You guys are amazing! So many good suggestions here. I will try to respond to most of the questions all here…
What does she want to do with her degree: She is in 11th grade so it is still early…but she says she wants to go on and get a PhD in something related to languages and something old. Which does maybe change the equation some. My assumption is that since that is her goal, making sure she goes to the best Classics (or any major) department for undergrad is actually NOT that important. Rather a better overall education at an elite school might be a better path to an elite PhD program.
Most people would describe her as a language kid. I think that is just because that is what is available for HS kids (no philosophy classes etc…). She loves languages but doesn’t want to be a French or Spanish major. She wants to apply her language to something bigger. Those bigger things for her tend to be in the Literature/Religion/Philosophy area and specifically old stuff. So yeah… Middlebury may not be as an obvious choice as her transcript seemingly suggests.
Yes she loves medieval studies…there are just so few majors in that…With that said, I think the idea of doing a multidisciplinary approach centered around Languages and Antiquity/Medieval Period might be the best of all worlds and prepare her best for a PhD program.
She REALLY wants to go to a SLAC. She has had terrible anxiety issues most of her life. She is on top of it, but she is much more comfortable in smaller environments. She LOVES the idea of Grinnell’s location because she KNOWS that all the kids are going to be cloistered together on campus with nowhere to go. She wants to be in a place where everyone who goes there knows they are going to be together. So, Amherst where there are LOTS of other options is not appealing while Middlebury/Grinnell where you are stuck on campus is much more so.
We haven’t visited any National Universities. We will visit William and Mary next month because it is a State school and its size is acceptable. We live in Charlottesville and I have worked at UVA for the past 20 years, so she has a good idea of what a bigger University experience is like. She HATES the idea of UVa. She has decided to focus on the SLACs for ED1 and then if that doesn’t work look at some of the smaller National Universities. Chicago and Brown, I expect, would be a the very top of her list.
With that said, I found the the ED discussion interesting. I will have to think about the strategy a bit more. I didn’t think about the “schools competing for you” side of things. My understanding though is that with most of these Needs Blind schools they give you the financial aid that the calculator tells them to give you. That there is not much variation when you are dealing with the biggies. I understood that Grinnell may be an exception to that because they need to recruit to cornfields and because they got all that Buffett money. On our tours in the summer most schools indicated that they took around 50% of there incoming class as ED1. Those types of numbers suggest to me that if you have a preference you should do it as it is MUCH more likely to get in ED1. Again…definitely something to consider.
There was a William and Mary question somewhere…Yes the admission rate for in state students is much higher.
She is absolutely open to All Women. Though the idea of “Teaing” at Wellesley makes her want to barf. When we go visit Swarthmore and Haverford we plan to see Bryn Mawr as well. From what I know about that school, I expect she will like it.
I am curious about the statement that Haverford and Bryn Mawr have particularly good Classics programs. Is that because the two schools essentially share each others’ departments and thus have twice the firepower of the typical SLAC?
On Hamilton…we visited this summer. She didn’t really like it. She thought the intense focus on how happy everyone was was disturbing 
I personally was very turned off by the segregated campus (Dark Side/Light Side)…with the alternative arts kids self segregating away from the preppy kids. I had read about it but didn’t really believe it till I saw it.
She would LOVE to go to the UK for college but my wife and I, for a number of reasons, just don’t think it is the right time yet for that. I expect that if she does indeed look at PhD programs she would definitely be looking at UK and Europe in general.
Thanks again all,
DHD
