Anyone else applying to Knox? D20 applied EA for Knox so anxiously awaiting a decision. She did get a very nice e-mail from her admissions officer that talked about her essay so we are hoping that is good news.
My child applied and was told yesterday that decisions were released so I am assuming it will come snail mail before they update the portal.
My dd just got her decision in the mail today. Would love to hear current students comments on how they like the school/community - specifically from the creative writing majors.
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Our decision came today too!
Ours came yesterday as well! Very happy household - as now she has a choice. I would also love to hear from current families as we have not been able to visit yet and probably won’t be able to go until the spring. My daughter is undecided but likely will major in a STEM field and minor in Chinese or Asian studies.
@twokids2go Hi! I’m a newly minted Knox parent. My son is in his Freshman Year. Do you have questions in particular? We’re from NYC.
My son got accepted to Knox, Allegheny, Bard, Muhlenberg, Ithaca College, SUNY Oswego, SUNY-Plattsburg, SUNY-Potsdam, SUNY-ESF, CUNY Hunter College, CUNY Brooklyn College, CUNY City College.
He’s thinking of majoring in Environmental Science/Biology or History.
He likes his classes, the food, and has a great group of friends. Most of the dorm living is in a suite system which means you make friends pretty easily (About 14-16 students in his suite, which is a duplex. It has a huge living area with 4 bedrooms on each floor each is double, some are singles). He’s in a living-learning community so all his suite-mates take the same Freshman Preceptorial (a intro class to college writing, research, etc based on a theme). His history professor was impressed with his project work and is asking him to consider a summer internship in Jordan doing archaeology.
He visited Knox for an accepted student day in April. What really impressed him was the friendly student body and the passion of the teachers. He met he head of the History dept and one of the Environmental Science professors and were instrumental in his decision to attend.
Any questions feel free to ask here or PM me.
Thank you @Theoden! My daughter is waiting to hear from Wooster, Occidental, and Bates (a reach). She definitely wants to go to a place where she can build relationships with her professors. She likes the idea of living in a suite environment. We had not heard much about the food - so good to hear your son likes it.
@twokids2go Frankly he thought the food was nicest at SUNY-Plattsburgh 
It’s good at Knox, not great. But he likes it. My daughter is a Junior in High School and she’ll be considering Wooster at Knox as well. What’s great is that at Knox every student gets a grant for research, travel or internship Junior or Senior year.
I went to Bates. The food there now is really, really good. Excellent school. Bates doesn’t offer merit aid, but claims to meet full need. School is well-resourced with a lovely campus.
I went to Rhodes College where the food is apparently not great (but I survived four years eating it, so it wasn’t horrible). We know Bates doesn’t give merit but the NPC I ran suggests it will be somewhat affordable. Knox provided nice merit and if she can get $1-2k more in financial aid plus the $5500 in loans, it also would be at the top end of affordable. She really does not want to go to our state schools due to size, but they are obviously the most affordable. Therefore, she has all her fingers and toes crossed that one of her LAC choices pulls through with merit/financial aid.
Of all the folks in my friend group at Bates, none of us were able to get our kids accepted there. In fact, one of my friends is a double Bates legacy with siblings, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who went there - and her daughter didn’t get in.
Thank God for the CTCL consortium!
Talk to the good folks at Knox, they might budge a little. If Bates is affordable, it will be hard to turn down.
Of course it helps to visit all the schools and get the vibe. Bates has a pretty wealthy student body (nearly 20% of it’s students come from families in the top 1% (650K + in family income). Though…it doesn’t have a huge endowment in comparison to Bowdoin or Colby. Knox and Wooster are more economically diverse.
My D was able to visit Bates through their Prologue program and fell in love. But she really wanted to see what else was out there so did not apply ED (plus, since we will need aid of some kind, I was very hesitant to allow her to apply ED anywhere). At Prologue, they told the kids that they had a good chance of being admitted if they went ED but no promises going RD. Therefore we know it is a big reach and are not planning on her being accepted. We were able to visit Wooster earlier this fall and she liked that too. She suddenly told me that there was something she liked with each school she’s visited and applied to and was sure she could find her people at any of them. Knox is one of the few she had not visited before applying but their Admissions officer wrote her a lovely note prior to being admitted and another with her admissions that proved to me that they “got” her. So it is definitely in contention. So many decisions she’ll have to make! I just don’t want her to go too far in debt as she’s likely to go to graduate school.
Regarding debt, most schools tend to offer the same deal in loans: 5550 the first year, 6500 sophomore year and 7500 junior and senior year. The thing is that the unsecured part of that debt starts accumulating interest from day 1. so one trick the financial aid people at Knox suggest is to pay of the interest on the unsecured debt regularly so it doesn’t increase your principal.
Bates claims to have very low average student debt…I think that’s because 58% of it’s students don’t receive any need-based aid at all, so I imagine a smaller proportion of them need to take out loans than those needing aid. When I went to Bates they structured the package so that I was borrowing as much as legally possible. I think they probably will follow the same formula as other schools. It’s a warm, friendly, school, and not having had fraternities from the get-go has always been more egalitarian in spirit than it’s Maine counterparts (Colby and Bowdoin).
I do think you’re right: Knox “gets” it’s students.
My son didn’t visit the school at all before getting accepted and never interviewed.
When I called the admissions office at Knox without an appointment to ask some questions while my son was finalizing his decisions about colleges, I asked for the admissions counselor who responsible for NYC (among other regions) without announcing who I was, when I told him my name, he said, “Hey, are you XXXXX’s father? I’ve got to tell you, I loved his essay and I’m really impressed with his broad range and large number of extra-curricular activities. He’d be a great asset to Knox and I hope chooses us.” Granted they don’t get as many NYC applicants being in the Midwest, so he might have stood out, but still that was really nice. One of the other schools I called to ask similar questions, the NYC admissions officer didn’t seem to know much about my son (which is what was expecting), but the contrast was noticeable. After my son committed to Knox, I was reading the Knox student paper online about some issues/events on campus, and I noted a professor was quoted. So…I emailed her to see if she was free to talk about it and she asked me to call her at home, and after our conversation, she offered to be available to chat with my son if he was so inclined when he started school. The personal attention was rather amazing.
Again, I’m a fan, and very biased.
Chiming in to say that, even though my kid went elsewhere, we all thought Knox was a real hidden gem. We too had lovely, unexpected conversations with professors and administrators across several visits, and were impressed with the range of “types” of kids, which was important to my student. After visiting class at more than 10 LACs on the east coast and midwest, my kid said the Knox Poli Sci class was the most interactive, engaging and compelling class he attended.
has anyone who has applied as a priority applicant received their decision yet? prospective student here.
@radiohtml
yes! I was a priority student. applied EA II deadline got my acceptance back on the 13th! Actually, I think it was supposed to come earlier but there was something funky with my FAFSA-Knox kept sending me emails-so it took a little longer than it was probably supposed to.
thank you - i got my decision on the 15th and was also accepted!! feeling pretty happy for us both 