The list is looking good! I like leaving Lafayette on the list for now. My D who loved Davidson and Richmond also liked Lafayette very much and it seems to really fit your D’s preferences. If she interviews and shows interest, I think she would have a good chance. I was pretty impressed with the school
Also, when you’re doing the southeast visits, I keep thinking that you may want to see Emory. Yeah, it doesn’t have the same sports scene as some of the others, but it has many other great qualities and happy and engaged students. The location has a lot to offer.
@homerdog @intparent had a child who went to Dickinson and she spoke very highly of career services there, if that’s a concern. And if the ballet interest resurfaces, it’s one of the few LACs that has higher-level ballet offerings.
St Olaf has a pretty good competitive dance team, IIRC. Have your daughter look for videos on YouTube to see if it would appeal. Ballet is also pretty decent.
It’s been a few years, but when we checked out LACs, St Olaf’s maximum merit was 50% COA (Buntrock and also dance/music scholarships by separate application), Denison had a few full tuition awards (competitive) and lesser awards around 20K or so. Dickinson also maxed out at 20K as did Macalester but their awards may have increased since then.
I suspect that Mac may be too left-leaning, based on what you have said about your daughter’s preferences.
If you’re still looking for safeties, Ohio Wesleyan (near Columbus) might be worth a look.
No reason not to take BC off the list. Don’t try to justify $75k for a school you have to talk yourself into.
However, of the schools on your list, it is the ‘most’ D1, usually good and competitive in several sports each year, big stadium, hosts big games on or) near campus. You are finding that although you don’t want a catholic school, those are the schools that are in your desired size range, with very good social science offerings, beautiful campuses.
If you want diversity, it can be found at most public universities. All those stats the colleges report are self identified. Where in the past students would check ‘white’ even if they were multiracial, now more are checking multiple boxes. They don’t really tell you much about the students who check a minority box. My daughter checked the ‘Chinese’ box, but she was raised and educated in a white household/neighborhood/schools. I asked her if she interacted with other Chinese students at her school (there were a lot of international students from China and Taiwan ) and she said it was just too hard to try to work on projects with other who don’t speak very good English. She added an Asian face to the student body, but despite my trying to get her interested in her heritage, she’s American in every way - clothing, music, food, vacations. Even though her school showed a good deal of diversity on paper (and those international students don’t appear in the diversity stats as those stats are only for domestic students), there wasn’t a lot of interaction with groups. My daughter pretty much hung out with the white students, most from the east coast (mid-Atlantic and Florida). Not much financial diversity either.
There’s a Wake Forest thread right now with parents posting about their freshman’s experience so far. It’s been very insightful. I’m going to have D read it because I honestly don’t know if the comments there will worry her or not. They worry me.
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Sounds like the girls there may be pretty high maintenance. Taking ubers to get their “nails and brows done”. Now I’m really wondering how much these girls dress up, etc. I know some of you have commented about Southern schools being more formal but we visited Davidson and W&M and did not see this at all. The students looked like our kids. Maybe I’m reading too much into this comment since it’s obviously just one poster.
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Rush is coming up and many girls (too many) want the same few sororities and some are about to get their hearts broken.
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One poster’s D doesn’t like the food and is using all of her points to eat out at fast food restaurants. Good, healthy food will be important to D. I don’t want her at Chick Fil-A (not healthy and other reasons as well).
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Professors “helpful but not all that inspiring”. It’s early. I know this student is a freshman…but still.
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One poster’s D has to be careful what she says around her friends when it comes to politics because they are overwhelmingly conservative. Again, I’m now wondering if Wake is different than Davidson. The political issue was discussed during our tour as parents and perspective students seemed concerned and our tour guide insisted that the split felt very 50/50 and everyone respected each other’s positions. I certainly don’t want D somewhere where there’s not healthy political discourse.
These might be some of the reasons that kids from our high school haven’t been choosing Wake very often. D likes to dress up (meaning cute jeans, sweater, boots) maybe a couple of times a week. Otherwise, like everyone else at school, she lives in Lulu tights and sweatshirts. She likes the idea of Greek life. I don’t like the idea that certain sororities are perceived as better and girls get shut out. I know that happens at IU and it’s bad. Doesn’t seem to happen at UIUC - maybe because it’s so big and they have so many sororities that it seems to work out better. Sororities up here are most likely more casual as well.
I hope we see these issues with our own eyes when we visit. And maybe I’m overreacting. We will need to find the two girls we know at Wake when we visit and try to get the scoop from the perspective of someone from our town.
Saw that WFU feedback too. FWIW we were told that at Richmond the female students dress up for football games…which is not uncommon in southern schools. As you know that would not happen at UIUC, lol.
And yes, in southern schools seems like sorority rush is more competitive, sometimes with focus on just a few houses. Of course that can happen anywhere but at least some schools have gone to a model where all interested young women can get into a house as long as they are open to any house.
Regarding the professor comment, I think anywhere there will be a mix of just ok profs and others that are ‘inspiring’ or top notch, with everything in between. D19 experienced this at Bowdoin in first semester.
Getting perspective from the local students currently at WFU will help immensely.
My evidence is only anecdotal but the “vibe” I got from Wake was in-between Furman and Davidson. There is a “southern, sorority” vibe there but it also seemed like there was a balance with education and other activities. It’s not a large school but it’s not small either so students should be able to find their tribe.
Winston-Salem isn’t a large city but it offers some variety. My other son visited UNCSA which is just south of the city center. I got the sense that WS has a small but active arts community if that’s appealing.
I’m sure someone with kids there will offer up a better opinion. I won’t speak for other CC parents but during our search I’ve learned many things. The first thing I learned is that there’s no perfect college. They all have pros/cons and it’s amazing what kids will think is a pro or con versus what the parents think.
I went to grad school in the south. It is a different culture. Not in a bad way. Just different. You either assimilate or don’t. I kind of enjoyed wearing a tie and blazer to some football games (not SEC games but smaller college).
@Mwfan1921 Midwestern kids are just casual, right? Dying to know what ‘dressed up’ means for a football game. I mean, you’re drinking in a parking lot and then sitting on a metal bench watching a game. Seems like an odd event to dress up for. Lol. A party? Sure. But a football game? ha!
Dressing up for games means exactly that - there will be girls with full hair & makeup (I personally think it is the full hair and makeup that is the biggest culture shock…like what many of us might think of as prom level hair/makeup - not updos but fully blown-out, curled ‘formal’ hair…long of course!), as well as dresses while the weather is still warm, cute outfits (beyond just nice jeans and cute top)…it is jarring to see if you are more used to the midwest vibe of game day.
There will be people who are more casual…it just won’t be the only vibe (if that makes sense).
The other thing is that the dance and/or cheer programs will also be quite cut-throat at most of the southern schools with “big sports” vibes. I had relatives who went to Southern schools who were shocked at how many rounds of try-outs there were for dance and cheer teams and being an excellent dancer was of course only one part of getting on the squad. Again, having the right look super important. Very similar to rushing southern sororities in many ways.
I recommend to many students that they read college reviews on Niche. They are written by students and compiled in a way that’s easy to understand. The reviews are organized and based on the stuff kids care about. Both of my kids, frankly, cared more about what they read on Niche than what I asked them read here, or in Fiske. They want to know what kids think about their schools. Uni go was also used to a lesser extent, but I think they both felt it was too biased towards kids who didn’t like their schools, and also there is not way to tell how old the reviews are.
I think the most helpful thing we parents do, in many ways, is to make them aware of the options that WE are also willing to consider. I was pretty firm in my ideas about what schools I thought were okay for my kids, and I ended up considering plenty that I was initially dismissive of (I’m looking at you, Penn State, haha.) There were a lot of great schools we initially discussed, and a lot them of course never made it close to the final list. But ultimately, they decided where they wanted to apply, with the proviso that I got to throw in my one parent’s choice.
Anyway, your D is probably going to party, but I’m sure you know that. Even my super studious straight as an arrow D has partied. I think one thing that definitely puts some kids off is the prevalence of drugs. The Niche reviews are pretty honest about that stuff. I don’t know if your son used it, and I can’t link it, so just google the name of the college and niche if you don’t know about it.
Yes, this is similar to what we heard how things are at Richmond (and UVA for that matter)…dresses and pearls for football games. I’m sure not all girls dressed this way, but sounded prevalent. Also agree that more of a focus on ‘looks’ than what OP’s D may be used to at the southern schools.
I second looking at Niche, but it’s difficult to discern how prevalent the issue being commented on is in the bigger picture…so many more students who are unhappy post there than those that are happy/satisfied. While sometimes it is easy to see patterns, it’s tough to get the overall gestalt and how many students (what %) see things the same way.
I don’t even know what “full hair” means although I get “full make up”. Maybe D needs to find more schools in the NE to put on the list. Lol. I’m pulling up Lafayette’s website right now. 
My kids both looked first at the Niche grade. Anything less than an A- pretty much doomed that school, with a couple of exceptions… The grade is based on how the students review, so I don’t necessarily agree that there are a LOT of negative reviews. They definitely read worse stuff on Uni go.
I don’t know. I thought it was a nice change of pace seeing guys and girls put some effort into appearance. Seeing grunge, beards, ponytails, and sweatpants all the time isn’t always the way to go either.
There was a subset that always kept up appearances but not everybody.
@chmcnm I’m just seeing dollar signs. How much money is it going to take to outfit D in the appropriate, acceptable wardrobe? I’m sure she’d love that. Me, not so much. My husband, no way.
My son who wanted rah rah spirit really liked Lafayette. It was the only small LAC he considered applying to. He ultimately didn’t, mostly because it was yet another reach for him and he already had two reaches he liked better. He also considered Lehigh, but it niggled at him about the nice warm day and no kids being outside.
D didn’t like Lafayette, not surprisingly, and never considered it at all. Rah rah is not her thing. Even though Bates is pretty sporty, there isn’t a rah rah vibe. There’s plenty of fun to be had though.
@homerdog , pray she never joins a sorority. You’ll go bankrupt on clothes!
@homerdog Totally understand. There’s so many choices. I only wanted to mention a bit about the social aspects of BC.
I’ll be watching closely and rooting you on!
Ps. Football game attire on campus is school gear and red bandanas (once a year). Look up that story. Very sad but uplifting as well. No suits. Lol
Lol. True enough but I can find Brooks Brothers shirts cheaper than Lululemon shirts every day of the week. I’m sure there a few sorority girls with extensive wardrobes but the majority probably not. This thread has brought back many good memories.
College is supposed to be a time for growth.
The issue in this thread seems to be: How much growth?
Plus, I think that it is important to keep in mind who is going to college just as it is whose money is going to that college.
My impression is that OP wants her daughter to be comfortable. This appears to be the primary concern.
Second, OP wants a school with some status & prestige.
I really do not see any issues beyond that which appear to be major concerns.
Vanderbilt University, in my opinion, would be a great fit for OP’s daughter. Although admission is unlikely, it could serve as a model for other suggested schools.
Having enough resources to be a full pay student creates a major disadvantage in the college search process = too many options.
Ok @Publisher you hit the nail on the head. How much growth? That should be the title of her thread. Does she really want to repeat high school with the cliques and the social life? That’s where she’s comfortable. But I also know that could be a big hot mess in high school and way worse in college because she won’t know anyone and trying hard to fit in could take away from other experiences I want her to have.
Yet, I don’t know what the appropriate kind of place would be - to fit enough yet to grow enough. I do think Davidson could be a good compromise. We were there for two days and did not see girls all dressed up. Academics are serious. It didn’t seem “southern” to us, whatever that means. They have sororities but they are really low key and nothing like the sororities at Wake.
Really growing would mean a place like St. Olaf. Really doesn’t have a lot of things on her list but I bet she would find her people quickly since the college seems very Midwestern in its sensibilities.
It’s funny because here I am writing and thinking about this and taking in all of these comments but I honestly have no idea how she would react to all of this info. I started compiling a spreadsheet with some of the comments here and other pros/cons I’ve found for each school. I’ll have her read it over break.