<p>Does anyone want to chance DS for the following schools:</p>
<p>Brandeis (top choice right now)
Wesleyan (legacy, both parents)
Hampshire
Boston University
Tufts
Amherst
Worcester Polytechnic Institute</p>
<p>GPA 4.0 unweighted, 4.39 weighted
No class rank - small charter school with <70 kids in graduating class
SAT I: 2270 Math-770; reading 780; writing 720 with 9 on the essay</p>
<p>ECs:
Drama - School plays - every show (9 total) since freshman year. Lead roles in 3 shows; solid sub-leads in 3 others.
Guitar - rock and jazz - 5 years
Piano - classical - 3 years
Voice - all genres - 3 years
Swim team - 5 years club level
Improv club - co-teacher 2 years
Destination Imagination - 10 years (regional champions 7 times)
National Honor Society
During the school year, the drama takes up 12-15 hours/week. Music lessons and practice about 8 hours per week. Swimming about 3-4 hours/week plus meets.</p>
<p>Honors
Brown University Book Award
Senior District Music Festival (voice)
Silver Award MICCA festival (voice)</p>
<p>I think the only school on his list that's a reach is Amherst, simply because of the low acceptance rate. I think he might want to toss an Ivy or 2 into the mix. Thoughts?</p>
<p>We only visited Hampshire because we were in western MA to see Amherst & Williams, and his college counselor suggested it. We didn’t expect much. We were blown away on the tour. The tour guide was knowledgeable, engaging, and very mature. The big appeal for my son was the opportunity to put together your own program of study to pursue whatever he wanted to study. His charter school is very big on hands on, project-based learning so he’s very comfortable working with minimal structure. He’d like to combine his interests in math, music, and computer programming while continuing to be in theater productions.
The only thing that’s holding us back is concern about how the whole no grades/no defined majors will look to graduate schools and future employers. He’s the kind of self-directed, motivated kid who could get a lot out of Hampshire. I would NEVER want to send an easily distracted, procrastinating kid to Hampshire - you could spend a lot of money for your kid to screw around for 4 years.
I would describe my son as a “quirky kid,” and certainly Hampshire attracts that type, but Wesleyan and (to a lesser extent) Brandeis are also good fits for quirky kids.
A lot of the other schools are on his list because they fit his academic needs, are near Boston (he loves hanging out in the city), and were suggested by his college counselor or friends. Hampshire also offers a fair amount of merit based aid (as do Brandeis, BU, Northeastern, and WPI) and he is in a good position for it with his stats. We will not qualify for financial aid, but are not so well off that we would scoff at merit aid.</p>
<p>He had concerns from the beginning that Williams was too remotely located. We visited it during a snow storm; our car broke down; and it took nearly 24 hours to get back home because there were no rental cars or taxis in Williamstown. We had to get a taxi from North Adams to pick us up the following morning to drive us to a rental car place in Pittsfield. This confirmed his impression that it was out in the middle of nowhere, and he crossed it off his list.</p>