Beginning to formulate ideas for sophomore

Hello,
First I will say as of right now I am posting for my daughter, in the future she may take over… we shall see.
Sophomore female just starting to really look at colleges. She’s at a prestigious private school in the Chicago area. 4.0 (obviously she’s a sophomore so this may change). She is currently in pre-calc, AP Calc next year, and as a senior she will be taking a higher level math class at Northwestern. I think she’ll do something similar for English Lit.
She takes French at school and has been in Hebrew classes and Judaic religious school since age 3, she also attended a Jewish private school for PK-8. ECs are that she is a VP for her youth group, model UN, orchestra, will be in NHS this year, may do student government this year. She volunteers with her youth group and school.
She is very interested in physics (maybe biophysics?), but not committed. Other interests are classical literature, other sciences, and religion/philosophy. So basically undecided with a lot of really realistic options.
We (her parents) both have PhDs in science and work at Northwestern. We also both attended LACs… It looks like she’ll do something similar, but we are very cautious not to push her too strongly in our direction.
She isn’t strongly against Northwestern, but it is likely not a good idea due to it being so close and having her parents there.
Location wise would be Northeast or Midwest… Not completely opposed to the West Coast, but definitely far from home. Urban or suburban would be ideal, but probably okay as long as it isn’t too rural.
Currently looking at: Macalester, Carleton, Barnard, Wellesley, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Oberlin, UMichigan, UChicago, Case Western, Johns Hopkins, Tufts. Sizewise probably small to medium, but we want to look at a larger school CWRU/UM before solidifying. I honestly don’t know if she would get into an Ivy, but she would be interested. We took her to Carleton last year, the trip wasn’t really a college tour. She liked the school, but it was too early for her to really imagine going. Avoiding strongly religious (read: Christian) schools for obvious reasons. Not opposed to the Tri-Co Quaker schools.
Obviously, we still have plenty of time for researching, but if you have any ideas or out of the box suggestions we would be very interested. We’re hoping to buckle down this year and get her to start thinking closely about college and life after college. I know this post probably sounds a bit overbearing, but I promise she is very independent and intelligent.
Thank you for any suggestions.

If she wants warmer LAC she should look at the 5Cs in California and Davidson in NC. (Davidson is technically Presbyterian but no religious requirements and very open, multi-faith – including Hillel). Reed could also be an interesting option, esp. for Physics.

My D who is a first year in college now is also a science chick and looked at a lot of the some of the same colleges you mentioned. Really liked Barnard and Carleton in particular, but ended up choosing Davidson where she loves it. She’s on PhD bio track, but like your D loves Lit and writing and could surprise us with a switch here at some point!

Keep us posted!

Do you have the money all lined up, or will she need to be looking for merit-based aid? Will she be entitled to tuition benefits, and will those follow her no mattter where she studies, or are they restricted to certain institutions. If you aren’t clear about that, pop by your benefits office.

Nothing on your current list is a guaranteed-admit safety. Check the threads at the top of the Financial Aid forum and the Parents forum on the topic of automatic admission. Her guidance counselor can give her a list of places that have never rejected anyone from her high school with her stats, but every year there are horrible surprises.

@happymomof1 We won’t qualify for financial aid. Merit would always be nice, but not necessary. She may get tuition benefits at Northwestern… I’ll check. We’re definitely formulating safeties and working with her guidance and college counselors; right now I think we’re just looking for general ideas or out of the box suggestions. I obsessively researched colleges when I was in high school (and grad school when I was in college), but I’m not 100% up to date. We have friends at Princeton, Carleton, and a couple others where we could ask questions and get some advice, but I’m hoping to gather our thoughts first.

Check out the Claremont Colleges in California! Great LACs

You didn’t ask about this, but your daughter should think about studying for the ACT/SAT the summer between 10th and 11th and taking the test at the beginning of 11th grade since she will already have precalc under her belt. Also, you should look at what classes she is taking now and see if its appropriate for her to take some of the SAT2 exams at the end of this year.

What about Washington University in St. Louis?

As @happymomof1 notes, wherever your daughter ends up applying, be sure to have one or two “safety” schools on the applications list – i.e., admissions “slam dunks” and financially doable.

Brandeis is certainly worth a look. It meets all of her criteria (northeast, urban, small, strong in both the sciences and humanities). Approximately 45% of undergrads are Jewish.

Thank you, we are looking to have her take the SAT soon. I’m anticipating her doing well, but I think we’ll get her in an SAT class next year no matter what her score is. The Claremonts are wonderful… she doesn’t really see herself in California, but it’s definitely worth thinking about. WashU is definitely an option that we’re looking at, as is Brandeis.
She’s been looking at the schools and we’ve been encouraging safeties. I think that we all agree that it would be optimal for her to ED somewhere, but she would obviously have to be very confident in whatever school that would be.
At school they’ve been researching colleges and today she came home and asked me what I thought about Sarah Lawrence since I had never mentioned it to her before… Glad she’s getting interested.

UW-Madison.

Is Grinnell not on the current list because of location? Lists which include Carleton, Oberlin, etc. often include Grinnell. I find Grinnell, Iowa a midwest town with charm, once you get past the John Deere dealer right by the interstate, with a terrific organic grocery, a good bike shop etc. However, being an hour from Iowa City is not going to satisfy someone who wants to be 25 minutes from Center Philly or 45 min to the Twin Cities. Grinnell is known for strength of its sciences and support for student research so if the geographic issues are not deal-breakers, may be worth a look.

Cornell
University of Pittsburgh
University of Rochester

@Midwestmomofboys Grinnell is about 4 hours away so it definitely won’t be difficult to tour, but it seems a bit rural for her. We had Carleton because of it’s proximity to the Twin Cities and it’s reasonably close to home (6 hours isn’t unreasonable for a long weekend every once in a while). Oberlin because of Cleveland (5 hours from Chicago).

CWRU is definitely worth a closer look, especially given their “open door” policy vis-a-vis majors. They have strong biophysics and also engineering physics if she should consider veering in that direction.

Also consider heading south to Rice - an easy 2.5hr direct flight, and another open-door-policy school with great STEM, and an urban-adjacent but self-contained campus. Its smaller size and residential college system give it many of the positive attributes of smaller colleges, in a major university. Houston is a diverse city and the student experience at Rice is not as stereotypically southern/Texan as you might imagine given the mix of students from all of the country and the world. There’s a Biological Physics concentration available within the Physics BS, and tons of relevant research especially given the extensive collaboration with the nearby Med Center.