Very helpful (as usual), thank you! I wish Holy Cross did EA; they don’t. But I will call and see if we might find out early. My older D did EA and got huge merit so she basically ditched half the rest of her apply-to list.
He will likely apply to Midd and Colby at the very least (no supplemental essays).
Out of curiosity, why? If he gets in ED at Dartmouth, he will need to pull the applications. And neither of them offer EA or merit aid.
Holy Cross can make an especially good choice for the study of classics.
He won’t submit until after he hears form Dartmouth. But in our experience, it’s best not to wait for a mid-Dec rejection to get Jan 1 submissions ready to go.
With respect to these particular reaches, Forbes included Amherst and Dartmouth in this article of several years ago:
All great schools but if he likes LAC’s in New England not sure how WUSTL, ND, Wake and Emory fit. Emory has a pretty campus but it’s in Atlanta. Posh neighborhood but it’s definitely urban/suburban. Wake is off by itself but still suburban.
If he likes Dartmouth and Holy Cross I’m thinking Bucknell and Lafayette. Maybe Lehigh. Davidson, W&M or W&L instead of Wake.
For reaches I’m thinking Brown or Duke for Economics.
Below is link to schools Holy Cross uses for comparison and admissions overlap.
https://www.holycross.edu/finance/institutional-research/comparison-schools
He visited and loved Notre Dame. Probably his #2 fave. Emory he did like a lot and it has a lot to offer, but he didn’t love Atlanta. He hasn’t been to WUSTL or Wake and may end up not applying (did virtual events though). We just don’t need more schools to add to the list, especially not reaches. (Visited Brown, didn’t care for it.)
Wow I didn’t get every bit of the thread but you’ve already narrowed it. He’s getting into HC. Is it worth $75k?
Rank the top 6 or 8, hit the merit deadlines and then any schools that don’t require extra essays. You have 20 common app spots. If they don’t require essays, use them.
You can go in common and enter school by school the northeastern LACs and look to see which has and doesn’t have an essay. Better to apply to more just for cases of merit. You might find a $40k solid LAC when they send an offer. U can virtual visit now and physically visit if it becomes a player after admission.
Add one more public - either a New England or maybe a Delaware. URI and Maine will likely be more merit than UNH, UCONN, and Uvm.
And the Johnson at W&L - totally worth it.
And if you decide that Vandy and WUSTL are not fits look at Brandeis and Rochester. They are in your geography.
You sort of had it prioritized already. Was just hard to read the entire chain. Thank goodness for @AustenNut
Your kid is top shelf. Make sure they take advantage!!
Sorry. One last thought for safety with merit.
What do they love about Holy Cross ? Do they love Worcester ?
If so, very respected Clark is 1.3 miles away and will likely offer a better chance of merit.
It would be a private safety.
I’ll check it out. HC has an amazing campus, awesome language and study abroad programs, the we just felt very welcome there. Also they have great outcomes for grad school and fellowships. Worcester was neither an asset nor a detractor. At least you can get there by train from Logan.
Beyond its excellent offerings in Ancient Greek and Latin, Holy Cross does indeed appear to be recognized for its foreign language programs in general.
I’ve never been to Dickinson (a school I classified as likely for your son), but it is also known for its foreign language programs and 60% of its students participated in study abroad programs per https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/most-study-abroad.
Gettysburg, on my list as an extremely likely for your son, had 53% participating in study abroad.
Hobart & William Smith (an extremely likely from my list) had 49%.
U. of the South (extremely likely from list) was at 28%
I’m going to try and sell him on Univ. VT EA. EA is nice. He loved VT and this particular setting is lovely. Beautiful campus. Honors College, decent chance for merit, and “only” $57k without. Seems very down to earth and chill. He won’t care for all the weed but I think that’s every school these days.
A couple of years ago the President of UVM announced that he was slashing and merging several departments in order to cost save, and many of those departments were in the humanities, especially languages. I’m not sure if that plan was implemented, but if your son is interested in classics, he should really check this out before applying to UVM.
My ds had a lot of the same schools on his list, he ed’d at Bowdoin but was deferred and ultimately rejected. In the end he chose UVM over the smaller lacs he did get into (Colby, Kenyon, Hamilton) - he loves Burlington, got nice merit aid, is happy to be in a bigger/less expensive school. Check out the Liberal Arts Scholars Program- he did that as a freshman and it was wonderful- small classes with a similar minded cohort that live together. He’s a sophomore and very happy.
If U. of Vermont seems like a great fit where your son would be happy to attend, then that’s terrific. In case price is an influence in which school(s) you would like to have as safeties, I went ahead and used this same site to pull the COA, % of freshmen without need receiving merit, and the average merit award. I then created a rough approximation of price after merit, and I suspect your son would be likely to get bigger than normal merit scholarships since he is such a strong candidate. These are ranked from least expensive to most expensive, after the average merit aid package, with the schools just mentioned for their study abroad participation in bold.
U. of Vermont: $60k, 89%, $16,884 → $43k-ish
U. of the South: $66k, 88%, $23,645 → $43k-ish
Siena: $59k, 84%, $15,826 → $44k-ish
Wheaton (MA): $75k, 55%, $29,414 → $45k-ish
Gettysburg: $76k, 84%, $23k → $53k-ish
Hobart & William Smith: $78k, 74%, $21,819 → $56k-ish
Dickinson (PA ): $77k, 61%, $20,777 → $56k-ish
Holy Cross: $74k, 17%, $16,357 → $58k-ish
Union (NY): $79k, 62%, $15,400 → $64k-ish
Lehigh (PA ): $75k, 16%, $8,421 → $67k-ish
Regarding UVM, did they go through with eliminating their classics department?
I would strongly suggest having additional applications ready to submit in case Dartmouth is not an acceptance ED. It won’t be easy to be completing applications with a denial at number one choice as a happening. So…sure, don’t submit (unless there are deadlines to meet for merit consideration), but have everything ready to submit.
This means the list needs to be culled sooner, in my opinion.
I think he has a fair chance at any given reach, but if that is the list you are trying to pair down, I wouldn’t.
I think he has a good chance at his ED at Dartmouth, and even ED2 somewhere else, but if that doesn’t pan out and you actually care about getting into one on the reach list the winning strategy this past year was to throw spaghetti at the wall. There was not much rhyme or reason in the results ppl saw this year and there were plenty of acceptance/rejection combos the left folks scratching their heads.
I am not sure of the current state of those majors at UVM, but the website lists classics and religion as majors, but not geology. My son has taken a class in both geology and religion and had terrific professors in both. My guess is geology is rolled into environmental science, which is a very popular major. If I had a kid interested in a classics major I would want to talk someone first for sure. I do think stem gets a lot of love at UVM (and in many schools at the moment) but my ds has had good experiences with his humanities and social science classes so far, and in general the science classes were bigger and harder to get into. He is still undecided on major.