I don’t know to what extent, but it seems like Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby all give some preference to kids from Maine. For all of them, preference to truly local kids would be quite limiting.
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Colorado College not only gives a preference for admissions but a special tuition rate. Colorado residents with an AGI less than $200k don’t pay the $67k plus R&B that others do, but nothing (if AGI under $60k), r&B only (AGI $60-120) and instate tuition (~$13k) plus R&B for those under $200k. Some states like Florida and Colorado allow students at private schools to use their tuition scholarships like bright futures at private schools too. Those might not dent the tuition at the private schools but every little bit helps.
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Princeton gives preference to NJ applicants
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My son goes to TCU. What made you think it was very religious. Despite the name it’s not the case. Baylor down in Waco is very religious though.
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The words “Texas” and “Christian” in the name of the school.
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TCU is definitely not religious. And Trinity University is not named for the Holy Trinity, but a nearby river, and not one iota religious.
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I was unaware of the Church of “Texas”.
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TX Dad is correct. Not that there is anything wrong with schools being religious but TCU is fairly secular.
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On our tour 18 months ago, the guides downplayed the religious part by saying the “C” in TCU can be as big or little as you want it to be.
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Perhaps, though it’s also possible that a disproportionate # of kids apply to Brown from RI than they do from the other states. Said/asked another way, 6% of undergrads may be from RI, but what’s the % of applicants from RI?
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I am one of those who thought it was more religious than I expected it to be. I live in Texas and have encountered a lot of people who say it really isn’t despite the name. So when we toured, I was not expecting a religious vibe. I believe I said in my post that it may have just been our tour guide, but she really emphasized the religious aspects. Most of her extracurriculars had to do with religion, she talked about various church groups, and she talked about the required religion class, which I had not been aware of. I am aware that Baylor is far more religious - we did not even consider visiting Baylor. But our TCU tour guide really emphasized all of the religious (Christian) aspects of TCU.
Despite that, there was a lot we liked and if my kids were interested, we would have explored it in more depth rather than just going off of one tour guide’s impression. But a required religion class (even if it can be on a variety of topics) is pretty much enough to make my kids say no - at least initially. They did have other reasons for not wanting to attend TCU, and all of us were very impressed with the school and campus.
ETA: - I don’t remember her exact words, but when the tour guide pointed out that the football stadium was taller than every building on campus except one of the church buildings and she stated that summed up TCU “God first and football second” my kids were done and there was no coming back from that. lol.
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And I think it possible that one could get into one of those other schools and not Amherst. In fact I’m positive it’s happened. Parsing acceptance rates and likelihoods among these is besides the point of this discussion.
And nowhere have I said that “a consortium school” was in or out of my preference. Simply that not all consortia are created equal. That the practical realities on the ground do not necessarily match the airtime they’re given in marketing materials and tours, and that if one is lead down an academic path where your only best option is an hour round trip commute for classes at another school, that perhaps a better option exists in the first place.
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It was relevant to the point I was making (that there are actually very few universities that have better PhD placement records than Amherst, that those specific universities are hyper-selective, and that only applying to those specific universities, let alone a subset that fit your other criteria, could materially affect your chances of admissions).
I therefore would not generally consider it sound advice to suggest that if a priority for you is graduate school admissions, you should only apply to universities and exclude LACs. You might have other reasons to exclude individual LACs, and possibly some reason to exclude them all. But absent some reason to exclude all LACs, that sort of priority would rationally lead to strong consideration of including at least some LACs on your application list.
But again you are free not to care about that sort of consideration.
Right, I would agree anyone who is interested in how a consortium might give them options should do some of what I would call “due diligence” into various practical realities. What is the actual distance between the colleges in question? What does the bus schedule actually look like? Are there formal shared departments, majors, minors, concentrations, certificates, or other such programs? If so, which? Is it just academic, or does it also include clubs, social events, and so on? Is there information available (such as in that Forbes article) about actual use of the course options at specific colleges? And so on.
Some of this information might be fairly easy to obtain. Some might be a little harder to obtain. You might never get perfect information, which is just how it goes in college selection. But definitely asking such questions, and trying to get accurate answers to them, is a good idea if this is something you think you might value.
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I’m sorry you had that experience. That tour guide was an outlier. My son is not religious at all, but said the class options actually look very interesting. The Women And Gender Studies Department now offers a course called “The Queer Art of Drag” if that tells you anything. Anyway, I’m grateful to all the kids that take time to give tours at different schools. They have many interests, and it’s ok if they talk about their viewpoint, and we had to do a lot of other research before my son decided.
Good luck!
We’re located in the SF Bay Area. A HS friend of D18’s transferred out of TCU, a few years back, because she felt the school was too religious. It’s all relative.
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Possible - I agree that we don’t know enough to rule that out. I just find it very unlikely that the RI applicant pool is similar in overall strength to the NJ applicant pool, given that NJ is chock-full of high achievers seeking enrollment at Ivies. And if the RI applicant pool isn’t as strong overall as the NJ pool, then there would need to be significantly more applicants from RI - a much less populous state - to explain how both ended up with 6% of enrollees. Some schools definitely attract a disproportionate number of applicants from nearby because they just aren’t as well-known outside the local area, but that’s clearly not the case here.
I don’t know about that—in my experience, just ask a Texan about how great their state is, and…
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I was told there are two kinds of people in the world: Texans and those who wish they were!
(I am part of the 3rd category not included…neither.)
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To name the school most favored by students of distant origin, Reed has had the deepest geographical reach of U.S. colleges.
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I don’t doubt this at all! I live in the Portland metro and have never met anyone who went to Reed, or sent their kids to Reed. It’s a topic of conversation that comes up occasionally with my friends as all of us are sending kids off to college. I can name five kids who went to Pomona or or Dartmouth or Cornell, but not one that went to Reed. It’s weird!
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