Accepted to 15 Colleges...need help choosing!!!

College Search & Selection
1

Hi everyone! I was recently accepted to Bates, Colby, Macalester, Pitzer, Kenyon, Wesleyan, Davidson, Hamilton, Reed, Carleton, Bucknell, Oberlin, Vassar, Colgate, and Washington & Lee. However, I need some help narrowing down my list by SIR submission day, May 1st.

I am planning on going into a career in either pharmaceutical sciences, linguistics, or law. In a way I do care about prestige a bit but that will ultimately not be my deciding factor. Additionally, I’m looking for a college that has an accepting student body, and one that is not too stuck up about its rank and reputation.

Any help pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each college would be much appreciated!

2

Pitzer obviously gets the points for weather, despite the terrifying drought, and the Claremont Consortium is terrific. This thread could go on for pages if people want to debate the relative prestige of those fifteen colleges. I hope that, considering the sort of colleges you prefer, you are not wedded to silly lists ranking them. There’s not a loser on that list. I have a northeasterner’s biases, and so I think that Wesleyan might be the most prestigious “brand” on your list. I have considered people I know who attended Reed, Carleton, and Oberlin to be extremely cerebral and creative. I have been less impressed by Davidson, W & L, and Bucknell. They are all fine colleges, but I just don’t think they have the same intellectual climate. Macalester and Carleton will have brutal winters, with Colby, Hamilton and Colgate not much better. I am presuming that finances will not play a pivotal role in your decision, since you didn’t mention them. If I, as a middle-aged matron, were whittling down the list, I would probably lean toward Wesleyan, Oberlin, Reed, and Pitzer. I would not have rated Pitzer as high had i not visited it with my son. I was very impressed with the 5C consortium.

3

In terms of “prestige”, they are all about on the same level. Oh, I am sure someone will come in here and try to give you some definitive ranking, or arguing obsessively that one is particularly more prestiginess above the others… but really, they are ALL pretty much on the same level.

So, you left out the most important factor…COST OF ATTENDANCE.

For each school, calculate how much the school will cost (tuition/fees/room/board minus scholarships/grants, but don’t include loans). Then let us know how much your family will pay out of pocket, and how much loans.

4

I think many people would screen smaller schools of overlapping quality like these first based on locational preference, then fit with prevailing campus culture.
I’m not going to do the work for you, but this is something you could do:

  • Google each college name and “biochemistry” and see how it describes the resources/ program there;
  • look at the Common Data Set of each school, see the # of biology/chemistry majors at each
  • Read up about each college. Required courses thesis requirement, etc. will vary
  • If you’re really serious about linguistics, look at the registrar’s list of courses at each school; see if lingustics was even offered there last year, at all;
  • Law school hopes are helped by high GPA. A couple of these schools are known,or thought, to grade severely. Which grad schools are aware of, but law schools may or may not be. See what you can find out about that maybe. I don’t know, perhaps google each college name and “law school” ?

I haven’t done all of what I just said, but offhand I’m thinking Wesleyan and Carelton would be two good choices.
Not that the others are bad choices either.

5

Of all the ones my son was rejected from Bates and Notre Dame hurt the most.

Bates has a lovely feel to it. Perhaps we should have interviewed while we were there and the outcome would have been different.

Hamilton is nice too, students are bit more preppy there and the campus is a bit quiet.

Colby is also nice and so is Colgate.

If you would like a diverse student body that is neither too jocky, or too preppy or too alternative then Bates wins in my book.

If food is important then Bates is the ticket. Not sure if this is important to you but Bates, Colby, Wesleyan and Hamilton are in the same sports conference called NESCAC with other highly selective New England schools. The rivalries are supposed to be quite fun.

6

Congratulations on all of these but man oh man there’s a real range here from the totally laid-back liberal hippie to the far more preppy. How many of these have you visited? Which school feels like the best “fit”? Are there any price differences, and if so, is this a factor for your family? You should be able to trim down this list on your own.

Agree with those who say these are all great schools and that you should dig into the websites to suss out differences in the departments you’re interested in.

D2 is a freshman at Pitzer. The 5C consortium will give you the options that come with a larger school. For instance, all of the courses are listed on the same website when enrolling, so you don’t have to hop over to a separate catalog to check on e.g. Pomona courses. But you still have a smaller, more intimate “home” experience at Pitzer (or at any of the other 5Cs, for that matter). Food is excellent.

7

Look at the areas in which you are interested to be sure. How many bio majors? How many linguistics classes?

I agree that the key differentiating factors are likely to be the soft factors, though: the weather, the location, access to fun leisure activities. Do you want to be in an insular community? Or do you want to be in a city? Is there a lot of drinking? Do most students study abroad? Is it far from home? How often do you want to go home? Is any place completely different from where you live now and is that a plus? Do you want to work or volunteer while in college? How easy will it be to do that?

The Midwestern colleges will be friendly and accepting, but very cold.

8

For linguistics, Reed and Carleton seem to be the ones that most nearly cover the gamut of phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and historical/comparative linguistics (the basic sub-fields). The 4 or 5 linguistics professors at these 2 schools may be about as many as you’ll find at most LACs.

Otherwise, I’m inclined to agree with harvardandberkeley that they are all close enough in quality that it makes sense to choose based on the net cost of attendance. Which ones are the 2 or 3 cheapest for you? If you could narrow it down to those, we could offer more focused comparisons.

If you’d be full pay everywhere and cost is not an issue, then I think Carleton would be a good safe choice.
It’s a good LAC for sciences. It seems to have a relatively solid (if small) linguistics program. It has an excellent overall academic reputation. Although it’s the highest ranked of these LACs, I doubt the average Carleton student is all that obsessed with rank and reputation (otherwise they’d be attending more famous colleges). A weakness is the very cold Minnesota winters.

9

Have you visited all of these schools? Critique why you applied there to eliminate some and make your decision more manageable.

10

Wow so many. No wonder students are stressed by application process when applying to so many schools. When I applied in 1984 I submitted to 5 schools. I wonder how many students are out there dealing with being denied by all 15 of their chosen schools as their spots were taken by you.

11

You’re clearly not decided in what you want to do. You’re torn between pharmaceutical sciences, law or linguistics. The schools you listed are good in different areas. For example, Washington and Lee is good for law and Reed is good for linguistics. Pharmaceutical sciences isn’t really covered under the criteria but let’s say “business” will work for that career choice.

These schools are also in very different areas/cities/parts of the country and have varying, unique lifestyles and vibes. Have you visited any of them? Talk it over in your head WHY you liked these schools and why you don’t like them. That will definitely help the process.

12

Here is a good calculator for comparing the costs and financial aid offers. Don’t forget to include your own best estimates for transportation to and from your home several times each year. http://www.finaid.org/calculators/awardletteradvanced.phtml

Please do remember that in college, as in the rest of life, most of what you get out of the experience is up to you. You really can achieve your long-range goals from any of these places. If money is an issue, you can safely choose the cheapest one. If money is not an issue, you can safely choose based on any other criteria that appeal to you.

13

I regard these colleges, across their range, as being significantly different in character. I would first put them in groups of two or three of at least fairly similar colleges, then pick my favorite from from each group. Wesleyan and Vassar may go together; Colby has some similarities with Hamilton, etc. After that, you will at least be down to six or seven to choose from.

I regard weather differently than most on CC. I consider a four season climate with real winter snow to be a plus. It’s not clear what long-term effect the megadrought may have on Southern California.

Ultimately, I would look for two things: 1. A college with a balanced curriculum. 2. An interesting college. Always choose interesting when you can.

Good luck.

14

OP: Congrats on the great results but throwing out 15 great names to the CC crowd is probably not the best way to go about it. You need to do the first cut yourself. You need to decide what are the key factors that will make your decision (i.e., location, cost, prestige, culture, weather, etc.). The CC crowd certainly doesn’t know what’s in your head and if the posters are going to help you, you are going to have to give us a lot more to work with. As most of the posters would agree, it really is about FIT and right now you haven’t given us nearly enough to help you.

15

Linguistics is probably the least common of your academic interests (pre-pharm course work is common, and pre-law has no specific course or major requirements). So it makes sense to check each college to see if it has a linguistics department that offers a major and covers the various subareas of the field as noted in reply #7.

Of course, also compare net price of each after applying scholarships and financial aid grants.

16

I agree with the above posters that “fit” is the key to your decision at this point. The only clues you’ve given us are that you want “an accepting student body, and one that is not too stuck up about its rank and reputation”. Can you give us some more information about yourself, and about the type of environment you see yourself thriving in? If you are looking for a more liberal environment, for example, we could help you (for instance, Colgate is probably on the preppy/jocky end of the spectrum and Vassar and Wesleyan on the liberal end). So tell us more!

17

A brief description of a few of them, based on my opinion:

Carleton: The students I’ve met have been impressive. Along with Mac, has the coldest winters.

Wesleyan: Progressive. Good vegan food. The recent publicity regarding drug usage is difficult to interpret evenly. Regardless, an excellent school academically.

Vassar: English major/artsy vibe, recently offset by their investment in an impressive new science building. Beautiful chapel and library. The gender imbalance, though real, does not differ significantly from the national average.

Hamilton: Benefits from the curricular, architectural, spatial, and, to some extent, cultural legacy of having been two colleges. A balanced curriculum, but also a writer’s college. Former fraternity houses are now beautiful residence halls.

Reed: The most committed to creating an intellectual environment, as manifested by their absence of intercollegiate varsity sports. Online posters who have self-identified as Reedies are either intelligent or humorless. Sometimes both.

Oberlin: Go for the vegan food, stay for the academics.

Colgate: One of the most beautiful campuses in the nation. Authentic countryside location and village. Comes closest, with Bucknell, to a state flagship environment due to athletics and fraternities. Nonetheless, is still much closer to the others in this group.

Macalaster: In contrast to the other schools, provides an urban experience. Presence of international students adds diversity.

Colby: Classic LAC size. If you go smaller than this (consortia excepted), you will sacrifice either athletics or curricular breadth. Of the Northeastern colleges, has the coldest winters.

Kenyon: To select Kenyon is partially to select Middle Path and Gothic architecture. I’ve heard of worse reasons to choose a college.

Pitzer: Consortium. Lower SAT scores than all but one of the others in your group should not be overlooked entirely.

18

^ usage: [writers’] college.

Clarification: Macalaster provides a direct urban experience. Reed is in Portland, but I understand the immediate evironment to be residential. Vassar is an easy train ride from New York City.

19

Hey everyone thanks for the replies! I chose Carleton. From family and teachers, this school has the highest academic reputation and the smartest students. Thanks again!

20

Congratulations. I will leave the ranking to others. If there are some you know fall below others and you don’t plan to accept the offer I hope you free up the slot so others will have a shot-even though I also know that won’t happen until after May 1-except for rolling admissions- some of these may have rolling which might mean your slot will be recycled to someone who is waiting before May.