@cinnamon1212, thanks for the page and apologies for the delayed reply.
I agree that W&L should be on this student’s list since he enjoyed his visit to campus plus his interests are areas of strength for the school. He may be particularly interested in Mock Convention and the debate opportunities, as well as the option of taking classes at the law school.
OP, I appreciate the interest in merit scholarships. For those of us who want to financially support our kids through their entire education experience, law/med/grad schools need to be considered when discussing budget. For full pay families, this may mean looking at schools that are known to discount tuition for your student’s profile as well as reasonable competitive merit scholarships.
Many schools already mentioned came to my mind as I read your OP… Sewanee, Furman, Kenyon, Rhodes… should offer “tuition discounts” to your student.
For competitive merit, your son should research the goals of those scholarships at each school. Many focus on leadership and service and the contributions a student will bring to the college community. He should tailor his essays (and interviews) to highlight how he will meet those objectives.
My premed student applied for competitive merit at several of the schools on your list. She is a rising junior and Johnson Scholar at W&L so I am familiar with that program. As Cinnamon mentioned, the Johnson scholarship looks at more than academics; it is used to create a diverse class of leaders and places a lot of value on service. It is also awarded to 10% of the incoming class so is less competitive than many other named scholarships. For example, Richmond Scholars are less than 3% of the incoming class at URich. James B Duke and Belk at Davidson are extremely competitive. Your son should certainly apply for any scholarships at the schools of interest, but I suggest evaluating his chances and prioritizing the applications accordingly. It is easy to get burned out by all the extra essays.
If there is a chance you may decide to pay full freight, then apply to a few schools that are cultural fits but have no chance of merit. If you know you will not be willing to pay full price, it may make sense to cut those schools from the list. They should at least be the last applied to… and only if your son understands the financial realities if he is accepted and cannot attend due to cost.
Best of luck! Feel free to DM me if you want more information on my kid’s hunt for merit.
One other thing to keep in mind. You know the price of tuition at LACs or law school today. You and your son wont start paying undergrad tuition until 2024 and law school in 2028 at the earliest. You need to budget the likely increased costs of attendance by then-even a modest 5% increase will drive the costs substantially higher.
Back when COA was $40k, I ran a 5% annual increase and it resulted in a COA of $80k by the time my kids were college age. I underestimated. Costs increased more. Good luck.
Seconding Kenyon (merit possible but don’t count on it), UNC Asheville (safety LAC, outdoorsy and within budget), Dickinson (merit likely), Williams (merit impossible but outstanding and worth the expense if you can afford it, especially for English/writing followed by law), Sewanee, Hamilton.
What about Kalamazoo, Connecticut College, Denison (less competitive than Kenyon but good writing program), Ursinus (safety, writing scholarship), Vassar (as a boy it’s a bit easier to get into), Wheaton MA, Macalester, Wooster (safety, good scholarships)?
One more thought and I will leave. Perhaps the only thing the Texas legislature gets right is holding the line on tuition at public colleges. UT ( at Austin, Dallas, etc) may not be your son’s first choice but it is a very high quality education at an affordable price which can set your son up for any law school in the country. Think carefully about your plan for 7 years of tuition.
I was also going to suggest Denison, which seems to check a lot of boxes here - strong international relations-type programs, strong history department, strong writing program, generous with merit, and in a nice outdoor area but not far from Columbus. I’m a lawyer, and it is my personal view that “pre-law” students should study whatever interests them and teaches them how to think critically, but I believe a lot of Denison pre-law students enroll in the PPA (Politics and Public Affairs) program. Ohio, and the Midwest more generally, has a large number of wonderful LACs.
I am sure your son has good reason to want to attend school out of state, but Texas is a huge state with great geographic and demographic diversity. Just a thought exercise to go through with your son, take the 4Y COA of an out of state private and run that against the 4Y COA of a Texas public (many Texas privates will try to match in state public costs for top students) and offer to pay that amount (or some percentage of that to your son) and see how he reacts. So let’s say your idea of affordability with merit is $50k/year, so the 4Y COA is $200k. Depending on campus, in state at a Texas public will run from somewhere between $18k to $28k so it is a spread somewhere between $88k to $128k, so 1 year of law school. If your son can get merit at a private LAC, odds are he will get merit in state, increasing the differential. He will also likely qualify for honors colleges, which will give him some of that small school feel, maybe not 100%, but is that differential worth $100k+?
People have different opinions about the value of private schools. For our full pay family, once our kids qualified for in state honors colleges, our kids only applied to selective high reaches. Paying double or even triple or higher for a second tier private college vs in state just was not worth it for us.
Ohio is another state where college costs are fixed once you enter. Ohio University has a very well-reputed honors college, and many think that Miami University has a liberal arts college feel, but with a larger student body.
The points that @roycroftmom and @BKSquared have made resonate in terms of the value of a dollar. The Texas publics do offer a great value in education. If there are issues that your family has with the state, though, there are other options that may come in at a very good price as well. The prestige may not be the same as at some of the schools you’re looking at, but in determining whether saving $100k, $200k, or $300k is of interest in order to use that savings for law school or other expenses, please let us know. Additionally, knowing the budget (and thus how much merit aid would be needed to meet the budget) will help the board come up with better suggestions.
Much to my surprise, Texas does not have worse gun violence on a per capita basis than many states, slightly above average but close to the middle. Facts matter. It is a very large state and 30 million people live here, so of course there are more episodes, just like California has more.
In any event, that was not identified as a factor byOP
To add to these concerns, for a kid who wants to study humanities, Texas and other states that are increasingly controlling/censoring curriculum at public schools (K-university) are going to be difficult places to study humanities and social sciences. Lots of good reasons for a prospective English major to avoid public institutions in these states.
Just wanted to add another bit of context, as I think this assessment misses a key piece of the puzzle re: undergrad matriculations to law school that is relevant to OP’s search. It doesn’t mean much to simply count up the number of matriculants from a given undergrad if we don’t know the numbers of competitive applicants from each. For example, let’s say that in a given year Harvard Law receives 50 highly competitive applications (however they define that) from Harvard College, and just 2 similarly competitive applications from Podunk State. They admit 20 of the 50 Harvard undergrads, of whom 14 enroll; they admit one of the two from Podunk State, who enrolls. If you simply reviewed the enrollment stats and saw “Harvard - 14; Podunk State - 1,” you might infer that it’s much easier to obtain admission coming from Harvard College - but in reality, your chances were better from Podunk State, all other factors being equal (assumed for purposes of the hypothetical).
My belief is that you are better off, all other things equal, being a standout applicant from a lower-ranked school than a typical strong applicant from an elite school. This is in part my own bias - I went from a T100 undergrad to a T10 law school, and I highly doubt that my candidacy was so spectacular as to overcome any supposed intrinsic preference for elite undergrad schools. Others may disagree. We don’t have, and presumably will never have, the detailed application data that would demonstrate this one way or the other. But the point is that I would caution OP against looking at final matriculation stats and assuming that elite colleges confer an inherent law school admissions advantage for a particular student.
Unless the kid is devoted to studying CRT, he should be just fine. English is a low-paying major if he opts against law school. If he goes to law school and incurs debt, he can join thousands of unhappy lawyers at corporate jobs they had to take to pay down the debt ( I know many). I do not care where this kid studies but not considering good in state options is foolish for most people including this family.
For the record, my kid turned down a free ride at UT to attend a highly selective school at $320k. It was one of the few colleges worth it to us. Nothing on the OP’s list would have been worth it to us
You don’t study CRT in college. That’s not a thing. However, state legislatures are limiting (or trying to do so) the depth and breadth of course offerings and materials. I’m a historian who teaches a range of classes in early American history (typical classes like the US to 1865, advanced classes that cover more specific chronological periods, and more focused classes like the history of American slavery), along with social studies teacher education, increasingly, I’ve observed that well over half of what I cover in a routine semester is now either illegal or subject to political review boards in most of these states. These curricular changes will transform the humanities and social sciences in these states, and not for the better.
I agree with all of this in terms of the best will typically rise to the top and thrive. There are no limits based on where someone matriculated as an undergraduate.
I would also however highlight that the “downside” for a student who isn’t at the very top of the no name school or kid who opts not to go for an advanced degree is greater. These kids will find some career paths harder than the middle of the road or even lower quartile kid from a super elite.
Correctly or not the bottom 10% Harvard grad will still benefit from the reputation, network and resources of their school such that their opportunities will be greater than all but the very very top at the proverbial Podunk State school you mention.
Every family with the fortunate decision of “full pay or not” has a different list. I don’t see the value in criticizing other family’s lists. My own kids lists of “what your value oriented parents will pay full price for” were MUCH shorter than other people we know and that’s ok. I’ve got neighbors who paid full freight for a third tier private engineering program (the kid likely couldn’t have gotten in to our own state flagship, but there are a few neighboring states where he could have been admitted) but hey, not my kid and not my money. They did whatever belt-tightening they felt was “worth it” and good for them.
As some have recommended here, do include Dickinson on your list. D23 was offered great merit and we were impressed with their poli-sci profs. Check out their mock trial results at comps. While she didn’t wind up there, it was a solid choice - esp for law leanings. They have some great things going on with curriculum initiatives. Just anecdotal but all of your reaches were apps for her–one acceptance, rest waitlisted with higher stats. I know it’s holistic and every student is different, but I would have wanted to know last year at this time.
It may help to specify the reasons, so that replying posters do not inadvertently suggest colleges (or colleges in states) that share the same reasons. Some other posters may be guessing at the reasons and leaving off recommendations based on the assumed reasons that may or may not be the true ones.