<p>Macalester has quite a diverse student body as they provide a lot of need based aid. They also have a large number of international students, but that might not be a plus for you. Their social science departments are top notch, and their theater is good too. The Twin Cities have the most theater seats per capita of any city. You might look at other colleges in the Twin Cities while you’re at it. Macalester is quite hard to get into - but with a recommendation from a faculty member might be doable.</p>
<p>Macalester & the Twin Cities are both great places for a fairly liberal young adult. Wheaton College in Massachusetts has a similiar bent.</p>
<p>Kelsmom- No, I did not. I actually applied EA to GCSU. I talked to the admission officer, and he wanted me to do a summer program for remedial students. I told him no thanks. They rejected me because of my SAT scores. I know kids from my high school who attend, and they didn’t even take honor classes in high school. I took over 10 honors and 5 AP. GCSU doesn’t look at the application holistically. I told the guy that Wooster, Allegheny, etc accepted me with my SAT scores, and there average is much higher. The CTCL’s look at each applicant holistically (excluding Cornell). I wouldn’t have liked GCSU, so it was fine by me. I saw it as a sign from God that the only school I applied to in GA rejected me. </p>
<p>Not one school met my full need, but my family can afford Knox fine. The merit scholarships had no affect on whether we could afford the school, it was all about the need based aid. For example, some schools gave me more merit, but less need, so couldn’t go there. I applied to 16 schools because of financial aid. The price tag of the school didn’t matter. Wheaton was 55k and was way more affordable than Hiram and Flagler, and their tuition is much cheaper. So again, it will not depend on the merit, but on the individual need based financial aid packages.</p>
<p>Instead of asking a bunch of well-meaning strangers what you should do, take the advice of many of the posters on this thread and sit down and talk with your parents. They know you best and have a much better understanding of your personality, your issues, and the available finances. Ultimately, money will dictate where you will end up–if you do decide to transfer.</p>
<p>E_C I don’t have any advice for you about choosing colleges. However, I would like to chime in with the other posters who have urged you to take down the youtube video. Take it down for the sake of whatever future career you will have, even if you end up pursuing acting. Everybody knows how to use google these days…</p>
<p>Not sure of the current status, but Georgia has or had well known lottery scholarships for in-state publics (years ago I also read that qualifying Georgia students could receive a small lottery funded scholarship to attend private schools–but I’m not sure if that provision is still in effect or whether it could be used at an out-of-state school).</p>
<p>You’re talking about the Hope Scholarship, which pays 90% free of tuition if you have a 3.0 academic GPA (it use to be 100% tuition and books/fees). However, at GCSU, it still would have costed 13k per year with the scholarship (room and board is 10k), and I’m paying 8k per year at Knox (with loans). Private schools in GA get a couple thousand of Hope not OOS. Also, since I would be a transfer student from an OOS, not sure I could still get it.</p>
<p>Also, Macalester may be a great choice. It’s just a matter on how they look at SAT scores, but my professor was loved at Macalester. They didn’t want her to leave, and they want her back. She is wonderful. :)</p>
<p>E-C: Knox really might not be the right fit–there’s nothing wrong with the academics but the social piece isn’t happening. As others have suggested, start researching transfer schools. When you return to Knox, keep up with the classes and see if you can’t ignore the social issues and worrying about what others may be saying or thinking about you. SERIOUSLY consider seeing the college counseling staff–if only to find closure with this situation that’s been so disappointing to you. There will be more disappointments ahead (if only because you are human and they come to all of us). Learning how to roll with them is actually the key to your future success. If others have behaved inappropriately toward you, maybe the school needs to know about it. You can even get a head start on the process by meeting with a professional at home (your school insurance policy may cover a few sessions). You might be able to acquire tools to deal with others who don’t “get you”. After all, you have 6 long weeks ahead of you. People with “big” personalities don’t always do well as the big fish in a little pond. I think Wheaton (MA) is too much like Knox. I would slow down and make sure you’re not jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The more trimesters you have to show off, the more choices you’ll have in a future school–otherwise they’ll look at you as a slightly advanced high-school senior. Having good relationships with professors who can write nice LOR won’t hurt either. Nothing wrong with transferring. I did it after 3 semesters. Talk with your parents and get them on board with this too.</p>
<p>EC, definitely put out some transfer applications, but please put serious thought into both where you choose to apply, and to how you will approach a fresh social start once you
arrive on campus. Actually, contemplate a fresh social start at Knox for when you return. </p>
<p>Begin with the realization that most of the students on campus chose Knox for the same reasons you did–including the intellectual vibrancy–and that everyone else on campus is also as smart as you.</p>
<p>And then forget all the little boxes that you are using to describe the other students–those boxes are not any more valid than your Survivor video is as being totally defining of you. At our high school, which had about 750 students, those boxes would not have fit any of the students I know. Using one of my sons as an example, he sang in the top choral group, which is nationally known and has traveled internationally to compete at (and win) several international festivals. He is also an accomplished soccer player who was named to the all star roster more than once and played on a club team that traveled all over the US on a regular basis. He was very active in his faith-based youth group. He’s also a very strong student, an international business/ marketing double major with a minor in Finance, a top officer in his fraternity and on interfraternity council, an artist/sculptor, and loves to read fantasy novels. Which box would you put him in?</p>
<p>My guess is that after a 15 minute conversation, he would know a whole lot about you…and that you would not have even scratched the surface with him. He loves to learn about people, and what makes them tick (hence his interest in marketing, and also in behavioral economics). He is an introvert, but he has excellent social skills and is seen as “very popular”…he doesn’t see himself that way at all, he just sees himself as genuinely curious about people, and all the rest follows.</p>
<p>My point is that when you see someone heading in to the dining hall in lacrosse clothes, don’t relegate him to the “jock” box, and don’t stereotype him as unintellectual. If you actually talked to him, you might find out that he is also an amateur astronomer who writes poetry. Or a biochem major who is a Civil War buff. Or a pre-law history major who tutors at the local Boys Club and works at the food bank after church on Sunda</p>
<p>Or even a psych major with an interest in gender issues. Who also happens to like playing lacrosse.</p>
<p>Your putting people into categories instead of getting to know them as individuals is depriving you of the opportunity of turning them in to friends. You are so focused on them getting to know all about wonderful, amazing YOU–and you are working so hard to be the over the top, big personality, interesting, opinionated persona–that you are sacrificing the chance to learn anything about them. Why can’t you be friends with a hipster or a jock? They aren’t one dimensional people, any more than you are. Are you really the overweening, pompous jerk you portray on your YouTube video?</p>
<p>Can you spend some of the six weeks you have off thinking about how you might work on how other people perceive you?</p>
<p>Remember–reality is in the perception of the beholder.</p>
<p>My advice: read that ^ eighty bajillion times.</p>
<p>More good posts – one other school to consider - Rhodes near Memphis TN. We had several family members go there who really liked it.</p>
<p>I think Rhodes would be considered too Greek to him. </p>
<p>Too bad you had a horrible time at Earlham, I think it would have been a good fit. Not only are they very accepting at the campus there is no Greek life. And although it is in the Midwest, there are plenty of East Coast kids, Southern kids and plenty of kids on financial aid (so not a rich kid vibe).</p>
<p>Thanks for the comments boysx3. The town of Richmond was ten time’s worse than Galesburg, and Galesburg isn’t anything to brag about. Earlham is a great school nonetheless just not for me. I wonder if things would have been different if I would have went to Wheaton or Clark. I could have got a free Masters degree at Clark, now that I think of it, that’s stupid to pass up the opportunity.</p>
<p>Don’t even think yet about what if’s. That is what is getting you into some of this angst. Just go back to Knox and try again. If you give it another shot and it still doesn’t work, that may be another story.</p>
<p>^^^ I 100% agree with you :)</p>
<p>OP: I have a great deal of respect for you based on this thread. It’s not easy to take criticism & deal with it as well as you have. You’re at a tough stage of life, but you’ve convinced me that you’re going to handle it well.</p>
<p>Its good practice for all those auditions, in the the-a-tre!</p>
<p>Curious as to the meaning of the above post. And I ask in a good way. Seems like a lot of the parents on this website are characters. (Also meant in a good way.)</p>
<p>Well OP is majoring in drama ( and so I expect will be having lots of auditions in the course of his career)and the pronounciation was from a “dramatic” character in 30rock, who pronouncs it with a long A.
It was funny at the time.</p>
<p>The more I think about it, the more I think posters are doing the OP a disservice by offering up, with the best of intentions, a new batch of colleges for him to research. There has been a tendency over the years to misdirect time and energy into the wrong thing or at the wrong time. The op felt, in retrospect, that the time spent researching colleges as a freshman contributed to his not doing well academically that year. So this year, Knox is a good fit financially and academically, but work is needed to make it a better fit socially. The time and energy should, IMO, be spent working on social skills and friendship development than potentially avoiding that by diving into another round of college search and applications.</p>