@Grinnellhopeful My daughter was looking for a similar environment and has a similar GPA 4 and a 28 ACT. We are on the east coast so I won’t focus on those schools but closer to you we visited Denison (test optional), St Olaf, Kenyon, Carleton and Macalaster.
My daughter really liked Denison and St Olaf. The admissions staff and people we met at both were wonderful. Denison has no supplemental essays and is test optional so easy to apply. It’s also free to apply. My daughter interviewed and was told there is no downside to going test optional even for merit. There is Greek life but our understanding is it’s low key. Kids were nice, campus beautiful and close to Columbus.
St Olaf was appealing for the stunning campus, MUSIC, not a big party school and friendly atmosphere. Someone I know sent a child there and described it as a “gentle place”.
My daughter found Carleton too intense, Macalster great in theory and on paper but didn’t like in person and as far as Kenyon she couldn’t get out of the place fast enough. She thought it was pretentious, the interviewer asked trick questions (what vegetable would you like to be and why? was the first) and the admissions staff was cold. Kids waiting in admissions were in suits and no one smiled. Great school and perhaps you’d have a different perspective.
Earlham and Beloit were on the list at one point but we had more than enough and didn’t want to add more schools a plane ride away.
On the east coast Haverford (for the small community feel and Quaker values), Bates (for the community) are also some to think about. Bates is test optional, Haverford with my daughter’s ACT would have been unlikely but she was told at the interview they are looking to build a community and that score would not keep her out - although still touch odds. Skidmore and Vassar as well in NY.
I am not familiar with how generous these schools are with financial aid but I’m sure others will help you there.
I am hoping for the best outcome for your daughter.
Adding – on Denison, the student body is about 18% first gen and a little higher Pell grant eligible, a big change from about 20 years ago when it was more of a wealthy, fratty kind of place.
Geographically, I’m not sure how far outside your preferred area it might be.
To your question about whether schools have the ACTs already. First, yes, your high school may list the scores on the transcript - you can ask for an unofficial copy to find out (often high schools let you download that on their portal). If so then after the new ACT results are out ask your school to update the scores and resubmit the transcript.
Second, I’m not sure of the details but both SAT and ACT will provide information about your tests to subscribing schools unless you specifically opt out. For example, a STEM university seeking female applicants (a common scenario) may ask for “all female students in our geographic region who scored over XX on ACT STEM”. So you can’t rely on scores being a secret.
Thus, I would support your notion of not applying until after the new ACT results are in. In theory they shouldn’t start consideration of ED2 applicants until the deadline is reached in case new information is provided. In practice some schools may do early sorting of applications based on scores and that is something you’d want to avoid, as once sorted into a lower group it may be very difficult to get attention later.
@Midwestmomofboys I thought we had a great connection with her admissions rep, but she didn’t respond to my inquiry asking if she had addl recommendations for schools or advise on the application going forward. Something changed and a I don’t know what it was.
My D did a brief personal statement (reluctantly) in the common app. I believe the LOR may have addressed it BUT my D teachers had no idea about the event or our struggles. Again, she didn’t want to be defined as the “suicide”girl. They just recently found out and were shocked, neither of my kids let what has been going on here be an excuse to slack off or do anything other than their best.
She would never dream of making that her essay topic. Her essay is about her strong belief that you must study liberal arts if you are going to have a career in STEM, she is passionate about this. She beliefs that one cannot exsist without the other. I would love to show it to you. I don’t think she would change it but she might consider based on your advice.
As I said yesterday, I was forwarding your messages to her, thank you for those, I think it helped her turn this into a positive experience. You’re the best!
Unfortunately, I don’t know how much more the GC can do. He is very overwhelmed with schedule changes etc. I’m concerned he may need someone to guide him back through the common app to submit Midyear report. It took a month and intervention from Grinnell to,walk him through submitting everything the first time.
He will advocate for her in anyway he can but he is limited. He adores my children. He is a wonderful man but our experience with common app and private schools is also his first experience and he has 1500 other kids to,worry about, too.
I recommend Beloit, Earlham, Knox, and St. Olaf, among others. Whitman, I think, is too expensive and time-consuming to travel to and from. Amherst is a reach but does give fantastic financial aid (or did when my younger daughter was applying to colleges in 2011).
@runnergirl31 I am anxious to hear more from you and will be rooting for you! Please keep,us posted @Dancer41 Knox is her favorite on this list. She has spent considerable time on the website and google maps checking out the town. The assistant admissions director texted her shortly after receiving her app, has emailed her with encouragement while she was waiting for Grinnell Decision and literally read through her app with me on the phone. I want to say Knox will be a yes based on our conversation BUT I am not trusting my judgement of my interactions anymore. I may have misinterpreted what she said or read between the lines. My D really really likes Knox. Hands down her first choice right now. @Midwestmomofboys I learned last night she is more open to distance than I thought. She really likes that she can take the Amtrak from Knox directly to KC. She has a very good car, a splurge with her savings but she isn’t fond of long drives.
I feel like we should also add that we are absolutely unable to visit any school ahead of time. We don’t have the resources. We have to express interest in other ways. If she heard today that she had an acceptance to Knox we would try to gather some money for a train ticket for both of us and go for a visit. And if we heard today she was accepted I believe she would accept. She likes the proximity to Chicago, she likes the friendliness of admissions, and she likes the feel of the school.
Outside of Knox any other school we would not be able to see until she moved in. So, we are really going to rely on relationships made with other members of this community and if accepted somewhere, social media to connect with other students.
It’s a terrifying situation. But she is determined to have a better life.
The essay needs to reveal something about herself, not just be a well written opinion piece. Going forward, make sure her essay paints a picture of her as a person.
Unfortunately a good relationship with a rep at a top school is not enough to overcome a score well below the average. Hopefully her score will go up today and she will have more options
@wisteria100 I actually believe her essay shows who she is while expressing her opinion. I’m not sure that she would be willing to write about herself or her personal struggles. That’s just not who she is. What she would write about is her love of learning for the sake of learning and it’s actually touched on in her essay.
I know that she will be adamant about being authentically herself. She’s 17, she’s incredibly mature, and very honorable. She also has very strong opinions about what’s right and wrong. So I have some limitation here. This is her vehicle that she’s driving. She’s not going to paint herself in any other way then who she is. She choose the option to write about something you feel passionate about and keeps you awake at night…And I can tell you as her mother that is exactly what she wrote. This is a conversation she gets very heated about. I think mostly because she’s been pushed towards STEM and she does indeed LOVE science but feels strongly that you need to understand the community, culture, language, and values of the people who you intend to help with your scientific work.
BTW she is leaning towards a a PHD in chemistry, she knows she wants to research either alternative energy sources, ( her face lights up and she gets super excited when she talks about nuclear fusion) and or pharmaceutical research. She wants to couple that with either anthropology or linguistics.
She is beautifully idealistic and wants to help underserved communities or countries with research. She truly believes she can make a positive impact on the world and give back.
I applaud the grace and kindness with which you and your D have handled the disappointing news and are moving forward in a positive way. You have displayed attributes which I hope will give you peace and ultimately lead your D to the right school. I hate to be forward, but your attitude makes me think back to this much loved poem by Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if—
I would strongly recommend that you and your D not cast aside the honors college admission to the state U until: 1) your D has a better affordable offer firmly in place and in writing and 2) you perhaps revisit the school to hear a presentation about the honors college as it may sway your opinion.
In terms of other schools I think many of them have been suggested but I would recommend you read through the colleges on the Colleges that Change Lives site and see if any others might be good fits for your D. If the ACT doesn’t come up as hoped (and I expect it will) may of these schools are test optional. https://ctcl.org/
I also applaud your D for using her time and a half. While I understand her initial view that you don’t get extra time in life the fact is that life is not a timed test. I’d guess your D outworks others to overcome her issues and succeed at a very high level in HS and I have no doubt she will continue to do this in college and in the workplace. Also as an adult she should take great care to seek out a career that minimizes her issues and plays into her strengths.
@happy1 You are the second person in the last 18 hours to reference the poem. I take that as a sign that she and I both need to read it when she’s done testing today.
It would be hard not to have a grace and kindness for Grinnell. It is a fabulous school. We just must not be meant to be there. I think she will end up where she is supposed to be. We have experienced so much of random tragedy in our lives, but I have to believe that there is some reason I am still here, and we as a family are meant to help others in same way. And maybe just possibly the random isn’t so random and a greater good will come from it all. I just don’t see the bigger picture yet.
I know it sounds trite, but you are only where you are supposed to be. Thank you for your post. It touched something in me.
2nd Lawrence as a consideration, they have been working hard at building their endowment and their goal is to become a full needs met school, currently they meet 95% of need on average. Also, what about Hendrix college and Rhodes? These may be closer geographically and help you contain travel costs.
Lawrence is generally strong in the sciences and lots of research opportunities for their students. My D is a senior and has loved her time there, felt very challenged academically and has found lots of like minded intellectually curious students. I’m really impressed with the education she has had there. She’s a neuroscience major but has expanded her thinking in lots of areas i.e. the range of authors that she has read and the range of topics that she has become interested in.
I have seen Kalamazoo college mentioned as being particularly strong for chemistry.
Best of luck!
As I was reading this, I kept thinking Earlham! It sounds like you have a great list - lots of good schools that match her wants – and I hope that makes the Grinnell decision less painful. If she did the Earlham app EA, she should have an answer relatively soon. They may also help financially with a visit if she’s accepted.
Sounds like you are getting good advice here. There are some schools that will give an early read for financial aid, Wooster being one. We have visited Earlham, Wooster, Kenyon, and Denison over the past year. Since you can’t visit, feel free to send a PM if you have any questions on the campus, vibe, surrounding area, etc . (I don’t know how much is important to your daughter and granted it’s only one family’s perspective.) We have been able to get general insight from niche and unigo. Take some with a grain of salt, but you can get an overall feel. Wishing you the best!
So, quick update. D is home, she says the test went really well. She said that extra break really helped her dive into the science and math. She feels very good and she anticipates at least a 30 probably higher, she did not even use the full time, she didn’t need it, she used about about an hour. Typically she underestimates how she did on a test. So, I am thinking this will be very very good.
Also, we looked at Coe in the common app and oddly enough they had an EA deadline of tomorrow. So, she just submitted. We did not want to lose that advantage of EA by waiting for her updated ACT scores. So we can add Coe to the list of schools applied to.
@Grinnellhopeful - It’s not necessary to write about a struggle or tragedy, in fact some of the simplest topics make the best essays. What is important though is to make the reader feel as though she is learning about the writer/applicant and not the topic. Your D’s essay may in fact be doing just that. But note, that the reason schools want a personal statement and not some type of graded essay, is because they want to get to know the applicant in addition to looking at the writing skills.
Someone did mention this on your other thread about the gpa. The 3.96 seems high considering your D had a C and a few B’s. It may be how the high school calculates it, but most colleges will recalculate it using their own system.
So if for arguments sake, if your D had 15 solid A’s thru Jr yr, 2 B’s and 1 C, the gpa would compute to a 3.77. Excellent all the same, but different than a 3.96.
Nonetheless, your D sounds like a wonderful kid and I wish her the best.
@OHMomof2 and @gardenstategal, I personally really like Earlham. We submitted on the 1st for EA so we had to submit with her 26 ACT. I am hopeful they won’t dismiss her without a close look.
I think as soon as she gets a few positive answers in writing not verbally, she’s going to begin to see that there are options. I’m hoping some of those EA like Knox and Earlham say yes to her and they do so quickly.
It will really help her state of mind. I also believe both are good fits.
We still don’t want to apply to a huge list of schools just to have the letter that says yes. It does feel disingenuous. So we want a little bit of a wider net, but really only focus on schools that we think will be a fit and we think will be feasible.
I think your D will get into more than a couple of those schools, the challenge will probably be affordability with the CTCL and other not-meet-full-need schools. @jcmom716 's advice to get the Wooster financial aid pre-read is a good one…and anyone else that is willing to also.
Make sure you don’t miss FAFSA and CSS deadlines…and now a lot of EA schools can give you an FA award with the change to prior-prior year income reporting, as long as you’ve done the forms for them.
