New England LACs

College Search & Selection
41

@gardenstategal Thank you :slight_smile: I’m really fortunate to have people like you who care!

On the academic front, I’m pretty good- have gotten into a routine, thinking about the usefulness of my work and there isn’t anything I would change at this point. The problem is that I don’t exactly know what I like outside of school and, being dedicated to my studies, don’t have unlimited time to think about that. Writing is a tough place for me right now- I’m involved in lit mag, but writing anything outside of school tends to have sometimes unpleasant emotional implications. I’m working on it and wish it could be any other way. But I’m not sure if that’ll be completely my “thing.”

School newspaper is awesome and I’ve thought about it (factual writing comes without the emotional struggle) but it is a class, not a club, and same is true of yearbook. Due to the fact that I’m committing to orchestra for four years and most AP sciences are two periods, I would have to give up taking an AP science or orchestra for newspaper and both of those would be unwise to let go of, in my opinion. Local newspaper might be a better option but sadly ours is on the decline.

Community service is something I want to investigate more. It’s just hard considering that colleges don’t always see it as special unless its unique or a routine commitment. I have been exploring clubs at school this year but most meet sparsely or are resume fillers. Would it be a good idea to drop those clubs in order to pursue a frequent community service opportunity?

Some background: I am not an athlete or dancer, and my two largest (but not time consuming) ECs at this point are cello (which is great but I’m terrible at playing fast notes because my motor isn’t always the greatest, so I won’t be the world’s best player) and lit mag (also great but it’s the off season right now and I’m having internal conflicts related to writing). Young Life is a secondary EC that’s less serious and more social.

42

@allyphoe 's post gives an excellent sense of what to expect if a student is a top-notch student (read: in the hunt, admissions-wise, for the top schools in the U.S.).

For such students, yes, there will be schools that have full-tuition or even full-ride scholarships, but these are incredibly competitive. For most excellent students, a half-tuition merit award will be much more common, but not at the schools that do not offer merit. Somewhere on this site is a list of colleges and universities that offer full-tuition or full-ride scholarships (you can also Google for the list). Some of the CTCL schools offer such competitive merit awards: Agnes Scott, Knox, Hiram, and Wooster are ones that I know for certain offer such scholarships (though for Wooster it is only one or two).

Basic rule of thumb: a student must be significantly above the typical admit to be in consideration for these very exclusive merit awards. @allyphoe 's post is sort of a primer. This person’s daughter was accepted at elite schools, but the merit there was either zilch (Wellesley) or considerable but still costly (Smith). However, Agnes Scott (terrific school, btw) was willing to throw the whole enchilada at her. Why? Agnes Scott realized who they had and made a full-out effort to grab her. Welcome to the merit hunt! But most of the school’s on the OP’s original list do not offer merit.

43

@Hapworth Not my kid’s awards! Those are, as I explained, simply billed costs less maximum merit available, for a specific group of schools where I happened to be aware what constituted maximum merit.

They happen to be schools my kid has expressed enough interest in that my spreadsheet includes COA broken out by category (per 2017-2018 CDS) and the highest three levels of merit offered (per current school financial aid website). Since I had the numbers, I just subtracted and put in some commentary. So the comment of “no merit offered” next to Wellesley indicates that Wellesley offers no merit money to anyone.

My kid is a junior, and IMHO unlikely to get top merit anywhere. I’m trying to figure out her likelihood of getting enough merit money that merit-based aid would be as good or better than need-based aid. But my analysis of that is worthless to anyone but me, because it’s specific to our EFC.

44

“So I guess I should be prepared to go either the loan route or the state school route.”

Expanding your geographic range is the third option. Other parents have pointed out LACs in the midwest or south that offer good merit based aid (I have seen Grinnell and some other LACs mentioned on other threads). We found very good and affordable small schools in the opposite direction (to the north and east of New England). There are a lot of options.

What state do you live in? Did I miss this somewhere in the many responses?

OP, to me you sound very sensible. I think that you will figure this out over time. You still have plenty of time. Personally I would try to avoid the loan route.

45

@allyphoe : Oh, my bad! Still, the post is very useful. The OP needs to know where significant merit will come from (probably not the schools on her original list). And as others have pointed out, one’s EFC is typically what it is; only a full-tuition or full-ride award will lower the EFC is most cases (for full-pay or close-to-full-pay families merit will of course reduce costs).

46

Just out of curiosity, I calculated the popularity of first majors based on most recent graduation stats (from federal data -listed in College Navigator) for all the NESCAC colleges. For reference purposes, I included the data for Harvard. All these schools have a Carnegie Classification of “Arts and Sciences Focus”. Interestingly, the four most selective NESCAC schools had the highest percentage of STEM graduates - hovering around 33%. Harvard was over 40%.

Note that graduation rates vary from year to year so the accuracy of the numbers will be plus or minus a few percent.
Tufts also has a large number of majors classified as interdisciplinary (9.9%) some of which straddle the boundry between traditional STEM and non-STEM majors.

I was a little surprised by the Amherst numbers…

Harvard
Biology- 13.8%
Economics - 12.4%
Math - 9.4%
History - 8.0%
Comp Sci - 7.4%
Total STEM - 40.8%

Bowdoin
Biology - 17.8%
Poly Sci - 17.2%
Econ - 11%
All Physical Sciences - 9.1%
Math - 5.5%
Total STEM -36.5%

Tufts
All Engineering - 11.8%
Econ - 11.6%
Comp Sci - 10%
International Relations - 9.6%
Biology - 9.5%
Total STEM - 34.6%

Williams
Econ - 17%
All Physical Sciences - 11%
Biology - 10.9%
English - 9.1%
Math - 6.5%
Total STEM - 32.6%

Amherst
Economics- 13.7%
Biology - 12%
Math - 7.5%
English - 7.2%
All Physical Sciences - 6.6%
Total STEM - 32.3%

47

I know I only acknowledged gardenstategal in my last post, but my discussion with them is a bit unrelated to the rest of the posts (which is fine- I’m happy to be having both discussions).

Thank you to everyone else who has offered input on the merit aid situation. I am not going to disclose my state at this time but it does indeed have one of the LAC-type schools mentioned by mamaedefamilia. I have not toured there yet but want to go soon. My state is also home to a great flagship (that I’m not sure I’ll get into because I live in a competitive area for that school- 4.8 GPA student was waitlisted there last year but got into American). There are also a lot of those honors programs at the mid-tier schools within the system and that option sounds pretty great to me :slight_smile:

Despite the quality of the public school system here, I do want to expand to other geographic regions as many have said. Appreciate all the recommendations of Midwest schools! CC veterans, if I want to ask about public schools that do active OOS recruiting and give considerable aid, should I start a new thread to do that? (Seeing as this is a private school thread?) I thought OOS publics were a no but then read an article about students in my state going to places like Alabama for cheaper than our state schools. So I’d be curious to hear about those schools, but want to differentiate them from places like UMich that offer little to no aid OOS. No point in applying there for me personally, might as well just see if I can get into my state flagship or not.

Thanks for all the praise :slight_smile: I try my best to be open-minded, especially considering my age and inexperience with the process. And this has helped me so much!

48

My vote would be to just let this thread evolve; it saves a lot of explaining to new people. (I have a similar “what schools to pick” thread for my kid, which has evolved considerably from its initial question.)

49

Okay, that sounds good! Thanks allyphoe!

To that end, does anyone have thoughts about OOS publics that are interested in recruiting and giving aid to OOS students? I’ll just repeat what I said in my last post so it stands alone- an example of this type of school that I’ve heard of would be Alabama and a non example would be UMich which does not tend to give a ton of OOS aid. Or so I’ve heard.

50

(If you say a public in my state, no worries because you don’t know.)

51

Will OP consider Houston to be too far away? Rice U has recently released excellent financial aid packages that OP should check out. Even though Rice seems to us to be more pre-professional tracked, its residential college system, small class size, and collaborative student body seem to fit some of OP’s preferences.

52

Top 25 LGBTQ friendly schools

Most appear to be relatively large state schools…

There are two in New England
U Mass Amherst
Tufts

A few of them are smaller schools
Augsburg College (MN)
Elon (NC)
Harvey Mudd (CA)
Ithaca (NY)
Macalester (MN)
Princeton (NJ)
Southern Oregon (OR)
U Wisconsin - Green Bay (WI)

https://www.campuspride.org/campus-prides-2017-best-of-the-best-top-25-lgbtq-friendly-colleges-universities/

53

I am going to guess that the OP is from TX. Wild guess. I obviously don’t know.

OP, Alabama is one of those schools that actively seeks OOS students and offers attractive merit awards. Though Alabama might not seem to be on the same level as the schools on your initial list, it is a major flagship and research institution and grabs the state’s top students (along with Auburn), plus very bright OOSers. Others will disagree, but when it comes to undergrad education, I honestly think there’s little difference between UMich or MSU, UCSD or SDSU, Alabama or UF. A student like you would receive merit and, most likely, admission to the honors college, where one attends a school within a school: smaller classes, only profs teaching (not TAs), rigorous coursework, and sometimes other perks like preference in housing.

I’m not trying to steer you to Alabama in particular, and others can recommend public flagships that offer serious merit to OOSers, but honors colleges are a nice alternative to LACs. A student gets an LAC-like education but still gets to enjoy the bonuses that larger schools have to offer: big time sports, a much greater pool of people to meet/date, and, yes, more parties (social life is also an important part of the college experience).

EDIT: Here’s a link to the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/03/29/flagships-go-national-at-u-michigan-nearly-half-of-students-now-from-out-of-state/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b11da9a37c28 At the bottom, it lists every state flagship and shows its in-state percentage. U of Vermont leads the list with only 21% of the student body hailing from VT. I do not know the merit situations at these schools. Just in case there are people who, like me, sometimes read so many WaPo articles that they use their free allotment up, here is the list.

NOTE: The number in parentheses is the percentage change from ten years earlier. Thus, for example, the U of Vermont’s 21% in-staters means that the school had 7% more in-staters in 2008. Alabama, as you can see, has really sought OOSers. Also note that the list leaves out schools that are flagship-like. MSU, FSU, UCF, etc.

University of Vermont: 21 percent (-7)
University of Alabama: 32 percent (-34)
University of North Dakota: 36 percent (-8)
University of Delaware: 38 percent (+1)
University of New Hampshire: 41 percent (-8)
University of Mississippi: 43 percent (-11)
University of Rhode Island: 44 percent (-8)
West Virginia University: 45 percent (-4)
University of South Carolina: 47 percent (-15)
University of Oregon: 48 percent (-17)
University of Arkansas: 49 percent (-19)
University of Iowa: 50 percent (-7)
University of Michigan: 51 percent (-13)
University of Wyoming: 51 percent (-8)
University of Colorado at Boulder: 53 percent (-6)
Pennsylvania State University: 53 percent (-15)
University of Arizona: 55 percent (-8)
University of Maine: 56 percent (-21)
Indiana University at Bloomington: 57 percent (-4)
University of Wisconsin at Madison: 57 percent (-3)
University of Kansas: 57 percent (-15)
University of Oklahoma at Norman: 58 percent (-10)
University of Kentucky: 61 percent (-13)
University of South Dakota: 61 percent (-9)
University of Montana: 64 percent (-7)
University of Minnesota at Twin Cities: 64 percent (-1)
University of Missouri at Columbia: 66 percent (-14)
University of Connecticut: 66 percent (-4)
University of Virginia: 66 percent (+3)
University of Hawaii at Manoa: 66 percent (-2)
Ohio State University: 67 percent (-19)
University of Washington at Seattle: 68 percent (-10)
University of Utah: 69 percent (-9)
University of Maryland at College Park: 69 percent (+1)
University of Nevada at Reno: 70 percent (-11)
University of Nebraska at Lincoln: 70 percent (-10)
University of Idaho: 72 percent (+10)
University of Massachusetts at Amherst: 73 percent (-4)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: 74 percent (-14)
University of California at Berkeley: 76 percent (-15)
Louisiana State University: 81 percent (-4)
University of Tennessee at Knoxville: 82 percent (-4)
Rutgers University at New Brunswick (N.J.): 82 percent (-8)
University of Florida: 83 percent (-4)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: 83 percent (-1)
University of New Mexico: 83 percent (-7)
University at Buffalo (N.Y.): 84 percent (-3)
University of Georgia: 88 percent (+3)
University of Texas at Austin: 88 percent (-3)
University of Alaska at Fairbanks: 89 percent (+1)

54

@isla701 If you happen to be in a western state, you might want to look at the Western Undergraduate Exchange list, the schools involved typically discount OOS tuition to 1-1.5 x in state rates. These are generally not the flagships and sometimes are restricted by major, but lots of options.

Schools that offer good deals to OOS students (in state rates or better) with high GPA/test scores include Alabama, Arizona State (excellent honors program), UT-Dallas, and University of New Mexico. U of Maine-Orono will match your state flagship’s in state tuition if you clear a certain GPA/test score threshold (around 1200 SAT, if memory serves correctly). U of VT and U Mass Amherst have some merit funding for OOS as well, but I don’t know the details.

There are other public merit options if you qualify as a national merit finalist or semifinalist.

55

Very grateful for the info, all, and looking forward to expanding my geographic horizons after this NE trip.

Also super useful to have that Washington Post list- thanks!!