Anonymous wrote:If Amherst was compelling, there are less ultra-selective but still competitive and highly regarded SLACs with name recognition she could think about as targets or at least not entirely "unrealistic"-- Connecticut College, Trinity, Smith, Macalester, Kenyon, William & Mary, Haverford, Skidmore, Dickinson, Denison, Bryn Mawr, Oberlin, Franklin & Marshall, Brandeis. Ithaca, Muhlenberg, Hobart & William Smith, Lafayette maybe closer to a safety. Bigger schools in a Northwestern vein to consider include Rochester, Syracuse, Wisconsin. I do really recommend thinking about historically women's colleges like Bryn Mawr and Smith (and maybe even Mount Holyoke)-- they're not as impossible to get into as they might be if they were co-ed, but the student bodies tend to be highly intellectual, engaged, and curious. Bryn Mawr has a close relationship with Swarthmore and Haverford, and Smith is in the five college consortium with Amherst, so they aren't actually isolated or worlds without men. A bummer that she's not interested in California-- it's easy to love Scripps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amherst, and top LACs aren't that big of reaches anymore. In fact their ARs went up this year.
Duke ED, Vandy. Emory, Rice, Georgetown, Notre Dame are all moderate Reaches.

While it’s true that the acceptance rate was up slightly this year at Amherst, it was still just 9 percent.

Duke ED (16.5, almost identical to Vandy ED), Vandy (7 overall), Rice (7), Georgetown (13), and Notre Dame (12). All these acceptance rates put them in the reach for all category, The only exception is Emory which has an ED1 acceptance rate close to 40 percent, but it’s less popular due to lack of spectator sports and perceived lack of school spirit.