Finding an intellectual college for a clueless 17-year-old

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I think it might make sense for her to cast a deeper net rather than an exceptionally wide one. That is, since she strongly feels she would like a US liberal arts style education, she should include some colleges that would be more in the match/safety range for her stats. Given that she is full pay, there are a many less selective colleges that would probably be delighted to accept her and her parents’ money.

I’m not saying that she should waste her time applying to colleges that are so “safe” that they can’t meet her academic aspirations or expectations – but just consider some that are more certain for admission. For example, she might consider colleges like Fordham or Dickinson. I haven’t been able to read this very long thread, but it seems to have been heavily focused on highly selective elites-- when really the best strategy for admission is always going to be to include some true safeties. I realize that she and her parents might decide in the end that a less prestigious school isn’t worth the price of tuition and international travel – but an application isn’t an obligation to attend. (And with her stats some of those schools might offer merit money, which could change the cost/benefit analysis).

I honestly don’t think that overall admission strategy should be any different than for a US applicant. The more colleges she applies to, the less time she will have to learn about that college or tailor her application to that college, and that in turn weakens her application and chances of getting accepted. So a more moderate list with a combination of reach / match / safety schools is far more likely to leave her with a wider array of choices.

I would note that if women’s colleges like Bryn Mawr Mt. Holyoke all still provide a wonderful opportunity for young women who are seeking a rigorous academic-focused learning environment in a significantly less competitive (and more predictable) admissions process.

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@calmom Thanks, and you’re right - I definitely need safeties. I’ll check out Fordham and Dickinson. People have mentioned Sarah Lawrence and St John’s earlier in the thread - I take it those are safeties for me? What about Bryn Mawr and Mount Holyoke? Any other possible safeties anyone can suggest? Also how many safeties should I apply to? Three feels like a good number to me, especially if one was a borderline safety, but you are all a lot more knowledgeable than I am so I’d like to hear what you lot think.

@momrath Thanks for that data. That’s really useful.

I feel like 20-25 may be a bit too many schools for me to apply to and I’d be spreading myself too thin. I do think that I can handle more than twelve, though. I plan on starting my essays in the summer and I may, dare I say, enjoy writing them, although that sounds naïve. Fifteen sounds like a good number. Maybe one or two higher depending on the amount of essays the schools I apply to have.

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What an interesting thread! I am sure it’s been mentioned already, but it bears repeating if so: Reed College. It sounds like a perfect fit.

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If you were a US applicant, I would definitely call St. John’s a safety. (But not necessarily a less worthy choice than many reaches.) I do not know whether being an international applicant changes that at all, but my gut feeling is that you are a great fit for the school, as well as extremely well-qualified and a potential asset to the learning experience of the students around you, and they would see that. Since the program is so different from most LAC’s, they are much more about fit - they want to see that you fully understand what they do there and that you’re ready to commit to that educational experience. I seriously doubt you would be rejected if you demonstrated that understanding and eagerness to be a part of their learning community. Furthermore, they offer non-binding Early Action, which means you can apply by November 15th and have an acceptance in hand by December 15th, several weeks before the Regular Decision deadline for most US schools. Any schools you like less than St. John’s could be on the back burner until 12/15, and you would never have to file those applications as long as you got into SJC as anticipated. Early Action is a real sanity-saver in that way. You still don’t have to accept or decline an EA offer until May 1st, but you have something you know you could be happy with nailed down months earlier.

Sarah Lawrence… probably a safety… but their only early application plan is binding ED… which I cannot imagine you would do - if you picked an ED school, I would expect it to be in the Swarthmore/UChicago tier.

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Hard to not see Sarah Lawrence as a safety and they would be a better fit for you than Fordham.

And Great Books for someone looking to get a PhD in philosophy?

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I think Sarah Lawrence would be a safety, especially if you write well – they are a college that puts a lot of stock in essays. But definitely spend some time to learn about their educational curriculum and approach-- it may or may not be something that will appeal to you.

Mt Holyoke still accepts more than half its applicants, so I would consider it a safety for a high stat, full pay applicant. (Most colleges are not need-blind for international applicants, so that is where full-pay can be an advantage). You said that you wanted to avoid a rural college – MHC is not an isolated campuses – there are regular shuttles going to the other 5 campuses in the 5-college consortium – (Smith, Amherst, Hampshire, & U Mass-Amherst) – but it is a very spacious campus with plenty of room for horses, so it might have a rural feel. (My urban-focused daughter was appalled when she saw their brochure and immediately tossed it…open fields are not her thing).

I think you might really like Bryn Mawr and would consider it a solid match if not a safety. Bryn Mawr has a beautiful campus and a close partnership with Haverford, as well as cross-registration opportunities with Swarthmore – so I would very definitely encourage applying.

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Re: “Great Books for someone looking to get a PhD in philosophy?” - absolutely! The readings include many of the core primary sources in the history of philosophy. The current reading lists are available on the website. https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/seminar/annapolis-undergraduate-readings It looks like an excellent foundation for an aspiring philosophy PhD to me.

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^I can’t speak for the OP, but, what are the odds she hasn’t already read Homer, Aeschylus, Freud and Marx on her own? Does St…John’s offer depth in any aspect of philosophy?

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@aquapt: Well, reading classic works in bio isn’t going to prepare you well for bio PhD programs.

There are some modern areas/issues in philosophy that the foremost thinkers in that field spend their time on. The question is whether someone who goes through a Great Books curriculum even know what they know and don’t know.

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True… I don’t really know what ground could be covered through the “'preceptorials” and etc…
Rather than debate hypotheticals, if OP finds the Great Books curriculum interesting in the first place, the thing to do would be to ask a representative of the college how many students have gone on to philosophy grad programs, and ask to be put in contact with a few who have done this.

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I think the great bookx curriculum can probably be a good foundation for anyone who finds that appealing, but the OP isn’t all that sure about her future as a philosopher: (“If I don’t major in philosophy it will be in English or Political Science and become a political correspondent or go on to law school”) – college is a time for growth and exploration, so the OP may be happier in an environment that will offer more flexibility if she decides to shift focus along the way.

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I don’t think there’s an arbitrary number for any particular applicant.

I might say and think “7-10 is the right number”, but if you really like 15 schools – and assuming at least one is a safety and you have the time/money/passion to write all those essays – then by all means, apply to 15 schools.

The only really hard and fast rule for me is that you must apply to at least one safety. If you don’t, there’s a possibility of being shut out – not likely, but possible.

Anyway, apply to the schools that interest you the most, whether they number five or 15 or 20. Just, like I said, make one a safety.

I also think that from an academic standpoint, LACs will tend to fit you better than universities. A few notable exceptions, like UChicago, Columbia and Princeton, have been offered.

But from an environmental perspective, the universities tend to be in more developed/urban areas.

When acceptances roll in, you may have to decide between a rural LAC, a suburban LAC, and (hope springs eternal) UChicago or Columbia. But for now, if the location/academic combo seems acceptable, and you have the time for the apps, I say go for it.

Last thing:

If you decide UChicago is your clear #1, I highly suggest applying there ED1: right now they are extremely into taking a large portion of their class through the ED rounds, to the point that their ED acceptance rate is approximately 7-8 times as high – around 16% – as their RD acceptance rate, which is believed to be about 2-2.5% (can someone else back this up? I believe this to be pretty accurate, but getting last year’s UChicago admit stats has been hard…). Most schools’ ED (or SCEA) acceptance rates are markedly higher than their RD rates, but not usually more than about 3-4 times as high, to put the advantage at UChicago in perspective.

In fact, if you have a clear #1 – very clear – go ahead and apply early. It probably will help.

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I don’t understand why the Liberal Arts degrees offered by English unis can’t be safeties.

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I wouldn’t rely on a reach/match/safety tier for international admissions to LACs because the admit numbers are too small to be indicative of anything. My son (who is an American) attended a large international high school in a Southeast Asian country. Many of his classmates, who came from all over the world, applied to U.S. colleges and were admitted to dozens of schools – from HYPSM to small LACs that no one in Asia has ever heard of. The experience of living in a underdeveloped country was for them, I think, a significant hook. My observation, though, was that there was no consistent or predictable pattern in admissions. Students were just as likely to be rejected by a presumed safety and accepted by a reach as the opposite.

Mt. Holyoke and Smith are both international friendly schools. Smith is in Northampton which is a lively small town. Holyoke is more rural. Both draw on the resources of the other consortium schools. New England – especially Western Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont,and Maine – is mostly rural, but functions as a weekend playground for Boston and New York. It is full of small towns, charming villages, good food, museums and performing arts centers. It’s a compact area with a high level of sophistication.

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You’ve gotten some excellent suggestions here so far.

I think that Columbia and U. Chicago’s cores will probably give you much of what you are looking for, but they may require more math/science than you might be wanting to take (esp. Chicago) and have less flexibility.

Yale’s Directed Studies and Princeton’s Humanities Sequence would certainly be excellent academic fits. Yale is more urban (New Haven has a whole lotta grit, so OP might be fine with it; we found it depressing), while Princeton is more suburban. Both are reasonably close to NYC (ca. 1.5 hours).

Curiously, I don’t think anyone has mentioned Stanford. Obviously a huge reach, but they have an exceptionally good philosophy program (and are very strong in the humanities overall). Moreover, similar to Yale’s Directed Studies, Stanford has its Structured Liberal Education (SLE) – a living/learning intensive humanities “great books” program; roughly half (or 2/3, depending on how many units you take – SLE itself is 8 per quarter) of your freshman classes are centered around a humanities core that takes place in the residence. There are ca/ 90 students spread among three dorms in East Flo Mo. The course is broken into 6 or so sections, with lectures given by top faculty from across the university and smaller discussion sections, all of which take place in the lounges and spill over into dinners, etc. Stanford has a robust campus culture and is a commuter train away from San Francisco. Their art history program is superb (and they campus has the largest collection of Rodin sculptures outside Paris).

Take a look at Wash U. in St. Louis’ Texts and Traditions program. It, too, is a humanities-based core program.

I concur that women’s schools will be slightly easier admissions-wise. Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Smith, Scripps, and Mt. Holyoke are good choices.

As for LACs, Swarthmore, Haverford, Carleton, Davidson, and Macalester strike me as good fits. Reed would also be an excellent choice. And the Claremont colleges (esp. Pomona) are great (but suburban).

For a great safety, I suggest you look at The New College of Florida (its a small, public honors college in Sarasota, Florida); their art history program is strong and they have a connection to the Ringling Museum, which has a large collection of Renaissance Art. As others have suggested, St. John’s would be a good safety.

Another reach school that you might want to look into is Duke.

Lastly, UC Berkeley and/or UCLA might be worth looking at, but they are large, public unis.

You might want to check out this thread started by another seeker of intellectual schools:

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/2030639-looking-for-intellectual-schools-p1.html

and this:

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1876166-intellectual-collaborative-schools-with-strong-humanities-programs.html

I don’t think you should apply to more than 15-ish schools (you can put up to 20 on the Common App).

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Interesting to note that not a single poster has said that CollegeX is better than CollegeY because it ranks higher in the USNews poll.

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:smiley: @circuitrider, this is a quality thread!

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I’ve been doing a lot of research over the past couple of days to try to nail down that very long original list of over 50 schools to a still long list of 20 something schools. I need a bit of help further trimming it down. But if you guys think there’s a school I’ve taken off that I shouldn’t have or one I should consider (especially a safety) then please let me know.

Swarthmore
UChicago
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Brown
Pomona
Stanford
Tufts
Barnard
Carleton
Wesleyan
Haverford
Wellesley
Reed
William & Mary
Macalester
Smith
Vassar
Bryn Mawr
Scripps
Brandeis
Sarah Lawrence
Dickinson
Clark
Rhodes

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@LoveTheBard I absolutely love the sound of Yale’s Directed Studies program and Princeton’s Humanities Sequence, and Stanford’s SLE sounds even better. I saw in one of those threads you posted the link to on your post (very helpful, by the way. Thank you) that you have a daughter at Stanford who did SLE. Does/did she find Stanford too STEM focused? I love the idea of SLE, but I’m not sure if Stanford is the right fit for me. How big of a part do sports play on campus? With a lot of students being interested in STEM and being located in Silicon Valley, do a lot of students do internships? Do most students need a car/bike to get around campus? Is it manageable without? Most importantly, just how many students actually major in the humanities/social sciences? Does STEM (especially CS and engineering) really dominate campus? (Sorry for the bombard of questions)

I was also wondering if anyone could comment on my concern about UChicago. I posted it earlier in the thread but I didn’t get any replies.
UChicago – Is it bad that the idea that it’s where fun goes to die is a positive to me? This seemed to be the other most common one suggested and for a good reason. Seems very similar to Swarthmore in an academic/social sense but with a more collaborative environment and it’s obviously four times the size and a research uni vs LAC. It’s also in Chicago but from the looks of it not right in downtown Chicago which is another plus. The core is the only thing which may be a downside. I love the idea of a core and the intellectualism it fosters but unlike the Columbia core which is very humanities based or Yale’s directed studies which is purely about the humanities, the UChicago core seems to be very well rounded. While science isn’t particularly my thing, I’ve done equivalent to a year of biology, chemistry, and physics, but I’m worried about maths. Maths is not my thing; I had to work really hard to get that 780 on the maths section of the SAT. Plus, I’ll have only done two years of maths compared to four - I won’t have done any calculus and not much pre-calculus. Is this going to be a problem if I have to take two maths classes or maths related classes like statistics or computer science?

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Love your choices. Even agree with the rough order.Your qualms about Chicago are the sort of thing I would worry about after I’m accepted, not before. Hopefully, with 20 applications you will have some choices to make by late May.