Charlottesville is over 2 hours from DC. To your average European, that is a long way. And Richmond is a nice place, but nobody crosses an ocean so they can enjoy the wonders of Richmond.
Tufts and Georgetown would obviously be good places to get federal government internships, but I have no idea if she would be interested in that. I can’t believe she can’t narrow it down further. Middlebury is smaller than some high schools and isolated. UVA has 7x the undergrad population. BC is close to a major city. All these college experiences will obviously be drastically different.
@collegemom3717 Thanks for the message. I agree with your point. We were fine with the diversity at the UVA Days on the Lawn. Virginia is a very diverse state and does a great job in representing the whole state. Plus, most of the kids from NoVa (particularly the ones from Arlington, Fairfax and Alexandria) are extremely cosmopolitan which is another benefit.
@roethlisburger and @Muad_dib I’m not sure what the big deal is about having to decide among 6 excellent schools on 13 April when she had almost 3 weeks before she has to make a decision. She did drop off Richmond and Northeastern right away. Of the 6 schools on her final list, four of them she had not visited since we did my son’s big college tour in 2013 so she wanted to revisit. In addition, there were a number of admitted students events as well as alumni events here in London in the past two weeks.
@Mastadon This is very interesting. Thanks for sending it.
@sevmom Thanks. I really like Charlottesville. I have been there a few times on business and have always had a great time there. We spent a couple days there last week and had a nice time. She liked the pedestrian mall area and said that it reminded her a bit of the neighbourhood around Georgetown.
I’m not too fussed about getting there and back particularly from Dulles Apt, as she would only have to do it 4 times a year (i.e. two round trips). It is a straight shot down Rt. 29 and I did the drive in 1:40. She may not pick UVA in the end but there was nothing that we encountered that knocked it off the list.
Despite being a smaller school, Tufts offers more majors.
Number of Liberal Arts Majors
Tufts - 59
GTown - 44
BC - 35
Tufts is located in Medford/Somerville next to Cambridge. Two subway (Redline) stops (2 miles) from Harvard and 4 subway stops from MIT (plus Google and Microsoft local development centers). Somerville and Cambridge have the second highest density of young people and artists in the country and are among the hottest real estate markets in Massachusetts. Davis Square and Harvard Square are the top two hangouts for young people in the Boston Area. Other Colleges just outside of Boston run shuttle buses to Harvard Square. Tufts has faster access to downtown Boston than BC (which is on the Green Line) because there are much fewer subway stops. Very vibrant area -especially if you are interested in culture and the arts. The area along the Red Line between Tufts and MIT may be the top “College Town” in the country. Downtown Boston is only a couple more subway stops away. There is also a second subway station (an extension of the Green Line) in the works which will terminate right on the Tufts campus. Tufts runs a regular shuttle service connecting to the New England Conservatory (dual degree program), and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (now part of Tufts). If you are into wilderness Tufts is 2 miles from a 2,500 acre state forest and the Tufts Mountain Club provides a van service to a Lodge that it owns in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (a couple of hours away).
BC is located in Newton/Brighton. Newton is one of the wealthiest cities in the country. It is beautiful, but young people can’t afford to live there. It has a high density of stadardized test prep services and expensive club soccer teams for kids. It is not very vibrant outside of BC’s sporting events, and sports in the Boston Area tend to revolve around professional teams - not the college teams.
From the Tufts Classics Department web site: Harvard maintains a Boston area Classics Calendar. Harvard has a big Phd program in Classics so it has lots of events. Easy access for Tufts Students.
http://classics.fas.harvard.edu/boston-area-classics-calendar#/?i=8
@Mastadon - Thanks for the link to Tufts outcomes page. It is always helpful to have that kind of data. The OP stated:
If your goal is to enter management consulting and investment banking, take a look the placement of Economics or Quantitative Economics majors at Tuft’s. Not surprisingly, the employment outcomes from Eco and Quant Eco are much more oriented toward consulting and investment banking fields than classics.
After our visits last week, dd
does prefer Tufts over BC, based on easier access to Boston and Cambridge, better intellectual vibe on campus and it appears to be stronger in her likely majors.
I would suggest either Davidson or Middlebury. For a liberal arts major, I think there’s value in having the small class sizes available at the better quality LACs. Most students have strong feelings on whether they would prefer a LAC vs a large research university.
@londondad Just curious, where did your dd decide to go? She had nice choices. Is she also considering waitlists?
She choose Georgetown but will take a gap year. The final three were GU, Tufts and UVA. UVA fell by the wayside due to some quirks in student housing. GU won out over Tufts due to location and she just felt that she fit in better with typical GU kids compared to Tufts.
In hindsight the one mistake that we made was by applying SCEA to Yale. Yale just does not seem to want unhooked private school kids from London any more. In hindsight, she should have applied ED to Brown or Penn, where her odds were better and Penn in particular seems to take in a bunch of London private school kids in ED every year. (Overall, every school that had a 10% or higher acceptance rate accepted her, but every school below 10% rejected or waitlisted her). The other thing that annoys us about Yale is that only 3% of DD’s Yale YGS cohort were accepted this year, which is a surprise given that YYGS is a competitive program (c. 20% acceptance rate) which requires good stats, grades and 4 essays to get in. Given the high bar for YYGS acceptance, you would think that more of these kids have what it takes to be successful Yale students, yet Yale is disinterested in these upper-middle class unhooked students.
@londondad, admitted to Georgetown, paid deposit and was approved for a gap year?
Eh. Georgetown, Penn, and Brown are peers and all good and I personally prefer DC to Philly anyway.
^ Personally I agree. She wanted to go to Yale, Brown, Penn or Dartmouth, but I think she will be happier at GU as I think she is a better fit socially. I also have some concerns about some of the social aspects at Penn. We have lots of friends and family in DC and Georgetown takes lots of smart London kids every year so I am sure that she will be a great fit there academically, particularly as she really likes both Classics and European History and GU is excellent in both.
^ Yeah, that’s a bit odd as Penn doesn’t really fit with the other 3 Ivies listed.
@PurpleTitan I agree! Neither my wife, son or I were really that impressed with Penn, but my daughter loved it. I did think that the Wharton School was impressive, although neither of my kids will major in Business. By comparison, we really preferred Yale and Brown based on the campus, academic vibe and areas surrounding campus. The kids also really liked Dartmouth, although my wife and thought that the heavy Greek scene would not be a good fit for our kids and after a couple of winters, living in Hanover NH would get really tiresome.