I haven't read through all the posts, but another and less stressful way to handle college admissions is to simply go to community college and take of their guaranteed transfer agreements.

Anonymous wrote:Washington Adventist University, in Takoma park.

Never mind, it's 60%

Washington Adventist University, in Takoma park.

Anonymous wrote:State? You don't want to be throwing around a lot of money on OOS/private tuition at that tier.

If VA, I worked with a guy from Radford who was decently sharp. Not a bad business program for a school at that level.

A lot of these flagships & almost-flagships have decent OOS merit aid, even if your GPA & test scores aren’t great.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say these schools are "lax," but another way to look at them is that they have capacity for all kinds of students.

George Mason University, for instance, had an acceptance rate of 90% last cycle, in part because they're growing.

This. For example, Arizona State has explicitly said their mission is to give all kinds of students opportunities so they want to be large and admit most applicants. As they put it, they want to be "measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed"

Love ASU!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say these schools are "lax," but another way to look at them is that they have capacity for all kinds of students.

George Mason University, for instance, had an acceptance rate of 90% last cycle, in part because they're growing.

This. For example, Arizona State has explicitly said their mission is to give all kinds of students opportunities so they want to be large and admit most applicants. As they put it, they want to be "measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed"

OP here- Thank you, this is very helpful! We're looking at GMU, but will now take a peek at ASU.

This is such a refreshing conversation. Thank you.

YCBK recently gave a shout out to Oregon State, which is a fun school with a ton of good programs on a lovely campus in a great town in a beautiful part of the country with an acceptance rate north of 80% (although south of 90%). And it's hardly a unicorn. The kids will be alright.

I think this a a good reminder that there are seats in college available somewhere for most students. It’s just a select group of places where people are fighting for certain limited seats.

Anonymous wrote:I didn't realize some schools were this lax. Our student is a current sophmore with a 2.75 GPA and did not do well on the PSAT. They are working on bringing up their GPA and we have no doubt they will land in the 3.0 range. In terms of course rigor, they are not planning on taking any AP courses until their senior year as long as they continue to do well.

Until today, we had assumed that our student would likely attend a regional university or a community college.

What are the advantages of these schools? What are red flags to look for with these schools beyond graduation rate?

Lax isn’t the right word. Just because most people do get in does NOT mean most students there are lazy or unprepared.

Potomac State
UDC
Liberty

And some of these schools are most affordable options for high achieving students. DS has good grades (4.1 with AP, dual enrollment classes, varsity sport, leadership roles) but we needed to keep costs to under 30k/year. DS didn't want a SLAC (gives good merit) or to go far from home so options were limited in Maryland. He is going to Towson (80% + admit)

Anonymous wrote:OP, I have a junior who will NOT make it to 3.0. I have a feeling she could be one of the 5-10% NOT to be accepted to Radford, ODU, Longwood, WVU, etc. I'll follow up a year from now!

Both Radford and ODU offered my daughter a Bridge program. Radford's provides on campus living, though, so it is still on our list.

Some have high acceptance rates because they are niche schools with self-selecting student bodies -- they may still have very high average stats among the students.

Also some regional colleges are quite selective. USNWR defines RC as "colleges that focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than half their degrees in liberal arts disciplines;" so they are similar to the NLACs except the degree focus of NLACs is more than 50% liberal arts.

there are some schools with auto admits:

My daughter applied to one with an auto-admit at a 2.25. This school did offer AA degrees, too.
There was another we were considering that had auto-admit at a 2.0 plus an SAT above 990.

These schools cater to a different population than the Ivys and such.

My kid is right on the line of community college vs a 4 year. She currently has 3 acceptances and should have an answer for one more school shortly (a school that is well known for its support of students with LDs plus does award AA degrees) We haven't made decisions yet, but the right environment/school might be the fresh start she needs and a chance to grow.