And take the required courses for medical school admissions, and have time for shadowing, volunteering, patient interaction experience, etc.
I believe this student needs to at least have a conversation with both the coach, and the health careers advisory folks at each of these colleges.
I think they are all excellent choices if everything can line up for this student athlete.
Oh…and congratulations!
I cannot speak to Kenyon and Carleton other than that i think highly of them, but as an Amherst graduate who got into medical school, I can say Amherst is outstanding for pre-meds. Their pre-med advising is great and they keep it real. I see that my organic Chemistry professor is STILL teaching there after many years which bodes well since the way he taught it was outstanding (given that Organic chem is one the notorious “weed-out” pre-med classes). granted times have changed and i’m not sure i would even be accepted to Amherst (or med school) in today’s competitive environment, but just wanted to put my personal experience (granted just a sample size of N=1 so take it with a grain of NaCl) for Amherst as a great choice for an aspiring pre-med who wants a great collegiate experience (and not as cutthroat as other schools i hear about).
I actually think that Amherst is surprisingly similar to Princeton - mostly due to similar diversity priorities and suburban feel.
@jcpharm were you also a recruited athlete at Amherst? This adds a completely different layer to this prospective medical school applicant (should that even happen).
I can’t speak to the other schools but I was so impressed when an athlete shared they had their original advisor from freshman year + one advisor for each of their two majors AND two more pre-med advisors charged with supporting them through the med school application process.
@TonyGrace were these medical school aspirants also recruited athletes?
It’s important for this recruited athlete to find out how his prospective major will interface with his sports commitment at ALL of these colleges.
No, i was not - but to me, being recruited just opens the door to opportunities - balancing athletic life could add an extra layer of complexity, but as with most SLACs (Div III etc), these athletes are not worked as hard as Div I schools. but it is a good point to note that they would have to juggle more activities with their pre-med studies.
The College Transitions site is interesting, and their guide book (Colleges Worth Your Money) even more so, imo. But if interested in PhD rates, and not wanting to sift through the raw NSF data, I usually recommend the excellent summaries Swarthmore publishes. For starters, they average over 10 years, which helps smoothen out anomalous years, particularly with smaller schools. They are also clear about which years they are counting, both for the PhD awards and for the years of college graduation (cause changing denominators count!), both of which College Transitions doesn’t specify.
I’m going to assume OP’s student is considering a PhD in the life sciences or the physical sciences (which includes chemistry.)
Here’s how the 3 colleges compare per the Swarthmore report:
Life Sciences:
Carleton- 5th
Amherst- 27th
Kenyon- 51st
Physical Sciences:
Carleton- 3rd
Amherst- 15th
Kenyon- 89th
To my knowledge, there isn’t a similar 3rd party source tracking undergrad origin of all MD awards the way the NSF tracks PhD awards. College Transitions list of medical schools is just for the top 25 research medical schools, per USNWR. Strangely, it does not include primary care medical schools. This has always struck me as a major oversight given 1/3 of MDs go into primary care (a percentage we would all benefit from seeing go up!). This methodology penalizes Carleton as the most popular medical school for their graduates is, unsurprisingly, U of Minnesota, which is ranked 2nd by USNWR for best primary care medical schools. Does it make sense for College Transitions to be counting the 25th ranked medical school for research while ignoring the 2nd ranked medical school for primary care when 1/3 of all
MDs go into primary care? Of course not. If they included both lists or even just the top 10 primary care schools I strongly suspect they would rank highly on a list they are currently omitted from.
But there’s a deeper question as to whether a high school student aspiring to attend medical school should be more focused on matriculation to the top ranked medical schools vs acceptance to any medical school, given how hyper selective medical schools have come. Consider the difference in acceptance metrics for the 25th ranked medical school vs the 100th ranked:
25th (research): MCAT 519, GPA 3.88, Acceptance rate 6.5%
100th (research): 512, 3.72, 3.9%
25th (primary): 511, 3.81, 5.1%
100th (primary): 512, 3.73, 4.3%
In light of the above, I think overall med school acceptance rate is more useful than t25.
But even more useful than that is focusing on finding the school that the student feels they will do their own best work at. For that I recommend college visits, particularly if a recruited athlete. Meet the coaches and the teams, as they will be part of an athlete’s initial social group. Get a sense of practice and travel schedules. Walk around campus. Sit in on a class if possible. Read the longer descriptions of the schools in guides like Fiske or Princeton Review. Consider the pros and cons of fewer classes in a trimester system vs more classes on a semester system.
Lastly, congratulations to OP and their student! These are great schools. There is no wrong answer. An enviable position!
In this particular instance, yes. Advising was discussed during an athlete panel during an a recruiting visit.
It was also very clear that academics take priority and athletes have the time to pursue multiple interests. Honestly, I would be very surprised if that is different at any of these schools. That is one of the hallmarks of D3 athletics.
Princeton has a nicer library.
I was trying to find two great names - but one that’s the creme de la creme recognition wise and one that wasn’t …in a like focus vs a main school one. Perhaps my selection wasn’t right.
Anyway I’m sure OP got the point.
I will add tho on Parchment, and not sure how accurate, 57% chose Carleton, 43% Amherst.
Kenyon 33%. Amherst 67%. I’m surprised Kenyon was so high.
As I originally noted but this seems to be passed over, I imagine a coach likability or ability to access more playing time might also be a consideration. Did the student meet potential teammates ??
I agree with whomever suggested Kenyon is the odd man out here. It is also more preppy, wealthy and athletic than the other two IMO. Since the student is not looking to pursue English, unless there is a particular compelling reason to choose it (for example - it is one of the top D3 swim teams in the country, and truly high caliber) it is an easy elimination.
As far as the other two, I can’t imagine not having a preference. Location alone can be enough to guide OP - they are not even remotely the same. Fit should always be the guide, but there is absolutely no reason to dwell on academic differences between these two.
Nicer pool too 
and much better food options.
Seriously though, the overall student body vibe is not all that different.
For the record, Williams takes the library cake.
Blockquote
(Oops, quote missing so tried again below.)
They offer significant merit, kids from the Midwest might prefer it, sports are stronger even if the overall legue is not.
Sure, I didn’t mean literal cars. Some students find it harder to study in vehicles because of people talking or getting carsick (bussick?) from changes in direction or speed while reading. Less consistent direction and speed than a train or plane, especially while on rural roads more common with LACs.
@thumper1, I will respond as a parent of an Amherst grad, then med school. While my D wasn’t a recruited athlete, she was on a time intensive club sport year round, ~20 hrs a week. It was hectic, but doable. I think the OP had mentioned her son wasn’t set on a major which would fit in nicely with the Amherst open curriculum. My D had a Humanities major and fit in her pre med reqs nicely. For pre med EC’s, there were opportunities in town as well as one she did in Springfield, about 40 minutes away. The school allowed her to drive a campus van to that one, so that helped a lot! Most of her EC’s were done in the summers. But as others have noted, all three schools are great. Congratulations to your son.
Kenyon doesn’t just have English as a choice of major.
There are preppy, wealthy kids at all of these college, make no mistake. I don’t think Kenyon is known for being super preppy. Quirky is the most popular word choice they use themselves, as per a popular student review site.
Amherst will have many students from old money families and the nation’s top boarding schools, and has the largest endowment by miles of any of these three schools. That’s not a bad thing, by the way. Amherst has the luxury of truly handpicking its students.
Agreed that the list of elitist, stuck-up, snobby, super-preppy American colleges is a short one. Thanks, for confirming my earliest post in this thread:
We don’t know the sport or where you live, but I would find it difficult to pass up NESCAC (high level of play for D3 and incredible rivalries with other ultra-high-resources schools) and the resources of Amherst more generally. Carleton is certainly not lacking in much, but Amherst’s resources are abundant in a way that is palpable. It would not be a difficult decision for me unless, again, there were sport-specific or location issues.