Wesleyan is close enough to a busy commercial center (that rapidly slows down after dark) that it would be a hard sell for anyone who wishes to avoid city life.
@melvin123 Yes–she is a rising senior.
We clearly need to learn more about ED/EA along with the deadlines. I thought that if you apply EA, you don’t find out until after the RD application deadline has already passed, but perhaps I’m wrong or it depends on the school?
Your point on not applying to too many schools is spot on. I feel like the list is already too long, but–again–the way the process is now, it is a complete crapshoot.
@RockySoil I’m somewhat surprised you have identified Richmond and Oberlin as tough admits for her. I’m not saying you are wrong–who knows, really–but her objective numbers are above their 75th thresholds. Oberlin, for instance, reports a 75th% SAT score of 1490, and just 53% of the incoming students in the upper 10% of their class. At Richmond it’s 1460 and 56%. The fact that she has both of those things seems to suggest she has a pretty good chance, depending on her subjective qualities (like the essays), of course. And we think her IB diploma will go a long way to showing that he can succeed in a rigorous academic environment.
The problem, of course, is that we don’t see the stats of the students who are not accepted. I suspect that for many schools, the increase in number of applications over the past few years due to the common app is mostly students who are applying as a reach, not as a safety. But who really knows.
@RayManta You were asking about Richmond. My daughter sounds VERY similar to yours, and she just finished her first year at Richmond. It has been great - she has loved most of her professors and has developed good relationships with four or five of them. Her classes have been small and many are discussion-based. She is majoring in biology and has had really good experiences with all those classes so far. She’s doing lab research this summer and next year, and there seemed to be quite a few labs to choose from even though it’s a fairly small school. The lab she chose also has some kind of joint project with Yale, and she told me that some of the students in the lab are at Yale this summer.
I often see people post that Richmond is to preppy/Greek/conservative, but D is liberal, not interested in sororities, not preppy and not into partying. She has definitely found similar students at Richmond and seems to be quite happy there.
The location is also something she likes. The campus feels very self-contained and is very beautiful, but it is also easy to get into Richmond for shopping, dining, entertainment, etc.
Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.
Agree with @politeperson that you may not be looking for another reachy reach but Princeton would seem to make a lot of sense for someone with aspirations of Research - traditional grad school or possibly Medical Researcher (MD/PhD program). I think your D would be interested in the Integrated Science Curriculum offered for Frosh. Bio, Chem, Physics and CS all taught integrated including by Nobel prize winner. Numerous Mol majors and students looking at Research - it teaches you how to think like a researcher.
Richmond, Case, and Rochester popped into my mind too.
You D may also want to look into schools that are on a quarter system where it’s easier to add double majors and minors. Northwestern comes to mind but they would obviously be another reach school which you don’t need.
Williams has strong science departments, a lot of kids major in STEM there. It’s also unique in that it’s one of the few LACs with more male than female students, so female applicants aren’t at as big of a demographic disadvantage.
re: Case Western. I’ve spoken about CWRU with her. While a terrific school, I think it is similar in many ways to Rochester, where she has that hook–really two hooks, because of their explicit interest in IB students. So we are just choosing U or R over it, nothing against CW.
re: Brandeis. Too much family history there for her. Don’t blame her.
re: Princeton. Her feeling/impression is that Princeton would seem too “elitist” for her, and so she isn’t interested. I don’t know whether that is true or not, but she has a low chance of acceptance anyway, so no biggie. (She also would have some close family nearby and doesn’t want to feel pressured to see them regularly, for whatever that’s worth). EDIT: As I was typing this out, there was another post about Princeton by @Dolemite . Hmmm…Need to think about this perhaps… 
re: Harvard. Yeah, I don’t know what to do there. We don’t care about the Ivy League Mystique, but she genuinely loved it there. However, my impression is that she would have a harder time trying to get to know her professors, or that she would be taught by grad students there anyway. I just don’t want to tell her not to go for it if she wants to try, regardless of the chances or strategy. Anyway, that’s beyond the subject of this thread.
re: Colgate. I was under the impression that Colgate was sort of Greek-ish? Maybe I’m wrong. I do know it has a TON of annual bio grads, I think the most of any of the LACs discussed here.
re: urban/not urban. To be fair, she doesn’t have a hard-and-fast rule of “no urban schools.” Her preference has just become clear after visiting many of these schools. So there is no hard-and-fast rule, and in fact I thought she might be OK with CMU but I turned out to be wrong (in fairness, we were there the day of the Tree of Life shooting, at a different synagogue down the street when it happened, so that sort of soured her). I think she simply wants a lot of green space and the feeling that the campus isn’t overcrowded or jammed into a city block (such as the feeling at Hopkins).
@4Gulls --we crossed messages above on Union. It’s a school I identified but don’t know much about. Do you happen to know what the vibe is like there?
The issue for LAC admissions s not whether a specific applicant is well-qualified in terms of stats but whether there is mutual fit between the college and the student. For example, a student whose app screamed “love of learning for its own sake” with stats above a school’s top 25% might not be a good fit for a school with a strong pre-professional bent and would likely get rejected, or vice versa, a kid whose app was career-focused applying to a “learning for its own sake” kind of school. Now most schools can’t be categorized so starkly but simply being above a top 25% school’s range does not make it a match or safety. Granted, Oberlin has had some bumps and gets a bad rap as being too PC so acceptance rates have jumped around over the last 5 years but, after watching LAC admissions during that period, I would see it a match.
On the other schools the OP asked about – Franklin & Marshall does not have merit money, unlike Dickinson. We did not visit it for that reason, as we needed merit to make it work, but I was impressed by what I had read. Union is a trimester school, which may appeal to some kids or drive others away, also is one of the few LACs with engineering. Bard is often described as a kind of Oberlin on steroids, very arty, very alternative, and students have to apply to their majors by showing substantive work and students can get denied by some of the most popular majors.
If Bates is such a favorite, then I’d strip off many of the others and focus on match/safeties and application strategy. For instance, maybe SCEA at Harvard (though I agree for an “average excellent” kid, chances are below 5%) or ED at Brown, with ED2 at Bates. But if a kid loves Bates over a number of other schools, then why are those other schools still on the list?
I know that the percentage numbers are really shocking and make it seem like a crap shoot, but I think if a kid really takes their time to get a feel for a school and what appeals to a school and why they would be such a good fit for the school, and then manages to get this across in their application, they have a much better chance of getting in than the raw statistics show. I think a lot of kids overextend themselves with the number of applications and aren’t able to do this. When the application committee is sifting through all the applications you want them to pluck your kid’s out by saying, wow, this kid would thrive here and would really contribute to the school by doing X, and we need X. There will be other kids doing the same thing so it’s no guaranty, but there’s a lot of kids whose applications will sound flat. So I think the hard work of getting the list down to a manageable size is really important, as is making sure that she identifies those likelies that she’d be happy to attend. I thought the last part was one of the hardest parts of this process.
@Midwestmomofboys You make some great points, and wonderful insights about F&M. Bard, etc. I think she is struggling to differentiate among those five schools I mentioned earlier–Amherst, Williams, Bates, Middlebury, and Brown–and would be happy having them make the decision for her. And even though she–and both her parents–don’t really care about prestige points (let’s face it, they are all amazing schools, among the best in the country and the world), on a deep level it’s hard to turn your back on Brown when she has a real chance due to the legacy connection (her mom). I think she wants to know whether she would have gotten in to each of those schools, and the not knowing will kill her. I’m personally the least decisive person I know, so I am no help. All I can do, psychologically, is tell her why all would be great choices. I didn’t visit any of those five schools with her. If you put a gun to my head, though, I’d probably blurt out that the reason Amherst invested in that new awesome science center is exactly for students like her, and that’s where she should go and will end up. Other than that, I honestly can’t help her decide between them at this point. I just don’t have the insight or the executive decision-making ability.
@melvin123 Thank you. That’s a wonderful perspective.
Don’t forget you are dealing with a 17 year old. On CC parents always say “oh my daughter isn’t a party girl” or, as in your case “my daughter likes politics but doesn’t want to picket.” College is about trying new things. Kids change. She may become a party girl or decide she does want to march for a cause. Many 16 year olds are very busy in high school and don’t go to a lot of parties. More college students find time for drinking.
I wouldn’t rule out a school because it has things she doesn’t want (Greek life or sports) because she may discover something she’s very interested in trying but never considered before. I really hope she does - that’s what college is for.
I had a friend whose daughter was headed to the same college as mine. The kids were friendly but not a lot in common. My friend was killed just before the kids started school, and the other girl really needed my daughter to just be a friend, to be around, to sit and watch TV with her (other girl painfully shy). D invited her to go through Rush just to have something to do the first weekends of school. Both ended up in the same sorority and the other girl became very involved, was an officer, met a lot of friends for life. My daughter? The sorority was fine and convenient, but now it’s over. My friend had told me over and over that her daughter wasn’t interested in sororities but that turned out not to be the case. Kids change, kids adjust to circumstances and opportunities. Colleges provide a lot of new opportunities.
@RayManta Your daughter sounds fantastic - I don’t mean to be a downer. But I learned the hard way this year not to trust those SAT quartile numbers, especially at small schools with a high percentage of athletes. If you take out the athletes, legacies, URM’s, development admits, etc. and just look at the unhooked kids like your daughter, the numbers look very, very different. Oberlin’s 75th percentile SAT score may be 1490 overall, but for the unhooked kids it is probably more like 1550. The athletes in particular bring these numbers down, as shown by the Harvard data.
I still think she has a good chance of admission to Oberlin (and Richmond), but I wouldn’t count either as a sure thing. Both would be be highly likely ED, though - the ED hook gives a big boost to anyone’s chances (outside of MIT, Cal Tech and the UC’s). There are just so many highly qualified academic kids, and not that many unhooked spots at these types of schools.
I have a friend who is an Oberlin graduate and sings its praises! I have not been to see it but it sounds great.
For what it’s worth, if this were my family, this summer would be the time to talk about priorities and preferences and lay the groundwork for helping a kid get comfortable with walking away from the “what ifs” or “FOMO” (fear of missing out) so that they can craft a successful list which includes EA/SCEA/ED considerations (not that you can do all of those, but figuring out which might be appropriate and where).
A high achieving IB kid with a broad range of interests can flourish in many schools and it sounds like the OP’s daughter has visited many and formed some clear opinions and preferences. If it were my household, we would not be considering adding new reach/match schools that we might have missed, but rather shrinking the list. With Bates (though it does not offer merit aid) as a current favorite, remove Tufts, Colby, Midd, Bowdoin, Swat. Sounds like Amherst stays on the list, not clear if Williams has been visited or not. Revisit a handful of LACs in the fall, interview (since many schools don’t interview until spring of 11th grade, I’m guessing those haven’t generally happened), sit in on classes, schedule separate meetings to tour facilities/departments of interest – dig deep into the campus culture and experience. Re-visit Brown and Harvard to see if there is a clear favorite for a possible ED/SCEA.
The new schools to consider adding to the list would be more on the safety/match spectrum, such as Dickinson, St Lawrence etc. @homerdog is a parent who just went through a cycle of east coast and midwest LAC applications for a high stat son, no EA/ED applications, so if they are around to chime in, might be helpful.
Re Colgate: I recommend you visit. It had the best ”vibe” of all the schools we visited last year. If the place was a stock I’d buy it.
I think if she loved Bates, I would apply there ED and be done with the whole process, unless you would rather she take a lesser school that might offer her merit money.If that’s the case then don’t apply ED anywhere. She has a shot at Brown, but I don’t see Bates as a big drop-off and it really seems like a good fit for her.
I agree with other posters that Hamilton probably has a similar vibe and would be a good ED2 school.
If she doesn’t care about Ivy prestige then don’t waste her ED on a potential rejection.
I also agree with others that Colgate, Lehigh, Richmond are all too greek and preppy for her. She will be happy at them, I am sure, but you might as well create a list of schools that fit her better.
Seconding/thirding(?) Rochester. What your daughter’s looking for really describes their student body. FWIW, my daughter did not want an urban setting either, and yet that’s where she ended up. Roch’s campus is very self contained, and Rochester just doesn’t feel very urban.
Current state is not one that allows resident tuition and/or FA for a student who graduated from high school in state after enough attendance or residency?
" @homerdog is a parent who just went through a cycle of east coast and midwest LAC applications for a high stat son, no EA/ED applications, so if they are around to chime in, might be helpful."
Do remember however that for the high stat, unhooked applicants, all things being somewhat equal, a male will have an easier time getting accepted at many LACs.
“Re Colgate: I recommend you visit. It had the best ”vibe” of all the schools we visited last year. If the place was a stock I’d buy it.”
Definitely in the eye of the beholder. It was a very strong “hell no” for my two LAC seeking children.
Good point about the gender split in LAC admissions, @doschicos.