El Floppo
Footballguy
yeah- again, purely anecdotal from both my nieces (one just graduated and one is just entering college)...wow, this is the exact opposite of what I am being told when I research this stuff. I would consider Williams a reach school for my daughter. How was your daughters SAT's/ACT's? That piece is killing my daughter.
Our counselor told us Northeastern was a reach for her even though she had a higher GPA than any student from our school system to previously get in that college.
but the oldest was one of those great grades, great sats and solid extracurriculars (no sports, but very musical). she got into Cal, but didn't get into any of her top tiers stanford, (where her dad is an alum), columbia or yale. got into some other really good schools like Barnard and I'm forgetting 2 more top, small liberal arts programs (like wesleyan?).
the youngest was more up and down with her grades (still good, but not like her sister) but also had good sats and a fair bit of extracurricular (again, music and performance)... don't think she got into any of her top tiers, which were the elite, small liberal arts colleges (non-ivy) but got into a few of the really small, but good ones and is going to one in PA that I had never heard of.
fwiw, they both went to an elite private HS in the SF area- so might have been up against any kind of quotas colleges put on acceptances from individual schools.. if that's a thing. all that to say- it's scary to me what it seems to take to get into the top schools these days.