<p>Maybe a student with good grades and lackluster SATs, but really impressive ECs, might be happier at a school that is less demanding academically? I’m thinking that sort of environment might allow her to put a little less effort into classes and more energy into continuing her extra-curricular endeavors.</p>
<p>I have to respond to one thing here to be sure we aren’t perpetuating myths for others who might read this thread. The whole 2200-or-32 as an-absolute-minimum concept irks me a bit. I agree that a majority of admitted students at these four schools do have numbers in that range and those who don’t are reaching quite high. I also agree that with two section scores in the 500s our D is out of range for consideration. That is a fundamental point of my posts. </p>
<p>But, I’ve done my homework on this. If D increases her CR to above 600, which may be achievable, I believe she would at least be reviewed by the committees at Wes and Wellesley. If she can get all three scores to the 600-700 range, I think her app would be read and considered at Vassar and Bowdoin. </p>
<p>The odds are long for a student with an 1800-1900 SAT, and that is what a reach means, but 2200 is most certainly not a bare minimum at these four schools, at least not for a public school kid from Texas. Students from the Northeast or privates may be more likely to take test prep courses and retake their tests and might be held to a somewhat higher standard, I don’t know. </p>
<p>At Wellesley, somewhere between 14 and 20% of applicants with one section score below 600 are admitted. At Wes, 13% of matriculating students have below a 600 on CR. Vassar and Bowdoin are admittedly tougher on test scores with only 5% and 6%, respectively, matriculating with a CR below a 600, even taking into account those at B. who didn’t submit tests with their apps.</p>
<p>The 25%ile at each of Trinity and Rhodes (where they focus on just CR and M) is 1170. D is several small steps above that line.</p>
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^ Sounds as if he did quite nicely for himself, emilybee. I don’t know how much harder he’d have had to work for Gtown, either - Vandy and Gtown have almost identical profiles for their admitted classes this year. For the admitted classes of 2016: 14.2 Vandy acceptance rate, 14.7 Gtown; Vandy 90.4 percent in top 10 percent of high school class, 90 per cent Gtown; SAT CR/Math 25th/75th percentile 1400/1560 Vandy, 1360/1560 Gtown. Hard to go wrong at either school.</p>
<p>NiceDay-- you are both technically correct and also incorrect.</p>
<p>You cannot cut the admissions data to see who those kids below 600 are at any given school. So you don’t know who is the concert pianist who just came back from the Chopin festival (Wes AND Wells will want her) and you don’t know who is an Intel finalist with a low CR score because she arrived from Somalia 5 years ago and is the only person in her family who speaks English, and you don’t know who is living in a homeless shelter.</p>
<p>I’m not saying your D can’t or won’t get into any place she’s applying. But I am cautioning you that coming from a public school in Texas will mean geographic diversity at many LAC’s- which is great- and will mean her application will be read in context- which is great- but you can’t tease out from the numbers how much any of that will mean.</p>
<p>I have long suggested (to their irritation, believe me) to many friends and neighbors who are in the process to be wary of looking too hard at the bottom of the class (in terms of stats.) Colleges work hard to admit the children of employees- some faculty kids are at the top of the applicant pool, but don’t forget- employees also mean security guards, cafeteria workers, groundskeepers, etc. and you can’t tease out who had which score. Which is why the conventional wisdom (look at the median, not the lower end of the pool to figure out where you stand) is both irritating (since mathematically speaking, half the pool is below the median) and correct at the same time.</p>
<p>Lots of good advice here, and I just want to encourage you to have your daughter take the ACT sooner rather than later.
My own daughter had markedly better success with it than the SAT, to the point that it was obvious that the SAT was a waste of energy (and going into Senior year energy is at a premium!)
Go to the book store with her so she can pick out some study guides and buy her some vocabulary flash cards (actually we used SAT vocab cards). Nothing motivates quite like knowing you have a chance at improvement. Right now she may feel she doesn’t have much chance at hitting a homerun with the SAT.</p>
<p>The schools you mention are going to have to have a reason to admit a student with CR<600. The student has to be outstanding or desirable in some other way: a URM, an Intel winner, a national caliber athlete, something to offset the poor SAT I. Otherwise, the admission committee will choose another student who is just like your daughter but with better SATs.</p>
<p>If you are visiting Bowdoin definitely make the trek a little further up to Bates. Test optional LAC with motivated engaged kids. In many ways similar to Wes and Vassar. It is also a school where expressing interest counts big in admissions, so if she is interested having visited will help.</p>
<p>My D is at Wellesley from Texas - very academically bent women - driven and diverse. Boston is a plus - for my D a huge plus. My D is not a reader either and found her humanities class (that had 6 books to read first semester last term) was her easiest (she didn’t read them b/c class participation and discussion primarily drove the course and she didn’t have time) She’s a STEM kid and plays a varsity sport. </p>
<p>W is very rigorous but should pay off in so many ways to get through it 
Good Luck.</p>
<p>FYI - D was in upper 600’s and one lower 700 (CR) on SAT</p>
<p>Also, I can tell you 22 women were admitted to W from the Houston metro area for class 2016 - that was just the Houston area in Texas - not sure how many in the whole state.</p>
<p>Frazzled - he loves Vandy and is graduating in May. I only know what he said to my sister after they visited G’town in the spring of his jr. yr. in high school. He was accepted ED to Vandy so I don’t know if he would have applied to G’town if he had not - but I assume he didn’t think he would have gotten into G’town or he would have applied there ED. </p>
<p>As far as the OP and some of the posters suggestions - my son (we are from the Northeast) got into Bates with a submitted score of 30 ACT (had 1920ish on his SAT) had no AP classes - only honors classes and was ranked 28th out of 63. Not an athlete in anything other than what is a club sport at Bates, either. OTOH, he is Asian (which is URM there and male - which helps at lots of LAC.)</p>
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<p>blossom’s post is spot-on. My D is at Wellesley and I can assure you that “public school in Texas” is not going to be a “oh, wow, those are so rare, gotta get me some of that.” I think you may be overstating the level of interest these LAC’s will have in that factor.</p>
<p>There is a lot of ego in this game. I know, since I had a lot of ego in it.</p>
<p>I agree with SteveMA, take her to see a school that you think she’d love, but make sure it’s not an impossible reach either. Second semester junior year, I lost all motivation to try in school (combination of drugs, laziness, and possible depression) and nearly failed three classes, before working my tail off at the end of the semester just to bring those Ds and Fs up to Cs and Bs. </p>
<p>When senior year rolled around, my father took me to see a school that would be a significant reach for me, but one that he thought I’d love. He told me point blank that unless I earned all As my first semester, I’d have no chance of getting accepted. When we returned home from that school, I transformed myself into a model student because I was working towards a concrete goal of getting into a particular college. In one semester, my grades shot up from Bs and Cs to straight As. I even bought a prep book, studied it, and took the ACT without my parents’ knowledge. Going to see that college made me realize that an hour a day of prep was worth it if I could be happy for four years. But because the school was such a significant reach, my parents constantly reminded me that plenty of other schools offered great educations, so that if a thin envelope came in the mail, I wouldn’t be too disappointed.</p>
<p>My point is, take her to visit a reach school that she would love. It very well might motivate her to study for the SAT/ACT, but please make sure that she “loves thy safety”. Also remember that there are plenty of less selective schools with engaged students and challenging classes.</p>
<p>Niceday, you don’t say whether your daughter is actually interested in seeing and applying to any of the super-reach schools. If she doesn’t express the interest now, I wouldn’t waste her or your time visiting them except for a “drive-by” and a cup of coffee if you’re in the neighborhood. That may provide enough information (and a “sign-in” at the admissions office). I would instead devote the travel time and expense to visiting schools that are more plausible. Kids get worn out and sensory-overload on college visits. Focus on schools that are interesting from the beginning.</p>
<p>Some of the schools you’ve mentioned as possible second-level choices, are worth actually visiting, such as Macalester. Along that line in the midwest I would also suggest looking into Kalamazoo.</p>
<p>I recall with my own kids that the older one wasn’t interested in visiting ANY schools for the purpose of deciding whether to apply for admission, though he had been on the campus of quite a few colleges and universities for debate camps or tournaments. Those visits gave him the flavor of what the student bodies were like, the physical facilities, the cities/towns, and so forth; and this honed his tastes. He was like the type of person who hates “shopping,” but doesn’t mind people shopping for him if they know his size and tastes. So in the choice of colleges to apply to he was largely passive. He agreed to a list that we worked on, but he wasn’t eager to make a tour. The college he ultimately attended, UChicago, was on his list because I put it there, knowing him and his tastes; he never visited it until “admitted students day,” and then pronounced, after his overnight, “This is OK.” And thus deciding was done. One school he applied to and was admitted to (Carleton) he never visited, since Chicago was OK already; one (Williams) that he was admitted to and did visit after admission he didn’t like at all close up – so it was crossed off.</p>
<p>Few kids are like him. Every kid is different. My daughter didn’t want to apply to any place she hadn’t actually visited or interviewed at beforehand. And so we made a grand tour of colleges, chosen by her (and a friend who accompanied her) in 8 days all over the upper midwest (Oberlin, CMU), NY (NYU, Pratt, Cooper Union), and New England (RISD, Colby, Bennington, BU). She did apply to a couple of others that she had only “visited” via portfolio day interviews (e.g., MICA, KCIA). She knew which one she most wanted to attend after that big tour, and fortunately got in (RISD) (as she did to the others she applied to), and her deciding was done the minute she got the acceptance.</p>
<p>Unless your daughter is really interested in seeing some of those super-reach schools, you might better visit reachable places to hone her tastes as to size, location, nature of the campus and student body, etc. And then she and you can go from there to find a list that might still include some reaches, but not impossible places.</p>
<p>I only skimmed the thread, so forgive me if this has been said: Colleges accept more boys than girls. Or, put another way, girls are more likely to be rejected. </p>
<p>I realize this may be a broad, sweeping generalization. But, for what it’s worth, we can usually get a clearer picture of our daughters’ chances if we compare them to the rest of the female applicants. Not to the whole pool. </p>
<p>Back to the OP’s original question…
No, I don’t think showing your daughter elite schools will motivate her to improve her scores. My D toured Vassar and Union on the same day. She was more interested in getting into the “lesser” school, despite stats in Vassar’s top quartile. 17 year olds are unpredictable that way.</p>
<p>mackinaw, what is RISD?</p>
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<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>As others have indicated, it is a big mistake to look at the bottom of the range and think it means something if your kid is unhooked. The bottom quarter of the class is probably heavily inhabited by URMs, recruited athletes, and other hooked kids. The bottom HALF of the class probably has a disproportionate number, for that matter. Public school in Texas is nothing special to the schools in question. I mean, it’s marginally more desirable than an equivalent kid from CT or MA or NJ, but that’s about it. (North Dakota or Alaska: there’s a possible tip. 
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<p>At the coed schools, the fact that she is female will not help either.</p>
<p>She has a lots of strengths, but her chances are definitely significantly better at the test-optional schools. </p>
<p>It sounds like the advice to immediately try the ACT instead is excellent. I would also agree that getting her CR above 600 would probably make a significant difference in her case. </p>
<p>RISD= Rhode Island School of Design.</p>
<p>MaidenMom - I didn’t see the post that mentioned RISD but I’m assuming that it is the Rhode Island School of Design.</p>
<p>^ thanks - my kid hasn’t an artsy bone in her body - I was at a serious disadvantage!</p>
<p>Thanks, all. D already visited Wellesley once and loves it but for the no-guys-go-there factor. She is very engaged in the college decision process (more so than our S was) and she does want to visit a lot of schools. But, after her SAT scores came in I have been in the process of re-thinking things. </p>
<p>I am aware a lot of Houston area students apply to Wellesley and many apply to the other three schools we’re visiting, and admissions are tough. For privacy, I won’t enumerate her ECs/recognitions/awards, but will say they reflect both her math bent and her balance. They include national level participation/recognition in one of the ‘usual’ high school ECs (but no, nothing so impressive as seimens/intel), an after school/summer job held for 3 years with responsibility that is unusual at the hs level, a couple of serious research internships with recognizable names that she obtained without using connections, two community leadership boards, president of an active teen 501c3 board, a varsity sport, and she is regularly invited to speak (with full travel scholarships) at large national conventions before adults on a particular topic.</p>
<p>Taking the ACT early is a great suggestion. I’ll encourage her to take the next one. Our S did much better on the ACT than SAT, so maybe that’ll work for D, too. </p>
<p>I absolutely agree that her real focus needs to be lower than these four at this point.</p>
<p>We plan to visit Mac in April, and Bates for sure, but probably not on the February trip. After looking more at Bard, I’m not sure whether it has strength in econ and math which are her current areas of interest. Kalamazoo has not been on the list - we’ll have a look at that one. I appreciate the suggestion. </p>
<p>I also agree that in the long run going to a school that is less intense academically might set her up better for success as an adult and she is likely to find her-people in the crowd wherever she goes.</p>
<p>We visited a few high reaches and my son decided to go for all A’s his senior year to have a shot. He is already in the state flagships but still has the pedal to the metal. </p>
<p>If you think motivation will improve grades and test scores, definitely do it. </p>
<p>Taking them the a boring local university can work also. “Don’t worry, if you continue to slack, you can always live at home and go to CountyName University!”</p>
<p>We took our D to Stanford as we visited CA schools. Thought she would be so motivated to apply there and she hated it. She withdrew her acceptance. I thought she would be so excited but she didn’t like the color of the buildings and thought the buildings looked too old and unorderly…she’s just odd that way .</p>