Help! Child Off Waitlist - Not Sure What to Do?

<p>National vs regional student body and reputation would still factor in it for me. But then again, I’ve known Grinnell and Carleton as having outstanding academic reputations, and attracting the brightest kids, for 20 plus years. Those of you on the east don’t think of them that way - you guys know Williams but not Grinnell, Amherst but not Carleton, whereas from my vantage point they are all the same.</p>

<p>Actually, the majority of people around here don’t even know Williams, lol.</p>

<p>And, if you mention Amherst, people usually think you’re talking about UMass/Amherst.</p>

<p>It may be that the NSSE scores just show that some Grinnell students don’t know how good they’ve got it.</p>

<p>Well, I give up. If you guys want to persist in thinking a few test score points are significant, so be it.</p>

<p>On that basis, I would say that Williams is superior to Grinnell, which I don’t believe and would have no way of assessing. </p>

<p>It was better for my kid because he refused to look west of the Hudson. No, his position wasn’t endorsed by me. And I did force him to apply to U of Chicago where he was accepted.</p>

<p>For him, he would have chosen Vassar or Bard or Wesleyan over Grinnell because he simply did not want to be so far from home, however some of the parents feel about that here.</p>

<p>I am a sixties girl, and although Kahlil Gibran was too sweet for my tastes, I did think it awesome when he said, “They come through us but are not of us,” so I did not impose my tastes, preference, but simply shared my wisdom and experience, such as they are. Of course, that fell on deaf ears.</p>

<p>In retrospect I might say that a less rigorous school where he could have been a bit of a big fish might have suited his temperament better, but he wasn’t going to listen to me if I said that.</p>

<p>If I had a child who preferred Dickinson to Grinnell I really would not be perturbed, nor do I think the OP should be. Gee, I wonder where the student chose to go? She said the decision was being made this weekend.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I’m on the east coast, and I’ve been aware of Carleton as a top LAC since the late 70s. I’ve been aware of Grinnell as a school with an outstanding reputation since then also. It is true that I was first introduced to Carleton in a concrete way because I lived in Chicago and knew a number of very bright people who went there. (That was also when I first heard about Earlham, as I recall.)</p>

<p>I don’t think of them as all the same. Each has a somewhat different character, and some are harder to get into than others. And I think that is accurate.</p>

<p>I don’t think that the people I know think of U Mass when the name Amherst is mentioned. At least, not any of the people with whom I am likely to discuss colleges. :)</p>

<p>Mythmom, the Dickinson vs Grinnell thing wouldn’t bother me, either. For me, the clear pick among the schools under discussion is Carleton, but that is because of the quirky, intellectual character of Carleton in addition to its stats.Gettysburg vs Carleton would indeed bother me. But then, my opinion in the imagine-your-kid-making-this-choice is highly influenced by the fact that I think Carleton would be a great fit for him, the others less so. (In fact, he was accepted at Carleton, and I would have been happy to have him go there.)</p>

<p>Well, Consolation, I feel as you do, that Carleton would have been a better fit for my kid than Gettysburg, but he may have felt differently.</p>

<p>A dear friend’s son chose Grinnell over Carleton and she was upset for awhile but came to see the wisdom of his choice. The “quirk” at Grinnell was more his “quirk” than the “quirk” at Carleton.</p>

<p>I have known about these schools since I was in high school on Long Island. A friend went to Grinnell and a friend went to Carleton, then. We also knew about Reed and Antioch. And Swarthmore. And Middlebury. I must admit that I didn’t know about Williams. I guess I didn’t have my radar attuned to all male LAC’s, though that changed right after I left high school.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I’ve found it difficult to predict an ACT difference of 29 - 33 or an SAT difference of 2000 - 2200 in students I see regularly. How highly accomplished they are tends to depend upon other things. In class, any of those scores could be top on a test on any given day and any of those can be thoughtful (or not) with a discussion.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Same here. ;)</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Of course, that MUST be it! ;)</p>

<p>Choose an LAC based upon fit and desired location (which is part of fit). A few points on standardized test scores are meaningless - esp if one is talking about majors that don’t even depend upon math. With math dependent majors, I would argue that the math score does matter, but a couple of points probably still wouldn’t.</p>

<p>Agree about the math, which was my caveat in the first place.</p>

<p>Gettysburg parent here. I’ve sat on the sidelines here but have decided to chime in.</p>

<p>First, I’m curious as to where the ACT scores for Gettysburg College were obtained way back in post 150. Most students in the NE submit SAT scores and Gettysburg doesn’t even post ACT scores in its common data set, so was this a conversion? If so, then Gettysburg’s middle 50% SAT score range of 1230-1380 would convert to an ACT range of 27-31, not 27-29 as stated in post 150. A minor difference, but since people on this thread seem to find a 1-2 point difference crucial, I just wanted to point this out.</p>

<p>Second, as the parent of a 2011 Gettysburg grad, I’d also like to mention that despite the anti-intellectual and provincial atmosphere ascribed to this college, my daughter managed to:</p>

<ul>
<li>Graduate with honors in a major with a decidedly global focus</li>
<li>Conduct research with two professors (in two different fields)</li>
<li>Study abroad and attain near-fluency in her foreign language (about 50% of Gettysburg students participate in study abroad)</li>
<li>Volunteer in the community</li>
<li>Hold a challenging and time-consuming leadership position in her sorority (yes, she was part of the much-maligned Greek life)</li>
<li>Make friends with people from all over the U.S. and various countries in eastern Europe and Asia</li>
<li>Have a lot of fun</li>
<li>Obtain two summer internships (one of which she found on her own and the other through an alumnus who came to Gettysburg’s career center looking for interns)</li>
<li>Secure a job offer from a respected national company before graduation where she has represented her college very well (she’s working hard, learning a lot, and is being promoted before completing her first year of employment). This job was also obtained largely through the resources of Gettysburg’s career center where the company’s recruiters interviewed students in my daughter’s senior year)</li>
</ul>

<p>I hate to be crass and mention the internships and job above, but for the great majority of students and parents, the outcome of an education is just as important as the process. And one of the most important outcomes is a decent job and the ability to support oneself and make one’s way through the world (especially in today’s challenging economy.)</p>

<p>It’s possible that my daughter would have had a better experience at one of the three mid-west schools so highly regarded on this thread. But I doubt it.</p>

<p>Whichever college the OP’s son ultimately chose will be fine, and one day he or his mom will extol the virtues of the school just as I did above with Gettysburg. After all, most students attend and grow to love just one college, so how can we argue so passionately about schools we’ve never attended? But right now, I’m sure the OP is scratching her head over the hair-splitting going on in this thread. She may be hesitant to post her son’s choice for fear of offending one side or the other!</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I don’t think anyone has said that Gettysburg is anti-intellectual or provincial. I’m sure your daughter is extremely accomplished and a lovely person. We are talking about colleges with national reputations versus colleges with reputations and student bodies that largely draw from the same region. If your daughter is happy, I’m happy :slight_smile: and wish her nothing but continued success.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I think perturbed is the wrong word to describe how I feel! I’m saying … all else being equal … I’d have a harder time supporting the second set over the first set. But sometimes all else isn’t equal. Sometimes a kid just feels at home / finds his tribe in a certain school and that’s that. I have one kid who is a total “have to find my tribe/have to go with gut feel” type. It so happened that his gut feel corresponded to a school that I couldn’t argue with :slight_smile: but it might very well have. And this isn’t the difference between Harvard and Podunk State, but I think it’s a little bit more nuanced that the difference between Harvard and Yale.</p>

<p>As has been said a bunch of times, the difference between these two groups of schools isn’t that great. Thus, even if Grinnell is somewhat more intellectual than Gettysburg, that doesn’t mean Gettysburg is “anti-intellectual.”</p>

<p>Let me put it this way: if there are specific characteristics of colleges that matter the most to you, small differences in those characteristics will be significant to you. Big differences in other factors may not matter much at all.</p>

<p>I wish both my kids were less intellectual. My D left law school because it was not intellectual enough. We are ivory tower types. She is now in a graduate program in history. My s is in a graduate program in art history. I envy the Fettysburg mom.</p>

<p>What’s been nagging me about this thread is that we don’t really know about the “specific characteristics” (to quote Hunt) that matter to the OP or, more important, to his or her son. It’s seemed to me all along that someone who really wanted to go to Carleton, Grinnell or Macalester would be thrilled to get off the wait list. And someone who wasn’t thrilled for whatever reason (maybe, say, he wants a school with Greek life or prefers a particular location or whatever) would have been happy to stay with the other choice, regardless of the statistical differences between the student bodies. But the OP hasn’t shared. I’m curious what inspired the question in the first place.</p>

<p>You’re right, absweetmarie, and the fact that the op chose to play things very close to the vest made it hard for people to advise her in her particular situation. So instead we riff on the generalities, as usual, being admissions junkies. :D</p>

<p>Are you discussing Dickinson ¶ or Davidson (NC)?
“NSSE Scores for Grinnell v. Davidson
Grinnell … Dickinson … Scoring Category
(scores below are based on Senior interviews)”</p>

<p>I don’t want to get into college bashing, but Dickinson and Davidson are quite different. I am quite sure that Davidson holds its own academically with Grinnell–though neither probably has the name recogniton it deserves.</p>

<p>Dickinson is the school under discussion.</p>

<p>Right–Davidson would go in the group with Grinnell, Carleton, etc., in my opinion.</p>