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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My rising senior DD is in an FCPS top school. High stats, perfect SAT, 10 AP's with 4 and 5's. She plays a niche sport and has many service hours in her related sport. She will not be applying as an athlete recruit. Her dream school is Stanford. What are the chances for someone from East coast to get to Stanford. Harvard versus Stanford, any advice?[/quote]

You need to encourage her to develop a list of schools she is excited about attending. I would completely discourage discussing "dream schools". Stanford is not going to happen.[/quote]

NP. This, above. Rather than expending your energy or hers on any dream school -- Stanford or any other -- encourage her to work on a bigger-picture list. Not just because Stanford is a difficult admit, but because there very, very likely are quite a few schools where they have the programs/majors/opportunities she wants, at extremely high academic quality, with peers she will learn from and enjoy. But if she focuses too hard on one dream school she might not give those other places due consideration (as Im sure you know).

Is Stanford the dream because...why, exactly? If it's just the name and general reputation and CA location, those frankly aren't very detailed reasons. If it's because Stanford has a terrific program in her planned major or fields of interest (she doesn't have to know her precise major just yet, it's OK!), then start looking at other schools re: how course progressions are structured. Whether the college uses an "open curriculum" or not and what that means to her potential course choices. Class sizes starting freshman year (150-person lecture or 15-person seminar? She might realize she wants the latter at a smaller school, not the former at a huge university and nope, that's not a dig at Stanford, it's a general statement). Research opportunities as an undergrad. Summer opportunities as an undergrad. Is the atmosphere more collaborative or competitive. How well do students know the professors and vice versa. How much is handled by grad student TAs rather than professors....And so on.

Sorry, I know this doesn't address your question about her chances with Stanford. Just general thoughts re: "dream school" as a way kids unwittingly set themselves up for disappointment when there are so many great colleges out there. But a lot of high schoolers just don't know to delve much into the details of academics, course selection and department structure at schools they're considering. (No reason why they should  know that stuff exists, so it's up to us parents to point them that way.)

As for her shot with Stanford, College Confidential website used to have a lot of "Chance Me" posts where people would post stats and details and other PPs would weigh in on that candidate's chances and it was just about as accurate as here, I'd guess, so you could try CC. Not sure if they still do a lot of Chance Me posts but they used to. [/quote]

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