Need help with College List

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are probably wasting your application with Princeton...although, if you are fine with UNC or NC State, I suppose you perhaps don't care about ED/REA at a school like JHU or a school ranked 10-20 (but make sure that is the case). Don't understand why your kid would not take AP English and AP Spanish...these are not traditionally considered "difficult" AP classes.

I think your kid is 100% at NC State...and near 100% at UNC.

The school limits the number of APs he can take. AP Spanish comes after Spanish 4 that he is taking in senior year. Although he did think about studying for AP Eng on his own last year but didn’t find time.

He would prefer NC State/ UNC to JHU and Vanderbilt therefore not even applying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would add University of Arizona to your list if finances are a factor. They offer $32K in merit aid for those with a 4.0 GPA, which almost covers OOS tuition. And there is no requirement to live on campus the first year. Add to that it's got rolling admissions, a beautiful campus, and has an amazing honors program and dorm, it might just be worth adding to the list.

His list is already too long (over 20 colleges) and I have been pressing him to cut it down. He actually loves Uni Arizona as he had applied and was selected to their Astronomy Camp but was not able to attend due to the pandemic cancellation but has maintained contact with Dr McCarthy who runs it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have yet to see a truly rigourous private school - I am sure they exist but they are a bit of a unicorn. The parents say it but then the kids go to college and struggle so I always wonder - I went to private schools because the schools were bad where I was but here I do not see the kids doing better in gaining knowledge at privates. Just my 2 cents.

That said they 100% have a massive advantage in admissions due to the underworld of admissions.

I think your list is reasonable but too short for my comfort level. Who knows what will happen this year. My 152 IQ kid had to apply to almost 20 schools. It's insane, maybe the new SC rulings will help.

And your kid sounds awesome, private school rigor not withstanding. Seems to be well rounded and high achieving and a school would be lucky to have him - but merit has been out of the equation for a while so to be safe, I would add a few more.

Thanks for the advice. His list is currently longer than 20 colleges but hopefully by the time he applies, it will be close to or less than 20.

[Anonymous]

I was going to say his stats don’t seem that great compared to other superstar Indian students but colleges will supposedly be race blind. If he is not top 10% of his school, I would not bother with Caltech. I know kids who are literally top of their class getting rejected and not expecting to get accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was going to say his stats don’t seem that great compared to other superstar Indian students but colleges will supposedly be race blind. If he is not top 10% of his school, I would not bother with Caltech. I know kids who are literally top of their class getting rejected and not expecting to get accepted.

Caltech and other similar colleges are lottery for everyone (high stats or not). We cant discourage everyone from applying. Someone has to appl .to these colleges and this kids stats are right in the mix But I agree that expectations should be managed. OP's kid doesn't seem to have typical Indian kid profile so maybe that will help. Plus coming from a private school (especially if it's a feeder may also help).

[Anonymous]

Tell him to write on the college essay that he feels like a black trans person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was going to say his stats don’t seem that great compared to other superstar Indian students but colleges will supposedly be race blind. If he is not top 10% of his school, I would not bother with Caltech. I know kids who are literally top of their class getting rejected and not expecting to get accepted.

Caltech and other similar colleges are lottery for everyone (high stats or not). We cant discourage everyone from applying. Someone has to appl .to these colleges and this kids stats are right in the mix But I agree that expectations should be managed. OP's kid doesn't seem to have typical Indian kid profile so maybe that will help. Plus coming from a private school (especially if it's a feeder may also help).

If the 75th percentile at UVA has a 4.57, then a 4.23 is just too low. You know this