It is highly unlikely any student would be accepted to Pomona (12.1% acceptance rate in 2014!) and rejected by a CTCL school. It can happen but first the kid has to be accepted to Pomona. Remember, an acceptance rate of 12%
means almost 9 out of 10 pplicants are rejected.
This is what the book and the college fair are trying to say. One does NOT have to play the college admission game depicted in the media. It is not the high stake, high risk, nobody wins but a very select few process the press present in stories about college admissions every spring.
It is the philosophy rather than the 40-some schools listed that is important. These list isn’t meant to be the end-all of schools acceptable to CTCL. It’s more an illustrative list of good schools that take more than 12% of its applicants. There are hundreds of others.
Yes, apply to Pomona if the school appeals to the applicant, but realize that somewhere there are probably other similar LAC’s that can serve as targets and safeties. Or you can reject that whole process by ignoring reaches.
I highly recommend the road show. The director does an excellent job of assuring parents and students that the college search need not be stressful.
We followed the philosophy. My daughter has 3.1 uwGPA (3.7 wGPA, in honors and AP classes) and 31 ACT applied to seven LAC’s, mostly but not exclusively CTCL all outside the NE… She was admitted to all. But more importantly, her senior year was a lot less stressful than she expected because the college application process was not a stressor at all.
She had submitted all her applications and had been admitted to two or three colleges by Thanksgiving. At random times through February, she would get a letter saying she was accepted (if there was a schedule, we didn’t know it). This pretty much switched the dynamic with college admissions. This spring she was the one with the power to reject rather than the college; in the end, she could have been rejected by the last two, three colleges to notify her and not blink an eye. (Being the bad mother that I am, I was hoping for a rejection)
@SlackerMomMD: Excellent summary. Although I haven’t been through the application/results process yet, I can definitely say that our spring college tour, which targeted a number of CTCLs and similar schools, had a calming effect on the whole household. (And I love your handle.)
Does CTCL do road shows in June? In their website I looked at NY events and they only had one listed in and the only had one listed in May, on a weeknight, which is not convenient for me. I was hoping they may have more in June when my daughter only has to go to school on exam days, which would make those weeknight shows a possibility.
Franklin and Marshall was on Loren Pope’s original list of CTCL but was taken off for the second edition because it had become too selective. I believe there were a couple other colleges that were also taken off for the same reason.
Some of the schools that I would nominate for consideration are:
St. Michael’s College
Bard College
Susqueshanna University
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Muhlenberg College
Albion College
Augustana College
Illinois Wesleyan University
Washington College
Gustavus Adolphus College
Occidental College
Warren Wilson College
Wofford University
@LKnomad: I carried a hypothetical to its conclusion. From a practical standpoint your son has little to worry about. My advice is that he should show a genuine demonstrated interest in any CTCL college he is serious about. He will get in. Beyond that, along with schools that offer merit scholarships, consider colleges that meet full demonstrated need for all accepted students.
IBviolamom - I suggest you talk to your daughter’s guidance counselor. If I recall from other posts, your D is still a sophomore, so she probably hasn’t been allocated any cuts for college visits yet, but I bet a counselor would consider clearing her under the circumstances. Otherwise, you might have to wait until next year. My son was at boarding school when I picked him up and drove almost three hours, round-trip, to a CTCL road-show. It was in the spring of his junior year, however, and so the school accommodated us. It didn’t change the world, but it did interest my son in CTCL colleges (some of which were already on his radar), and he was able to demonstrate interest with some colleges he was unable to visit (ie. Whitman and Willamette). Above all, the CTCL road-show can be a great morale-booster for the kid who’s despairing over the fact that he or she probably won’t get into Harvard or Stanford, and who hasn’t realized that there are thousands of other great colleges out there worth investigating.
The CTCL road show is also valuable for the high-stats kid and/or their parents. They might be looking for matches and safeties to round out their list. They might be looking for merit aid. They might just need to hear that there are all kinds of great schools that will want them.
For high stats kids who are applying to CTCL schools and other schools where the kid’s stats are high relative to the admitted student body–it’s vitally important to show the love. If a visit isn’t possible, talk to the school reps if they come visit near your community (at a college fair or similar). Ask questions of your admissions rep–ask to be put in touch with faculty members or current students for more in-depth questions. Your essays should show specific reasons why you’re interested in school X. Don’t assume you’re a shoo-in.
@LKnomad, @4kids4colleges, we are from CA. My D is a similarly high stats kid (3.75UW, 32 ACT) with an LD. We focused on CTCL and CTCL-like schools because merit aid and support services were more important than prestige: 75-100K merit at 7 LACs. She will be attending Beloit College in Wisconsin and we couldn’t be happier. These colleges definitely want high stats kids but they also provide opportunities for kids to shine and reach their potential even if their GPA/test scores are not “perfect.”
@1518mom, same result here. D applied to 8 CTCL schools, accepted at each and received merit of $75-103k at each. Beloit is a great choice, my D was accepted but she wanted the warmer weather and closer to home.
D applied to just one “selective” LAC, Grinnell, and was waitlisted. For her, all the acceptances and scholarship offers made the whole process easy and not stressful. The hardest part was choosing among so many great schools.
I always saw the CTCL concept as more conceptual and illustrative in nature - think outside the box - and felt the schools were meant to serve as examples, not to be “the definitive list of colleges that change lives.” It was a thesis being supported by examples, IMO.
US News ranks about 180 “national” liberal arts colleges.
Subtract the ~25 most selective, add some of the “unranked” LACs, and we might be talking about up to ~200 schools that more or less fit the “Colleges That Change Lives” mold. Since even that is many more than anyone can thoroughly investigate, one needs to apply some additional selection criteria (which might include cost, location, size, or admission selectivity).
I find this to be accurate. Plenty of confusion may exist, however, for a teenager picking up the guidebook, who reasonably might think, because of the nature of the title and the book status itself, that it is a thesis being supported, not just by CTCL-member-college examples, but by ALL potential national EXEMPLARS.
Considering that many students here on CC limit themselves to the top 20 or 25 schools, 40 or 44 schools is not a bad number. I think I ran NPC for 45, maybe 50 schools; some were CTCL but most were not member colleges.
The CTCL director does a great job in telling people the CTCL schools are NOT the end-all/be-all of schools. The point of her talk, when we went, was that every single student in the room had the chops to make it into a good college. She wanted to let parents and students know that stories of ultra-competitive admissions were limited to very few colleges/universities. Unfortunately, the media tend to focus on these few schools so many parents and students think all colleges are like that.
I would say every college rep we met at the CTCL fair reiterated the same message. They wanted the student to consider their school, of course, but they were also supportive of students looking everywhere that fit their needs. One admissions director talked about possible majors with my daughter - several NOT offered at his university.
That all said, going to a college fair with only 40 schools is MUCH more manageable than going to a college fair with 250+ colleges and universities in a closed shopping mall.
Honestly, it’s just the title of the guidebook I find confusing. The fairs seem great, as do many of the colleges themselves. However, in ordinary “book” context, the title implies either independent authorial or editorial selection.
Another high stats kid here who chose a CTCL school (Beloit). We’re full pay, but knew we needed at least some merit to make it work. She applied to several CTCL schools as safeties and several higher-ranked LACs as well. Ended up with ten acceptances (all but one with merit) and one wait-list. She chose one of her safeties over several much higher-ranked schools that we could have afforded. She just liked it better. And with her very generous scholarship, we’ll now have some money left over to help with grad school.
I don’t know what the caliber of students was in that CTCL director’s audience.
However, I’d agree that there are enough places in “good” colleges to accommodate virtually all the “good” students who want one of those places (cost considerations aside).
I know this thread is about six weeks old, but I just stumbled on it. I wanted to add that my D will be attending a CTCL school in the fall. She had great community service and essay, middle B grades and low test scores due to some learning disabilities. She wanted a small school that would look at her as a whole person, not just a collection of stats. And she was awarded merit aid a couple rungs higher than what her test scores indicated she would receive, which makes me think that the school she will attend at least really does look at students holistically.
Another school that seems to fit the criteria but not a CTLC is Hood College in Maryland.