Congratulations on your achievements so far OP, you have a strong profile. Your post piqued (see what I did there?) my interest because WashU and Bowdoin were D19’s two favorite schools.
I think the safeties you listed (UArizona, ASU, IU Bloomington) are correctly categorized. If you are looking for Kelley direct admit, IU is more a match. If you are happy with those schools, no need to look further for highly likelies.
I like some of privatebanker’s recs for you. Some are reaches, some are matches. If you like Bowdoin, I think Colby is more like it than Bates. Trinity and Bucknell could make sense, and I might add U Richmond and Lehigh…all probably matches, some might quibble and say low reaches. Schools that I think of as having some similarities to WashU, (a definite reach) would be Emory and Tulane (reaches), Rochester, Wake Forest, Santa Clara, Brandeis, BU (matches to low reaches).
Make sure to demonstrate interest at the schools where you need to do that: WashU, Lehigh, Tulane. Maybe Richmond and Rochester too, just do your research.
This sounds like a lot. However, this is enough to eliminate need based aid. A university that costs $75,000 per year (likely >$80,000 by the time that you graduate) can be painful even with an income >$200,000 per year before tax.
Wash U and Bowdoin are very different schools with very different cultures. Our son leaving for Bowdoin in the fall really did not like Wash U. Not much nature at Wash U and kids were much more preprofessional and more competitive with each other. We know kids at both schools and the kids at Wash U would not like Bowdoin and vice versa. You’ve mentioned Wash U a lot in your threads but nothing about why you want to apply to Bowdoin. I would read up on the schools on their websites and in the Fiske Guide.
Emory, USC, NYU, Michigan? All are on your list and nothing remotely there like Bowdoin.
You’re also asking questions about undergrad business school. You seem pretty confused right now and you need to probably stop comparing certain schools and go back to the basics. Figure out what you want in a college and make a list based on those things. Right now, it seems you’re just grasping at names off of a rankings list.
@privatebanker Tulane is becoming a fairly tough school to get into. Admit rate dropped from 21% to 13% this year. We know a very strong student (believe 32 or 33ACT) who did not get in ED. possible since female that might have been it - Tulane gets about 7,000 more female applicants.
@privatebanker Tulane ED may be harder to get into than Wash U. ED is my point. for whatever reason new orleans is more desirable than st louis to the kids. 41,000 apps to tulane , 25,400 to Wash U. I think with the abortion stuff in Missouri these trends will continue. Tulane also has D1 athletics.
These are total applications, not just ED. Tulane has no application fee which is one reason numbers have been driven higher. WashU added a supplemental essay this year which resulted in close to a 20% decrease in applications.
Louisiana recent anti-abortion bill is more restrictive than Missouri’s
Tulane is simply not more difficult than wash U for admittance.
It’s a different group of students in general, both extremely talented but at least marginally separate pools for the ultimate admitted and near admitted groups.
The 32 act student with excellent grades without a preference hook, generally has low single digit probability or less of being admitted to wash u. It would be an outlier.
You can’t look at admission rates and size of the pool to solely to determine probability of acceptance.
It’s indicative of popularity at times versus strength of the candidate pool top to bottom.
Wash U like some Catholic unis as Georgetown ND BC OOS powers like Mich UVA and UC schools cannot be judged solely on admissions rates.
Tulane is a great school. It is very popular. It has a lot of appeal to many students. The students are gifted and it’s wildly competitive.
Wash U is a great school. It’s is so incredibly competitive it does not have as broad of appeal across academic profiles. It skews to a the highest academic records.
Although we are talking about the best students in the country for both of these schools. Statistically.
But this is debating relative excellence when it only really matters to help frame probabilities for a student or parent. Either school is a unique opportunity for a student and scholastic home run.
@privatebanker “Wash U like some Catholic unis as Georgetown ND BC OOS powers like Mich UVA and UC schools cannot be judged solely on admissions rates.” Could you say more about that? I wasn’t clear on what you meant. Thanks.
What this is indicative of is a tremendous compression in academic qualifications required throughout roughly the top 50 schools. That is to say, once you get below the low single digit institutions in the top 10, there is some, but not a whole lot, of variation as you go down the next 30-40 schools and, yes, you will get cases, for a variety of reasons, where a school is as difficult or even more difficult for admission than a school that is ranked higher in a particular year.
I would concur with @privatebanker assessment. At my high school, Tulane accepts mostly B students with 28/9 on their ACT who have the money to keep “demonstating interest” by flying down a few times and then applying ED. Then they reject top students who have not shown as much interest. Not nearly the same caliber as Wash U.
@flyerdad. Simply they actual quality of a candidate pool and ultimate profile are more helpful to me than a pure admittance rate figure. They have some value of course.
But as an example a couple of highly selective and elite Army units. Say. 500 out 5000 applicants for Ranger school. That’s a 10 percent acceptance rate. If they accept 100 out of 200 applicants for special forces training. That’s a 50 percent acceptance rate. Which has a more gifted application pool and admitted class?
So if you look at who’s applying and whose being accepted into the elite Catholics you will see a deep pool of excellence and final admits than the raw acceptance rate may indicate. Done had to do with the religious association and some with Georgetown is the more difficult application to complete and requirements of all scores etc. also with legacy draws of both ND and BC and as an example the non legacy pools are extremely competitive. The ending classes are wildly so. With the public’s if you look at oos spots and just look at acceptance rates you’ll also overestimate the probabilities of acceptance if you look at the admissions rates.
This is just a general look and was just another set of examples. Tulane NEU and BU have really low acceptance rates. Some due to popularity with a wider cohort of students that consider it their reach option. And to some who may see those as their dream option for many that may not consider wash u and some of the others as realistic for them from a profile perspective.
Also admit rates can be gamed.
Only saying just use it as a piece of your mosaic and not a stand alone arbiter
I have no horse in this race, but Tulane’s average stats are lower than WashU’s. I agree with one of the above posters that from my kids’ high school WashU attracts more accomplished students than does Tulane, and we have good admission success at both. Maybe one per year go to Bowdoin.
Something else to pay attention to at Tulane is the 60:40 F/M split—they are struggling to get this close to 50/50. Both WashU and Bowdoin are more balanced on this measure.
Thanks @privatebanker, I agree. In particular, I’ve felt that Georgetown admission stats are misleading precisely because they aren’t on the Common App, so there are far fewer “lotto ticket” applications than just about every other elite school–the applicant pool is (unfortunately) really strong top to bottom. We are in California, and your point about the UCs is also well-taken–if you are OOS, your chances are much less competitive than the admission stats suggest, especially for schools like UCSB, UCSD or Davis that many think are “safeties” (I’m assuming everyone already knows Cal and UCLA are reaches).