I understand that having a sick son can be extremely worrying…but ticks are virtually everywhere, and her likelihood of becoming infected at college where she will not be around animals and will not be camping/in the woods is very low. I don’t think it should be a reason to limit someone’s college parameters.
We’ll definitely take a look at Vassar! As I said, it seems like an excellent fit.
Am I remembering correctly that Vassar requires ACT with writing, if a student goes ACT route?
I second Lawrence. I would imagine she could easily swim there. Music opportunities are really good. And merit money would be possible.
S says one of the big reasons he liked Vassar was because it did NOT have the “we work hard so we can play hard” attitude that he experienced at another college that he visited. But, that is the sort of thing you figure out for yourself on an overnight.
We actually did meet a Vassar student who had Lyme, but she said she didn’t know where she got it (she was hiking a lot the previous summer in the Sierras). And yes, Vassar does require the ACT with writing.
No ticks in Phoenix if you want to send her here!
Glad to see Oberlin is on her list. FWIW My D loved the Contra dancing there.
This has been a very informative thread and very helpful.
I think you need to keep SUNY-Geneseo on the list just in case the merit aid does not work out the way you hope. Our D is similar to yours and applied last year to some of the schools on your list. Only Oberlin came through with a merit offer, making in state at the College of William and Mary the best deal financially for us. Over the spring, she visited both campuses and felt that W&M was a better environment for her and seems very happy with her choice.
Your daughter sounds like a wonderful person, BTW. Hope she enjoys her semester in Ecuador!
I know you don’t want more suggestions, but this would seem to be important, because it is very difficult to get into Vet School.
Tufts might be a good fit because it has the quirky/nerdy vibe your daughter is looking for (it has a circus elephant for a mascot and a very large arts community), but it also has a Vet School, strong pre-health advising and a very active undergrad Vet Society with links to the Vet School for research and internships.
https://sites.tufts.edu/tuftsprevetsociety/
Tufts also has a very active Mountain Club that maintains a ski lodge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and sponsors an annual contra dance. They also organize activities at the Middlesex Fells a - large “urban forest” a couple of miles from campus.
https://tuftsmountainclub.org/contra-dance/
Tufts has a partnership with the New England Conservatory but they also have a good orchestra of their own.
http://as.tufts.edu/music/program/ensembles.htm
They also have a competitive (D3) swim team and an equestrian club
http://www.tuftsequestrian.com/
Best of Luck!
It takes at least an hour to drive from the main Tufts campus to the vet school, however. That is far less convenient than having a vet school on campus, as is the case at Penn, Cornell, and most of the public universities with vet schools.
@warblersrule I think the rest of this thread made pretty clear that OP’s daughter wants a quirky, LAC-type environment, which the schools you mentioned don’t have. Seems silly to ignore fit for a vet school when she will, statistically-speaking, likely change her major anyway.
I would reclassify some of these colleges:
“Reach” schools: Carleton, Vassar, Bowdoin, Grinnell (reaches due to selectivity/acceptance rate)
Haverford, Middlebury => no sure they match what your daughter wants
“Good fit” schools: BMC, Whitman, St Olaf, MHC, Skidmore
Safety schools: Lawrence, Wooster, Earlham, Geneseo, COA
That makes 14 applications but not all have supplements. The 5 safeties are kept above for merit aid purpose, but while they’d be matches on paper (due to test scores and background = matches) I’m quite sure she’ll get into St Olaf because of her musical talents + Ecuador studies and MHC because of her general profile, so with these she’s almost sure to have 7 colleges to choose from - based on financial aid I suppose.
Express a lot of interest at the “good fit” and safety schools since they consider interest (especially for the big merit scholarships) - email Admissions to ask questions and report the name of the person who answered on the CommonApp, contact faculty to ask questions, etc.
Due to her talent for music and her wish to have a nerdy/non Greek school, I’d definitely keep both St Olaf and Lawrence. If she wants quirkier and more intellectual than strictly nerdy/wholesome, St Olaf has the “conversation” programs (Great Conversation = classics; plus American conversation; Asian Conversation; Environmental Conversation). Wooster and Earlham would be excellent fits, too. Geneseo is a safety-to-safeties, probably in case the others don’t end up affordable enough. BMC is a good fit for atmosphere and academics, but admissions would likely be 50-50. The reach schools are just bonuses added 
@warblersrule - Yes, a large portion of Tufts’ grad schools are either downtown (Med, Dent, Nutrition, Sackler) or in Grafton (Vet). That is what makes the Medford/Somerville campus feel like a LAC.
But I think you may be making an incorrect inference based on physical location.
Tufts is rather small by research uni standards (1/4 the size of UCLA), so it competes for research dollars by working in a very interdisciplinary fashion (like a small start-up company where everyone wears lots of hats and has to work together).
Tufts is a pioneer in the area called “One Health/One Medicine” that links the Medical/Dental/Nutrition/Veterinary and even Engineering schools. An example would be Zoonotic Diseases (such as Lyme) where the Vet and Med schools are performing leading edge research.
An interesting example of a new interdisciplinary area that might be of interest to the OP is human-animal interaction.
It spans several traditional disciplines (including politics, science and veterinary) across all the campuses. Money is available to fund undergrad research proposals and two courses are taught on the undergrad campus, one through the regular curriculum and one through the Experimental College. Most of the student ambassadors are undergrads and one of the faculty ambassadors is in the Poly Sci Department. (Tufts also offers a masters degree in Animals and Public Policy).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WXl9e1qbEY
http://hai.tufts.edu/course-offerings/
http://hai.tufts.edu/tihai-ambassadors/
Having a Vet school allows for a special early admissions program and enables high quality pre-vet advising with a 75-90% vet school acceptance rate (with no GPA screen).
http://admissions.tufts.edu/academics/pre-health-information/
The active Pre-Vet Society also helps member plug into the local veterinary network (which includes local animal hospitals, zoos and the aquarium - which is really important if you are not already connected.
I was in no way recommending other colleges to the OP. I was merely pointing out the distance between the two campuses, an important piece of information omitted in Mastadon’s post.
@warblersrule I hardly think that distance between the vet school and the university is that important- they really aren’t that far apart.
@warblersrule - UPenn (one of your examples) actually has a remote Vet campus about an hour away. The notion of a horse or wild animal facility in a high density area like downtown Philly (or Medford/Somerville) does not make a lot of sense - but it does make sense in a more remote area like Ithaca.
Relating this back to @earthmama68 daughter, she has a very diverse set of interests, some of which pull her in a more rural direction (animals and the environment), and some of which pull her in a more urban direction (performing arts and culture). This makes the determination of fit more difficult. Tufts’ location skews it more towards the arts and culture side, but animals and the environment is a large part of the culture, so there are reasonably accessible remote facilities (such as the Ski Lodge and Vet Campus) for those areas of interest. In contrast, a more rural LAC is going to skew access more towards the animals and environment side, but it is not going to have a Vet school at all. Hard to tell what will turn out to be the best fit…
In terms of the Vet school, distance really isn’t the important issue, accessibility is. A Vet school can be local, but if it is culturally isolated from the undergrad school (which happens at some large, traditional Research Universities), then it is not accessible. It would be interesting to see how many Vet Schools at traditional Research Universites actually offer courses at their associated undergraduate liberal arts colleges. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the number would be quite low. Their priority tends to be research, not teaching undergrads. Then there is the Experimental College. A product of the 1960’s that has managed to thrive at Tufts, but has faded away at even the most liberal Research Universities, like UC Berkeley. The Experimental College provides a mechanism for a local practicing Veterinarian to offer a “real life” Vet course to the Tufts’ undergrad community that cannot be duplicated at a more traditional Research University. All in all, I would say that Tufts’ undergrad Liberal Arts College has a high degree of access to the greater Vet community, independent of the physical distances between campuses…
Has your daughter considered Tufts? I think it might be a very good fit for her. Her ACT is a little low for Tufts but even if she can’t pull up the score, perhaps it would be worth taking a shot at it.
Best of luck. Sounds like she has a lot going for her!
Earthmama68 I haven’t read all the responses here but wanted to put in a good word for College of the Atlantic because it seems to be a school that is a great match for your daughter and one she really liked. I am the parent of a 2009 graduate. Your concern seems to be graduation rate but I didn’t experience that as an issue. In my son’s circle of friends all graduated in 4 years. There were a couple of students who if I remember correctly took part in graduation but hadn’t quite finished their senior project so didn’t officially graduate until later. I don’t know what the figure is that you found but my guess is that a graduation rate as a percentage could be greatly skewed at a school like COA because of the small class size. My impression was that there were some kids that didn’t last at COA, went elsewhere, because the winters can be long. Most that stayed, took full advantage of the study away, internship programs, and spent at least one winter term in a much warmer location.
Here’s your description from your original posting:
She’s looking for a “progressive, quirky, nerd, vibe”. YES
She wants peers and profs that will challenge her academically, but she doesn’t want cut throat competition. DEFINITELY - I THINK THE ATMOSPHERE / PEER ENVIRONMENT GAVE MY SON THE ENCOURAGEMENT, CONFIDENCE TO DO THINGS I DON’T THINK HE WOULD HAVE PURSUED IF HE HAD GONE ELSEWHERE.
She wants small classes where the students can participate and discuss. COA EXACTLY
She would like to continue to play both classical and folk on her viola (she’s both school orchestra and youth orchestra first chair in viola and I believe made it to All State Orchestra this year which is a big deal in NY). NO SCHOOL ORCHESTRA BUT STUDENTS CREATE THEIR OWN OPPORTUNITIES FOR MAKING MUSIC.
Her sports are swimming and horseback riding and she’d like to do one or the other depending on the team and coach. She’s not really a recruit in either sport but would be a contributor for either. NO SCHOOL TEAMS AT COA EXCEPT MAYBE A TOBOGGAN TEAM FOR WINTER CARNIVAL AND THE INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS BROUGHT CRICKET TO CAMPUS WHEN MY SON WAS THERE. SWIMMING OFF THE SCHOOL DOCK UNTIL THE WATER GETS TOO COLD. ALL STUDENTS GET MEMBERSHIP AT THE YMCA. NO HORSEBACK RIDING THAT I KNOW OF.
She loves history and politics, art and science. AT COA SHE’D GET TO COMBINE ALL THOSE INTERESTS. THE HUMAN ECOLOGY MAJOR IS EXACTLY THAT, OR WHATEVER ELSE SHE WANTS TO MAKE IT.
She has volunteered for a political campaign and at the food bank and a little bit in a research lab (which she loved). She plans on majoring in science because her long-term goal is to be an equine veterinarian and she would like to have some research opportunities as an undergrad (she loves working in a lab).COA MAY NOT HAVE UNIVERSITY LEVEL RESEARCH FACILITIES BUT THERE’S STILL LOTS OF OPPORTUNITIES TO PURSUE ALL THOSE INTERESTS THROUGH INTERNSHIPS, INDEPENDENT STUDY, ETC.
No Greek system, not a party school, but a place where hard work is balanced by good fun. COA EXACTLY AND DEFINITELY NO GREEK SYSTEM.
She loves to do outdoors stuff (hike, bike, ski, etc.) and to contra dance. DOWNHILL SKIING IS A WAYS AWAY. BUT CROSS COUNTRY SKIING, HIKING, BIKING ARE RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR. ACADIA IS THE BACKYARD! CONTRA DANCING TOO.
Thanks for the feedback on COA! @zip100 perhaps because of its small size, it’s hard to get any info on it. As I said, she loved it when we visited in August and will definitely apply. We even bought her a shirt which we did at only one other school 
Thanks to the others for the recommendation of Tufts. It’s really not what she’s looking for and it’s another reach, so I don’t think I’ll have her take the time to research it in the short time she has to complete her applications when she gets back.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. She’s taking a risky path and many schools may cross her off automatically because of not having letter grades in rigorous academic courses this fall. And she’s not actually going to graduate from high school because her principal has said she won’t accept the outside credits (its school policy to not accept any outside credits towards graduation requirements). Thanks to early action at Wooster, Warren Wilson, and Earlham, she’ll know whether she has acceptances before the other applications are even completed. I really wish COA had early action too. Oh well!
I hope we don’t end up needing SUNY Geneseo for financial reasons because she’s crossed it off (too many kids from her high school go there, party school reputation, Greek life, etc.). She’s not applying to Lawrence because it’s a conservatory. She’s not applying to St. Olaf because she liked the science research opportunities at Wooster better and it’s closer to home (the schools seems very comparable other than in music where St. Olaf is far, far, superior). The pared down and adjusted list now looks something like this:
Reach: Carleton, Vassar, Grinnell (maybe Bowdoin or maybe Middlebury)
Good fit: Oberlin, Whitman, MHC (maybe Skidmore)
Safety: Warren Wilson, Earlham, College of Wooster, COA
On Saturday, we’ll get the ACT score from the latest test and that will be helpful. I know a lot of seriously strong students with perfect test scores, etc. choosing to go to their safety schools because of money. My nephew is one and he’s going to NC State honors college and friend’s daughter turned down Brown for Northeastern, so to my mind so long as the safety school is a good fit for her, I see no problem with her attending any of them. It is hard to let go of the prestige schools, especially since I went to one, but I think it’s healthier to be realistic. Thanks again, this has been a very helpful conversation!
Mount Holyoke would be my first choice for my daughter but she’s not interested. My spouse went there and had a fantastic experience. It’s truly the most beautiful campus I’ve ever set foot on and it has all the things your daughter wants. And if the ACT doesn’t turn out the way she hopes, it’s test optional. Good luck!