Bowdoin, Bates, & Colby for Asian Male student

College Search & Selection
21

All of these schools are going to be tough sells for the average collegeconfidential student, regardless of the merit money they may offer. But UAH has one selling point that the others lack: it is relatively selective for a non-flagship state university. For example, College Navigator shows a Composite ACT range for UAH of 25-31, which is not too different from some better-known schools that are popular on this forum (e.g. UC Davis or UC Irvine at 25-32).

The other schools that you mention have significantly lower numbers – probably too low for most students here to seriously consider, regardless of merit aid or racial/religious orientation. I doubt that any small, little-known, unselective school is going to be in play here, regardless of whether it is an HBCU in the South, a technical college in Idaho, or a Catholic school in rural Pennsylvania.

22

The question for the OP is will you feel comfortable in a very different cultural environment? and since you’re coming from an area where you make up a large percentage of the racial makeup, will you be comfortable as a small minority of the student population. Keep in mind most people are going feel more comfortable in a group they identify with. Some people, and it’s not the majority, can adjust well to this type of environment and do well. Do you think your one of these or do you feel more comfortable within your own group? You can see from the responses that some could be comfortable but some definitely would not.

23

I think ANYONE, regardless of race, would have a big adjustment to make, moving from California to Maine! I know I did, moving from Texas. I have found that people who come here with a positive attitude, determined to make the transition work, do well. People who constantly compare Maine to their previous residence do NOT do well. I can pretty much guess after talking to a newcomer one time whether he or she is going to last a year here.

And yes, the weather is a factor. But if you embrace it and go downhill skiing, XC skiing, sledding, skating, etc. it’s awesome. :slight_smile:

24

https://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/scholarships/merit-tuition-scholarships suggests that an applicant with 3.0 GPA and 25 ACT* will get an automatic scholarship, so it could be that UAH is less selective for admission than that. The higher ACT range may not reflect selectivity, but less attractiveness to students with lower GPA and test scores who could be admitted, or that the scholarships have some success in attracting many stronger students, even though base selectivity is not that high.

  • Not likely to get admitted to UCD or UCI.
25

If you go from the Bay Area to a CBB school, you are going to have be prepared to adapt. You will be in a significantly whiter, less multicultural environment, where the default career orientation is towards Wall Street and finance, rather than towards Silicon Valley and tech.

However, if you can successfully adapt, the rewards could be significant. You could become “bicoastal”, with the ability to function comfortably in both worlds. In that case, you will have no problems living or working in an East Coast World that is totally alien to your high school friends at Berkeley or Davis or SJSU. But you will also have no problems living or working in a West Coast World that is totally alien to your CBB friends from Boston or Long Island or NJ.

Such flexibility can be professionally valuable. However, it’s obviously riskier and more challenging than simply staying in the “safe” West Coast environment that you are already familiar with. You will have to figure out what your risk/reward tolerance is.

26

It’s true that you could get an automatic merit scholarship from UAH with those stats – but it is the very lowest level of automatic scholarship that UAH offers: a 35% discount on tuition.

The estimated non-resident cost of attendance at UAH, including housing and fees, is $38,788. A 35% tuition discount would bring that down – to $31,306.
https://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/costs

That’s not the kind of deal that students here are looking for when they ask about automatic merit scholarships. They want the 100% tuition scholarships. Those start at an unweighted (high school) GPA of 3.5 and ACT of 30. That’s a lot more comparable to mid-tier UC standards.

27

No way anyone can state more New England kids are aiming for Wall St than kids in Silicon Valley. I actually don’t know a single kid from my two girls’ classes who went off to IB. (And that’s despite the number who landed in Boston, NYC, or DC.) Start-ups, yes. And lots of other industries or fields.

OP, you’re an Asian, here for high school only? I’d say that shows plenty of risk tolerance. The issue is still “Why Maine?” Are there other good colleges on your list in other east coast areas?

Where do you hope to live and work after college?

28

UCD or UCI would be reaches for an applicant with a 3.5 weighted GPA, maybe low reach to high match with 3.5 unweighted GPA in hard courses. I.e. some students who would get UAH full tuition scholarships would not be admitted to UCD or UCI. Of course, there are also UAH students not on scholarship.

29

Hey y’all, I’m the OP :^)

WOW, I wasn’t expecting to receive so many helpful responses from all of you! I read through all of them, and they all have great advice; thanks SO much!

I’ve been living in the Silicon Valley for 14 years now, and I identify myself a lot with the high-tech and innovative culture. It’s also sort of a bragging right to say that you live near Facebook. Google, Apple, and Netflix’s campuses among others…lol :slight_smile:

I’m planning on applying to several LACs around the nation. To answer the question of why CBB (asked by @ProfessorPlum168 , @lookingforward , and so many others:

My sister lived in SV for about 9 years (lived in NY, VA, and Japan early in her childhood when I was a baby), but she wanted to leave CA and go to a small LAC. She’s been successful so far; she graduated and will attend a pharmacy school ranks #3 in the nation, and she credits LAC’s close community and the undergraduate-focused education for getting her to where she is right now (if she went to a UC she says that she wouldn’t have matured and gone to pharmacy school because of the intense competition in those schools). Learning about the power of LACs, I’ve been looking for LACs primarily in the east & west coast. Because CBB are ranked high in the US News rankings, and because Bates’ swimming program has contacted me for possible recruitment into D3 (whoo!), I’ve been steadily gaining interest in these colleges.

I also started considering LACs because I realized there’s a slight chance that I could get some financial aid for $50K+ tuition schools since my sister is attending a grad school with 30K tuition even though we are in the upper-middle class.

I’m also considering schools outside of California and also schools that don’t have a significant asian population, because admissions is getting I N T E N S E especially in CA (@intparent posted this article about the trends of admissions in CA: https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/03/26/reports-circulate-even-more-difficult-year-be-admitted-leading )
My assumption is that, if I go to an out-of-state school, with an URM population that is less than 40% (unlike CA) , then I would have a good chance at getting admitted from just being qualified, because these schools might want diverse people like me.

i heard about the incident with Colby, but I don’t have too much detailed info about it. I’m gonna ignore that for now and watch the student life video about Colby that @kalons , @merc81 , and @gardenstategal , to get a better feel about the college that I think will be more effective than through the school’s website or through brochures.

If CBB are going to give me a great education in chemistry and/or CS (with some writing-intense classes, which are skills that I want to improve on) then I would like to apply. I’m still trying to make a short list of colleges to apply to, and after dozens of hours of research, I still have a long list (and sometimes adding more schools to it LOL)

@horus thank you; I’ll check out the link when I have time!

@lookingforward Hmm well other than the SV idk where I would want to work and live after college… since I might want to stay here I’m considering Santa Clara University because their location is AMAZING for internships and offers for job opportunities outside of campus. The drawback of working and living in SV is there housing issue; I don’t think I’ll ever have enough money saved up to be able to own a house around here :-/

@CU123 and @MaineLonghorn I don’t really have too much experience adapting to new places (which is why I’m a bit weary of attending an east coast LAC) but I think I have the personality and characteristics to adapt to new places. I’ll probably miss the 300+ days of sunshine and no-snow winters if I go to the EC tho haha

I think I answered and responded to most things that all of you directly asked me; lmk if you want me to elaborate or clear up some stuff I’m totally fine with that especially since I rushed through writing this entire post :slight_smile:

Thank you for such great feedback so far; I’ll be looking forward to more :slight_smile:

30

@calitoeast I think you’ll find this thread helpful for your own east coast LAC searches :^)

31

Your sister’s grad school expenses will not be taken into account. So you can cross that off reasons to look at any of these schools.

32

Then compare UAH to UCSC or UCR if you prefer. It doesn’t matter.

The point here is not to evaluate the exact level of UAH’s selectivity on the UC campus scale. The point is simply that UAH falls somewhere on that scale, in a way that suggested alternatives like Alabama A&M (Composite ACT range: 16 - 19) do not. So UAH seems like a more credible suggestion for the average collegeconfidential student.

33

From Colby’s “Outcomes” brochure, at:
https://issuu.com/colbycollegelibrary/docs/c2015-outcomesbrochure.150dpi.pages?e=4376882/51161188

Class of 2015, Employment by Industry

26.5% Business and Financial Services (top ranked category)
11.5% STEM (fifth ranked category)

My guess is that the ratio would be different among Bay Area college graduates.

34

But OP, you sound bright, mature and aware, have done some nice front end considering, and are frank. Imo, you’ll do well wherever you land.

Check course offerings and prof backgrounds, their research interests.
Best wishes.

35

Re. post #32, it’s hard to know if this is an East Coast/West Coast thing or just something common with kids at top colleges. I couldn’t find information on graduate employment for most of the CA LACs but I did for Claremont McKenna. CMC’s largest most frequent employers clusters are in 1) Accounting and financial services, and 2) Consulting. Over 3 times the numbers of grads went to work for Accenture, a Boston-based consulting company as for Amazon or any other tech company.

36

Based on another thread, you may be pre-med… Maine seems to be one of the least convenient locations to get to interviews at your in-state UC medical schools if and when the time comes. It may not even be that convenient to get to most eastern medical schools (private or out of state), since airports in Maine tend to be smaller ones that require connecting through a hub to get anywhere besides a hub.

37

Then again, the Maine schools have the early assurance programs at Tufts and Mt. Sinai and strong med school placements beyond these two.
https://www.bates.edu/career/students/advanced-studies-graduate-and-professional-school-advising/health-professions-advising/pre-health-basics/early-assurance-programs/

38

Bowdoin students, in particular, can benefit from access to several medical school early assurance programs (see #s 4, 8 and 9): https://www.studentdoctor.net/2014/08/04/want-to-skip-the-mcat-check-out-these-programs/.

39

@Sue22, The Tufts Maine Track Program is geared towards Mainers…, I believe in effort to get doctors into rural Maine communities… “Applicants from Maine or with ties to Maine, and applicants with an interest in the practice of rural medicine are encouraged apply to the Maine Track Program.”

40

Students at Bates, Bowdoin, Colby and UMaine are eligible for the program, as are Maine residents. The training is split between Boston and Maine and students are encouraged, but not required, to practice in Maine upon graduation.