I would second U Rochester for a smart nerdy science kid and also the advice to consider bigger schools where she’ll have more people to choose from. Would add UChicago as a reach since it has a great physics program and does a great job of creating community and a generally nerdy intellectual culture that is very diverse. UChicago is more likely to accept a kid like yours who is not a recruited athlete (or legacy) compared to Ivies/Duke/Stanford since it is D3 and has fewer athletes. I know it’s a little further away but I think your D would love it. She would need to apply early or ED2 and write great essays of course but based on her stats she has a chance to get in. Johns Hopkins could also be a good fit for her. Also U Maryland’s honors program feels like a small college within the university and is a great place for a nerdy STEM kid and your D could get merit aid there. Would also recommend Tufts as a place with strong science and really nice kids and diverse, inclusive culture. Any of the women’s colleges might work with Wellesley probably having the best STEM options but BMC or Smith or Holyoke perhaps better culture fit. I also recommend Swarthmore for an awkward intellectual and they have engineering. Some of the other co-ed NESCAC schools are dominated by athletes socially but they all have their nerdy kids, too. They just don’t tend to have as extensive offerings in physical sciences as larger schools. Good luck to her!
She might want to consider Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia - they have full tuition and partial tuition scholarships through the McNulty Scholars program especially for women in STEM. Seems to offer great supportive environment for the scholars.
If finances are an issue, she could get merit at Ursinus. My VERY introverted D had a good experience there, lots of ways to do research from freshman year, easy to access professors. Very good in the sciences.
I would not suggest Bucknell for a nerdy quirky kid. Great education but very preppy, lots of money, lots of Type A future investment bankers and engineers.
Lots of great suggestions here, but if you’re looking for “hidden gems” the NESCACS and other well known ones aren’t hidden.
U Rochester isn’t particularly diverse but it fits the bill in many other ways. Brandeis is a good option. I’m not sure Lehigh is that best option for a nerdy introvert. Kenyon and Oberlin are worth investigating, though not really hidden. Goucher is a CTCL and she’d probably get merit aid. Clark U should definitely be considered.
All the NESCACs are good options. Of the more selective schools suggested, I think Skidmore, Bates, Vassar and Middlebury seem good fits for this student.
I always like reading your take and find that I agree with you 99.9% of the time. I guess I slightly disagree, depending on how one thinks of “hidden”.
Agree the NESCAC brand has become quite strong, but I think really all of the schools, save for perhaps Tufts, are not household names in the sense that Wellesley is. Julia Roberts is never going to star in movie the story of which is set on Williams’ or Wesleyan’s campus.
Also, I don’t immediately think Middlebury when I think “quirky” or introverted. In sporting circles, it has what I would say is the biggest New England “bro” rep among the NESCACS, which I’m sure is somewhat exaggerated like everything else. Compare to Williams, a school that also has a rep as being a campus better suited to the “high-pro glow” student (as one poster here once put it); but through a closer connection to the place, I happen to know it’s a great school for a smart introvert or quirky kid who lacks the Vineyard Vines confidence of someone who would wear off-pink colored whale pants on purpose.
I didn’t mean diversity of political thought, or at least I didn’t mean it in that respect alone. I don’t think it would be accurate for anyone to suggest that Colgate is a college full of right wingers. Just not true. But it seems to have more of a wealthy establishment vibe and lots of students who are somewhat proudly Greek, proudly elite and proud of their overall station in life. More traditional hard partying, etc. and a little less anti-establishment than, say, a Wesleyan or a Haverford. There are posters here who score Hamilton as landing more or less in the same place (as Colgate) on the spectrum.
Collegiate Quidditch started at Middlebury. Doesn’t get much more quirky than that.
I was going to chime in with Center College from the same book (AR). Also, Sewanee feels like a school full of introverts and has good research opportunities. Agnes Scott(GA) is pretty strong in STEM.
Sometimes the smaller schools can support research opportunities for undergrads that the bigger schools reserve for graduate students.
What are your impressions of UWashington if I may ask? Thanks!
Ok, brain dump incoming. 
Looks like the post / poster with the description to which I was responding has left the building involuntarily. What I vaguely recall was something about “dark academic intensity” and a nerdy campus vibe. I score that score as a random observation of perhaps a small subset of students and it borders on non-sense as a description of the university in summa. Leading fact: UW hosts over 36,000 undergrads - it’s not any one thing, and if it is, dark academic intensity ain’t it.
I think you find a typical range of kids that you’d expect to see at a state flagship in the western US. I’d avoid stereotypes, especially the hackneyed assumption of 85% of the student population running around in Birkenstocks, grubby flannel and loose-fitting pants/shorts channeling their Rage Against the Machine. It’s left-leaning because it’s in Seattle, but it’s a little more mainstream than you’d think. It’s not a heavy demonstration/protest school, although it once was. Back in the day, they had a shanty town built in Red Square that stood for over a year protesting endowment funds in South Africa. You really don’t see that anymore.
Academically, UW is much harder to get into than it has been historically, with some pre-professional departments like Comp. Sci. and Bio Tech drawing kids who could get into many other elite schools. It’s heavy with kids from, of course, all over Washington who have a GPA of 3.7 or better with varying degrees of rigor, and solid test scores. I’m not convinced that they analyze transcripts very deeply the way a small to mid-size elite private does, but I happen to know from a very reliable source that UW loves IB Diploma kids, which isn’t all that inconsistent with my impressions: by loving IB, you love an academic pre-package that you know is rigorous, so it does a lot of your homework for you. In fact, I know some kids with middling to low test scores who sailed into UW Honors because of their IB work. Of course, if you’re applying direct to Comp. Sci or something comparably competitive, then you’re going to be scrutinized.
It’s a Pac 12 school with a lot of pride in its sports programs, particularly football where we’re all longing for past glory from days gone by. Greek system is big, but like I said in the beginning, 36,000 UGs: if you can’t find your people there, then they probably only exist in your mind. And as far as that goes, the Greek system is decently diverse, but there is still a bit of a faux “elitist” bro vibe there. They are visible on campus, so again, it’s big. With that said, I recall your child is LGBTQ and that you’re keen on finding them a great and safe place: UW will work beautifully, trust me. Is UW a place for the “life of the mind” kind of kid? Eh, not sure. You’ll find them in Savery Hall in the Philo department, but that’s a sliver. The typical UW kid is on his/her/their way to somewhere else, so a lot of kids are pursuing degrees with an end in mind. The Foster School is hugely popular, for example.
Beautiful campus and, IMO, Seattle is still a pretty safe city on a relative basis. UW is not near downtown, so one has nothing to do with the other. The U District itself is still relatively safe, with a few pockets here and there, and the adjoining neighborhoods are lovely. Of course, there are some of the very best outdoor activities anywhere, both in and around Seattle, and the mountains and rivers are close by.
UW is mindful of its press and relatively recent uptick in the academic pecking order, and even before that it has always been a school that likes itself and the students often reflect that. It’s not pure elitism in the New England sense of it; but they have always enjoyed being the “big brother” to the other NW publics, particularly WSU, a school and student body they love to lampoon. Interestingly, they tend to have no chip on their shoulder vis a vis Cal, UCLA or Stanford, and seem content to just enjoy their World QS ranking, and they will tell you about it.
If I were focused on flagships and UG size didn’t matter to me, UW would high on my list. It’s a great school. I think it’s comparable to Wisconsin, UNC CH and UT Austin, and a smidge below Michigan, Cal and UCLA just based on student selectivity alone, and is among the world leaders in a few disciplines that are highly relevant in the professional world today.
Thank you what an amazing description and I appreciate the effort! Quite close to the impression we got from our visit. It is hopefully a safety for my kid (the “who knows” being understood) and one he would be extremely happy to attend. It is one of the schools where Selingo camped out and followed the admissions process and it certainly and unsurprisingly seems quite numbers focused.
I think that’s right. To get a break on one of GPA or test score, you need something else - I don’t want to say hook, because hooks are different at a big school like UW. IB or perhaps coming from a well known prep school. Here, that would be Lakeside or Bush, as good examples of prep schools with which they are familiar and whose rigor they understand well. If you’re just some kid applying on your GPA/test score alone, I’d want to be at least in the 29/30 range on the ACT, and the magic GPA number cut-off has reputedly been at 3.7. The advice we received from a few folks is that, if you’re choosing between incremental rigor and hitting that 3.7 threshold, hit the threshold and take the easier class. That would be admission suicide at a SLAC, as you probably know. One has to remember that UW is pulling from all over the state, including from MANY places with poor secondary education. So the easiest comparable is non-contextual GPA and test score. They don’t have the staff or the time to “really” figure out who you are.
Thanks we are from New England from a well known highly academic private day school. Very few kids apply to UWash from here so no idea what UWash knows about the school’s rigor (which is very high). My son’s ACT is 35 but I think they don’t look at scores any more except in some exceptional situations. So we will see what we will see… Having said all of that Scoir shows they have never rejected a kid from our school with stats remotely close to my son’s.
But be aware that many majors at Washington are capacity-limited: http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/degree-overview/majors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/
Presumably, none of the past admits applied for majors like CS?
Has she looked at University of Rochester? Sounds like it might be a great fit for her. Really great STEM along with really good LAC offerings. It’s got a bit of an eclectic vibe, some nerdy kids, some liberal artsy intellectual kids, a little bit of everything and very friendly. Campus is beautiful.
Good grief, it seems as though 3/4 of their majors are capacity-limited! Physics, public health, social welfare, engineering, business, nursing, education, psychology, economics, math, chemistry, biology, and on, and on, and on!
Yes, some of us WA state residents with children currently in high school and looking at colleges see this as a real problem with the UW.
I don’t know … if I were a betting man, I’d guess that 35 will do some work. I assume he’s submitting it?
Also, fwiw, the last time we were in a recession, UW turned the tables on OOS applicants and were more than happy to take kids who’d be on the hook for unsubsidized tuition. Their endowment is better than it was then, but it’s not Texas or Michigan either in that regard. At that time, many in-state families felt like they were taking one for the team in favor of OOS kids. Today, right now, OOS admits tend to have higher numbers than the in-state average. But I expect those averages are at least somewhat affected by UW’s big and popular impacted majors like CS, which have a strong national draw.
Anyway, good luck. If the 35 translates at all to his school performance, I like his chances. I agree with your assessment that UW has historically been a numbers school.
Amen!
My child goes to Washington college and my husband and I joke it reminds us of the book “The secret history”. We both went to large universities and we find Washington College to be so much more academically focused. The professors are very accessible and enjoy talking deeply or Laughing with students. There are all sorts of free seminars or talks for the students to attend. Because it does not have grad students, undergrads get research opportunities and TAing jobs. It has the cutest town attached, book store, coffee shops, gluten free bakery, farmers market every weekend. The school clubs host events almost every night Wednesday- Friday, so there is always something to do, and a wide variety of events as well. Just about any club you want to create gets approval. And if you want a party, you can definitely find it. For a small school, the diversity is off the charts. My child’s friend group is Uber diverse and I won’t be an count here, but I think because if the size, it forces kids to talk to people that they might not have at a bigger school. This is not a cookie cutter school in terms of the kids all looking or thinking the same. The science professors are amazing and noticed talent in my child in chemistry, so now she is a double major! My child also is involved as a research apprentice as a sophomore and is a TA. The relationship with professors is important if looking to get masters. My child also didn’t do student government in HS but really loved being part of the SGA at college. This is a school where kids grow academically and socially.