Narrowing down college list without visiting

@Fangirl1999 I’ll PM you.

The acceptance rate for female applicants at HMC was recently 23%, so your chances of acceptance – as a qualified appllicant – may be relatively good there.

Okay here are the rest of the schools and why I like them (I think the only ones I’m /definitely/ applying to are Mudd and Alabama):

University of Alabama (full tuition, plus $2.5K per year if I major in CS or engineering, has been described as a large university with a small campus feel)

Rutgers- New Brunswick (in-state tuition, my dad went there, only in-state on my list; will visit again during the actual school year)

Allegheny (A /lot/ of CS offerings, one of the oldest CS programs at a LAC, unusual combinations- they require a minor and really support students studying too completely different things)

Hamilton (writing program, CS offerings; will visit through fly-in)

Oberlin (it seems like there’s interdisciplinary learning and people studying things seemingly unrelated to one another; will probably apply to fly-in)

Ursinus (creative writing scholarship, this sounds kinda dumb but it was one of the first colleges I was interested in and I’ve talked to the admissions rep from my area at multiple college fairs and a high school visit; will visit)

Vassar (I’m not sure what to pinpoint but I enjoyed the high school visit and I will probably visit, they also offer great financial aid I think)

Bryn Mawr (big focus on sciences, lots of school spirit, love the traditions, really pretty campus)

Mount Holyoke (Actually Hogwarts, nuff said) (okay but really, great CS offerings, my class if I don’t take a gap year will be green and I’m a die hard Slytherin, the atmosphere just seems amazing tbh, actually I got one of those promotion emails about this girl doing hackathons and it kind of pushed me to look more into CS)

Smith (overall sense of women empowerment, house setup, engineering program; applied to fly-in)

Harvey Mudd (I felt really at home there, the community seems amazing and I loved how everyone worked together and despite it being a really elite school, they weren’t cutthroat at all, I like how their core requires everyone to get a base in all STEM areas and also pursue liberal arts credits, they actually installed windows so the students could draw on the walls with dry-erase markers, the weather; attended fly-in)

MIT (I like how they require students to take humanities courses, tbh I wasn’t really looking into it but I was accepted to their fly-in so we’ll see how it goes)

And I think it would be worth it to note why some of the schools are still on the “chopping block” and haven’t been ruled out:

Sarah Lawrence (the community seems really awesome, love the unofficial slogan “queer by new year”, the one-on-one meetings with teachers sound extremely helpful for me, this will probably be crossed off because of limited CS offerings but I want to visit first)

Reed (very eccentric community and from what I’ve read I think I would fit in there personality-wise, I really like the required Humanities 110 class and all of the school’s emphasis on ancient civilizations, namely Ancient Greece, Paideia also sounds amazing)

Whitman (again, the community sounds very friendly and everything, they’re also a fair chance I’d get more scholarship money for being latina and they also pay for the flights of some of the minority students who are accepted to visit in the spring so that may enable me to visit)

@MurphyBrown our income is around $80-90K and even the $65K Questbridge finalists make up a small minority of those chosen.

I think Haverford, JHU, and Swarthmore are all schools that would be harder to get into but would offer great FA. I definitely won’t cross all three (plus U of Rochester) off, but I don’t think I’ll keep all of them either. I need to do more research before deciding which stay and which go.

I don’t think Pomona would know if I applied to Mudd, but I think I have a better chance of getting into Mudd because I attended their WISTEM program, and I would much rather go to Mudd than Pomona. Scripps might be easier to get into and I would be able to major in CS at Mudd OR Pomona if I got in, but I feel like if I went there I would just regret not getting into/going to Mudd.

I’d say that of your current choices, Hamilton and Smith are the two which most encourage wide academic exploration under your own discretion, in that neither have distribution requirements.

Based on your impressions, which appear accurate and personally meaningful to you, it would seem MHC should continue to remain in your narrower group.

Just anecdotally, Mt Holyoke (and Scripps) are very generous with need based aid (and Scripps off campus summer storage is very easy and not expensive); Oberlin gives tons of merit aid; have you considered RPI (if you haven’t ruled out cold winters) they have very strong STEM programs and are also very generous with aid even for middle income people. I think, just my opinion, that you do not need Sarah Lawrence, Whitman or Reed on the list. If you need a safety for HMC I would urge you to add back Scripps. It is a very different school from HMC but you might enjoy college more at Scripps; HMC has insane workloads. Haverford and Swarthmore are very small and kind of quirky, so I see them as a lot riskier if you can’t visit (and even if you can) Just my 2 cents.

@CAorBust But if I go to Scripps, I’d probably end up majoring at HMC anyways (or Pomona, either offer CS). I guess the core and everything would be less of a workload. That’s good to know about Scripps’ summer storage. Honestly, I think any college with a decent amount of OOS students would have pretty good connections for summer storage. MHC’s net price calculator was actually pretty awful, but I don’t know how accurate it was. I have considered RPI but honestly the only reason I am considering it is because they have a pretty lousy gender ratio so I heard they give pretty good scholarships to females especially (although I am concerned about that gender ratio). Sarah Lawrence, Reed, and Whitman are not on my list because I “need” them, but because I like them. As I think I stated before, SLC will probably come off but I want to visit first. I have also done more research on Reed and Whitman’s computer science programs (I went to professors’ websites and blogs), and I believe that I could get a good background in CS at either school (even if it’s more math-based, although that wouldn’t be a bad thing).

On Sunday, I leave for Hamilton’s fly-in! And a week from Saturday we may do our first trip to Philly (it’s with friends, so we’re planning on hitting UPenn, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Villanova, but maybe not Villanova depending on how much time we spend at each school). Then, two weeks from Sunday, I’m going to MIT’s fly-in. So I’ll update you guys once I have a good idea of what I liked and didn’t like!

I’ve actually heard Grinnell has pretty good CS. Reed also is known to be a very academically-inclined school; my parents actually did not allow me to apply for this reason. The other ones that you have crossed off seem to make a lot of sense.

@MurphyBrown, student income is not assessed at 20% on the FAFSA. There is an income exclusion amount of around $6400 I believe, also federal, state and soc sec tax deduction. Then income above that is assessed at 50%.

Student assets are assessed at 20%, but if student has a 529 account it is considered a parent asset for FAFSA.

@merc81 I don’t get this comment of yours at all: “I’d say that of your current choices, Hamilton and Smith are the two which most encourage wide academic exploration under your own discretion, in that neither have distribution requirements.”

The whole point of distribution requirements IS wide academic exploration. They require students to take courses across disciplines, no? “under your own discretion” - most colleges with distribution requirements aren’t forcing you into particular courses - there is plenty of discretion.

You have 26 schools and you want to remove roughly half of those schools. Here’s an idea:

Come up with ten (or so) variables that are most important to you – could include things like town type (urban/rural/suburban), weather, CS program strength, ease of getting into the CS major, campus beauty, party/social scene, sports scene, estimated cost based on NPC, travel costs, etc… things you think are important in narrowing down your list.

Create an Excel spreadsheet. Make those variables the column headers and make a row for each school. Then just fill in the values for each variable at each school according to how you view relative strengths and weaknesses. Keep the scoring format consistent, tally the scores, and keep the top 12 (or however many you want to keep). Maybe identify three variables that are most important to you (like Cost, CS Strength, CS Availability) and double the possible points in those fields. That way if a school is great at everything except what you need the most, its high scores in less important areas won’t likely lead it to the top of your list.

If you end up with too many reaches, just remove a few and give those spots to a couple of matches and a safety. Make sure you have at least one safety.

In all apps, make sure you like the school and can afford it without going into too much debt.

Finally, don’t worry about the inability to visit each place. Unless you are considering applying to a school ED and are deciding between a couple of competitors, I don’t think it’s necessary to visit before sending apps. If you are accepted to multiple schools, and you aren’t sure which you favor, that’s when you want to visit them to collect that precious “gut feeling” you can really only get by being there.

@doschicos Well, I see your point. Discretion, as exercised by a student, could potentially be either wide or narrow.

I’ll note, however that colleges without core/distribution requirements offer at least two benefits: 1) Students can avoid redundancy. Subjects satisfactorily studied in high school will not need to be repeated in college for the sole purpose of meeting a requirement. 2) Some students simply value maximal freedom of choice.

Colleges with some core or distribution requirements can, in cases, offer reasonably similar environments.

@Fangirl1999 Wishing you a good experience on all of your visits!

Btw, hot temperatures, as well as cold ones, may be a factor you’ll want to consider. The forecast for Sunday in Claremont calls for a high of 102 degrees. Though weather such as this may be rare during the school year, it evidently can occur.