Thinking about travel challenges and expenses, I guess my question would be how often you think she’ll be coming home. If it’s just the school breaks, e.g. a few times a year (winter / spring / maybe Thanksgiving), good merit aid would cut your costs overall, so she could certainly add a few offbeat locations to the list and see what happens, aid-wise. If you think she’ll want to be home more often, and you’re in the NYC area, that’s of course a much smaller radius …
Daughter wants to be close enough to come home for more than breaks, and this is consistent with her personality so east coast would be ideal.
HS is conformist, girls, rich, and white,. If you know NYC, it’s the essence of the Upper East Side. (It’s not what you see on TV, though.). Good academics, financial aid, and experience being outside of her comfort zone.
I’ve been scouring Niche and other sites like it. A lot to process there.
Thank you to Collegemom2016 for the comments about Goucher, I think that will be our next visit, and possibly other schools in the area.
Thanks to everyone else, you’ve all been really generous with your help. I’ve only had a chance to scan the comments this morning, going to go read them now.
Aha! SJW = social justice warrior. Just got that. Very evident in the older friends coming home from college.
Have to keep reminding myself that our generation was also this way, and this is how change happens. But it can become an earful. When did I get so old?
I just calculated her interim grades, which don’t go to colleges but are an indication of how the year is going. She has a 3.5 gpa. Not a big wow. Took the ACT this past Saturday, hoping it went as well as the mock exam… She’ll take AP chem and AP stats in senior year. Didn’t take any AP classes this year, school is small and she didn’t like what was on offer.
Since it sounds as if she wants to be close-ish to home (NYC), I’m guessing a 3-to-4 hour radius might be about max. I think your instinct to look at Goucher and Hampshire make sense, and you could also check out Clark in Worcester, MA (one of the CTCL schools) and Ithaca. Another one that gets some good buzz on CC is Juniata, though I don’t know anything about it myself. My sense is that a lot of these college tend to get crossover applicants and attract kids in the quirky, unconventional, non-preppy category.
I think for truly unconventional I would look at Marlboro. I can’t imagine Bates being a match if she didn’t like Wesleyan. Grinnell or Beloit would work if you didn’t have the geographical criteria.
usage (mine, up-thread): there > their.
New College of Florida allows students to create their own majors–they study subjects according to their interests being guided by mentors (professors in that field). A student “contract” is developed so standards are met. It is very different from most college models, very liberal (but very accepting students–no protesting going on that I’ve ever heard about), laid back atmosphere. Written evaluations replace grades.
Best suited for the a very bright student who is nontraditional with focused interests.
Sarasota is an artsy town (RCAD is down the road) and the weather is nice too!
Definitely look into Emerson. Sounds like it would be a great fit for digital media, writing and it should work socially as well.