Brainstorming a college list- take two (new poster!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another person did this and I thought it was a great idea. Need help coming up with a list.

DS
physics
UW GPA - 3.95
WGPA - 4.7
SAT - if PSAT is a guide, will be 1550 or above
Decent ECs but nothing too unusual - music and a weird sport
Will have had 1 Internship
No hooks
Competitive MD public

Looking for a medium-size school, east coast, Midwest or south (likes the idea of warm weather) not a party school or heavy Greek system

We definitely have ideas (Rice is one I’d like him to apply to, eg) but I’m curious to see if there are ideas we haven’t considered.

Hope the original PP doesn’t mind me piggybacking here.

My big issue is that I don’t know if it’s a good idea for him to focus on schools with amazing physics programs or just some place with great undergraduate teaching, since he will likely go to graduate school.

If the internship is full time (in summer) and paid, and you don’t mind a Hail Mary, try Harvard! My DD knows lots of physics majors there. The weird sport might make your DS interesting to them.

Disagree, op’s son definitely a strong student but doesn’t have the extracurriculars it takes for an unhooked kid to get into Harvard. Weird sport won’t do it.

If the application fee isn’t a deterrent you never know. Kind of a case in point of what “holistic admissions” actually means . I mean if colleges produce all leaders, who is following them? I also wish there was a way to see those with incredible high school extracurricular and if that correlates to real life leaders. The best transformative annd motivational experience I ever had was waitressing in high school. I’m not a AO but if I was would 100% prioritize waitressing/food service/grocery store work and a quirky sport over a “passion project” “demonstrating leadership”.

+100

The schools appear to prefer kids publishing books no one reads and founding nonprofits left and right. CollegeVine even maps these ECs out at different levels. It’s better to be a captain than a mere teammate. It’s better to have a YouTube channel with X followers than with few followers.

We would have been smarter to play this game but my senior could not have been less interested. But my senior’s school is full of kids who started fake businesses and nonprofits.

[Anonymous]

This may be a dumb question but how do you know what the admissions rate is for someone with similar stats? A school might have a 20% admission rate but maybe it’s a 40% admission rate for kids with over a 3,9? Does this exist? I’ve seen the naviance scattergram but it looks like it’s limited to just your HS applicants, which doesn’t seem like a great dataset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This may be a dumb question but how do you know what the admissions rate is for someone with similar stats? A school might have a 20% admission rate but maybe it’s a 40% admission rate for kids with over a 3,9? Does this exist? I’ve seen the naviance scattergram but it looks like it’s limited to just your HS applicants, which doesn’t seem like a great dataset.

Once you get below a 20 percent admission rate, it is pretty much a lottery for qualified kids. Having high stats and great ecs is just the starting point, and the rest is at the will of how the ao wants to build a class. Diversity of majors, hometowns, income levels,,ethnicity, etc. . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This may be a dumb question but how do you know what the admissions rate is for someone with similar stats? A school might have a 20% admission rate but maybe it’s a 40% admission rate for kids with over a 3,9? Does this exist? I’ve seen the naviance scattergram but it looks like it’s limited to just your HS applicants, which doesn’t seem like a great dataset.

I’m not sure about admission but you can see the % of enrolled students by looking at the Common Data Set section C. FIRST-TIME, FIRST-YEAR (FRESHMAN) ADMISSION. The only thing is when you see the info for students from all schools, you miss seeing the school profile that goes along with the information when they are applying. A 3.8 UW with no honors/AP is not the same as a 3.8 UW with lots of APs which might be comparable to a 3.8 UW with limited APs if that was all that was offered at the school. The school profile might also show what percentage of the kids were in that various GPA ranges at the high school. In theory Naviance is supposed to be helpful because you are seeing students with the same school profile as your kid.