So, once he had narrowed his list a bit— it was still quite long (see below)- it was time to decide upon early action and early decision schools.
He applied early action to every non-restrictive early action school on his list. There were two of them: SUNY Binghamton and Clark. It was such a relief to get into Binghamton before hearing back from Williams. He also got a likely letter from Clark, although they said they are not releasing formal decisions until later this month. It took out some of the anxiety and would have made the wait for April more bearable had he been deferred or rejected. And he thought he would have been quite happy at either Bing or Clark.
I strongly recommend to anyone applying early decision anywhere that they also apply to a relatively “safe” early action school.
For us, early decision was a purely strategic move. He liked several colleges pretty equally. He felt he would not regret an ED acceptance to any of them, so he might as well increase his chances with an ED application. The final five were:
Hamilton, Middlebury, Vassar, Wesleyan, and Williams.
(Bates and Bowdoin were up there, too, but they were a little farther away from home so he decided to apply to them RD not ED.
He also especially liked Skidmore, but it was a safer selection for him anyway.)
Hamilton and Vassar did not have club tennis teams that compete against other schools. It turns out Middlebury does, but he was having trouble getting confirmation of that at the time; a couple of emails went unanswered. So it was down to Wesleyan and Williams, which had active club tennis teams. His final decision was made after a second trip to Wesleyan. He decided he liked a rural college more than a suburban one. And at Williams there was a chance that the fact that I had gone there might improve the odds. So Williams it was!
Had he not gotten into Williams early decision, he would have applied to a total of 20 colleges. Here they are, listed by state:
Maine: Bates, Bowdoin
Rhode Island: Brown
Vermont: Middlebury
Massachusetts: Amherst, Brandeis, Clark, Williams
Connecticut: Connecticut College, Wesleyan
New York: Vassar, Skidmore, Colgate, Hamilton, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Geneseo
New Jersey: Princeton
Pennsylvania: Franklin and Marshall, Lafayette
Maryland: Johns Hopkins
(We ruled out visiting some colleges he might have liked, just because we had seen so many and were getting tired. These were the last to be eliminated in the pre-visit stage.
Colby- even farther into Maine.
Dickinson- even farther into Pennsylvania. But such nice reports on College Confidential!
Haverford and Swarthmore- I think he would have loved both of these, but our Pennsylvania trip was our last trip, and he already had so many “reach” colleges that he needed no more. He needed “match” level schools instead. Besides, neither has club tennis. But if we had started the tours with a Pennsylvania trip, I would not have been surprised if one of these even came under consideration for ED!
U Rochester- he figured it was similar to Brandeis but farther away. He already liked Brandeis, so why add U of R?
Sarah Lawrence- a little too unconventional and limited course offerings.
Bard- nicely intellectual, but again unconventional, plus a very low endowment.)