Anonymous wrote:Our DD is a junior at one of the Big 3 schools. After visiting colleges she is leaning heavily towards the big state universities that have strong academics and school spirit. She says she would love to attend something like UMich, UVA, UCLA, UNC Chapel Hill. There is no clear preference within that list. We are D.C. residents so no in-state preference for UVA. We would be full pay.
We will start meeting the counselors next semester and will get their feedback and naviance information. In the meantime it would be great if other parents whose kids graduated from a similar private and are attending one of the above colleges could let me know whether a solid B+ student (most grades are B+s with several As and A-s and one C) would be competitive at the public ivies. We don't have any test scores as yet but practice tests indicate that she will be in the 50th percentile for accepted student test scores. It's the GPA that concerns us because with a B+ average, her unweighted GPA is probably around 3.4.
I'm asking now because if Michigan, UCLA, UVA are out of her reach then we'd like to spend some time over Christmas exploring other options and visiting more schools.
TIA.
Since state flagships have a mandate to admit a certain percent of in-state students, and that percent varies from state to state, it is more competitive to get admitted for OOS applicants. You can't look at overall admitted Freshman statistics since your DD will be OOS. If you can get the stats for OOS admitted students, then it will be a better indicator of what it will take for your DD to have a fair chance of getting admitted. Also, the stats vary for different schools within a university (eg., it is more competitive to get into business, engineering, etc., than some other majors.
Good luck.