<p>Hi,
My daughter wants a small, LAC, in a rural or suburban area with at least 2 months of winter. She has visited Carleton and loved it and she's thinking she may apply ED, but wants to see more before making that commitment. Her list of places to look is:
Amherst
Williams
Bowdoin
Dartmouth
Hamilton
Swarthmore
Middlebury
Wesleyan
Oberlin</p>
<p>If we do Ohio, I figure that'll be a separate long weekend and hit Kenyon and Denison, too. We're from CA, so this won't be a few weekends from home, I'm figuring 7-10 days in the northeast visiting one a day. Any advice on which of these would give her a good base to either decide that Carleton is her top choice, or not? Or some advice on how to prune the list? A big appeal of Carleton is that the students didn't seem to take themselves too seriously. My sense is that that is not true at many of the ones on her list.</p>
<p>Her PSAT is 229 and her 10th grade GPA is 4.33. She's currently maintaining straight A's in 11th with 2 AP and 3 honors, so I think her chances at any of these are as good as can be expected. We realize that noone's a shoo-in at competitive schools like these.</p>
<p>I she likes Carleton, she may like Grinnell in Iowa and Lawrence in Wisconsin. Would she consider all women's colleges ? In that case, add Mt Holyoke and Smith.</p>
<p>My son who loved Carleton also liked: Reed (where he'll be attending), Macalester, Bard, Beloit, and Grinnell. Schools he also considered included: Swarthmore, Sarah Lawrence, Lawrence, Vassar (didn't click with him), Wesleyan (ditto), Hampshire, Brown, and the University of Chicago. If he was a girl, I think he also would have liked Smith and possibly Mt. Holyoke. :) </p>
<p>If you're going to make a separate trip to Ohio, I'd also take a look at Earlham (right over the Ohio/Indiana border).</p>
<p>My son was also looking for students who were serious about academics but not about themselves. He applied to Carleton, Goucher, Grinnell, Haverford, Lewis & Clark, Macalester, Oberlin, Pomona, Reed and Vassar. He got into all of them and chose Grinnell. He couldn't have gone wrong with any of them, but in his opinion, Grinnell students were the most happily unconventional and least pretentious. If you have any questions, feel free to pm me.</p>
<p>Some I want to suggest have already been mentioned. If you are in NY (Hamilton) I suggest: Bard, Vassar, and Barnard.</p>
<p>We looked at all northeast LAC's because kids wanted to stay within shouting distance, and we're on the east coast. There are many wonderful choices.</p>
<p>Winners in our family were Barnard for D and Williams for S; first choice for both.</p>
<p>PM if I can supply any helpful information. Oops. Should remove Barnard. Definitely not rural or suburban. I'll leave it there just for information sake.</p>
<p>Whitman in WA has very unpretentions students, and the kids are heavily into outdoors. There is plenty of winter, too. My friend's son had Carleton as his first choice, and his list had Whitman, Haverford, Pomona (no winter weathetr there) and Williams as far as LACs go. What majors does your daughter lean towards?</p>
<p>It's a good idea to visit many colleges, simply because there's the phenomenon of falling in love with the first college you visit (and wanting to call it ED) BECAUSE, finally, the student's feet are on a real college. </p>
<p>So even if Carleton ends up her first choice for ED, she'll benefit greatly by comparison shopping and comparison thinking.</p>
<p>Hi, Bingle, I can't comment on the Ohio schools, but this is how we handled the NE schools. We are from the deep, deep South.</p>
<p>My D visited and/or applied to about half those schools, of the group, Carleton may have the friendliest, most laidback, quintessential Midwestern feel, while still being fairly liberal and quirky. I would actually put Dartmouth second in terms of matching (that's where she ended up), almost every description of the student body begins with "fun-loving", but there are some future I-bankers and future MDs. I got the feeling visiting Amherst that the school takes itself seriously, not sure the students do. She was instantly turned off at Williams for no discernable reason - be prepared, that reaction tends to happen to many kids during visits at least once - they just take one look around and don't like School X. Williams has strong science, which is a strength of Carleton as well, and emphasizes athletics. I did not think we got a good feel for Swat students during our summer time visit, but I do think there is considerable overlap with Carleton in the quirky, liberal aspects of the school.</p>
<p>I guess that of the ones you listed that we visited or researched in depth, that many of them have overlaps with Carleton in various ways, so it is a little hard to predict at this point which ones she will like or dislike. We did 2 things preparing for our big NE driving trip. We came up with a couple of different routes, depending on how things went. She and I spent a lot of time (we used to walk together in the evenings) going over her criteria, so she had them somewhat ranked before the trip.</p>
<p>We did 2 schools a day where possible to allow us more flexibility of time. You almost always start out wanting to visit more schools than is truly practical.</p>
<p>If you're going to Swarthmore, I suggest also visiting Haverford and, if your daughter is not averse to women's colleges, Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>The advantage of these schools is that they are near Philadelphia (though definitely not in the city), which would make travel at lot easier than it would be at more isolated colleges.</p>
<p>This is no help in pruning, but depending on your final schedule, you might also be able to add "free" visits to similar schools that could be dark horse candidates--they're all colleges that seem to have plenty of rabid fans: Smith (15 minutes from Amherst); Colgate (1/2 an hour from Hamilton); and Bates or Colby (45 mins. from Bowdoin).</p>
<p>Bingle, my son is a recent Williams graduate. He didn't look at Carleton so I can't give you a direct comparison, but his Williams experience was overwhelmingly positive. Profoundly good academics and no shortage of fun. The after-college experience for his social group has been excellent as well in terms of job opportunities, networks and graduate school potential.</p>
<p>His other top choices in the LAC category were Wesleyan, Hamilton and Kenyon. Swarthmore made him nervous. Great academics, but very intense. He liked Amherst but felt it was weak in his area of interest -- art.</p>
<p>I would agree that your daughter should take a look at Colgate, Colby and Bates. For less selectives -- which would be good to add as her list is heavy on the reach/match side -- I would suggest Skidmore and Conn College. </p>
<p>bingle ~ My D is a senior chem major at Carleton raised on the west coast. She, too, was after rural/suburban and more weather variety than here at home. After a visit to Whitman at the end of her soph year in HS, she determined an LAC (or very small uni) was for her and made an extensive list. We were fortunate to have the time to make a west, midwest, and east coast swing during or after her junior year, but still couldn't see everything on her initial list. Each trip was less than a week, flying into one major city and out of another with lots of driving in between.</p>
<p>Carleton was one of the first schools that caught her eye in the literature but the very last school she visited. While Carleton blew all others off the table (she applied ED and never looked back), she could also see herself at Haverford (but not Swat), Tufts, Whitman, and Smith. After visiting, she was lukewarm about Middlebury and Dartmouth, and she reacted very negatively to Vasser, Amherst, Williams, and Oberlin. She was underwhelmed by Pomona and CMC (didn't want to be in CA). I wish she would have seriously considered Grinnell (too much corn) as it seemed to fit her on paper. The joke's on her now as Northfield has corn, cows, and pigs.</p>
<p>Feel free to PM me if you'd like more specific Carleton feedback.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add that last summer we did the following northeast college tour in just under a week: Flew in to NY (we're also from California), visited Sarah Lawrence first day, then Vassar and Bard the second day (they are fairly close), Skidmore the third day, the fourth day we visited Amherst, Hampshire, and did drive bys of both Smith and Mt. Holyoke (they are all within 20 minutes of each other). The sixth day we visited Wesleyan and then went down to Princeton where son was going to Swarthmore, Haverford or Bryn Mawr though. It also would be fairly easy to substitute Williams for Skidmore. If you're heading up to Hamilton, you might want to consider a stop at Colgate. It was a fair amount of driving, but very do-able. We stayed at Marriott Courtyards and because we had joined their membership program, ended up accumulating enough points to get some free nights that we then used for other college trips. </p>
<p>By the way, if you go to the ACT site (ACT</a>, Inc. : A Student Site for ACT Test Takers) they have a search engine that will let you type in any zip code and find colleges within a specified mileage. It can be a useful tool if you're heading to one particular college but want to see what would be nearby to also visit. I also highly recommend the Professor Pathfinder's College Map - it gives you a good idea of where different schools are located in proximity to each other and I use it in counseling all the time. It is usually available from Amazon.com, or do a search for "Professor Pathfinders" to order it direct from the publisher. Make sure you are getting the NATIONAL map, as they also publish regional ones.</p>
<p>I hope you enjoy Bowdoin. It's located in a nice community on the coast. The academics are fantastic. The students are varied, bright, and friendly. It also has a great outdoor program and if you like skiing there are two resorts nearby with reasonable rates. My son raves about the professors (though the classes are rigorous) but especially loves his classmates. He can't wait to get back. Basically, savor your trip to each school and the conversations with your daughter as she imagines herself at each place. Finding students to talk with on the visits may also help. Each school we visited presented itself with informal opportunities to talk with students and the experience was invaluable to my son.</p>
<p>If money is a consideration but you have a high EFC, of the schools mentioned, all excellent, Oberlin and Grinnell are, I think, the only ones that offer merit scholarships. Oberlin is a particularly good choice for those who love music of all kinds, as it has a conservatory for classical and jazz musicians.</p>
<p>“A big appeal of Carleton is that the students didn't seem to take themselves too seriously.”</p>
<p>This was pretty much the seal on the deal for Carleton. Everyone was working hard but having an incredibly great time. They couldn’t say enough about the quality of teaching and how much the school, the professors really cared. Friendliest, most unassuming and accepting campus visited bar none.</p>
<p>Visited all but one of the other schools on your list and all fell short of expectations in some way. Many felt too jocky/Polo, a few too intense/extreme about their politics, one just too plain intense. All were great in their own way just not the total package looked for. Really liked Pomona – ultimately second choice – just never felt as down to earth as Carleton. Never looked at Grinnell, a little too rural/isolated, but otherwise sounded great. Probably one more visit you should consider if you have the time if daughter liked Carleton that much.</p>
<p>You can't go wrong with a school like Carleton, but I do recommend a look at Grinnell. It's really no more isolated than Northfield, its facilities and resources are incredible and everyone we've met there, from the president on down, is the real deal. As mamenyu mentions, the merit $$ is a plus too. Carleton offers $2,000 per year for NMS, Mac $5,000, Grinnell and Oberlin were much more generous.</p>