D20 loves languages, needs big-time FA

College Search & Selection
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D20 is a HS junior developing her college list. We are in NY and a low-income family. Father is deceased and I never remarried, so just the one income. I anticipate we will be largely limited to meets need schools; after running NPCs at several, they are affordable for us. SUNY schools would likely cost much more, even with the Excelsior scholarship, so we are focusing on private schools - the trick is getting in.

D20 attends a rigorous private school (on scholarship) with an UW GPA of 4.0 at the moment, but anticipating a probable A- in advanced biology. School does not offer APs, but she is taking a rigorous course load. She is tripling up in languages, her passion, and will finish HS with five years of French, four years of Latin, and two years of Chinese. One weak point is that she will probably not get to calculus (unless I can convince her to take pre-calc over the summer, but she is not leaning towards that). She will have four years of each core subject (and then some). Her weakest point will probably be standardized testing. We are hoping to get her to a 30 or perhaps 31 (English scores are good, but math is very weak), test optional might be a viable route.

Her ECs are quite good. By the time she applies, she will be in mock trial (3 years), varsity soccer (3 years), drama club/school performances (4 years), environmental club (2 years) and will likely be president of the international club next year. But her major EC has been art - she has numerous regional and state awards, has sold several works at charity auction for nearly $1,000 each, taught art to kids in the summer, won third place in a national art contest, and so on. She does not plan to major in art.

She very much wants to study foreign languages, with a possible major in Asian Studies, Chinese, International Relations, or something along those lines. She would like a school that is very strong in languages, and having Korean would be a bonus. She would prefer a school with at least access to a city, but that is not a necessity, and on the small to medium side in terms of size. Not interested in Greek life or sports.

Sorry for the long post. Anyone have any suggestions? Thank you.

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“Meets full need” can result in a wide spectrum of net prices. When you say you’re getting affordable results, are you looking only at the most generous schools (HYP), or are the results from schools that are less generous also affordable?

What schools has her private school college counselor suggested? That person is likely to have a better idea of her chances than we will.

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How much can you afford to pay per year?

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@allyphoe Thanks for your response. I have run NPC on quite a few schools. Places like Tufts, Middlebury, Amherst, Hamilton, U of Richmond, Brandeis, Haverford, Lehigh and others have come in as affordable, so a fairly wide range, but none are easy to get into. Her counselor was pushing Smith in particular, but D would prefer a co-ed environment if possible. I have not yet met with the counselor myself, so will ask for more suggestions when I do. The school has a pretty good rep with liberal arts colleges in particular.

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Taking pre-calc over the summer will be an “investment” for her that could pay off because she could then take calculus her senior year and would most likely result in a better math score on her standardized testing.

Consider looking at the University of Rochester and also Bryn Mawr and Mount Holyoke College.

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@rosered55 I am trying to keep the annual payment to about/under $10,000 a year. That does not include loans. NPCs on many meets need schools have been under or very close to that amount.

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Hamilton, somewhat surprisingly, graduates significantly more foreign languages and literatures majors than other colleges. Less surprisingly, it graduates a high number of Chinese majors through a department that has known some renown. Hamilton also offers a Korean program. In terms of further research, you can check IPEDS (examples for Hamilton and Middlebury below) for information along these lines for any colleges of interest.

If your daughter becomes more interested in Smith, then she should also consider Mt. Holyoke.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Hamilton&s=all&id=191515#programs

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Middlebury&s=all&id=230959#programs

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I wouldn’t look at Lehigh. It’s a big Greek life school, doesn’t seem like a fit.

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A consortium school (like Smith) may have a benefit in that if one school doesn’t have the language(s) she wants, another school in the group might.

Look at Georgetown.

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Thanks all. We visited Hamilton and she really enjoyed it. It’s definitely on her list. We considered Georgetown but I worry that they look for very high test scores, which I don’t anticipate. That’s going to be the sticking point for a lot of these meets need schools - those dang test scores. She would love to go to a school in Washington, though.

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George Washington? American?

(Edited to recognize that the available financial assistance at these schools might differ from that of colleges that meet full need.)

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If she’s open to going a bit further west, check out Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon and Willamette in Salem, Oregon. Neither fit all of her boxes (no Korean) but they do check some of them.

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My D found that there was some precalculus on the ACT that her school covered in the first couple of months of the semester. So I agree with luckybooth that her math score could be higher if she takes the class, so exposure to precalculus during the summer could be very helpful. You should think about what level of exposure that needs to be. Just some tutoring, or a summer class that would enable her to opt out of precalculus her senior year and into calculus. Her HS might have some requirements about this. IMO, since your D isn’t going to be a stem major I don’t think it will hurt her Admissions chances if she graduates without calculus as long as she’s taking a rigorous curriculum and her curriculum makes sense for her interests. I also think that math builds on itself, and if my kid were thinking of taking a summer precalculus class to skip into calculus in the fall, I’d want to make sure the summer class is strong enough to give her the foundation she needs. You really don’t want her to miss out on some important concepts and then struggle in calculus the fall of her Senior year - colleges look at those grades too. On the other hand, if she can take a strong summer precalculus program, and then do well in calculus in HS and do well on the AP (I assume your school supports the kids taking the exam, even if the course isn’t an AP course), she might appreciate this when she gets to college because this might allow her to exempt out of a requirement.

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One good option for you. Bowdoin, if you can Ed!

Test optional. Meets full need. Good languages.

And will love her profile and your families commitment to excellence despite obstacles. Congrats. You’ve done a fine job by yourself. Kudos.

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@merc81 yes, she would love American or GWU and her HS gets lots admitted, but they are unfortunately unaffordable for us.

@washugrad she would like to stay in the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic if possible, or perhaps the eastern portion of the Midwest. Transportation costs become an issue if she goes further than that.

But thanks to all for your responses.

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Is the west coast a possibility? Scripps has the same women’s-college advantage, admissions-wise, as MoHo and Smith, but it’s more fully integrated with its coed consortium partners than the MA consortium schools - it’s really one big subdivided campus, not separate campuses with shuttles. Most classes and activities are mixed-gender. Asian Studies is a consortium program that shares the rich offerings of Pomona’s top-ranked department. (And other foreign languages, and study abroad programs, are excellent too.) Fine arts are strong, as well as poli sci/IR. The setting is suburban but with transit access to the more urban part of LA. (I would suggest Pomona for its even-better no-loan financial aid and highly-regarded Asian studies/languages, but it’s probably too reachy. Pitzer is test-optional, so that could be worth a look.)

Also in CA, Soka U of America is very small, but their program might fit what your d is seeking (minus the Korean, but they do have Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and French), and they meet full need and would be a match for her stats. Occidental could be worth a look also. (Test-optional and full-need-met - good in IR, with pretty extensive Asian Studies for a small school - Korean history/culture stuff but not the language.)

As far as east coast schools that spring to mind, I think all I thought of have been mentioned already up-thread except for Wesleyan, which has the added bonus of being test-optional. They have funded summer opportunities, too: https://www.wesleyan.edu/ceas/resources/summer_language_support.html

In the midwest, WashU has good aid and a robust Asian Studies department. https://eas.wustl.edu/ They give a big advantage to ED applicants - that could make the difference between its being realistic or not. (Same goes for Middlebury, for that matter. Deciding whether to play the ED card at a full-need-met school will be an important part of your decision process.)

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@aquapt thank you for all your suggestions. We are looking seriously at EDing somewhere, but obviously it would have to be a full meets-need school.

If it weren’t for the test scores and lack of calculus I would think she would have some pretty decent, affordable options.

Middlebury would seem to be a great choice, but her counselor didn’t like it for her. She said FA would be insufficient(??) and that it is tough for females to get in. I don’t really understand either comment but will clarify when I meet with her.

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Middlebury is strong in languages and would seem to be a school to do further research on. Middlebury does meet full need, so not sure what your GC means by insufficient, unless your financial situation is complicated and the NPC might not be accurate.

At many LACs it is true that more females apply, and because many schools try to balance M/F gender ratio, females have a lower acceptance rate. Middlebury’s 2018/19 CDS shows a 15.6% female acceptance rate (821/5248) vs 18.1% male acceptance rate (721/3978). http://www.middlebury.edu/system/files/media/CDS_2018-2019.pdf

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Hmm. I don’t know why the FA remark (sounds like you’ve run the NPC and it looked okay), but like many LAC’s, it does attract more female applicants and thus the admit rate for women is lower. (16% for women vs. 19% for men according to https://www.collegedata.com/en/college-profile/213/ ). This is one reason that the women’s colleges can be so advantageous. (Bryn Mawr is another to look at - very well-integrated with Haverford and solid Asian Studies, but no Korean unless you cross-register at UPenn.)

Another possibility to consider, maybe, would be a “super-senior” year of high school as an AFS exchange student. The cost for a year is $12-14K but they do have need-based scholarships. https://www.afsusa.org/study-abroad/scholarships She could achieve fluency in one of her languages while also taking calculus and other AP-level coursework, and have a life-changing experience that would further enhance her applications. Just a thought. She could apply to colleges and to AFS, and decide later whether she’s interested in deferring admission for the year abroad, and submitting additional apps during the gap year if she wants to.

Has she tried the SAT? Sometimes kids have more of a knack for one test than the other. If timing was an issue (i.e. running out of time on the math section) on the ACT, then this would be a particularly good idea.

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Dickinson meets 99% of need and seems more of a match than some schools mentioned. They don’t offer Korean, but have a healthy number of languages for a smaller school. They also have vey strong study abroad support and programs.