Lol. Wrong time period. Sad to say but the KAs at Auburn are still dressing up in Confederate uniforms and hosting an Old South themed formal even though their National banned it several years ago. (Or at least they were as of two or three years ago )
Thereâs no list I could find of colleges great for kids who like to do that. So I remembered. I threw gov Lee in.
Seconding W&M for ED2. Odds are decent, especially with the ED boost, but since sheâs from OOS itâs very unpredictable. Seconding the intw.
Because her HS is a known quantity, her recommendations wonât have to prove sheâs the most exceptional student in the pasr 20 years but will her LoR indicate sheâs among the 3-4 most outstanding kids in the entire school for the particular subjects she chose with enough examples to back that up? (Thatâs the bar for Ivy+ schools.)
Hopefully her ED1 app or the ED2 app get her into the colleges she wants.
Donât forget the music application by Nov1 for St Olaf (applying RD).
Lawrence doesnât have one, not sure if itâs on your list or not.
If you go visit Northwestern, see if you can drive to U Wisconsin Madison (match for English/Poli Sci), Macalester (reach) and StOlaf (match), perhaps swing by Carleton across town from StOlaf (high reach).
Colleges in the Midwest can mix intellectual and laid back better than Northeastern ones.
Closer to home, have you visited Dickinson, Gettysburg, or Lafayette? What did she think about them?
She could look into music opportunities for non majors at Northwestern, perhaps contact a cappella clubs or choirs, to be certain thatâs where she wants to ED and have more material for the âwhy usâ essay.
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Sample of one. My kid thought that Elon was in the middle of no whereâŠcute small town and sort of near a larger town. But still the town where the college isâŠsmall.
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And Elon is exactly what she doesnât want -it reinvented itself in the early 2000s from a third tier college to a college for smart kids who liked learning through nonacademic endeavors -what would come to be known as âexperiential learningâ. Professors there work hard at offering sth else than the typical modes of evaluation.
That being said, college is not high school. The content component is always paramount. No âcreativeâ extra credit either - extra credit may mean go see a foreign film or listen to a famous astrophysicist.
Although I imagine âgoing to a museum to see how Famous Text inspired paintersâ, i.e., the type of things American University freshman seminars do, would be okay?
More importantly, if you donât like Oberlinâs location you wonât like Elon. You canât walk from campus to anything but a very small strip. Itâs why my daughter removed it.
One of my kids has worked as a college professor. Lectures are done with slides where they worked.
They made an effort to address diverse learning styles in assignments. This was part of diversity, equity and inclusion. The option to do a traditional assignment such as a paper was always there.
The openness made some kids anxious so perhaps that is the root of your daughterâs preference. When they actually tried something creative, some felt stretched and discovered new ways to think and create. I think it is too bad your daughter is rejecting schools on this basis and perhaps it would help her to understand that creative assignments are part of accommodating a diverse set of students.
If discussion is important to her, I hope she will look at smaller schools, LACâs with the professor doing the teaching. Some grad students can lead sections pretty well but it is variable.
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She might even look at public honors colleges whose goal is often to be more discussion based.
I think this student has pre conceived notions that will not only limit them in college selection but life. Life, organizations, people in general operate in multi faceted ways and processes.
One canât succeed at work and even in life if they canât adapt.
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tsbna - I think thatâs the first time Iâve given you a â100â. I so agree with you there. 
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Whatâs wrong with you ?? 
This thread is long, but does your daughter have executive function issues? My ADHD son struggled in HS with EF, to a point where I was terrified with him going to college. Fortunately we finally figured it out junior year (when he started loading up on AP classes), and got him some help. He has a degree in finance, works 10/12 hour days, on projects.
I was going to mention this as well⊠choir/ opera is not a spike unless your child is very very accomplished AND plans to major or be capable of contributing to the music program in an extremely high impact way. But being all-state or first chair or taking lessons whatever is pretty normal at highly competitive colleges.
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I just wanted to add that I think it is fine to cross colleges of the list for any reason that your daughter chooses. It may seem like an inaccurate opinion to outsiders (her impression of Wesleyan is very different from the experience of the students I know there). But I absolutely agree that your daughter shouldnât be pushed to consider a college that she doesnât like when there are plenty of other colleges that she does like.
Furthermore, if she has a large initial list then it is probably more productive to whittle it down (or at least whittle down the number of reaches) rather than insist that she add schools to it based on the opinion of internet strangers. And Iâve been told that sometimes kids just know that a place is a definite yes or no based on what seems like idiosyncratic reasons to others. So far, my own senior is the exact opposite in that she seems to think any place would be fine so I am focused mostly on affordability. Honestly, I quite wish that mine would express some strong opinions so that she could chop some reach and match colleges off the list. So hurrah for your daughter for knowing what she wants!
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Agree 100%. D23 cut schools left and right for reasons that would seem shallow for many on CC. But she is the one attending the school she decided on, nobody else. Iâve told all my children, âYou are the one who has to live at college for 4 years and has to go to class. Pick the college that works for you, not necessarily the one everyone else would choose.â
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Basically, for any college where acceptance rate is under 30-35%, if the student feels itâs wrong for her, itâs one less reach on the list.
We donât have to understand her reasoning. She can only have one ED1 one ED2.
If she likes Northwestern and hates Penn State even though thereâs major overlap between Schreyer and Northwestern, itâs her 4 years.
If sheâd rather attend Wooster or UPuget Sound than PSU Schreyer or Pitt Honors as her âjust in caseâ backup, itâs her prerogative.
However, choosing matches and safeties is the hardest part of making the list.
I really think that we should focus on colleges that admit 35-60% students and the vibe or environments this student is looking for, bc thatâs the hardest part and clearly the HS GCâs go-to answer is âPenn Stateâ.
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OP- if it were me (and I recognize that itâs not) my 'hills to die on" would be âtwo hours or less from homeâ (but Iâd stretch it to three if the college otherwise seemed to be a great match ) and âno cliquey or polarizing campus cultureâ.
She can likely find what sheâs looking for within those parameters, and will likely be pleasantly surprised by the intellectualism of her fellow students if sheâs not majoring in âfill in the blank vocational/pre-professional subjectâ. Iâve never met a pre-professional Classics major, although Iâve heard it said that Classics is a great pre-med major. I dunno- being able to translate Homer and Ovid just to learn a couple of Greek/Latin suffixes seems like a lot of work to me but whatever. There will be few kids trying to get their ticket punched in a seminar comparing anarchy and Marxism as political movements in the 20th century, and even fewer in a large lecture tracing the architecture of the Holy Roman Empire and its impact on European urban planning and modernism.
So I think she will be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to find her tribe!
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I recounted the story about my son choosing a school because the tour guide had keys. So I agree it is fine for students to choose schools for all kinds of impressions, however vaiid or unfounded. However, for some reason, I started to feel some of your daughterâs perceptions and biases might, indeed, be limiting. I also wonder if anxiety is a factor.
Are there college programs where students dress up? I am curious.
If intellectual discussion is a priority, that can be hard to ascertain with tours I think. The info session may talk about the âlife of the mindâ but that doesnât mean that is the actual culture. Maybe she can attend some classes or do an overnight at schools she might be interested in.
Same son did an overnight at another Ivy, reputed to be intellectual, expecting interesting discussions and spent the whole evening with a Nerf gun battle!
Many schools are making curricula more âfunâ for a variety of reasons: new technologies in teaching, student attention spans, diversity and access, even student reviews (my kid got one less than stellar review for being âchallenging,â which can potentially affect pay.)
I really believe that finding the intellectual atmosphere she wants may be hard. I encourage the Colleges that Change Lives website as a resource.
Wherever she goes, she should register with the Office of Disabilities with appropriate documentation, in case she needs accommodations. And make sure to get tuition refund insurance that covers mental health.
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I wondered the same thing. I donât mind a teenager being superficial. I do mind them just making stuff up. Thatâs an Honor Code violation wherever she might wind up.
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[quote="compmom, post:117, topic:3643309,
Are there college programs where students dress up? I am curious.
[/quote]
I was wondering the same thing. Apparently BC offers a class for furries. (⊠and yeah my kids tried to explain to me what a furry is and Iâm still not sure I understand.
). It seems the people at Fox news are quite upset about it.
I was thinking more about historical costumes
Funny I was thinking of BC as more conservativeâŠ
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