Son wants pre dental. Trying to decide between these 3 schools. Will get merit scholarship from W&J possibly half of cost. Any thoughts?
Will he qualify for any need-based aid at Bates or Wheaton? Half the cost (not half of tuition, right?) would be tough to turn down if he’s looking at the cost of dental school in a few years and he wouldn’t get financial aid at the other schools.
The other thing to consider would be the acceptance rate to dental school and the dental schools grads end up at. I don’t know about W&J or Wheaton but for the years where I could find stats including dental school acceptance rates for Bates grads (2015, 2016 and 2017) the acceptance rate was 100%. Of course that could be one student per class. 
Washington and Jefferson is known for pre health majors having success. It’s small, pretty and filled with nice kids. Washington pa doesn’t have a lot but Pittsburgh is close enough for day trips for the students. But they rarely leave.
W and J is like Muhlenberg but a bit preppier.
He is a soccer player recruited by all 3 schools. 3.61 GPA 1310 SAT. Will get into W&J and Wheaton but needs coach support from Bates. Go to Bates next weekend for ID camp and hope to gain support then. W&J also has 100% dental school acceptance rate every year but again very small numbers. I am W&J graduate who attended UConn Dental School. I guess the question is do we give up over $100K in merit scholarship at W&J to go to Bates because it is the highest rated of the 3? We may get money from Wheaton but definitely not from Bates.
Have you run the NPC? (Just checking!)
It’s not just rankings - in terms of resources and caliber of students, Bates will be a clear cut above BUT predental will be tough everywhere, both Wheaton and W&J are solid schools (different vibe though), and the coaching style/playing time offered may make the decision for him…
He will likely get excellent merit from Wheaton, probably around the same amount as W&J. I would choose one of the lower priced schools. Dental school is expensive.
Some of us think of Bates as a grade deflation school. I have no idea if that’s so for all majors or even holds today. When there are solid post-grad plans, you want to consider not just the rep, but the chance to end at the top, pre-dent advising support, etc. WHether a college weeds out kids aiming for these careers.
W&J came through with a huge merit scholarship. The soccer situation is great because the coach really needs his position and he will likely start as a freshman. We have decided we cannot pass on this offer.
Yeah, plus Bates overrecruits – have you seen how many are on the roster? The new coach brought in 17 freshmen! That said, if Bates is perfect in every other way this isn’t very important. But it’s another data point.
The Bates coach is limited in the number of full slots that can be offered (typically 2 in soccer but can vary) and practically limited in the number of student he can speak with admissions about in a soft support type of way. So, most of those 17 freshman are likely walk-ons.
^I don’t know about the situation at Bates, but I know of at least 2 other NESCAC schools that have indeed recruited a glut of soccer players in one year. One in 2015, one in 2013. (One had 11.) I don’t know if they agreed to under recruit in subsequent years but it does happen. It made walk-on positions impossible in that year and in the 2 subsequent. Also created some interesting challenges for replacing them when they all graduated.
But for the OP, one other thing to consider is that at many schools, those placement percentages are placements for the students who the school was supporting, not for everyone who wanted to apply or who entered freshman year wanting to be pre-dent. I don’t know what the process is as any of these 3 schools, but my point is they may not be apples to apples comparisons if the school discourages everyone except the ones they know will be accepted from applying. I would certainly explore this at each of them.
And yes, if you will be paying for dental school, saving $ for that is important!