<p>warriorboy, yes, St. Michael’s is a very good school for a B student, and so is Champlain College (also in Burlington).</p>
<p>Based on both our Naviance scattergrams and collegedata’s, I would say St. Michael’s is an excellent match for a B student. We were looking at it as a possibility for our son, who loves Vermont, but he wasn’t thrilled about the two-course religious studies requirement.</p>
<p>nightchef depending upon the school, the religion requirement is often more of a history or anthropology requirement than religion. Most schools which require it allow it to be filled via a variety of classes which may range from Eastern Religions, to Ethics, to Paganism. </p>
<p>You may want to remind your boy that the humanities can not be taught thoroughly w/o a discussion of the religions which have formed/motivated history, art and literature so if the school is a fit otherwise I would encourage him to apply anyway.</p>
<p>historymom, S is pretty open to religious ideas–more so than I’m comfortable with at times–and not only open to, but strongly interested in, the study of religion as a cultural/historical force. (Heck, I think Karen Armstrong’s “The Bible” is on his nightstand right now.) But I think his instincts are sound when he suspects a poor fit with a school requiring two semesters of religious study (and specifically, study of Christianity; all of the courses that can be taken to meet the requirement are Christian-focused, though they run the gamut from theology to history to ethics).</p>
<p>My junior son has a 3.1 GPA at a rigorous and progressive college prep school with no grade inflation, AP classes, or class ranking. He excels at language arts & history, not so well at math and has just scraped by in science this year. He did well on the SATs, about 2100, in the 99th percentile on the language parts & 72nd percentile for math.</p>
<p>He loves Reed & Bennington. Are there any other more realistic choices for a very bright kid who just doesn’t care much about grades? He fits with the quirky, left of center feel of both the schools that he likes best.</p>
<p>Lois, </p>
<p>How about Emerson? (I’m just thinking of the “quirky, left of center” thing…I haven’t looked at it enough to know but think it may be a B-student school.)</p>
<p>Sharon</p>
<p>Lois: Children of my friends who liked Reed and Bennington also liked Bard and New College of Florida. A few of those same kids also looked at Lewis & Clark and Colorado College (but personally I think Colorado College has lost it’s “grooviness” the past few years and Colorado Springs is very conservative.) I might suggest Kalamazoo College. It could be characterized as having a quirky, arty and smart student body and a 3.1 is low but is not unheard of if there is a fit between kid and school and K has a strong English department. One child of friend transferred from Bennington to K five years ago. Beloit and K often attract the same kids, so you might look at Beloit also.</p>
<p>Lois, your son sounds quite similar to ours, and Bennington is on our short list at the moment–though as a city boy, our son does have some uneasiness about the extremely rural setting. I get the sense that Bennington is a place where the essay is huge, so your son’s strong verbal skills should help. </p>
<p>As for other options, here in the East, he might want to check out Goucher, Marlboro, and Hampshire, among others–I think Hampshire’s a bit more selective than the other two, but still within reach for a bright B-B+ student. Certainly Hampshire is the essence of “quirky, left of center.”</p>
<p>RtoR, I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like Lois’ son is looking for more of a liberal arts curriculum–Emerson is a pretty specialized performing arts/media/communication school.</p>
<p>Thank you for your suggestions! We visited Bard & his college counselor suggested Marlboro, but the others are new to me. I will look at them and maybe add them to his colleges on Naviance - so far I haven’t suggested anything at all.</p>
<p>He liked Bard until he saw Bennington, which he loved. I think part of it was the tour guides & the lunch partners at Bennington. Plus, it was a beautiful Spring day and the campus looked beautiful. Lewis and Clark is like Bard, it was great until he saw Reed, which he liked much better. He sat in on a class at Reed & loved it.</p>
<p>He is definitely planning to be an English/Literature/Creative Writing major. He’d like to get a teaching certificate - which surprised me, but is nice. He’s active in two teen writing programs & has won a local prize for a short story. </p>
<p>I think he is just a typical, disorganized, boy, but with a gift for language; maybe what they used to call a late bloomer. It seems like the system used to be more generous to kids like that - but I am sure that it was unfair in so many other ways that it is no worse now.</p>
<p>Bennington & Marlboro do not give outstanding aid packages, both have small endowments, so if your son should apply for aid, Lois, be forewarned. Marlboro just gave my D probably one of the worst FA packages I have ever seen! What a gap! We know a student who is going to be attending Bennington, but parents are very skeptical about being able for pay for it for all 4 years. What a way to start!</p>
<p>Lois, you might consider Alfred and Hobart in NY and Juniata in PA. Goucher was a fine idea, and McDaniel is another possible MD option.</p>
<p>He sounds like a great kid and I am sure will make a good choice and enjoy college when the time comes.</p>
<p>Juniata is not a safety for low B students. Privates in PA that might be matches or safeties include Ursinus, Marywood, Messiah (Christian), York, Albright, and DeSales.</p>
<p>IMHO, a safety/match school for a low B student would be one where 75% of the accepted students have about a 600 SAT score, not 650 as Juniata does. My son (HS grad 2006) was a B student, 1200 SAT (not including writing) and was waitlisted at Juniata.</p>
<p>We visited Hobart and Alfred with one of our sons. Alfred, maybe, but I did not get the impression that Alfred was a strong liberal arts school (English, history, etc.) - Art school yes, Engineering yes, Business maybe…but not liberal arts. An interesting college, no doubt, but I wouldn’t peg it for this student. Hobart, a school I happen to like very much for strong B students, I would never describe in the same breath genre-wise as Bennington (which I have visited also). Lois’ son seems pretty “centered” about what kind of campus vibe appeals to him and the son seems to be pretty decisive about discerning differences that appeal and don’t appeal. Right now I think the best help we can give is to keep pointing out schools that fit the genre more than just those they fit GPA wise. They have a really good start in my opinion. I don’t have first hand knowledge of Marlboro or Hampshire, but yes, those two would fit the genre. In my small knowledge base our friends’ kids liked Bennington and Bard much better than Marlboro and Hampshire as our friends’ kids also liked Reed more than Lewis & Clark. It’s interesting, I wonder what these kids are discerning? Lois’ son now has east coast and west coast considerations, and it makes sense to take a peek at the midwest before her son compiles his final list. The midwest has financial bang for the buck, too, compared to Bennington. Carlton, Oberlin, Kenyon, Colorado College are all possibilities and worth “a look”, but are tougher to get into and more narrowly focused on GPA/SAT/ACT than Beloit and Kalamazoo which is why I suggested Beloit and Kalamazoo. Beloit and Kalamazoo are not “easy” schools and quite academically challenging and well respected but have slightly more holistic admissions and are in Lois’ son’s genre. Cardinal Fang has a number of posts regarding these midwest schools if I remember correctly.</p>
<p>Gosh, kathiep, I thought Ursinus had pretty high stats these days, just thinking off the top of my head here… </p>
<p>Lois, I have one going to Alfred in August, if you want to send me a PM about it.</p>
<p>Juniata is standardized test optional, so I wonder how that figures into admissions. This artificially inflates the ACT/SAT midrange because those with lower scores are probably not going to submit them. BTW, I know of a student with quite a few Cs on his transcript with high SAT scores (he submitted them, don’t know the exact scores but I know he passed the 2000 mark on the 3 sections) who was accepted at Juniata, but was accepted provisionally. I don’t know exactly what that meant, but he matriculated elsewhere. I also know of another student who is an A student but had an 1100 SAT score (m&v) and was admitted with a scholarship.</p>
<p>Re: JUNIATA:
On the collegeboard’s website it states that 93% of students submitted SAT scores. That surprised me. I thought that a higher percentage would not submit them.</p>
<p>I saw on a federal student aid govenment website that 95% of “accepted students” submitted their SAT score, and 19% of accepted students submitted the ACT.</p>
<p>I must disagree about Alfred and their College of Liberal Arts. While Alfred may be noted for College of Ceramics, School of Art & Design, the Kazuo Inamori School of Engineering & College of Business, their C.O.L.A. is outstanding for such a small school! Our D is going to be an English major & probably teach. The AU Catalogue has over 80 English courses to choose from. The C.O.L.A. presentation we attended on an accepted students day was outstanding as well. You may not hear about Alfred’s C.O.L.A. very often, but we felt it was very remarkable & impressive.</p>
<p>One of things that makes it hard to figure out what exactly is a match or safety at a private school is that they don’t take just test scores into consideration. Because I’m now on my third child doing the college search I have years of observing my kids and their friends and probably have very subjective views. For instance, my son was accepted (with merit aid) at Allegheny but waitlisted at Juniata. Therefore I assume Juniata is a harder school then Allegheny but in reality it’s probably that the admissions person at Allegheny thought there was something in our son’s ap that appealed. </p>
<p>I know students that were not the best students that are now rising seniors at Marywood, Messiah and Ursinus so I’m thinking they are probably easier to get into. The College Navigator site just backs up the numbers - but it doesn’t really help as much with privates because those astute admissions people don’t go by just the numbers.</p>
<p>Ha, and just to show how subjective I am, SLUMOM, you are right - Ursinus shows a 670 avg SAT score for both reading and math.</p>
<p>Kathie, could it also be geography that played a role? Allegheny could be considered an OH school even though it is in PA. Juniata might have been looking for more geographic diversity. Wow, I did not realize that Ursinus’s SAT scores are that high. They are also standardized test score optional (unless a certain gpa or rank is not met). At Ursinus only 74% submitted SATs and 17% submitted ACTs (I am sure there is overlap so some students submitted both ACTs and SATs, and others didn’t submit scores at all).</p>
<p>Yes, I knew Ursinus was a reach for the last go around here, but it was a Free Priority Application, so nothing to lose! I think they were looking for geographic diversity. So a denial, but she wasn’t interested to begin with, but if accepted she would have looked. So, a Priority Application may be just that, a chance to get applicants from other states.
And nobody could pronounce it anyway! LOL</p>