I was going to say Emerson as well. It’s quite strong in theater and journalism.
You may want to look at Bentley. I know a kid who is thriving at Wheaton.
Not in Boston proper but a few schools on the lower end of that acceptance range that you could drive to visit: Holy Cross, Trinity, Connecticut College. Less selective would be Providence College and Clark.
BU, BC, Northeastern would have met the criteria even as recently as a year or two ago but they’ve dropped below 30% these days.
BU/BC/NEU have gotten much more competitive. 20-25% acceptance rate these days.
If you go to Waltham to look at Bentley the you might want to look at Brandeis too. Bentley is business focused. Brandeis has good science.
I know you said no all-women but Wellesley has a gorgeous campus.
There are a lot of smaller schools in New England.
Thanks to all for the suggestions! I would have never thought of Bentley, Emerson, or Wheaton. I have a friend who went to Wheaton… . very small student population, correct? She already has BU, BC, and NE on her radar (as “Matches.” Yikes.) And yes, more competitive admission rate just in the last three years for all. Brandeis is another that is not on our radar, but that we could add.
Am I the only one who is astounded by the abnormally low admission rates at colleges?
@doschicos-- Great suggestions–I think Trinity and CT college are on her list for CT schools, along with that other more famous CT university. Is Holy Cross a Catholic university?
Holy Cross is Catholic, although I’m not sure how “strict” they are.
Is this important? You also mentioned BC, which BTW is also Catholic. Brandeis is a Jewish-sponsored secular university. All have students outside the “main” religion.
I’d put Holy Cross in the Catholic-light like Georgetown (both Jesuit as well) as opposed to Notre Dame which isn’t so light, IMO.
Anyone know Brandeis’ acceptance rate this year? It was 33% 2 years ago so it very well might be below 30% now as well.
Brandeis’s Fast Facts page says 34%.
@itcannotbetrue Best not to go by admissions rates as they can be very misleading. There is a process out there called “self-selection.” Large Universities attract a wide variety of varied GPA’s. A “B” student could be admitted for one major while an “A” applicant could be rejected in a particularly popular major (e.g., Computer Science). It involves a little more work, but you are better off knowing the average grades of admitted students than you are their rate of admission. This information is best found on most college websites under the “Common Data Set” (CDS). It will show the entering freshman data on about page 8 titled “First Time, First Year, Freshman Admissions.”
If she applies to a traditional STEM school such as WPI, she will find the acceptance rate is high, but the GPA’s of matriculating students are much higher than many universities with lower acceptance rates. By way of a further example, CMU is about the most difficult in the US to gain admission in CS, but not nearly as difficult in many other majors.
You daughter probably wants:
1. flexibility to select a major after admission and not prior to admission;
2. to indentify what she would like to major in if it were not a science.
3. check out options to minor in other fields.
Northeastern’s acceptance rate is 19% for class of 2022. Very competitive for STEM majors. BU is 22% and BC is 26%.
@skieurope
Is this important? You also mentioned BC, which BTW is also Catholic. Brandeis is a Jewish-sponsored secular university. All have students outside the “main” religion.
Yes, we are Catholic.
Thanks to everyone for your input! If anyone is looking at CA/West Coast schools, please let me know and I will be happy to reciprocate! 
I immediately thought of Brandeis as a good and comphrensive institution in that acceptance range. It feels like 2018 upset all apple carts in terms of acceptance percentages though so it’s pretty hard to predict the class of 2019 (and I have a grad that year too). We are getting heavy marketing from Providence College, which is pretty close to home for us. Catholic, yes but not over the top. Friars walking about the campus though. BC, BU, NEU, and Tufts all seem like a roll of the dice now. Depending on the desired science, MCPHS feels like and up and coming institution
Interesting experience with enrolling GK in a Summer 2018 class in a state flagship as a high school concurrent enrollment student. Basically, to satisfy course prerequisites, she had to take placement tests. Grades in a BS Honors class, SAT Subject Test scores, etc count beans in this particular state flagship, and likely in many others. To satisfy course prerequisites, you need either AP score of 4 or higher, or you do a placement test. They don’t care that your school doesn’t offer AP and the Honors class curriculum is college level. I thought to share with fellow 2020 parents.
So somewhere on these boards, someone recommended using a different email address for SATs because of all of the marketing. DS uses his gmail account (not his school acct) for PSATs, SATs, subject tests etc and is getting loads of college email. When DS sets up college visits, should he also use the gmail account? should he sign in to tours with the gmail account? When he actually applies, will he be using the gmail account or his regular BS email account?
@GoatMama --We had a similar experience with the UC system science camps. They would not consider kiddo’s application as DD had not yet taken Biology. West Coast schools sequence science differently, with Bio taken in 9th grade, vs. Physics. And no placement tests offered. Frustrating!
In our family, we created a separate email account for ALL things college related. Parents had access as well as students in case the student was too busy in a certain week to keep up with any important emails (it happens ).
I’d also advise not filling out the gazillion personal info questions which are optional for standardized test registration and not checking off the box that allows you to share your info with colleges. It’ll save you tons of emails as well as a few trees in unsolicited mailings. Then your kiddo can focus on the schools that interest them instead of being bombarded with clutter.
If you are getting emails from colleges you don’t care about, unsubscibe.
Too late for the personal info questions. SO MANY EMAILS! Thank goodness he has a separate account set up.
Good to know that you used it for everything college related. Maybe I will offer to go through and unsubscribe to obvious no-interest colleges.
For schools of interest, we’d also put all correspondence into a folder for each college just to make it less cluttered and organized which came in handy when it came to application time.