If you aren’t going to pursue recruitment, your sports will be another EC. That’s not a problem – it’s a valued way to spend time out of school – but it won’t give you any admission preference. If you think you might be at a level to be recruited, take a look at the threads on recruitment. The timeline is different and earlier, so you’ll want to start getting on coach’s radar now.
Applying to a number of selective LACs can make sense simply because all of them are trying to build classes that include a lot of different folks, and where one may already have students who have your attributes, another may need exactly what you offer. You can’t know or control that. So if you liked all the Maine schools and Midd, we’d all be telling you to make sure you ALSO had some schools on your list where you’d be more likely to be admitted, but we wouldn’t be discouraging you from those 4.
There are lots of kids every year who are turned down from schools they viewed as less selective and who were admitted to ones that were reaches. This isn’t like fielding a sports team where one school is the varsity starters and another is jv. It’s more like a guest list for a perfect dinner party, where you are looking for a certain mix of folks around the table. So yes, it’s fine to add more reaches AND to do exactly what you’re doing here to build out the more likely schools on your list. It seems obvious, but certain types of kids are attracted to certainly schools, so you are likely to be in a bigger pool at a school where your “type” will be happiest. This may also explain why it seems so few unhooked kids at your school get into the BBC schools in Maine. (This is also why folks are suggesting you look in Minnesota and Washington! Switching up the geography can make a big difference.)
Any thoughts on the ones at Montana State or CU Boulder? A couple of kids from my school tend to end up in each of those every year, and they are obviously very desirable locations!
Also- are standardized tests typically required for admission to an Honors college? I’ve only taken the Pre-ACT, but I would say it isn’t an accurate representation of me as a student. I’ll take the PSAT this fall, and SAT in the spring so fingers crossed those go a little bit better with some extra practice!
@Shelby_Balik , Most of the NESCACs do most of their athletic recruiting relatively close to home, so it’s possible that as a result of that, students outside the OP’s geography were the priority after recruiting was done, and this would explain why it seemed impossible for non-athletes to get into these schools. That’s just speculation, of course, but there are some weird regional things that can happen. And of course, these myths are busted every year. (At our school, the biggest myth was about a quota on the # of students Penn would accept.)
With that said, we know that the majority of students at all these schools are NOT athletes, so the OP shouldn’t be discouraged from applying.
You could find this online by looking at the college name + honors + admissions.
Montana State - 1. ACT/SAT Scores (optional). Test scores are no longer required for the Honors College application, but you may submit them if you prefer.
It looks like Honors at CU Boulder is college related.
I’ll also tell you as both my kids are in Honors Colleges - you need to check each - they all offer different things - from housing to class requirements to enrichment activities and more. My daughter loves hers and takes advantage but it was different than my sons and he stayed in til his last semester because he got early class registration but didn’t finish the not onerous requirements. He just wasn’t interested in the courses or areas (a kid who didn’t like distribution requirements). There were schools like Purdue - for my son, the curriculum didn’t work - for others obviously it does.
If you continue through high school as you already have been, you will likely be a strong candidate for many schools. But since your thread title asked for “more realistic options” than Middlebury, I’m going to continue to suggest some other schools that have higher admit rates.
Saint Michael’s (St. Mike’s): Depending on which direction from Burlington you are, this one could be too close as it is also 20m from Burlington, but this would be an extremely likely admit for you. Nordic skiing, liberal arts college, and I’ve heard great things about how warm and welcoming the campus is, and I have the impression that it’s open and comfortable for people of all (or no) faiths.
Another extremely likely admit would be U. of New Hampshire. It’s similar in size to UVM, so not a huge state school. Nordic skiing is available here.
Skidmore (NY): About 2800 undergrads, no Greek life, and with a location that can have easy access to the outdoors. Not a likely admit, but likelier than Middlebury and some of the schools with acceptance rates below 20% (acceptance rate of 26% for the class entering Fall 2022).
Luther (IA): This is another school that tends to fly below the radar because it’s in “fly-over” country. But if you’re doing a trip to Minnesota, this one could possibly be tacked on. (And if you need another reason to visit Iowa, Grinnell is also in-state.) Like Carleton and St. Olaf, it has an active Nordic ski team (source). And my understanding is that Luther, like St. Olaf, is religiously affiliated, but is open and welcoming to people regardless of faith.
A lot of kids from our area on the West Coast end up at CU Boulder and Montana State, too, but I don’t have any inside info on them as far as Honors goes and I have never visited.
In my experience, if the school did not require a test score for admission (and none our kids applied to did), then it was not required for Honors, either. That could vary by school. And I suspect that test scores will not be considered at all at some Honors Colleges, but be a helpful factor at others.
Ok, so you know that Burlington is a very attractive small city.
If you live on campus, then attending any university, even UVM, will be like a completely different life compared to living at home. You will wake up surrounded by other students. You will get to decide when to study, when to go to sleep, where to eat, and so on. However, if something goes wrong, then help (in the form of parents and friends) will be nearby. Even university students sometimes get the flu, or sometimes have a nasty breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend.
I happen to know someone who is from Vermont, whose daughter thought that UVM was too familiar and boring, so she attended U.Mass Amherst. I also know someone from Massachusetts whose daughter thought that U.Mass was too familiar and boring, so she attend UVM. Fortunately both students were academically strong enough to get good merit scholarships out of state. Also, both graduated on-time. However, both sets of parents spent an extra $80,000 to allow both daughters to attend university out of state. If either daughter had taken an extra year to graduate it would have been more than that since the merit scholarships only were good for four years. Of course full pay at Middlebury or Bowdoin would have been quite a bit more still (about twice what each parent actually paid).
In terms of stats, your GPA is pulled down when you get an A. You do not need to worry about your academics. In terms of extracurriculars, it looks to me as if you did what was right for you, and did it well. This is exactly the right thing to do (and it has worked well for our family). If you Google “applying sideways MIT admissions” and read the blog that this takes you to, this recommends the same approach. I think that you are competitive at any university or any LAC. That does not mean that you will get accepted to a school with an acceptance rate less than 20%, but it is worth applying wherever you want to go (assuming affordability).
By the way, there are also some small “primarily undergraduate” universities in eastern Canada. One daughter decided to go to university in Canada, and preferred a small school. We have toured several of them (and she was accepted to several of them). Let me know if you would want to consider this. None of the small schools in Canada are at all well known in the US, which may be the biggest downside. All would be safeties given your stats (and were safeties for my daughter also).
I was going to bring them up, too. Kenyon is located on a hill in a beautiful serene setting. No skiing, but nice areas for hiking, biking, and running. A strong foreign languages program (which makes it a bit similar to Middlebury even though it’s not on the OP’s list). Also, yes, St. Olaf is a great suggestion.
If you’re looking at honors colleges at flagships, U Maine (Orono) might appeal. It’s on the smaller side for a flagship and my guess is that your get your VT in-state tuition
I understand not wanting to stay so close to home – even when there are good options!
Child of a large donor (or other person of interest to the college).
Child of faculty or staff at the college.
However, not all colleges consider all of the above, or to the same level, in admission.
Except for athlete, the applicant is not able to do anything to become hooked, since they are all purely dependent on the applicant’s parents’ past or present actions or status.
Just wanted to add that there are school-specific hooks, too:
Sometimes it is a hook to be from Wyoming if you are applying to a school in Maine. Or to play the French horn for a school whose French horn player is graduating.
Other schools give an edge to first-generation college students.
Here is a 3rd party list of colleges with Nordic Ski Teams- many mentioned here already on it but then there are others not mentioned. If a school stands out, you can google to ensure they still have the team.
I love these suggestions for OP @gardenstategal You know, with their established ED reputations, I would be curious to see the admittance overlap between Bowdoin & Middlebury.
I would definitely not consider Rochester or Brown as having a rural location. If the OP wanted to consider such universities anyway, that would be a necessary compromise.
That said, Rochester’s main “river” campus is kinda interesting in that it is in a bend in the river, and then the land side is mostly bordered by a very large cemetery. So it felt to us fairly separated, but of course it is still in a generally urban area.
By the way, I would personally limit the term “hook” to things where there is some sort of formal policy, or sometimes even a different process, in which there is an admissions advantage.
With other things that may or may not help on an ad hoc basis as a college is filling out a class, I am more reluctant to call those hooks, including because they are usually speculative and unreliable. Not that a college has never gone to the waitlist looking desperately for an Alaskan or an orchestra tuba player or such, but that presumably all depends on whether they already got what they needed through the normal process.
Just because there is a “process” or policy for a category of hook does not make it more reliable or less speculative in my mind.
You can be a great goalkeeper, but it probably won’t give you an athletic hook advantage at a school with 4 goalkeepers already on its roster. Not every legacy student gets an admit at their parent’s alma mater, either.
It seems no less speculative to me to apply as a student from Wyoming to a school in Maine and expect you will have better odds than a student with the same stats from New Hampshire — even before they get to the waitlist. It would be a plus during the initial holistic review.
Just like a student can investigate and learn a team is light on goalkeepers, the student can find out the main tuba player is graduating and see a need they could fill. There may not be a NCAA recruitment process for tuba players, but I think it still counts as a legitimate hook.
To bring this back to the OP, I think it could be an advantage to apply to schools in other parts of the country (absent any info regarding other potential hooks).