Male.
(Curious: Gender inquiry because of impact on fit or on admissions viability? Or both?)
The admit rate for females is lower at Bates, much like others in NE.
This goes for Wesleyan as well. For NESCAC schools because of ED recruiting, a very high percentage of students playing varsity sports, and high legacy, you need to look at RD statistics even if you apply ED.
Bates class of 2019 in RD had average ACT of 32, average SAT of 2135 and 17.8% acceptance rate. URM increased to 37%. Bates yield has historically been about 40%.
If the student were a female it would be tied with Wesleyan. I would put Bates just below Wesleyan. Oberlin has a much higher admit rate, its a larger school and its yield is fairly low. I think Rochester would be harder to get into to be honest. Oberlin has more narrow appeal.
From our location, Wesleyan is just wildly oversubscribed. I think they’re over us…
No ED planned, and I’ve definitely been factoring in the ED vs. RD stats in my listing. However, I haven’t really been factoring in the athletics/legacy piece, neither of which the kid is bringing to the table. Sounds as if absence of same would be a real liability at Bates for a kid (male or female) who’s bringing solid but not stellar academic stats and ECs to the table. Again, just trying to figure out where best to focus energy.
I’m confused as to why you put Grinnell as a long shot? In terms of admissions it certainly won’t be tougher than others on your list. Or, is it a long shot in terms of your son’s willingness to look at it? Your son now seems willing to consider going farther away for school. Everything you post just screams Grinnell to me, so would love to hear what’s holding you back on this? It will be more difficult to travel to than some others on your list, so maybe that is it?
btw, Bates is test-optional and interview counts alot towards admission, so I would weigh both of those factors into the selectivity of it.
FWIW, we are from the Northeast (New England) and Grinnell was the one school my son never visited before applying, although there was always something about it that we both felt seemed right – and that became very clear when my son did visit after Acceptance. He did request an Alumni interview when applying, so even though they couldn’t arrange one for him, that did show his interest. He actually hates flying, but just felt so at home at Grinnell when he visited that he made the tough - but right - decision to go there in the end! Bates and Brandeis were in the mix until the end for him: on paper, both made more sense to be honest, but in reality, Grinnell was it for him!
Also, we had visited some of the schools (such as Bates) during the summer, but had to make a second visit in April senior year when students were on campus to get the right feeling.
I now see that “too rural” was a turnoff. Even though Grinnell is in a farming community and an hour from major cities, it still is two blocks from a small downtown with restaurants and shops. All of these LACs are campus-centric, bringing a ton of activities to the students, so i wouldn’t let that be a concern.
@SDonCC There’s admittedly limited data from our district, but I based my assessment on where my kids stats fall on the scatter chart for our school vis a vis Grinnell. I don’t think they’ve ever rejected anyone, but his stats put him in a little puddle of waitlisted kids. Who knows why – maybe they didn’t show the school enough love or were lacking something else? But I certainly wouldn’t rule it out if I could get him to turn his attention that way. It seems like a good fit otherwise.
@porcupine98, here’s a good thread that has a whole bunch of those Ph.D. production lists broken down by different sub-disciplines. Wooster is a super-impressive 4th in the physical sciences:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1737399-which-top-liberal-arts-college-has-the-strongest-science-programs-p1.html
I also have to echo those who’ve risen to the defense of Wesleyan physics. I actually majored in physics at Wes and went on to get a Ph.D. in the subject at a top-shelf university. When I was touring with my daughter, I ran into one of my old profs who gave us a personalized tour of all the cool physics research going on there in which undergrads were participating. It was very impressive!
@porcupine98,
Some schools waitlist a huge number of applicants instead of sending outright rejections. Of the 6058 applicants to Grinnell last year 1697 were admitted and 1532 waitlisted. Only 70 were taken off the waiting list. The year before they waitlisted 1266 and admitted 8 from the list. That’s an admit rate of .6%.
Wow. That seems like extraordinarily high number of waitlisted kids. I wonder what the thinking is behind that. Managing yield? Keeping options open? Seems like an awful lot though.
Bates waitlisted 1595 last year, Oberlin over 1200 in 2013 (doesn’t have 2014 number), so it seems pretty common… I didn’t compare the application vs. waitlist numbers, but the point is: they all WL alot of kids unfortunately…
This is a slightly older thread but I’m responding because your list of possible schools has a lot of overlap with my daughter’s. You might want to check Vassar (as a male, your son would have an edge on admissions as they skew female) and Bowdoin (can’t remember which kind of science he wants to study)
Yes, managing yield. If the school gets into an under-yield situation, it will start admitting from the waitlist. A large waitlist may be kept for the following reasons:
a. The school may want to be able to rebalance the class if the under-yield class is unbalanced (e.g. in mix of intended majors), so a large waitlist gives options here.
b. The school may be need-aware when admitting from the waitlist, so a large waitlist can allow selecting waitlist admits based on remaining financial aid budget.
c. Yield of waitlist admits may be uncertain, so the school may want a large waitlist to keep admitting from if the initial waitlist admits do not matriculate.
@porcupine98 - I noticed that you don’t have any public universities on your list. I am a senior male who is also interested to major in Physics. I have a deadline coming up to submit my final college list to my school . I am having a hard time trying to balance my list. My school has asked for the list in 2 phases - the first one for any ED or all EA schools and the 2nd one to include all colleges that have a Jan deadline. Based on Naviance data , quite a few from my school gets into the flagship universities like UIUC , Purdue, UMich etc. It is a sort of safety to include these schools on my list although I am very sold on smaller LACs and given the choice I would like to attend either Reed or one of the LACs you have listed above.
Is there a reason you are not going the public univ route? Would be helpful for me to understand your rationale , that way I don’t have to invest my time turning in so many applications. Is it safe for me to bank on the LACs?
@samikhan We’re new to all this, so not great purveyors of advice, and I definitely can’t tell you what’s safe for you, but I can explain the absence of public universities from our list (which doesn’t mean they should be absent from yours):
We did look at a few and found that on the whole, they skew larger, and on the whole they skew in the direction of a bigger team sports and/or fraternity vibe, and on the whole that’s not my kid’s thing. That said, he’s found one he likes that will probably make a decent safety school, and he’ll probably apply to a couple of in-state publics as well – but none of them were really relevant to the question I was asking about LACs and small universities so I didn’t include them.
Since you’re looking for similar things, I’d love to hear what your list looks like – and good luck!
Now that this thread has been revived, I’m curious if anyone can offer up a comparison of the towns of Gambier (Kenyon) and Grinnell. We visited the former but not the latter, and the former really seemed very limited. Cute, but limited.
And thanks @ucbalumnus, that makes perfect sense. Torture for the students on hold, but wise for the college.
@samikhan: The physics departments at LACs such as Bucknell, Colgate, Franklin & Marshall, Hamilton, Haverford, HMC, Middlebury, Mt. Holyoke, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Wesleyan and Williams have each produced at least one Apker Award recipient. This is the highest award I am aware of that specifically recognizes undergraduate research in physics. If you are interested in physics and find LACs appealing, then there’s little reason to apply to many schools that you would find less suitable. Nevertheless, you should tailor your list with an awareness of admissibility and affordability, irrespective of the size of the schools that you ultimately include.
@porcupine98: I’ve heard Grinnell is larger and more self-sustaining than Gambier. It will be interesting to see what others write.
Physics is not that common a major at many schools; you may want to check each school’s catalog and schedules for its offering and frequency of offering of junior/senior level physics courses. Those which offer each one only once every two years may be less convenient for scheduling purposes, since you must take each course when it becomes available, rather than choosing to take it in a different semester (perhaps because of schedule conflict with some other desired course).
The usual junior/senior level physics courses:
intermediate mechanics (Newtonian and relativistic)
electromagnetism (may be 2 semesters)
quantum mechanics (may be 2 semesters)
statistical and thermal physics
intermediate/advanced physics lab
There may also be electives like astrophysics as well.