<p>Are you sure? The post above just said that the third best merit offer came from Whitman, which is on my list.</p>
<p>^Whitman may, but almost all of those schools don’t. If you’re looking for significant merit aid (or really any kind of merit aid), your list needs some drastic changes.</p>
<p>People go to Vassar despite Poughkeepsie, not because of it. To me Brunswick Maine is similar to Northfield MN but with the ocean coves (maybe 4 miles away - not a bad bike ride) and lobster rolls as a difference.</p>
<p>If merit money is going to come into play, in my opinion it is better to be potentially majoring in a field that the college is not famous for. For example, Kenyon is known for its English department and many people want Kenyon for that reason. So if you are chasing merit money it would be more likely to come for someone interested in majoring in its fine hard sciences. Other people may have a different perspective. Bowdoin threw a little something into the pot to sweeten it for her but it was not characterized as merit aid.</p>
<p>I think you are going to work just as hard at Pomona and Bowdoin as you would at Williams.</p>
<p>Amherst is located in a town of about 35,000 people. It is significantly LESS rural than Williams, for example. The town of Amherst is quite similar to Brunswick (pop about 20,000), where Bowdoin is located. Brunswick <em>may</em> be slightly hipper than Amherst, but not much. It is located about 20 miles from Portland, which is a great little city that feels much bigger than it is, but how you would get there is another matter. (You might want to check out the transportation the college runs.)</p>
<p>I don’t think that any of the schools on your list offer merit aid. On your original list, at least two–Carleton and Bates–are need-aware.</p>
<p>I think there are a few schools on your list (I think Carleton, for one) offer small scholarships to NMFs, but no other merit aid. If that’s important to you, you really need to reevaluate your list.</p>
<p>Merit aid isn’t the top thing on my list, but if the school offers none at all then that’s an issue. I am also going to apply for outside scholarships that are not directly from the school. I know the odds are against me for those, but it’ll be something I can strive for.</p>
<p>I’d rather focus on the academic and college-life aspect, though. The money will be a concern for later considerations.</p>
<p>Also, just some other things you might want to know about Amherst…
The campus is very slope laden and hilly, and to a certain extent, small. Also there’s only one dining hall and the food there is not the best college cafeteria food you’ll eat by any means.
However, dorms are great, and there is a ton of athletic presence (if you’re into that)</p>
<p>to clarify: the reason I didn’t like Haverford’s relationship with all the surrounding colleges and the cross-registering for classes that goes on was because I think it pulls people away from the campus and fosters a less cohesive community</p>
<p>and I want to emphasize that most of the schools on your list have got NOTHING on BOWDOIN!! Bowdoin is absolutely the best… awesome food, awesome dorms, awesome school spirit, awesome location. I have never heard a single person say one bad thing about this college. In fact, everyone who knows about Bowdoin thinks it is great. </p>
<p>Amherst and Williams may be ranked #1 in USNWR, but they really don’t have the same vibe, and their locations aren’t as nice (Brunswick, where Bowdoin is, is really the ultimate college town, IMO). So leaving those off your list is fine. I think they’re overrated. </p>
<p>Whitman does sound like a great option, despite what I said earlier about its relative lack of prestige. I really don’t know if you’ll like Vassar, though.</p>
<p>What would be the turn off for Vassar?</p>
<p>I just can’t shake the image of Vassar being full of hippies and such… I think I saw it ranked on a list for schools that had the most “Birkenstock wearing, tree-hugging students”</p>
<p>and the ratio of guys:girls is not 50:50; there are more girls… not a big deal I guess but I sort of thought to myself “What kind of guys go to Vassar?” idk</p>
<p>As far as Vassar goes–Poughkeepsie isn’t fabulous but it isn’t too bad either. The area surrounding the college has lots of shops and restaurants, most of which accept the V Cash card. </p>
<p>The “vibe” is really hard to define because all of the students are so different. S is a rising sophomore majoring in science aiming for med school. Most of his friends major in completely different areas. I guess live and let live with a side of creative/artsy is a fair description.</p>
<p>Academics are very challenging but students are collaborative, not competitive. Talking about grades is SND–simply not done.</p>
<p>
Not sure what you’re judging that on, but I sincerely doubt that.</p>
<p>It seems that the three I am leaning toward are Bowdoin, Pomona, and Whitman. </p>
<p>They all seem to be challenging yet enjoyable schools… and I really like that Whitman is in WA. Looking at the costs and merit-based aids, Whitman is a great choice as well.</p>
<p>Am I making a mistake excluding the other schools? (remember that I have already planned to apply to Carleton)</p>
<p>I think altogether those are good choices.</p>
<p>No offense to anyone that likes the school Whitmen, but what’s the deal? </p>
<p>Bowdoin and Pomona are both rank 6th on the USNWR LAC list…over thirty slots ahead of Whitman, which is ranked 37th. And while i know that rankings aren’t the end-all-be-all, a difference of that magnitude certainly says something. </p>
<p>Also, Whitman’s acceptance rate is nearly 50%…all the stats i see about it make it seem that Bowdoin and Pomona are way out of its league. So why do people consistently compare Whitman to these other two schools?</p>
<p>I agree, Tzar, its weird. However, its good that the OP likes Whitman because then he/she has a perfect safety.</p>
<p>Tzar09, no need to get all hyped up.</p>
<p>Whitman is a good school that can be more financially efficient. I want to go to med school, so finances are an object to consider. I did say that I did not want to emphasize the money aspect of the colleges, but it is always a concern. Money speaks… big time. If anyone knows of another school that may be just as good or better and financially efficient… that would be great if you could inform me on the school. The thing is, the other colleges I have found with the same idea of Whitman turn out to be in locations where I definitely do not want to be. For example, Grinnell College is in Iowa, and, no offense, I used to go to Iowa all the time when I was younger and I absolutely hated it there. It looks like certain areas of MN that I do not particularly enjoy, but covered throughout the entire state. Location is also part of my consideration; I do not want to dislike my college before I even start.</p>
<p>I put two other top-tier LAC with my top three as well. The problem with those is that they offer no merit-based aid and they are $50,000 a year… That’s a $200,000 education, and that is excluding the expenses of med school. The FAFSA will not help my family because we are upper-middleclass. My parents told me to just find the colleges I am interested in and deal with it from there, but I do not want to have only the options that are going to rob my parent’s bank. My father said not to worry about it too much because I’ve worked hard enough to earn it, but why not keep the financially efficient options in the run?</p>
<p>So, Tzar09, that’s “the deal.”</p>
<p>I’m really interested on what basis people are making some of these judgments – for example, the student that said “none of these schools will be cut throat; study groups will form, and you will do problem sets collaboratively.” How would they even know that? At my small private LAC, some students in some departments did form study groups. Others, like me, worked independent. I hate study groups.</p>
<p>I can give you my stereotyped impressions of these colleges too, without ever having visited any of them, but do you want that?</p>
<p>Personally, I think that ruling out Williams because you heard by hearsay that they are “tough with grades” is kind of…dumb. If the student body didn’t appeal to you, or you didn’t want to be in a rural area like with Amherst, that would be different. “I’d rather come out with a gratifying A because I spent hours upon hours…” How do you know that you’ll get As? Have you gotten this impression from current and former students, or from unrelated people on the Internet? All of these schools are great schools – I don’t think Amherst, Bowdoin, or Pomona would work you any less than Williams.</p>
<p>As for the English major problem, that’s also a relatively bad assumption to make. Amherst has a strong English program, but that won’t mean that you’re going to be stuck in intro to English with a bunch of English geniuses. English majors are probably a small percentage of the first-year majors and most of them will probably get out of intro English 101 into stronger first-year classes.</p>
<p>Also, getting merit aid at these schools (even if they even offer it, which most of them don’t) is going to be hard – you’d have to be one of the tippy-top students as these schools are all selective. I don’t know your stats, but you’d have to be in the top 10%-15% of applicants to be offered merit aid money.</p>
<p>As for comparing Whitman to Bowdoin and Pomona, absolute rank and selectivity of the school don’t mean anything in terms of similarities. A lot of people may like Whitman for the same reasons they like Bowdoin – small town, cohesive environment, great students.</p>
<p>Dumb or not I have read more into Williams than that one sentence, juillet, and it did not appeal to me. Same with Amherst. All that I have read so far about it in books, forums, and many, many websites did not appeal to me.I already said that the English part probably sounds trivial and I even SAID that it was about 1% in what swayed me not to choose that school. I appreciate that you are trying to slap me back to reality because you think that I am incapable of making valid decisions… but I see that your point of view on what you think my considerations have been based on are slightly scewed. I have spent hours upon hours just searching colleges and all the information and insight I have gotten from Amherst and Williams did not fit my interests. Is that dumb? Should I go to a school that doesn’t interest me? Would that not be dumb? I can definitely see why your views may have been scewed because the little comments I posted on a broad perspective of why I chose not to keep those colleges in the list were probably not the most thorough. I apologize for that.</p>
<p>People wanted to know why I was ruling out the colleges that I have ruled out… so I told them very small pieces of information explaining why. The reasons were very small insights, very small. </p>
<p>This site is about gaining insight from others, juillet, and that is what I am using it for. Despite all this, I really do appreciate the insight you are bringing to the thread. It brings up great discussion.</p>
<p>I know you said you already took Amherst off your list, but if it’s for location reasons only, you might want to reconsider; if you’re looking for a huge city it definitely is not a good fit, but it’s fairly close to Northampton which I think is a really great town. It’s big enough that there’s stuff to do - music performances, movies, restaurants, neat book stores - but it’s not overwhelming. I didn’t see the town of Amherst as much, but it seemed like a somewhat smaller version of Northampton. I think Northampton is 15-20 minutes away, though, so maybe that is too far for it to be a real factor.</p>