s/o What is a reasonable college expectation for the "normal excellent" student
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Anonymous
| A few recent threads describe "normal excellent" students - great grades, scores, recs and strong school-level or maybe state-level ECs and honors. Many have responded that these type of students don't get into Ivys or near-Ivys these days, as they might have 15 or 20 years ago. So I'm wondering, where do most of these students end up going? If anyone is willing to share their experiences, I'd love to get sense of what to realistically expect from the admissions process now. |
Anonymous
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Colgate
Colby/Bates Tulane BU/Northeastern |
Anonymous
| Williams, WashU, Bowdoin, Tufts, Emory |
Anonymous
LOL. NO. |
Anonymous
| Good state schools mostly. |
Anonymous
Yes? If you have high stats and decent ecs you can count on getting in at these schools. Not a complete crapshoot like HYPS, Brown, and similar schools are |
Anonymous
| Elon with merit. |
Anonymous
If you know Elon is your top choice go with ED. Last year 373 out of 378 were admitted. 
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Anonymous
NP, but no. If you have no hooks, you can't "count on" getting into any highly selective school just because you have great grades and stats and good ECs. My DD was a senior applying last year from a great public with a 2400 SAT, 3.98/4.70 GPA, 10 APs in tough subjects and decent, though not spectacular ECs. She was waitlisted at both Bowdoin and Amherst. She got into WashU, but she showed a ton of interest; she has friends with similar stats who did not show interest and did not get into WashU or Tufts. OP, as you will hear over and over again, it's best to apply widely and show a lot of interest. FYI, here's the College Confidential thread where (as far as I'm aware) the term "average excellent student" was first popularized: https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1878059-truthful-advice-about-getting-into-top-colleges-for-your-average-excellent-student.html There are 30 pages of good responses. The OP of that thread's DD ended up at Bates after an interesting application and waitlist journey. |
Anonymous
Williams is definely a crapshoot. |
Anonymous
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The problem with applying to schools like Williams and Pomona is that they have a small freshman class. They also heavily recruit athletes.
If you take out the athletes, legacy, mega rich, URM, first gen kids, international, there are very few slots left for the rest. Half that for gender and you end up with a tiny number of spots for kids who don't have a hook. It is a complete gamble at that point if you will get in. |
Anonymous
State Flagships and 25-50 ranked private colleges. Top 25 are essentially reaches for almost everyone. So, make sure your student visits and applies several in the first bit and they can add a few crapshoots to,but understand the odds. |
Anonymous
Also, if they have a specific major or area of interest, you can find schools that are inthe top ten for that - that are at the first top of schools. For example for engineering GA Tech and Purdue are highly ranked, but easier to gain entry than the known crapshoot schools (Stanford, MIT, CMU, Princeton, Cornell,Harvey Mudd, Cal Tech....) |
Anonymous
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In VA,
W &M, UVA, and VT are on the table for excellent students In MD UMD Some small colleges give big merit awards for kids with excellent sats. |
Anonymous
| Yes to what others have said and also BU, USC, UCLA (maybe), U Washington, U Wisconsin, U Richmond, Northeastern, Ct. College, Elon |