How do you think your daughter might fare with block system schedule?
On the block schedule, students take 1 class at a time, 5 mornings/week for 3.5 weeks. afternoons are for labs, research, sports, theater and other activities. There’s 4-5 day block break at end of every month.
There are 2 colleges-- Cornell College in Iowa and Colorado College in Colorado Springs. CO.
Colorado College hits a lot of her asks–small LAC (2300 undergrad), 100 acre campus in the residential area of Colorado Springs, liberal & laid back school, really good food in the dining hall. Outdoorsy vibe. No frats or sororities. Good track record for sending kids on to graduate and professional school.
Colorado Springs is a whole lot easier to get from Southern California in case of an emergency than upstate NY or Maine or central Minnesota. (There is an airport in Colorado Springs, but you can get a direct flight to Denver from any of the SoCal airports and drive to Springs in 70 minutes. So about 3.5 - 4 hours total.)
Here are some college recommendations for your daughter interested in biology and pre-med:
UCSD and UCI in Southern California offer strong biology programs and a supportive environment for students with ADHD and anxiety.
Wellesley College (MA) is a women’s college with a collaborative atmosphere, strong biology department, and opportunities for non-theater majors to participate in productions.
Swarthmore College and Haverford College ¶ are small liberal arts colleges with excellent biology departments, supportive communities, and opportunities for research and performing arts involvement.
Tufts University (MA) offers a range of biology-related majors, research opportunities, and a suburban campus.
To convince your daughter to consider local options, emphasize the benefits of family support, familiarity, and potential cost savings. Good luck with the college application process!
You should look at St. Mary’s college at Moraga in CA. I know someone who teaches biology there, and they rave up how personalized the attention is. They also seem to place well into medical school. Not sure how easy it is to get aid, but they Dinesen to have need based and merit aid.
If Mac and Carelton are possibilities, another vote to add St Olaf as an easier admit. They are next door to Carelton, has great premed advising, and your D should see merit $.
We were clear with our cross country college kid that she could fly home for the LONG breaks only…Christmas and summer. This was not an issue for us because we had relatives she loved visiting for Thanksgiving and also one spring break. Her college had service projects they could do during spring break which she did for the three spring breaks.
I think your student does have a chance at some top schools. Her weighted GPA is strong, and that is a plus. I think a strong ACT or SAT, along with excellent essays and LOR might make her a good candidate at some of these schools. You can’t get accepted if you don’t apply…so give it a shot!
I haven’t gone back and read every single post, but has Miami University in Oxford Ohio been mentioned? I think she would get merit there that could bring the costs down. Oxford isn’t a huge town, but the school is terrific.
Miami University in Oxford Ohio should definitely be on the list. My colleague’s son received a lot of merit (not as strong a student) and my colleague always spoke about how supportive the school is (her son also had some health concerns).
We used criteria for travel that it was a non-stop flight and the school was an hour’s drive from the airport. For the east coast, I would take a good look at Deleware. It is a very popular school in our area of New Jersey. We have seen a variety of kids thrive there, from outgoing to more reserved. Also, a current student we are very close to went there with similar health concerns and found the school most supportive. Plus, it’s an easy 40-minute shot down 95 from Philly airport.
To stay on the west coast, consider Reed College a good fit for your daughter’s academic interests. It flies a little under the radar because it doesn’t participate in the US News rankings.
This thread might provide some thoughts about how others have approached having a student attend a college close-by: Going to college in one's own hometown?
In terms of trying to get your teen to consider local options, here are a few additional ideas:
Tally up how much might be spent on travel to go to university elsewhere. Then indicate that the money could be spent on something else, like study abroad, or subsidizing an unpaid internship, or a special summer program, or other things that might not be feasible if she attended a school with higher travel costs.
Talk about Covid and how students were often semi-stranded at the start of the pandemic when everything closed down. Also, you could talk about how being close to home could be a nice option if there’s a need to pivot (i.e. if everything goes virtual and the dorms close, or the dorms are mostly empty and things have gone virtual).
Give her assurances that she can/will be “away” and that you won’t be dropping by or visiting unexpectedly. She will have the “away” experience with the convenience of easy travel home and not the need to wait for shuttles to the airport that might be multiple hours away, then waiting at airports, having long layovers or possibly missing connections, especially during winter holidays when winter weather wreaks havoc.
Remind her that if she goes closer, then you may be able to come out for events that otherwise would be pretty impossible. For instance, you could see her perform in a play, or (if parent weekend is a big deal) actually attend parent weekend, or see her at times when there are brief breaks (like Thanksgiving), etc.
Take a look at your health insurance. Some insurance only covers in-state costs which would require you to buy additional insurance for her while in college. (Perhaps she might be responsible for paying for this, or part of the savings could be added to the “enrichment” fund of savings from travel to school.) If she likes her health providers, that could be another reason to stay local or at least in-state if she was going to have virtual appointments with them (as providers can only do virtual appointments with patients in state’s they’re licensed in…which is generally the state they’re living in).
Wishing you luck with the situation, as I know it’s not an easy one.
My kid’s friend wrote out a formal contract with the parental units that they won’t be dropping in with less than 24 hours notice etc, when they decided to go to a college 400 yards down the road. And that gave them enough reassurance to pick the close by college.
OP you reported that your child has ADHD and anxiety. We don’t know the details, treatment, etc (and we don’t need to) but in my opinion this needs to be at the top of the list when discussing fit.
The school should be easily accessible in the event of an emergency, should have excellent care, your insurance should cover therapy OOS, any provider that your D currently sees might not be licensed to see her remotely at an OOS school, might need to find a local provider etc.
Anxiety can quickly heighten at college drop off, and needs to be managed before, during, and after (not accusing).
Reed College is not a good choice for anyone with mental health concerns, an intense academic environment, lots of drugs on campus, and rainy, dark and brooding (sorry, that’s just what I’ve observed on two visits 3 years apart.)
Yes, definitely don’t rule out some of the schools with religious roots. We are an areligious family and son ruled out any high school with St. in the name, but we were very impressed with St. Olaf (in person visit) and a few other schools with religious roots (Lutheran) that we just explored online. We found them to be very progressive and the religion study was of an academic/philosophical nature and very inclusive/progressive. Some of the subjects they addressed were economic inequity, gender issues, sex! and the role of individuals in policy.
Is a college in VA off the table? We really liked the Biology program and support at University of Richmond. It’s a LAC but one that’s larger than average (about 3,300 students), Richmond is a cool, diverse mid-sized town and it’s about an hour outside of DC. Our tour guide was a pre-med major and she talked a lot about the support and the guidance the school provides. Can’t speak to the LGBTQ friendliness of the school.
This is a big state! San Francisco to Cal Poly Humboldt - at least 5+ hours on the car - there are non-stop flights though. Orange County to Cal Poly Humboldt - 11 or 12 hours by car - but no non-stops from Anaheim to Arcata/Eureka. There are lots of other examples. Texas is another big state - I remember listening to one podcast that discussed how one state school in texas was closer to Chicago in distance than another college in the state…
Thanks- It’s Portland, not San Diego so you will get your fair share of clouds and rain; not so sure about brooding. My older brother went there, but that was many years ago. He always described it as kind of nerdy and intellectual. I know it was ahead of its time for being progressive and accepting. Certainly, an academically intense environment coupled with drug use is not a healthy environment for any student.
Not worth much. VA and NC and elsewhere in the South should be off the table for this student if they are concerned about women’s rights. Resident woman in NC here.