately individual factors play a very important role.

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Our (private) counselor has estimated 10-25%. The top 10% at the high school is entirely 4.0 UW GPA though in any many cases with a less challenging course load.

The high school does not allow doubling up on APs in a subject and does not allow APs or Honors classes in 9th grade, which accounts at least partially for the relatively low number of APs.

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@Publisher thank you, this is helpful (and reassuring to know we are in the right ballpark given background and interests).

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Does anyone have opinions on our tentative strategy of ED1 at CMC and ED2 at Emory (if visit impressions are positive)? Do those seem like they provide a good chance of being admitted ED?