Loved Middlebury but looking for some more realistic options [mostly A+ with a few A grades]

[username24]

@CMA22

I think it could be an advantage to apply to schools in other parts of the country

Any other recommendations for schools in the north or midwest? I think my parents would support a trip out there, especially if we included some other things in the agenda (hiking/exploring national parks) to make it a little adventure as well. Any schools in the Washington/Oregon/Idaho/Montana area or Minnesota/Wisconsin/Illinois/Iowa/Ohio part of the country? At first, the Midwest felt kind of random to me, but I realized people from there probably think the same thing about VT!

[username24]

@DadTwoGirls

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

Oh, that sounds interesting! The only one I know of is Acadia in Nova Scotia, which sounds great. At one point, I had thought about schools in the UK but got the feeling that you applied to a program and only took courses in that program until you graduated, which really didn’t appeal.

[CMA22]

I can’t think of any that strike me as a good match that haven’t already been mentioned. @AustenNut generally comes up with the most thorough lists.

[fiftyfifty1]

@CMA22

I don’t think anyone is excluded from the arboretum, but it is in Carleton’s literal backyard. A place to go for a daily run or ski, depending on the season.

To be specific, the arboretum is actually part of Carleton (total campus size 1,000 acres of which Cowling Arboretum is ~800 acres.) It sits along the Cannon River, and has running trails that are groomed in the winter for Nordic. St. Olaf students do indeed come over to run and ski in The Arb, either individually or as part of teams and clubs. Back in my day (admittedly a while ago!) the 2 schools’ nordic teams occasionally even trained together and hosted informal dual meet races in The Arb. My understanding is that Carleton no longer has a varsity Nordic team, but still maintains a club. If nothing else, I bet you could join Carleton’s club. The 2 schools are on very friendly terms!

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@CMA22

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.

Right, but if the coach recruits a goalkeeper, get a positive pre-read from admissions for that goalkeeper, and then submits that particular goalkeeper’s name to admissions pursuant to a policy that admissions will then admit that goalkeeper absent a material change in conditions since the pre-read, then THAT is a hook.

So if you are a recruited athlete, that can be a hook. If you are not a recruited athlete, that is not a hook (at least not to me), even if the college sees your athletic profile as desirable.

@CMA22

Not every legacy student gets an admit at their parent’s alma mater, either.

Right, but at some colleges, apparently, legacies get flagged by the central office before applications are sent to readers. Readers and admissions committees then have some policy about favoring legacies. Colleges are not typically forthcoming about the details, but the gist seems to be that while legacies need to rate above a certain high minimum by their normal criteria, if they do they will very likely be admitted. Or something like that.

The difference between this and ad hoc admission decisions is that to my knowledge, colleges do not typically flag orchestra tuba players and such like that. Rather, toward the end of the process as their admit class is shaping up, they will review various institutional goals and make adjustments. So, if the orchestra has said they absolutely need a tuba player in this class, they may see if one or two orchestra tuba players are on the admit list. If not, they may look to see if there are one or two on the waitlist, which they can turn into admits. And of course if they admit a couple but they don’t yield, they can revisit again during the actual waitlist round.

So these are very different things to me.

[merc81]

@username24

The only one I know of is Acadia in Nova Scotia

To name one other, there’s Mount Allison University, in New Brunswick.

[fiftyfifty1]

I think St. Olaf’s dry campus works pretty well. It does tend to attract students for whom partying isn’t their style. Some St. Olaf students do still drink on campus, but they do so quietly in their rooms in smaller groups – big loud binge drinking parties just isn’t a thing.

I would say the religious affiliation of the school is not a problem. I know a lot of atheist/agnostic graduates.

There is no music/non-music divide. Plenty of musical opportunities for all students at all levels, from formal to informal.

I know some tippy-top students (top of their high school class, National Merit Scholars etc) in recent years who chose St. Olaf over schools with much lower admit rates due to merit aid. They felt they got a great education, and had their pick of elite graduate schools afterwards.

[vwlizard]

@username24

I’m not religious, so it’s good to know about the affiliation because I was a bit worried about that

If you can do a search about St. Olaf on CC you will see me singing its praises although it ultimately was not the right fit for my kid. We are an atheist family and completely non-religious and I really appreciated the religion classes at St. Olaf and the interplay of religion and social justice. Also, look at their course catalog. While a religion class is required, there are very interesting offerings that feel more like philosophy classes than religion classes. My completely non-religious kid (and our family) would have felt more comfortable there than in many non-religious schools where students aren’t as open to learning about how others think.

@username24

I’d done some reading about their nordic team a couple of weeks ago and determined it’s probably out of reach for me,

If you do decide it’s in reach, St. Olaf was the only school where my son would have had any interest in continuing his sport. Something about the school just made him comfortable with the thought that he could achieve work/play/sport balance there.

@username24

Oooh! That’s a big plus in my mind! I have thought about MN, but not much about going all the way to the west coat, but Whitman is now on the list

Really research travel times from VT to Walla Walla. We fly out of Logan and the times just put it in the “too difficult to travel to” category.

@username24

I’ve heard about the arboretum at Carleton. Is that open to St. Olaf students as well?

St. Olaf and Carleton share most of their facilities. You can even eat at both dining halls. I don’t believe the rec centers themselves are reciprocal, but the arboretum is open to anyone.

@CMA22

A St. Olaf student would have to make their way across town and over the river to get there, which might be tricky to do on a routine basis for a student without a car and with skis.

There are multiple ways to get from St. Olaf to Carleton. There is a free shuttle that goes back and forth.

[DadTwoGirls]

@username24

Oh, that sounds interesting! The only one I know of is Acadia in Nova Scotia, which sounds great.

Acadia is a very good university. It is also in quite an attractive small town. The view from the dining hall is amazing (looking out over the Bay of Fundy). It is quite good for multiple majors including biology, environmental sciences, and music. It is probably very good for other things also but these are the three that I know about. Someone I know went there, liked it a lot, and found very good research opportunities (both on campus, and in a government sponsored agricultural research center nearby). From Vermont, you would probably mostly fly to the Halifax airport. It would be a possible but rather long drive.

Mount Allison in New Brunswick is very good also, and is usually ranked as the #1 “small primarily undergraduate” university in Canada by Maclean’s magazine (which has the only ranking of small universities in Canada that I know of). It would be a bit closer to you to drive, but would still be a long drive. I have no idea what would be needed to fly from Burlington Vermont to Moncton NB. My best guess is that you would need to change planes somewhere, perhaps Montreal, or just drive from Burlington to the Montreal airport, and then fly directly from Montreal to Moncton (Mount Allison is in a small town outside of Moncton, but is on the same side of Moncton as the airport).

The closest “small primarily undergraduate” university in Canada to you, and to me, is Bishop’s University which is in Lennoxville, Quebec (right next to Sherbrooke). It is also quite good. I know two people who went there both of whom liked it. It is one of the three English language universities in Quebec (along with McGill and Concordia, both of which are much larger and are in Montreal). Lennoxville as far as I know is fully bilingual – I used to know someone who grew up in Lennoxville and he said that he had two native languages.

Given your stats, any of these would be safeties (and relatively affordable) even as an international student. They were safeties for my daughter also.

Your excellent stats (plus the fact that you have done the ECs that are right for you and done them very well) are likely to provide you with a lot of options.

[gardenstategal]

A few to read up on are Grinnell, Lawrence and Beloit in the Midwest, and Wooster, Denison, and Kenyon in Ohio. .

You will probably get merit at most of these.

I don’t think these are quite as similar to Midd as some mentioned upthread, but they are all excellent schools!

[merc81]

Consider that, even within a group of NESCACs such as this, admission criteria vary. Bates, for example, seems especially accommodating toward test optional applicants, with 61% of its recent first-year students having gained admission without having submitted an SAT or ACT score. Moreover, its ED acceptance rate of 48% seems to indicate that it is open to a diversity of students who choose this path.