merc81 covered it concisely. Here’s what the guidebooks get wrong about Swarthmore. My son’s HS grades placed him in a lower quartile but he succeeded in what others perceive an intense environment. Evidence includes a double major and good grades, leadership in two clubs and the ability to find time for fun. Remember, the first semester is pass/fail and you can choose four more pass/fails. Another data point – the athletic department dips a bit for prospects and none of them leave due to academic issues. Love that athletic department! Swat deserves more credit for recently winning several conference championships. Swat is described as a non-party school, but my kid did the leg work and discovered that Swat has the best parties in Philly (one caveat …he can’t afford the bars at Penn). Swat is accurately portrayed as a PhD feeder, but my son and his buddies work for NYC banks. True, there are some quirky ones on campus but many more athletes and preppies too. Nice mix. Nice bunch of kids.
Oh, gosh. My process for narrowing down schools isn’t perfect and ever-changing. In large part, the problem is that we have to use proxies for certain information that are imperfect, to say the least, and I don’t want to spend hours on each school–I want it to be an easy, repeatable, updatable process. For example, I want to try to identify where smart kids seem to be attracted in abundance. The only real metric to use is test scores, which is horrible, just horrible–I’m not a believer in the value of the SAT, but I don’t know how else to do it without spending hours on each school trying to research other metrics.
In general, I’m trying to identify where kids want to go to school (number of applications per slot), how likely it is that it was their first or second choice (through the yield), and how bright and talented they are. I also want to look at the state of the facilities and the quality of the professors, and the easiest proxy for that is the amount of money the school has per student, but it’s not a great fit and unfairly rewards schools with rich alumni, although the assumption is that they’ll spend the money once they get it. That, in short, is my start.
It’s far from perfect. For example, the “yield” is overly-high for public state flagships, and overly-low for some of the privates in the northeast because there are just so many quality schools to chose from within two hours’ drive. Yet, the results I get tend to be similar to what the well-known school ranking orgs report.
(I also break them out by school size, since the large schools will have a different statistical quality than the small schools.)
I don’t distinguish between minor differences, though–let me emphasize that. There are “clusters” of schools that, on paper, look similar. So, for example, I’m not going to fuss between the school that comes out #55 and the one that comes out #70. They’re indistinguishable on this basis.
Then I go in and try to eliminate schools due to geographic reasons or that I think wouldn’t be a great fit for religious or other reasons, and I get a core list. For example, it’s really, really important to us that there is a decent sized community of Jewish students at a school, simply because of the rise of anti-semitism at many schools and we want to minimize the chance my daughter will be targeted without a support group available.
Let me add, too, that this gives me just a starting list from which to do more research into each school–we don’t plan on applying to every school that this inelegant, unnuanced method spits out. Knowing the weakness of the data is as important as generating the data.
Anyway, I know it isn’t perfect–but as I said, it gives me a start that I’m comfortable isn’t swayed by politics like some of the published lists may be.
I don’t have much to add here since my D’s list was mainly targeted toward her harder-to-find major, but I did want to just say that her experience with Haverford classes was not similar to your D’s. She sat in on three courses (four if you count BM) and she felt the students were well engaged and happy to be in class. None of the classes she attended had more than ten students and none were overly lecture-y. She took classes at every school she visited and the only one where she enjoyed them as much was at Brown. The reason for so many Haverford visits was because she was applying ED and that’s a big commitment.
You want to avoid the colleges that have student bodies heavily skewed one way or the other if you want a blance of ideas on campus, but it is also important to look at how the administration and professors treat free speech. I would definitely avoid any college that tries to “protect” students from ideas or speech that they don’t like or is even offensive. If you’re not free to offend, you don’t have free speech. It’s a core American value.
Here’s a link to a database with free speech ratings for colleges.
I’ll echo @ccprofandmomof2 above. I can’t visit very many schools from 1500 miles away. S and I were on the East coast anyway the summer before his junior year, so we saw 4 schools at an off time. Then when he made his tentative decision (to a different School) we flew out to visit that one and confirm his impressions were correct. But that’s a total of 5. D may get a few more in, but I’m not sure. And they will probably be ones within a few hours where S is so we can do a multipurpose trip.
So while this may not be the “ideal” use of CC, for those of us in flyover country it is extremely helpful.
I think what will happen is that your D will apply to a lot of schools. You can visit after acceptances. That’s pretty much what we ended up doing. We visited about half of his list but there was no way we could get to all of them. He decided to keep seven schools on his list that we didn’t visit. Once acceptances are in, he will decide where we need to visit in the spring. The process won’t be perfect to the point where your D has visited everywhere or has gathered enough info to know for sure the schools work for her. I imagine she will send in apps to some schools that seem like good fits based on what you’ve read and then you’ll just make final decisions based on which schools come back with acceptances. With those schools on the original list, she most likely will not be admitted to all.
If you’re looking for an ED school, then you will need to narrow it down sooner and go visit those schools.
@RayManta, we just went through this process. I have a freshman at a NE LAC. He knew he wanted to be at a small LAC, and we visited and he applied to several on your list. All different, but all were attractive to him for different reasons. My advice is to try to visit as many as possible. He currently attends the school that we visited last. He was mildly interested in the school on paper based on the no so appealing (to him) stereotype of the student body. However, after visiting that changed. He really liked the vibe of the school - hard to put my finger on exactly why. There were other schools that looked like great fits on paper, but he ended up not applying after visiting. Sometimes, I think it is just a feeling they get while on campus that makes or breaks the school in their mind. Your daughter will find “her people” wherever she lands. Good luck and enjoy the process! I will be going through it with you as I have a 2020 as well.
Speaking of Swarthmore, it is a perfect illustration of the metrics of size and the complexity of putting together a modern first-year class. Swat is among the smallest student bodies listed by the OP - which is great when it comes to determining the amount of money expended per student. But, it also makes it difficult to check every box when it comes to hooked candidates. Back in 2001, Swarthmore had to cut football from its athletic program precisely because as a practical matter, it meant subtracting 1 out of every 10 slots for men (assuming gender parity) from the general pool in order to give it to a football recruit, or nearly half the entire slots available for athletic recruiting. So, it was good-bye to what was then the 15th oldest collegiate football team in the country, plus men’s wrestling for good measure.
Those schools are far from mediocre
Really enjoyed reading this thread - thanks to those offering their own experiences and insights!
My oldest goes to Hamilton, and is happy and challenged there. He isn’t the party/sporty type but has found lots of friends and a home at the school. The rural location can be limiting, but honestly there is a lot to do on campus and he seems plenty busy. We have been pleased with the school’s continuing focus on the future - i.e., internships, resumes, interview skills, and job searches. It reminds the students to look beyond the day-to-day college life and take steps towards their goals.
My junior high school student is just beginning the search, and planning the visits East is difficult and costly for west coasters. While we can all read the guides and do internet research, it is helpful to hear from parents and students with direct experience. Thanks!
@circuitrider - you are accurate in that was the public reason for getting rid of football and wrestling, but Swat football had a roster of about 40 players, so you really only needed ten players per class. In addition, they never took into account that around half of the football players were multi-sport athletes. The biggest reason they wanted to get rid of football and wrestling was because the board did not like that type of student. A very wealthy donor and board member openly talked about making Swarthmore a home for “marginalized students”.
New College has a very definite reputation.
As a safety school, consider a large state university honors college which will offer your daughter a full tuition scholarship based on her stats alone. Best if there is a separate honors dorm for freshmen honors students.
The most important schools to find are your child’s safeties and matches. Don’t ignore that part of the process. There will be lots of reach schools that would make her happy and you will need to ascertain if you want to apply to any of them ED or SCEA, but if you don’t find schools in the other categories that she is happy with, that would be a mistake. The college landscape is super competitive these days and your daughter will find smart peers and challenging courses at many of those more “mediocre” schools.
On a separate note, if you don’t mind looking west, you might also want to check out Rice.
Hi! My daughter is also looking at some of the schools on your initial fourteen school list in your title+Post #1, and will almost certainly apply to three of them.
Based on conversations my daughter has had with her college counselor, my advice would be that no more than 1/3 of your student’s list should be reach schools…and reach schools should include any school which accepts less than 20% of applicants, no matter how amazing your student’s statistics are. It sounds like your daughter should DEFINITELY apply to Williams. And she should pick 2-3 other reach schools. But then she should pick some that are matches and safeties.
There should be more than one safety, because college admissions can be weird.
My husband has a niece who is extremely well-qualified and applied to all top-notch schools…plus her state flagship and the second most well-known state school. She got turned down by every school except the state publics and was very unhappy because she had never really intended to go to either of those schools.
I am going to work toward my child having at least 2-3 schools which she loves which admit 50%+ of applicants, even though she too is pretty amazing on paper. It’s a jungle out there. And I know one thing about my kid: she WILL bloom where she is planted. So while yes, she would love an elite liberal arts college and has a couple she is head over heels with…I think she could be happy in a variety of environments! And she will find the other book-loving kids!
You are really getting into the weeds here, as if your daughter (or you, as it seems) will be selecting the college she goes to, I think it is way more productive to pick just two or three must-haves and beyond that take the view from 30,000 feet above. At this level, the school picks the applicant, not vice versa.
As @pittsburghscribe said,
Please take this very, very seriously. As wonderful as your daughter is, there is a chance that she may be admitted to only one or two – or maybe none – of the schools under discussion here. Read the many, many threads here on CC from stellar students who were shut out everyplace. There are about 35,000 high schools in the U.S. That means 70,000 students who are valedictorians and salutatorians. Plus the thousands of other amazing students.
For sure, aim high. She should pick a few reaches. But also be humble and pick several safeties. Concentrate on the safeties. Make sure she shows a boatload of interest in those safeties because top students are rejected from their safeties frequently.
In our LAC search, we thought that students at most schools in US News top 50, and certainly those in top 25, were bright, talented, hard working. What differs is the “feel” on campus – is the culture “learning for learning’s sake” or “straight path to Wall Street,” “winter sports or bust,” or “social justice warrior,” for example. Another difference can be openness to diversity of experience and expression as well as socio-economic diversity. The NY Times article from Jan '17 on economic diversity (or lack thereof) at LACs and universities, can be a useful research tool.
In terms of quality of faculty, our approach was to see where faculty in core departments of interest to our kid got their Ph.D. (we are an academic faculty and know or can find out the top programs in various fields). We were surprised, at first, and relieved, to see that faculty at top 10 LACs are, for the most part, getting their Ph.D. from more or less overlapping schools as LACs in the 30-60 range. While YMMV, our view was that, where a professor trained as a grad student/the quality of the graduate program, can be an effective marker for quality of faculty preparation. That quickly became a non-issue for us as we concluded most faculty at most schools were well-trained. Disclaimer, my kid was not STEM-y so I wasn’t looking at science research profiles and lab opportunities.
I absolutely agree with @Booklvr about a balanced list. It’s easy to debate the merits of Bowdoin vs. Midd, but what a student needs is a list with several safeties (will be admitted, can afford to go, and would be happy to go), plus matches and reaches. Schools with acceptance rates in the 20s are not safeties and a first-time college search parent might be surprised how competitive admissions is at some schools (Skidmore is around 24% now I think). Plus many LACs fill 1/3-1/2 of the entering class through ED rounds, including recruited athletes who have gotten admission pre-reads so don’t apply unless they are pretty comfortable with their admissions chances. So, the acceptance rate for the RD rounds is often much lower than the overall, published acceptance rates, and there can be variations in acceptance rate by gender.
@brantly, you’ve identified the purpose for this thread. We can’t apply to every school discussed here. We fully know that there is no guarantee she will get into any of them, let alone all of them. The LACs discussed here will not make up her entire application list–she will have safeties and matches, too. What we are hoping to do, of course, is narrow the list to the ones where she is the best fit, to help decide which she should focus on. Then the chips will fall where they do.
Understand, too, that she’s the sort of kid who needs to plan everything far in advance and sucks down information like water. She will often say, unprompted, “What do you know about ___ College? Should I apply there?” or “Should I visit ___.” I’m sure many of your children are or were the same way. I am not pushing anything on her. I am just assisting the best I can.
Acceptance rates to top LACs can be deceiving. It is important to distinguish between the ED & RD acceptance rates so as to not get fooled by the overall acceptance rate.
This also applies to National Universities which offer ED admissions.
The other thing to consider is that small highly selective LACs have to reserve a greater percentage of their admissions for recruited athletes than larger schools, because a given set of sports teams does not vary much in size, compared to the size of the school. So a non-recruited-athlete may be competing for significantly fewer admission slots than the nominal size of the admission class.
The Common Data Set is a great resource. It shows, for example, greek life participation, number of classes taught at various size ranges, racial and ethnic background of entering first years and of entire student body, percentage of class living on campus, Pell grant eligibility (often used as an indicator of economic diversity, though I find the NY Times article I listed in #95 more useful). You can also parse out percentage of class admitted through ED to see how many spots are left for RD, and see if there is a significant difference in acceptance rate for males/females, as some schools tilt towards one gender and may admit more of one gender to get a more balanced gender ratio. You still need to dig, for example, greek life participation numbers may be skewed at schools which do not allow first year pledging, since a 25% participation rate at schools where 1/4 of the student body is not eligible to participate as first years, means upper class participation is higher.
A useful exercise could be identifying schools with overlapping personality and culture, and building safeties/match/reaches from there. For instance, Earlham/Bryn Mawr/Haverford and Grinnell for schools with commitment to student self-determination and collaborative culture. Or Wooster/Oberlin and Vassar.
But a question like: what schools overlap with Williams in terms of culture and values, but are not as hyper competitive for admissions, might help.
As @publisher said, ED rates skew acceptance at many top 50 LACs, making the likelihood of RD admission much tougher than the published rate might suggest.