She may want to study and try to get the ACT score up to 34 for the reaches if she is super motivated to attend any of them.
Tufts is what came to mind. Reach for sure though. What about Union? We were really impressed with this one and the vibe was closer to Tufts than, say, Colgate.
Has she actually been to Brandeis? It is most definitely suburban, not urban. Tufts is much closer to Boston and feels urban due to the area’s population density.
I know kids like yours (at least on paper) who love URI- although for my nickel, not sure it’s worth paying out of state. But that’s your decision and your nickel. Agree that American might be a good one to check out as well. And agree that Brandeis is not urban at all (sits high on a hill top).
Which single sex college did your D visit? They are all different- some in subtle ways, some in obvious ways.
Wake Forest? University of Richmond?
Thank you for the responses. While merit would be nice neither one of us wants to go down the tier or two that would be required.
She is taking the ACT one more time. She worked very hard on this last ACT and nothing much happened so I think she has peaked.
As for the OOS colleges, I am a strong believer that Rutgers or a SUNY (depending on home state) is perfectly fine and I do not see a difference between Delaware, Maryland, IU, OSU to make it worth paying an extra 20k a year for. And in fact I think in our area Binghamton, Buffalo, Stony Brook, Rutgers and so forth has more name recognition than those others. Perhaps if she wanted to live in those states it would matter. Feel free to disagree with me! I do not include UMich, UWisc, UVA or UNC in that analysis.
I would pay more for URochester and above in ranking.
She goes to a somewhat specialized school and at her school IU, UVM are really popular with kids in the 27-28 range who are not in many APs. She feels like if her choices were limited to those schools, then all the late nights studying, the 10 APs, the honors chem class she suffered through (she hated that class) were a waste and she could have had more fun in high school. From her point of view getting credit for APs shortens college which is not a net positive. Yes as a parent I can tell her they had value for their own sake but that does not matter. She also has a brother with much higher stats who is at a top school.
Will look at Skidmore and Union but she rejected them the first 10 times I brought them up! Sigh.
Yes rural is a dealbreaker, she does not want to be in the middle of nowhere and she also does not want to be in the middle of the city. She hated NYU, BU and NE. So far she has refused to visit Colgate.
Does not like Brandeis. She visited, spent some time there for a class and just did not like it. I have no explanation but REFUSES to apply. One of her friends is doing ED there.
She wants a pretty campus with nice lawns but does not want to be surrounded by cows or corn.
Blossom, do you mean University of Richmond? She read somewhere they have grade deflation, is that true?
SuzyQ Is Wake Forest Jewish enough?
We will look at American and GW although they may be too urban.
GW sounds like it would definitely be too urban for your daughter. American shouldn’t be.
I don’t know much about Hillel at William and Mary, but it fits your D’s other parameters. It is certainly a reach, particularly for a girl.
And it does not have grade inflation, just like U of Richmond - also a fantastic school.
I gotta say though, that your D sounds somewhat … closed to a dialogue with the person who will be paying for her college education. I hope she is OK with Rutgers or SUNY… isn’t Rutgers uuuuge?
American has a nice campus although it’s in a city. It doesn’t feel like BU, NYU, or GWU.
Wake Forest isn’t Jewish enough in my opinion.
Delaware, Maryland, IU, OSU => Compared to SUNY’s and Rutgers, IU is much stronger in the humanities, Delaware is smaller and easier to navigate, Maryland is 30mn to DC by lightrail, which would be excellent for anyone interested in museums, exhibits, and everything going in the Capital. tOSU has merit to decrease costs but I don’t think your daughter would qualify so that one can be crossed out.
SUNY’s are very “functional”. Binghamton has experienced some problems due to investment in better student center/dorms, and thus decreased investment in the academic side of college, meaning larger classes, longer wait to see a professor, more frequent occurence of being unable to take classes, not enough space in the library… I think the other SUNYs are okay, so Bing and Geneseo could be two affordable matches, but she doesn’t sound like she really likes them, and matches + safeties need to be schools the student likes. So, they need to share some characteristics with the “dream schools”, but with less selectivity.
As for the other classmates applying to IU or: do they get into the Honors College? Because that’s what she’d be aiming for, right?
BTW, yes your friend is right. For highly ranked colleges she needs to look to the Midwest and South. Within the close geographical range you delineated, she’s at a huge disadvantage and all the colleges you listed are reaches - she’s at risk of being “shut out”. You have lots of reaches (even if they’re reachable reaches, they’re still reaches). Finding dream schools and reaches is always fun. Now’s the hard work: finding 3-5 matches and 2 safeties.
In terms of her preferences, Towson is a great safety and she has a very good shot at honors college.
One point for your daughter is that she’s interested in the humanities when suddenly so few students are (meaning literature, history, philosophy, foreign languages&cultures, perhaps political science which is close to humanities… rather than social sciences like economics - economics doesn’t help).
Agree. American is pretty much between rural and urban - definitely in a suburb just very close to the city. Don’t forget that many if not most schools have honors programs. We know a (jewish) girl at UVM in the honors program and she is very happy. And Burlington is great.
Your daughter reminds me a a good friend’s daughter. She is extremely picky and rules out all sorts of schools for no discernible reason. Friend was going crazy trying to find the one “perfect” school, only to have it be rejected sight unseen. My friend finally decided to back out and leave the process entirely to her daughter (she gave the daughter a few perimeters in terms of cost, distance etc, otherwise, it is her daughter’s responsibility to create the list and apply.
Good luck!!
Wake Forest has a Hillel and is about 6% Jewish. It is a short distance by car to a cute shopping/restaurant area but the school itself is not in a town.
Does she have any suggestions or does she just reject your ideas? If she’s fine with Rutgers, it may be the best for her. I’m like your daughter and would prefer a larger school to a smaller one and would prefer a college town to a downtown urban school like NYU, but I’m okay with the flagship.
U of Denver is an urban school but not in a downtown. It’s definitely a ‘campus,’ has a Hillel, is the right size. The air flight is probably 3 hours rather than 2.5, and many non-stop flights.
I meant U Rhode Island… not sure the value proposition vs. staying in state, but I know a lot of kids who love it there.
GW is definitely urban- one of its selling points is that it is smack dab in the middle of DC (you can walk to the Smithsonian, it’s a nice stroll to Georgetown and the cute shopping/restaurants there). American is not smack dab in the middle of the city.
You might look deep into yourself on the distance thing. Although being from the NY metro area isn’t a hook anywhere, your D will be more of a novelty and less of a liability the further from home she goes. Just a thought.
Download the list from the Hillel website of the “small but mighty” colleges (i think that’s the current nomenclature). Some of these schools punch above their weight w/r/t Jewish life- small but highly involved student body can compensate for a huge but somewhat unaffiliated group of students.
Does she like the safeties, and are they affordable? If so, you and she can dial down the panic, because she will be going to a college she likes next year.
Tell her that if AP scores fulfill requirements at college, she can take interesting electives instead.
" American is pretty much between rural and urban - definitely in a suburb just very close to the city."
Technically, it is in the city being in DC proper. It’s just in a more residential area. It’s similar to Emory in that respect.
@MYOS1634 Thank you. Is Geneso Jewish enough? I know a few years ago it was not.
I really am not willing to pay 20k more a year OOS so she can travel into DC from UMaryland. However I do appreciate the explanation.
We have both been resistant to IU so have not explored it in terms of honors college or not. If it costs the same as in state I would consider it but she is not willing to.
Not sure I understand what a reachable reach is.
Why is my friend right (hate that!LOL) and why is this true for a humanities girl but not true for a STEM boy when considering mid size research Us? I cannot think of a single LAC she has been willing to consider. What is it about girls that makes them so fungible?
If we took away the geographic restriction (other than no deep south) but kept the 3500 plus enrollment and no urban schools, what would everyone recommend in terms of high matches/low reaches/highly ranked schools. Places like Kenyon and Grinnell are too small and I doubt UChicago or NU would even read her file.
@ucbalumnus I think the minute something is presented as a safety she begins to hate it!
When she visited our in state two years ago with her brother she actually really liked it but of course was influenced by the fact that he hated it. Anyone see a theme here?
As I said before I really not willing to pay MORE for a non top tier OOS or any school that does not match our in state in terms of opportunities or at least price. I will pay up for a school ranked in the low 30s or better. I told her brother the same before he applied.
sounds like she should 100% visit TCNJ. 10 min from Princeton, 45 min from NY and Phil. A top rated school with a new England LA feel. aprox 7000 students. one of the highest freshman retention rates , ranked by studnets as one of the best campus’ and happiest student bodies in the country. Its very very different than Rutgers and academically right there with Bing. And it has a fine Hillel.
I think that sometimes, when a kid seems somewhat irrational about the options, it’s because they are getting information that is invisible to us. Maybe all the kids they know who have gone to XYZ smoke weed or simply were not friendly to them. And don’t discount the peer pressure at some high schools - kids end up valued by where they matriculate. I think kids know that this kind of “data” is ridiculous so they don’t share it, but some part of it matters to them.
Who knows? She might open up on a road trip and you might find out what is driving her decisions. Or maybe not. Good luck!
" What is it about girls that makes them so fungible?"
It’s purely numbers. There are just a greater percentage of females applying to college these days than males. If you look at a college’s Common Data Set, you can see how many applications a college gets from males and from females. Here’s some data from the last go round at Tufts:
Total first-time, first-year (freshman) men who applied
8057
Total first-time, first-year (freshman) women who applied
11006
http://provost.tufts.edu/institutionalresearch/files/Tufts_CDS_2015-2016.pdf
And, given that females are still underrepresented in most stem majors and most females are focused on humanities, the percentage is even more heavily skewed towards females pursuing humanities. Most colleges would ideally want a 50/50 ratio (although most have more females) so it really is more challenging for girls. Add in white and suburban and from the Northeast, and your daughter is literally a dime a dozen for schools in the northeast. 
Saphire- I say this with love.
She is getting her shtick from you. So if you want her to be more realistic and less judgemental about various options, YOU need to be more realistic and less judgmental.
Whether or not a college is ranked 28 or 32 or 36 has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it will be a good fit for your D. And whether you call a college a safety or a slam dunk or a lottery ticket or “heaven on earth” doesn’t change the fact that she is a competitive candidate for admission at some schools but not at others. And whether she wants to study classics or chemistry-- pretty much irrelevant at most of the colleges you guys are considering because they don’t admit by major.
So- you can reboot.
Figure out what you can afford, and then out of that, what you will realistically pay each year for college. I get that there might be a minor fudge factor involved (I personally had a list of colleges which I would not pay a dime for- mainly because they were twice the price of our state flagship and in my mind- not worth it. But that was independent of their “ranking”- that wasn’t of interest to me).
That’s your D’s budget. What you can afford. If she gets merit- that extends some of her options. If she can raise her scores that extends some of her options.
But your taxonomy which is signaling to her that Rowan and IU are for slackers but Rochester is for winners is going to do you in.
Your friend is sort of right and sort of wrong- but why do you care? What’s important is your D, and finding a college which you can afford which maximizes her intellectual and personal growth. Who cares that an Asian girl living in a homeless shelter on the South Side of Chicago with 800’s on her SAT’s has more options than your D? Why is that relevant?
Parent the kid you have. Help her find a couple of places you can afford, that she can get admitted to, that have most (not all- nothing has all) of what she wants out of college. If that means it’s slightly smaller or slightly bigger or has lots of trees but not a botanical garden, or takes three hours not 2.5 to get to… that’s called being a grownup, learning to make trade-offs.
Hugs.