<p>SAT 1 sitting:
CR - 720
M - 710
W - 730
ACT twice with 31 composits but 33 in math, science and 32 others over 2 sittings
SAT II 1 time each:
US History 750
BioM 760
Math 2 690</p>
<p>4.0 unweighted full IB
4.6 weighted
AP 5s - Bio, APUSH, World History, English Lang
AP 4s - Spanish, calc
IB SL so far Spanish 6, Math 7
athletics, music, leadership, service: very good, not crazy over the top (HYPS) good
will leave it at that to protect kid's privacy </p>
<p>Senior schedule:
IB HL Lit
HL Physics
HL history / AP Gov
AP stats
AP chem
HL music
TOK / elective</p>
<p>He looks good. Take a look (google) the Common Data Set for Grinnell. S is a student there and loves it. Very into athletics and music as well.</p>
<p>Other schools that get a lot of cross applicants with Grinnell: Oberlin, Macalester, Carleton in the midwest. On the edgier side - Reed. More selective: Pomona. Preppier: Bates, Colby, Bowdoin and Middlebury. Mid-Atlantic: St. Mary’s College of Maryland.</p>
<p>M’s mom - actually “he” is a “she”. We hadn’t looked at Grinnell earlier because we weren’t sure she was quirky and alternative enough to fit in. She’s not especially conservative, just musical, athlete, regular kid. How did you find the aid package? What is your son’t major? What is the competition level on athletics? Is it fairly easy to go out for a sport and participate. Reed is closer to home, but too alternative and not sporty enough. Oberlin too artsy and the others too east coast.</p>
<p>I would love any other impressions on student life and personality. </p>
<p>Also, she did just one sitting of SAT and decided to stand pat, but any opinion on taking M/CR only in January to up merit aid potential?</p>
<p>95688Dad
She has applied to Willamette and is waiting to hear - expecting to get in, but needs enough aid of the right kind. Could not apply officially early due to SCEA rules, so turned app in late November but checked RD. I’m hoping that they look at it early anyway, since they have the “leaders app” rolling priority notification program.</p>
<p>p.s. Willamette is one of those school that falls into that weird middle ground category of likely admit, but not an FA safety because they don’t necessarily meet full need. The are pretty frank that they offer the best package to the kids they most want and may leave a gap. From what I’ve been seeing, their standard initial merit offer is around $17,000 which leaves a lot uncovered unless they manipulate the rest of the package favorably.</p>
<p>S is neither ‘quirky’ nor ‘alternative’ but he’s also definitely not preppy, which is why the midwestern LACs appealed to him. He started as a chem major and switched to biochem - the sciences at Grinnell are fantastic. Grinnell has a huge endowment and that translates into generous financial and merit aid, amazing facilities, and lots of money for student internships, etc… Re sports, Grinnell has walk-on teams and S has walked onto at least 5 of them at various time - although one sport, that he’d never played before college, became his passion. Being a walk-on doesn’t necessarily mean you get to play in the meets - but you practice with the teams and, if you are good enough, you get playing time in competition. S was also very musical in high school (no sports at all, actually) - and has continued with that at Grinnell, although at a much less intense level, since his sports team became his `second family.’</p>
<p>Impressions: It’s definitely a rural LAC. There are cities, but they are an hour a way, and all the action is on campus or in the very small town of Grinnell. That means the school is very inwardly focused - everyone lives on campus, everyone eats, plays and works on campus. If that feels claustraphobic, as it might for some, then it’s not a fit. If your daughter wants a strong sense of community, where she can get to know all her faculty personally and can feel safe if she wants to go running alone at midnight then it’s a great place.</p>
<p>Sounds like you have it pegged. Son was accepted (Leaders App) at Willamette with $16,000 merit aid. Need based aid should cover another chunk. So far Willamette is the top school on his list, but wants to hold off and see what offers the baseball season brings.</p>
<p>If you’re worried about it being too “quirky or alternative”, you need to visit and see if she likes it.</p>
<p>Financial aid at Grinnell is great. They meet full need, meaning theoretically anyone should be able to afford the school (sometimes the formulas aren’t perfect, though).</p>
<p>Music and sports are definitely here on campus if you want to participate, but it’s not like a big ten campus where football takes over the college. This makes it a lot easier to walk onto teams if you want to participate.</p>
<p>“Student life/personality”? Life is alright, though it’s a ton of work and you don’t have nearly as much free time as you would like. The workload is pretty brutal. As far as the people go, pretty much everyone on campus is friendly. Grinnell is pretty much a bubble community, so it wouldn’t really work if the people inside didn’t get along. And yes, it really is a bubble. You pretty much forget the outside world exists.</p>
<p>Thanks - we had planned to visit along with Minnesota schools last February, but blizzard cut our visit short, so we couldn’t make it that far south. I guess she could apply now, and do an admitted students visit if it comes to that.</p>
<p>I just invested $10.50 in sending SAT scores just in case :-)</p>
<p>To lend perspective - “brutal” work load is compared to . . .? Hours per day? Is this problem sets, labs, lit papers?</p>
<p>Grinnell workload is intense, but for most of us here, we want to and need to, be pushed. It can be challenging and at times frustrating, but after one semester I already feel that my writing has improved and I am learning more than I ever did in high school. It is hard because you are around a lot of very smart, very motivated peers; however, the atmosphere is collaborative, not competitive.</p>