What is it about Brown that your son likes? What else besides being in or near a city/urban environment does your son want? What is the preferred budget (without stretching)? Under what conditions are you willing to stretch? If the northeastern schools are sounding so cold, does that mean your son would prefer a school in a warmer climate? What kind of vibe does he want? Does he want to continue with debate in college? Are there particular interests he would like to pursue? Is he interested in liberal arts colleges, but just not the price, or would he prefer a minimum size?
Any additional information you provide could help users in offering suggestions.
In general, medium to large schools highly preferred and in a urban/semi-urban area; diversity also a priority. His HS is around 3000 students and he’s opposed to a college/university that is smaller than that size (I think Brown is just around that size). We visited a small LAC (around 1500 students) in Pennsylvania and it was beautiful but he couldn’t get over how small it felt (and surrounding area was also very small town feel). I think he’d want to continue debate in college if available - which is more of a thing in the northeast, I realize. But, debate is not a major/career and he’s also quite interested in writing (not creative), cultural studies, and film (theory/analysis, not production) so SoCal/NY becomes a geographic pull for that last area of interest. So he’s kind of all over the place. We’re aware of LAC’s in California like Claremont schools and Oxy and could consider - but I think if any of the top 7 UC’s and UW are a real option (and I think they are - I forgot UCSB earlier but it’s on the list) then it’s hard to compete with them based on cost/diversity/general offerings. Kickstart bumped up the score/grade for our list to B- after we added CU Boulder and UCSB, so I think we’re getting there as to our list.
I’d still suggest checking out Rochester (pro tip: don’t buy one super-thick coat, dress in layers). Seems like the right size, in a city, good all-around for liberal arts/humanities, has a debate union, has a film and media studies program . . . .
My two cents is Rochester also has one of the best curriculum plans anywhere. Not totally open, but basically they divide up everything into three “divisions”: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences/engineering. If you, say, major in humanities, you also have to do a cluster in each of social sciences and natural sciences/engineering. Clusters are sets of three related courses, and there are a bunch of standard ones or you can create your own. You still have a lot more courses, so you can easily upgrade a cluster into a minor or a second major.
Your son has made himself a strong candidate for any school in the country. Some of the schools are so popular that they have way more qualified students than they can take, so despite your son’s excellent qualifications, there are still a number of reaches on his list. This is a list of some other schools that he may want to consider, most of which will have likelier chances for admission. Some of the schools (American, Tulane, perhaps BU) don’t like to be a school’s “safety” and want to see a lot of demonstrated interest from students. If not, a strong applicant may still find themselves with a denial or waitlist. Also, both Georgia and Louisiana have growing film/tv industries, which seems to have influenced your son’s preferred geographies. Additionally, though your family expects to be full pay, the vast majority of the schools below provide merit aid as well, and I suspect your son would be a strong contender to receive generous merit aid packages, so please don’t get stuck on the sticker prices.
U. of Arizona: About 37k undergrads and would provide very generous merit aid (which, though not a requirement for your family, is always a nice bonus). Its majors in Communication, Film and Television (the BA, not the BFA), and Professional and Technical Writing might be of interest. And depending on the culture of interest, there are many majors that focus on various cultures. It has a well-reputed honors college and will be in a warm climate.
Carnegie Mellon (PA ): This other Pittsburgh school would be a reach, but I don’t think it would be out of reach, and the fact that your kid is not a STEM kid might help in admissions. Size-wise it’s much closer to Brown, with about 6900 undergrads. Its English department might hold a lot of interest for your son, with majors in Film & Visual Media, Literature & Culture, Professional Writing, and Technical Writing. He may also be interested in the Humanities Scholars Program and should he decide he is interested in an application of the arts, he may be interested in the BXA program of Bachelor of Humanities and Arts.
Not going into as much depth with these next schools (time constraints, not their worthiness), but your son may also want to check out:
If he’d be comfortable committing to an English-type major (with options to double-major or minor in another area of interest), the Writing & Literature major in the College of Creative Studies at UCSB could give him a really nice, more personalized educational experience within a larger UC Writing & Literature | UCSB College of Creative Studies CCS requires an additional application in addition to the UC app.
Agreed that the 5C’s could be a great option but very pricey at full pay. Although IMHO, if Pomona wouldn’t be worth the full-pay price, Brown and the other no-merit privates on your list wouldn’t either.
Emory could be excellent for his interests, and Atlanta is certainly worthy of consideration as a city (especially given the concern about climate in the Northeast!), and a big enough travel hub to make access relatively easy… and merit is possible.
One more possibility that might or might not fit: Emerson College, in Boston, is more of a niche school than most he’s considering, but it’s very good in those niche areas, which do happen to cover most if not all of the areas of interest you listed: Undergraduate Majors & Minors | Emerson College It fits your parameters in terms of size (around 4K undergrads) and urban environment in Boston, and there are merit scholarships, although I don’t have any detailed knowledge about that aspect. They have satellite campuses in Los Angeles and the Netherlands, and they’re part of the Boston ProArts Consortium. It looks like their debate team has been doing well, too. I would think he’d find a lot of like-minded students there.
Actually, Wesleyan University just tips the scale at 3,000 students. And, it’s home to one of the country’s best Film Studies departments:
From Variety
Wesleyan has some of the finest documentary filmmaking resources around and is a frequently listed as one of the best film schools in the U.S. The College of Film and the Moving Image counts film critic A.O. Scott and documentary producer Sadia Shepard (“The September Issue”) as faculty. The school also initiated the Wesleyan Documentary Project, which is designed to teach and support nonfiction projects. The timing couldn’t be better as interest in nonfiction storytelling is experiencing a boom and holds many opportunities for grads. “The thing that Wesleyan offers that not many other schools do is a program that’s embedded in a liberal arts university,” says Scott Higgins, director, College of Film and the Moving Image. “Students aren’t just learning the technology or film, and there’s a richer integration of disciplines which I think leads to students who can solve problems.”
I’ll add a second to Rochester. Great all around school with excellent facilities and a nice vibe. With your sons credentials there should be merit available and Rochester is a pretty decent medium size city with a good arts scene because of the generosity of George Eastman so many years ago.
Thanks all for the great suggestions! I honestly had not heard/thought about Rochester before (had to look it up on map) and will look into it further. Among the more interesting suggestions that sound potentially appealing - Carnegie Mellon (we have a cousin who teaches there but I’ve always thought of it as a STEM school), Emory and Tulane. Possibly Emerson but will need to look a bit further at that. We know quite a few people at/from Wesleyan so perhaps that’s worth a closer look but I think it may end up feeling too small/remote despite the good film program (which hadn’t heard about). American U - the comment about needing to show interest rings true; son’s friend applied there last year with similar credentials as my son and he was waitlisted at Am U but got into other schools that were even more of a reach; my theory re: Am U was that they were yield protecting and didn’t think the kid was really interested. Again, b/c of solid UC/other state univ options, I think we don’t feel a need to play that game with a school like Am U.
Yeah, at least in my circles, Rochester has a relatively good reputation when it comes to yield protection. They do consider demonstrated interest, and the “optional” interview is strongly recommended (read all but required) if you want consideration for merit aid. As always, you should take appropriate care with supplemental essays.
But if you do all that, the feeling is if Rochester wants you but believes you are likely to get into “higher ranked” schools, they are more likely to try to throw money your way than reject you.
CMU is definitely a STEM, Arts, and Business college (makes sense when you think about Andrew Carnegie’s interests . . . ). I think of them as more of a fine and performing arts school than film, however (in other words, the stuff in their College of Fine Arts which includes Drama and Music, and also Architecture–another strength of CMU). And I am not sure I would strongly recommend it for someone who was coming from a core liberal arts perspective, except for arts stuff like creative writing.
Would your son be happy to attend any of these? If others that people have suggested were around the same price as a UC, would your son be interested in them?
Connecticut is one of the smallest, most densely populated of all the states settled by the Puritans. Honestly, anywhere west of the Mississippi River, the towns and villages between Hartford and New Haven would be considered one continuous metropolitan area.
Middletown has quite a bit going on and Hartford is very close. There may be a bit of green around it but compared to many of the other NESCAC LACs it is smack dab in the middle of a metropolis.
I suspect Wesleyan will not feel remote at all – it’s in a small city (not a small town) and not at all rural. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the geography of Connecticut, but even small towns, with a few exceptions in the northern corners of the state, are pretty well-connected, and the Hartford-to-New Haven corridor is densely packed and offers lots to do. It’s very easy to get to NYC from there, as well (and from New Haven, anything in the Boston-DC corridor is pretty accessible through Amtrak). Not big-city cosmopolitan, but definitely not isolated.
I’ll just fourth that Wesleyan always struck me as one of the least isolated LACs in New York/New England (outside of Barnard, Wellesley, and Radcliffe, which are not particularly relevant, or in one case existent). Hartford’s a top 50 metro itself, and then of course the Connecticut Shore and NYC are not far either.
Note, however, that Wesleyan does not give merit. So it has to pass the “Is this worth more than double the cost of a UC?” filter, which as you’ve noted is a very high bar.
Yes, very good point and one that I keep coming back to as we start to look at other non-UC schools. But it definitely doesn’t hurt to look at/consider other schools that weren’t on our radar initially so I do appreciate all the suggestions!
Just because I think it’s good to occasionally drop this in, Wes (and other NESCACs) represent a wholly different college experience, so in addition to the usual ROI analysis, you have to factor in the qualitative value associated with one vs. the other.
Agreed. But I would put the Claremont Colleges in that “wholly different college experience” category too, and the OP already expressed that they weren’t feeling that the value-added over the UC’s was worth the cost differential. I can’t see how the analysis for the NESCACs would differ meaningfully from, for example, Pomona.
