Have you considered Grinnell? It seems to fit the pattern of the schools that interest you. (LAC with strong STEM, nerdy/quirky, and open to Midwest Chilly. Fair amount of admissions overlap with Reed, but not quite as much of an outlier as Reed in terms of intensity and eccentricity.)
An AFS gap year could be a great experience; if he’s motivated to do it, I wouldn’t worry too much about the relative advantage or lack thereof, admissions wise. He can always get in on schedule and defer to do the gap year.
I think Grinnell might be out of reach unless (and maybe even if) he applies Early Decision.
Another thing I gleaned from talking with him last night: although he’s truly quirky (I’ll die on this hill) he doesn’t want to be perceived as such – in other words, he hides his light under the proverbial bushel in a lot of settings. It’s possible that schools where people are visibly proudly different would look comforting; equally possible that they’d offend his normie aspirations. So…maybe not Reed or Grinnell or Bard.
I agree that a structured foreign exchange student year is a great experience for all the same reasons you list, and I have heard that colleges see it the same way. If your kid has any inclination to do it, I say go for it!
You can talk to someone at one of the standard programs (AFS etc) about how outgoing (American) students typically deal with applying to college.
For what it’s worth your son sounds very similar to mine. Similar profile (though mine was test-optional and more musical) and very similar personal circumstances. He wound up at Occidental and found an excellent fit. I would link to the thread, but I’m technologically impaired. If you click on my user name, you’ll see it’s the only thread that I started. Hope it helps.
My D24 has several of these LACs on her list, we have visited some (not all) and they range from likely to reach for her, too: Whitman, Lewis & Clark, St. Olaf, Occidental, Colorado College, Carleton, Pitzer, as well as a few historically women’s LACs (not relevant to your search). I am a Wesleyan alum and a family member attended Middlebury. Feel free to message me if you’d like to hear about our visits and impressions.
Wesleyan University does have what they call, a “secondary major” in Design and Engineering which is not ABET approved but gives late blooming engineers a way to combine one major with an engineering focused track after sophomore year. The idea is to prepare them for either a dual BE degree with Dartmouth or some other postgraduate training: https://www.wesleyan.edu/codes/majors/index.html
I was going to make the same suggestion. Wooster seems to have some of the same “kinder, gentler” vibe that St. Olaf does. Wooster’s not that far from Denison and Kenyon, which are already on the list. My son went to Denison and had a great experience there (Denison, Kenyon and Wooster are in the same athletic conference, so he had quite a bit of exposure to the other schools. “Midwest Nice” seems to be a real thing, and I think some of it actually rubbed off on my city kid. A lot of the schools the OP mentions were on my son’s list at one point or another, and it seems like a great start. If you are looking at Whitman and Lewis & Clark, maybe take a look at Puget Sound as well?
In most instances, applying senior year and deferring is preferable.
One reason is that it’s harder to track down LOR from teachers and the college counselor during a gap year.
Another reason is that students rarely have much gap year experience at the time of application to have a substantial impact on the application. In your son’s situation, he would probably have only about two months of the program under his belt for his EA/ED applications. He would be doing a highly structured program that requires privilege to afford — both in terms of time and money. For the most part, colleges place a higher value on unique, self-driven experiences. It’s the same reason colleges don’t hold pay-to-play summer programs in high regard. They can all be enriching and useful to the student, but they are not programs that tend to be helpful for admissions.
For these and other reasons, I would recommend that your son apply during his traditional senior year and then defer for a gap year. If he doesn’t like his results, he could also reapply during the gap year, so that option would remain.
I think you are on a great path so I would just emphasize two schools mentioned above.
Among universities, Rochester seems like it could be a great fit. I think the vibe would be right on, and it is a great choice for people with broad interests looking for exploration because of how their curriculum requirements work. Basically they want you to explore a good diversity of things that you choose in modest depth (what they call clusters), and then often those clusters turn into minors or additional majors when they really click with kids. Here is a little information on that:
I’d also suggest you give Kalamazoo a serious look. I kinda feel like Kalamazoo has a lot of the same appeal as forum-favorite St Olaf, but is maybe even less well-known. But again I think the vibe seems perfect, study abroad is a very big part of the experience there, they again have a very exploratory attitude toward the curriculum (they call it the K Plan), they are good in science and math (no engineering, though they have a 3/2 program and WUSTL is an affiliate in that program) . . . just seems like a really good fit to me.
Again, just to get you started, here is a page about how study abroad is integrated into the K-Plan system:
Very cool how dedicated they are to making this a thoughtful and meaningful part of your individual academic journey.
I also have one negative suggestion, which is I am not sure Richmond sounds like the vibe you are looking for. In that range I might more suggest an Oberlin for what you are describing.
So as a fellow NorCal full pay family, this looks like a solid list! However, many of your Target/Reach schools really like early decision applicants, so if there is a clear front runner, I would recommend applying early. It may make sense to visit these schools when the weather is just awful to identify a favorite. My current HS senior planned to apply ED, so we made sure to visit the coldest places in February (with appropriate gear of course!). I would definitely put MN in that travel list (has the likely, reach, and extreme reach trifecta) with maybe any of the rural schools for another winter visit. If your kid likes the school a lot during the January/February timeframe, it bodes well. There are mostly residential campuses on the list, which I personally think makes winter so much easier. Walking a little from your heated dorm to your heated classroom to a heated dining hall is easy when compared with having to drive in the snow or shoveling a sidewalk or car to get in and out for classes and food.
I’m not convinced that a gap year will help with admissions, but I’m no expert. It might help with life maturity and many schools will offer it as an option. I tried to convince my oldest to take one (also ADHD) but in hindsight, it was not needed. They are thriving on their campus in a tough major.
Another point to consider is the amount of general education classes required. I would describe my oldest kid in similar terms, extremely smart but generally uninspired by their HS classes. They picked a college with minimal general ed requirements so they are taking classes that match their interests, which has made a huge difference. My HS senior is a different kind of ADHD - incredibly smart and inspired by everything - her ED choice has a lot of requirements which she is excited about.
Have a long look at Trinity University in San Antonio. My daughter sounds a lot like your son and she is THRIVING. She is ADHD and quirky but makes friends easily - super smart math kid who decided to give engineering a go there. Their engineering program is fantastic and it’s general, so you can branch out and explore what interests you. For instance her engineering advisor is a bio mechanical engineer who researches prosthetics and my kiddo has decided she wants to do research with her next year. It’s a small LAC but lots of things to get involved in. LOTS of music programs for him to join and a great ultimate club (my daughter dabbled last year). It’s worth a look.
My daughter is also at TU and doing great. Sounds a lot different from yours but also thriving. Studio art major and a cheerleader. Has friends from all different majors and states though. OP, we’re from the PNW and there are a good number of west coasters at Trinity.
He sounds similar to my S23 (we are also in Silicon Valley), though your son has clearly taken a more ambitious schedule of classes. S23 ended up at UCSC, having originally committed to Arizona before getting off the waitlist. In terms of locations (including weather), he would have preferred to attend Utah (a known quantity which his sister attended) but Arizona was much better for astronomy. Although a lot of people also pushed Arizona due to SALT, I think it has pros and cons, since Arizona makes you pay for the support that other colleges provide at no cost (but then don’t advertise heavily because they don’t benefit financially from having more students registering for disability supports).
Your list has a lot of very distant schools, but I would strongly consider UCs and other schools within a reasonable driving distance. Of course it was a struggle for S23 to get into the UCs because they are test blind (so his 1530 SAT didn’t count) and highly focused on GPA and ECs - he didn’t get off the waitlist at UCSC until late May and wasn’t interested in Merced or the CSUs he was admitted to (didn’t get into CalPoly or SDSU). So that’s why we had lowish cost OOS options in adjacent states with decent merit.
We are very happy that S23 is an hour away, two of our neighbors had ADHD kids who went thousands of miles away and had major problems, one came home during COVID, failed exams and then had to take an extra year, another went to a supposedly supportive private school on the East Coast like many of those suggested above, where he still crashed and burned. We have been much more readily available when S23 needs help and more familiar with the area.
Another major benefit of UCSC (like many other public universities) was the ability to minimize GEs that S23 wasn’t interested in, since having APs gets you out of many classes and into your major much more quickly - S23 wants to take interesting astronomy and astrophysics classes, not GEs. He even chose his senior year classes with that in mind (taking AP Latin to get out of any required language courses, which Arizona requires you to study for a full year).
Probably not a good idea to generalize about general education requirements, since public universities vary all over the place in general education requirements. For example, CSUs tend to be relatively voluminous in general education requirements, and UCs vary significantly across campuses. Use of AP scores on general education requirements also varies.
Yes it is essential to look at this for each individual school when compiling the list. There were some universities (mostly privates like Santa Clara) that he immediately rejected because more than half of the required courses were outside your major. Amongst the publics we found between 25%-40% of required classes were non-major classes. UCSC was at the extreme lower end of the requirements (just under 20% of classes will be GEs, and it would have been less than that with a few more APs). It helped slightly that UCSC is on quarters because GEs are a one quarter class instead of a full semester class.
And it is good from an ADHD perspective that he only takes three classes each quarter - again something that differs by college. The neighbors’ kid I mentioned above has 6-7 (1-3 unit) classes per semester and completely lost track of what was needed for each class.
So…maybe not Reed or Grinnell or Bard.
If you click on my user name, you’ll see it’s the only thread that I started. Hope it helps.