<p>I have been accepted into Grinnell as a Trustee Scholar (15-20k scholarship), and waitlisted for the following: Haverford, Carleton, and Macalester.</p>
<p>I’m sure other students who have applied to LAC’s have faced a similar decision, so I am curious as to what factors led to your final decision at one of these colleges.</p>
<p>I really take quality of education as the biggest priority, but of course, I also need to consider financial aid and the like. Should I pursue the wait lists for Haverford, Carleton, and Macalester? What are some key differences between the four? And what should I be looking at when deciding whether I want to accept the waitlists?</p>
<p>You don’t have a decision… you have one acceptance, take it. Honestly, you are unlikely to get a better financial deal from any of the other 3. Only Mac gives merit aid, and it is doubtful that you would get any coming off the waitlist. if you do manage to get in. If you only got merit at Grinnell and no need based aid, it is unlikely that you would get it from any of the others. Odds of getting off waitlists are very small… one of my kids was waitlisted at Carleton several years ago. She did everything recommended to get off the waitlist, but they took less than half a dozen off the list that year and she wasn’t one of them. Now she would say that was a good thing, the college she attended worked out great.</p>
<p>If money is not an issue, you can certainly accept spots on all the waitlists. All are very good LACs, would rank your other choices with Carleton at the top, then Haverford, then Mac. Grinnell would rank academically between Haverford and Mac. Location and campus feeling might be a factor if you are trying to pick between waitlists. And strength of your proposed major.</p>
<p>But at this point you are probably best off accepting the Grinnell offer and looking forward to that experience. Even if you accept a waitlist spot, odds of admission are low, and affordability will not be as good as Grinnell.</p>
<p>You are right in that I do not have a decision, at least not between the 4 LAC’s. My question is just whether I should consider accepting the waitlist offer from the three other colleges. And just to be clear, I am absolutely excited about Grinnell - it’s my top choice right now. I am planning to major in economics, and I was curious as to the academic quality of the four institutions, and whether I should apply for the waitlist. Thanks, and I’ll be sure to take your response into consideration.</p>
<p>Sorry, I don’t understand how anyone can rank these schools “academically” different from each other. You will get a top-notch education at any one of these five schools (and I wager one comparable to ANY college or university in the country!) The differences may come in particular subject areas available in the different schools, the ease of getting to campus (Grinnell ranks last there for sure, unfortunately!) and depending on how much you want access to a city, in which case Macalester and Haverford would rank higher.</p>
<p>All four of these schools will offer very bright, motivated, intellectually-inclined students with strong passions and interests and small classes with close, collaborative relationships with fellow students and with professors.</p>
<p>If Grinnell is at the top of your list, not sure why you’re concerned about your other wait lists. Is your concern that because Grinnell accepted you, but the other schools “only” wait listed you that somehow that makes them superior? NO: each of these schools has a holistic admissions practice and their own institutional needs and interests in crafting an incoming class with a range of backgrounds, so you will never really know why Grinnell accepted you but the other ones didn’t. It is not simply stats. You can just take a look at these postings by different people to see that very clearly. </p>
<p>have you visited these schools? if not, then there is one slight difference in Mac’s campus than Grinnell and Carleton’s (we never visited Haverford), and that is: the dorms at Mac are across the street from the two quads that make up the campus – my son wanted a fully self-contained campus. He didn’t like that the dorms felt more like they were in the surrounding town. This was just a personal, gut reaction on his part, and so he didn’t apply to Macalester. The main campus of Macalester is also smaller (as I recall; it’s been awhile) than the others, too, but at least compared to Carleton and Grinnell, you have ready access to the Twin Cities.</p>
<p>Both Carleton and Grinnell are just short walks from the town, though, so getting to restaurants, etc. is quite easy. Grinnell is just like two blocks away from where the shopping etc. begins. Both have very charming towns, and even though most activity takes place on campus, the students do also take advantage of the proximity of the towns.</p>
<p>If Grinnell is your top choice right now, you should accept their offer and never look back. A waitlist is a horrible place to be - it prevents you from making plans and moving on with your life.</p>
<p>Waitlists, just so you understand, are not designed to benefit the student. They’re a tool used by colleges to ensure they meet their target enrollment. You, as an individual, are no longer of any consequence to the school whatsoever. If they need to increase their enrollment for next year, they’ll pull someone from the waitlist - it could be the kid who got no acceptance and is desperate to attend, or it could be the kid who had a dozen offers of admission and couldn’t care less about the waitlist school. To the school, it doesn’t matter. If the first student they contact says no, they’ll just call the next one. It’s an utterly heartless business.</p>
<p>Unless there is a really, really compelling reason to accept a waitlist offer, don’t even give it a second thought.</p>
<p>I must disagree with the above poster. All waitlists are not equal. Some universities literally put thousands of people on their waitlists, so in effect students are extremely unlikely to be offered admission from those waitlists. Others carry small waitlists. Whether or not a student accepts a position on a waitlist depends on whether they would still like to be considered by the college that waitlisted them. Research how many students got in from the waitlists for the schools for the past few years (in the common data sets). Since these are small colleges, if the admissions offices are off by just a bit in terms of how many admitted students commit to the upcoming class, spots in the class can open up. A few years ago Macalester offered admission to lots of students off its waitlist for that reason. Although in other years the numbers have been very small. Many students (understandably) are totally stressed out and want things settled. Others want to keep their options open. It doesn’t cost anything financially to accept a spot on the waitlist, but it may be emotionally costly. Just make sure you put in your deposit at Grinnell. Someone I’m close to was offered admission to Oberlin off the waitlist (her dream school) only to realize that she’d fallen in love with her second choice (Macalester) so ended up not accepting the offer of admission.</p>
<p>SCDonCC, you are a shameless booster for Grinnell, and they are lucky to have you. However, I have to disagree – the differences in the campus and area around Mac and Grinnell are significant. And Mac does have the location advantage of being in the middle of a nice area of city restaurants, and very easy public transit access to the Twin Cities for entertainment, internships, etc. And while Grand Avenue does cross the Mac campus, Grinnell has a train track (with trains that make kids late for classes sometimes) across the middle of their campus.
That is not saying I would pick Mac over Grinnell, just clarifying for the OP and anyone else reading.</p>
<p>We have visited all the campuses twice on the OP’s list except we only went to Grinnell once. The Haverford campus is actually the most beautiful of the four, IMHO, if one is picking a college by aesthetics.</p>
<p>But the OP doesn’t have all four options, and Grinnell is a fine school.</p>
<p>I must say, I didn’t know what SCDonCC was referring to by saying the dorms are separated from the two quads that make up the Macalester Campus. There are several dorms and theme houses that are on the other side of campus, and there are a few academic buildings spread around campus - The International Institute for Global Citizenship and Kagin Hall are both near the dorms that generally house freshman. It isn’t a big campus (which is a plus in cold weather). But there’s still lots to do on campus.Yes, Grand Avenue runs through the campus, but it isn’t a highway, In fact it’s a really appealing street with small shops and restaurants that runs more or less from downtown Saint Paul to the Mississippi River (the Mississippi curves around a lot). It’s hard to imagine that any other small liberal arts college (other than Barnard) has the shopping and dining opportunities in the immediate area that Mac has. Students at Mac are very focused on their studies, but they can get off campus easily to participate in an internship, volunteer, or simply meet someone for coffee or a meal.</p>
<p>A waitlist is a free compound option.
It has to be exercised by them first, but if so then it can be exercised by you. If you so choose.
Options have value.
Therefore suggest stay on the waitlists.It costs you nothing.
If you should happen to get off of one, then you can evaluate.
Perhaps you will know more then than you know now.</p>
<p>As for choices, D1 visited three of these, and we drove past the fourth four times on the highway, traveling between where we were living at the time and a state u for a summer debate program. That trip itself accounted for her disinterest in visiting that school. Perhaps regrettably.She would have her rank order of these, and I might have mine, but reasonable people may differ. Yours may be different. Due to your particular prioritization of the variables: size, location, consortium arrangements, effective M-F ratio if you care about that, evaluation of what there is to do in the immediate vicinity, and on campus, specific progams and majors,effective number of available course offerings [ giving appropriate credit to consortium arrangements], etc</p>
<p>sorry if my language slighted Macalester in any way or made it seem like the towns of Northfield and Grinnell were comparable to Twin Cities. Not what I intended. For the record, Macalester was one of my personal favorites of all the colleges we visited over the course of our search. The dorm impression is what it is from the tour that we went on, so we must have seen a dorm that was not on the quads, but across the street more in the town (again, this gave my son an impression that was not to his personal taste). My daughter did apply to Mac, got accepted, but did not attend, and i remember dropping that envelope in the mailbox with sadness (not because it was preferable to her other choices, but just that it would have been a wonderful place as well).</p>
<p>Frankly, one of the more stressful parts of this process is what to say “no” to, not just what to accept. My son ultimately decided not to go on any waitlists for this very reason. To get back to the OP’s question: the main differences between the schools is location, IMO, and only OP can decide how important that is. There will be some differences in course offerings as well, particularly with Haverford’s access to the consortium (my own son’s personal experience was that he decided to base his decision on fit, not curriculum. But, he has a wide range of interests and any school was going to offer him plenty to study. But, again, this is a personal decision; no right or wrong answer.) All of these schools will offer equally bright, engaged students, accessible professors.</p>
<p>My point in bringing up the towns of Carleton and Grinnell was just to reassure the OP that these schools would offer some access to life beyond campus, although clearly not the same as right in a major city. But, the fact is, that there is so much brought onto campus, that students keep plenty busy…</p>
<p>another difference: Carleton has the trimester system, which enables the students to take more courses, but also compresses the time frame and offers a different pacing to study – this is an important consideration (again one for each individual to asses the pros and cons). Carleton also has a different winter break, which for my S ended up being a deciding factor against it, as he wanted to have the same long January break as his siblings. </p>
<p>thought of this too late to edit comment above, so will add here: IMO, the biggest strike against Grinnell’s location is the difficulty in finding nonstop flights to Des Moines. But, we (and many others!) do it (and, just speaking for our family, we’ve jumped through some hoops to get him on the limited nonstops). OP, i would be glad to tell you more either in this thread or via PM if you want to know more about what it’s like to “live in the cornfields.” </p>
<p>These are all fabulous schools. If you’re at all interested in being in or very near to an urban environment, stay on the waitlists for Mac and Haverford. There are advantages, besides the museums and cultural opportunities, in being in or near a city. For instance, it’s much easier to work in an internship during the school year. (Disclosure: DD is a Mac alum.) That said, Grinnell is an excellent LAC.</p>
However, I have to disagree – the differences in the campus and area around Mac and Grinnell are significant. And Mac does have the location advantage of being in the middle of a nice area of city restaurants, and very easy public transit access to the Twin Cities for entertainment, internships, etc. And while Grand Avenue does cross the Mac campus, Grinnell has a train track (with trains that make kids late for classes sometimes) across the middle of their campus.