I just found this thread and my D21 has a lot of overlap! We are from a liberal SoCal area and most schools D applied to are PNW. We visited many of the same schools (many before Covid). D is not sure if she wants big or small…loves a college town and college sports, but is not big on Greek life and can see herself getting lost in the shuffle at a big state school academically and also finding ‘connections’ difficult. But she doesn’t want a place that is too small that will feel like a HS in two years. Her stats are a lower than your D (3.9 UW gpa, some rigor but not the hardest courseload with 3 AP classes, 3 DE, and several honors classes). One thing she realized she wants is a connection to a campus focused community, a place where students tend to live on campus at least two years. Going to a school where everyone is scrambling to line up housing for sophomore year within a few months of arriving freshman year is highly undesirable for her and was the reason for ruling out some schools entirely. She’s an introvert and just takes her some time to get to know people. After visiting she ruled out OSU, Univ of Portland, Seattle U, Lewis & Clark, Seattle U, Santa Clara. Visited, applied to and accepted thus far at Univ of Oregon, Univ of Puget Sound, Washington State with similar merit aid to yours though it seems more at WSU with the WUE exchange (but we are OOS tuition). But UPS would be far less expensive than Univ of Oregon, interestingly enough.
Waiting to hear from UW and Gonzaga. She really liked the latter…sort of the best of what small and big schools offer. We’re non-practicing Catholic like the jesuit education. Of course she couldn’t help point out to me that she saw tons of Biden signs but no Trump signs in the dorm windows (It seems there are so many Seattle-ites there, I figure, how conservative could it possibly be?). I didn’t tell her anything about Spokane before we went - but we just got lucky stumbling upon cool places to eat, etc. and it just felt like a small manageable city going through regentrification in several areas.
UW is such a great school but she didn’t like the housing set up, even for freshman (if you don’t know someone to room with, it seems to be a big crapshoot…not even a questionnaire to try to match you up with someone…and she’s not the type to rush a sorority so she’d be on the housing lookout for soph year almost immediately). She pointed out to me in the big caf where we ate (in one of the dorm high rises, pre-covid, very crowded) that every single table was groups of students of the same ethnicities but there seem to be no mixed groups…and as I looked around, I noticed she was right. She thought that was so odd and undesirable and who knows if it was just an odd occurrence at that exact moment, but it stuck with her. Any one have any insight on that? She was also concerned that it would take her 5+ years to get the classes she would need to graduate with so many impacted majors. We’ll see! I’ll follow this thread to see where your D ends up. Good luck.
One of my daughter’s best friends who is a year ahead of her enrolled at Gonzaga for nursing this fall but is unhappy and leaving because she says she is facing too much racism. She is a Black student of Jamaican ancestry and apparently Gonzaga is the whitest place she has ever been and just isn’t comfortable. So my daughter wrote it off her list. I don’t know any more of the story. But she is looking for schools to transfer too in the Puget Sound area, maybe Pacific Lutheran. Not sure.
I’m not sure UW would be my choice as an out of state student. The cost is more than most private options. My daughter’s HS probably sends 20+ students/year to UW and some of her best HS friends are on the marching band. She has several good girl friends from HS who are applying so she will have no trouble finding roommates. And we have a whole bunch of extended family (uncles, cousins, etc.) in Seattle. So she will be looked after. The Amtrak Cascades trains run 4x daily between Vancouver WA and Seattle so getting back and forth on long weekends and such will be cheap and easy. It’s a nice train ride with espresso service and free WiFi. So I think UW makes more sense for us than from someone out of state. Any weekend she wants she can hop the train home on Friday evening and get back Sunday evening. Plus as a UW grad myself we would probably be up for most home football games to see her play in the marching band.
We did a whole CA trip and didn’t bother even looking at Berkeley or UCLA or any other UC schools because what is the point of paying Stanford tuition for a public school?
As for the student diversity at UW? I don’t know. My daughter is the only white kid in her circle of friends who are all Asian and Black so she sees UW’s diversity as a positive. What I have been told is that you really have to seek out groups to join because the school isn’t going to do it for you. Unlike more cloistered places like the small liberal arts colleges. But I think she is looking for a school that is more diverse economically and ethnically which is UW and not the private schools in the PNW.
That said, while I like the price and convenience of UW and the ability as an alum and Dad to go up for games and events (3 hour drive for us), I suspect that Whitman would probably be the best place for her because it seems like such a special place. But it is her choice and I think she is leaning UW right now. We just need to get her admitted and won’t find out until March before we know if it is an option.
I know she will face more hassles like getting into the required classes at UW. But then that’s comes with enormously cheaper tuition for us. And why I’m not sold on sending her to UO or any other OOS schools at private school tuition rates. She can stay there 6 years and it still comes out cheaper than any of our private options probably. It also means we can more easily send her on expensive study abroad programs. She wants to do at least a year in South America or Spain. So UW might be better for that too.
Thank you for your helpful feedback. Your daughter’s friend’s experience is concerning. My D21 literally ruled out a ton of schools for the ‘simply not diverse enough’ factor. My d19 has been fortunate to find a wonderful friend group and college that, like her HS group of friends, includes friends from a variety of socioeconomic and racial/ethnic backgrounds. Based on her experience and that of her friends, a diverse student population is not proportional to the average student then has a diverse friend group. Not expecting the school to ‘do it for you’, but some schools absolutely do a better job of breaking down the barriers and figuring out ways to encourage true cohesion in their student bodies than others.
Interestingly when I mentioned the UW caf experience to older D at UW, she said she noticed the same exact thing when we visited a few years ago…rubbed her the wrong way entirely…but she said she noticed at the UC’s we visited too…so who knows, maybe just isolated anecdotes of what one sees at big state school cafeterias. If I was in state Washington, I see the great appeal of UW for all the reasons you listed. Best of luck to your D.
This photo kind of represent the reputation that the Gonzaga student body has around here. Whether accurate or not I don’t really know. It is the one school we never managed to visit in person and were planning to do sometime this winter. https://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2013/02/11/2013-02-11-gonzaga-bell-2-16_9.jpg
Google “Gonzaga Kennel Club” which is what they call their famous student section and then click images and you will see the student body. Or at least those who go to baseketball games. Welcome to the Kennel Club at Gonzaga University - YouTube
I can’t speak for the undergrad experience at UW yet. We have been on the campus a bunch for various reasons and I went there for grad school. But it is, by far, the most diverse campus in the Pacific Northwest. Easily so. Probably more like a UC campus but with less Hispanic students. The one official tour we did didn’t include housing and meals so we didn’t see the cafeterias like you describe.
As someone who know a bit about the UW and student experience - the biggest complaint is that so many local kids go home on the weekends even students living in Greek housing.
If you have a community through greek life, sports, strong activity - it seems to work - but for kids in the dorms it is known to be hard even for the most outgoing kid. They offer a freshman jump start program (I believe you take 1 class) and students that come to campus early and participated in this program have rated their freshman year experience much higher.
The school is very diverse, but the diversity is more overall in the enrollment demographics vs diversity in peer groups. It is an excellent school with many resources and school spirit - but it takes more work to find your people due to the weekends emptying out more vs the UW of the 70’s-90’s.
That makes sense. I think it is probably worse for OOS students which are a minority to begin with. For example, my daughter has a whole cohort of HS friends who are applying and probably already knows 10 kids from her HS who are ahead of her and attending UW. She is a marching band leader at her HS and has at least 5 older friends who are on the Husky marching band and still in her social media circle. And she has a couple of girls in her circle who she is already talking about rooming with. Someone coming from OOS isn’t going to have any of that.
Thank you, this is helpful info. I wondered about student leaving on the weekends. D21 has no interest in greek life, and loves sports (playing and spectating) but she is a bit shy and definitely not an extrovert. My gut is that she’d struggle to connect with a core group at UW.
Chatting with my college age daughter about the diversity issue, she said the consensus from her friends who attend large state schools (CA, noncommuters, several campuses, whose parents immigrated from China, Middle East, and South America) is that there is not anywhere near as much ‘friend group’ diversity as the student population demographics suggest, less than HS.
Did she look at Whitman ? Lovely friendly kids, cute, safe town and every person I know - from oldies like me to current grads seem to make life long friendships.
Yeah, I don’t know. My oldest daughter attended University of Arkansas and just graduated in May. It is a big SEC school. She had an enormous circle of friends. Some from sorority which she did here first two years and then quit. Some from HS (we were living in TX at the time and a lot of her HS friends when to Arkansas when they couldn’t get into UT or TAMU). Some from her church and off-campus job at a gym. And many from her classes, study groups, and so forth. But she is also just a very very social kid. There was always a parade of her friends through our house in HS too. The current daughter isn’t so much shy as much more self-sufficient. She has a few core friends but is just a lot more independent and introverted and happy not socializing all the time. I think she will be fine at UW if that is what she chooses.
Personally, if we didn’t already live in WA and didn’t have lots and lots of connections to the school and city I wouldn’t even look at UW. We only applied to UO because it is the closest public flagship to our house and they do offer merit aid. But unless she gets the Stamps Scholarship which is a full ride, it’s not very high on our list. When we toured CA schools we drove right past UC-Berkeley and UCLA without thought of stopping. For me, the tradeoffs of a big state school are that you get to go to school close to home and at a hugely subsidized cost in exchange for the hassles and difficulties of attending an enormous and impersonal public university. I see no point at all in sending my daughter to enormous and impersonal UC-Berkeley if I have to pay Stanford or Pomona prices because you are getting all the disadvantages of a big state university without any of the advantages.
Whitman is my probably my daughter’s 2nd choice at the moment after UW but those places could reverse. She applied RD to both (UW only does RD) so she won’t find out about either one until March. If she only gets into one of them the decision will make itself. If she gets into neither it gets tougher, probably UPS or L&C or maybe WWU or WSU.
After living most of my life here and working around education. And after visiting nearly all the most highly rated schools in the PNW I have come to conclude that UW is the obvious top choice academically for the public schools and Whitman is the top choice of all the privates. My alma matter Reed might be more selective, but it is also a much narrower niche school that is only going to suit a certain profile of student and family. Whitman is a more well-rounded choice. And I have never met anyone with anything bad to say about Whitman. I think if it was in the Northeast or Southern California, it would get twice as much attention as it does now. And honestly I think that goes for UPS and L&C too.
Love this! We are in Los Angeles and my son applied to all the same LACs plus WWU. When and where did you get your WWU financial aid package? My son received his acceptance way back in mid-November but swears there’s no financial aid info in his portal and we’ve got nothing in the mail (besides the initial acceptance and poster). Our goal all along was to get a small LAC down to the price of a UC school which is about $38k a year for us as full pay CA residents. So far we are close enough with our merit aid from UPS, Willamette, and Lewis & Clark that I think we could get it to exact if we appeal later on closer to the deadline. We are also waiting to hear from Whitman which I think is my first choice for my son but that financial aid pre-read that you posted is disappointing. My son is an introvert with zero interest in attending sporting events, so crossed off Gonzaga early, even though several kids from his private high school end up there every year. He also decided not to apply to University of Portland and Seattle U. My kids are 1/2 white, 1/4 black, and 1/4 Mexican so diversity is important to us too.
Actually we haven’t actually gotten any official merit aid offer from WWU. I just put it there as a placeholder based on the experience of a co-worker who’s son is a sophomore there and who has comparable (if not lower) stats than my daughter. She has already been notified that she is being admitted with “highest honors” which is the top merit award category so she will get some award and I just put in $4,000 as a guestimate placeholder: https://www.finaid.wwu.edu/scholarships/pages/wwu_scholarships/list_non_departmental.php?type_ID=1&sub_type_ID=3
She was somewhat enamored with WWU when we visited the summer of 2019 but I think it is now more of a backup option if she doesn’t get into UW and decides against any of the privates. It was really a safety option in case she doesn’t get into UW and none of the privates offer meaningful merit aid.
With respect to Whitman. We don’t have an acceptance letter from them either. What they will do is have the financial aid office run your numbers and give you a preliminary estimate of what aid they project should you be admitted. That’s where those numbers come from. I am hoping that is a worst case scenario for Whitman and that if she is accepted they will come through with a merit award offer that is more competitive with UPS and L&C. She almost applied ED but thinks that UW might really be her first choice so held off on the ED to Whitman and went RD.
The only school on the list we didn’t apply to is Willamette. Mostly because their bio program seems the weakest of the three. In terms of Biology I kind of rank them Whitman, L&C, UPS, and Willamette in that order. Mostly based on facilities, number of faculty, and percentage of students at each school in the major.
We ended up asking Whitman to do a financial aid pre-read for us as well. We don’t qualify for any need-based aid, which we knew, and they estimated $14k for merit! Very disappointing as that’s more than $10k less than his merit aid from UPS and L&C. I really do think that Whitman is the best fit for my son, but there’s no way we would send him if we have to pay $55k+ out of pocket each year (plus probably another $5k+ for tuition increases) when he could go to Willamette, UPS, or L&C for $17k less per year. Too bad.
We did the financial-aid pre-read from Whitman too. Higher numbers than yours but still about exactly $10k lower than the merit aid offers from L&C and UPS. She doesn’t even know if she is getting into Whitman at this point as she applied RD and those aren’t out yet.
Whitman is a nice place, but I’m not sure it is $10k to 12K nicer than the other alternatives.
We also looked at Reed but they do no merit aid at all and have about 50% of their students on full pay which would be $75k per year. I don’t think it is $40k better than the alternatives.
Thanks for this thread. Didn’t see your D’s stats anywhere. Does Whitman’s Merit aid vary a lot based on the stats ? I looked up some old threads & supposdly the max merit they give is around 25k which brings cost down to 34-35k assuming 69K for COA. Thx for the info on Willamette and bio programs. My D is a Jr looking at Colleges next year but Whitman might end up being too expensive though their pre-read program has got a nytimes mention.
TIA,
Your daughter sounds a lot like mine. We are in the midwest and haven’t been able to venture out that way due to Covid. May I ask what she didn’t like about University of Portland. That is one of the schools my daughter is looking at from afar.
She had a 3.96 unweighted GPA with 8 AP classes. She had a 1400 SAT taken early fall of her junior year before Covid shut down all the testing so she never had a chance to re-take it. Her extracurriculars were pretty mainstream, mostly an assortment of sports and music.
You can look over on the Whitman forum and find a lot of recent discussion about merit aid. Seems like most people posting there got the exact same $14,000 merit award, some with additional need-based awards some without. We were offered the $14,000 merit and an additional $7,000 need-based award which I would fear with vanish after 1-year as our Covid-related income slump will likely reverse in future years.
We live in the Portland metro area so University of Portland is in our back yard. We visited the three Portland-area private colleges: Reed, Lewis & Clark, and University of Portland and D21 just found UP to be the least interesting of the three. It is kind of in a sleepy residential part of north Portland without much close by and it seemed more pre-professional in focus (big nursing school, business school, engineering school etc.). It wasn’t so overtly liberal arts and academic for academics sake compared to Reed or Lewis & Clark (or Whitman). Daughter wants to study molecular biology and genetics or some related field and pursue graduate studies and research in that field and the other schools (Reed, Lewis & Clark, and Whitman) seemed to have more core science and research focused programs with a higher percentage of professors and students interested in biological research and such. The bio program at UP seemed more to have a supporting role for nursing and health sciences careers and pre-med majors and such. We could be wrong, but that was the impression.
Mostly she just didn’t get the same sort of eclectic intellectual vibe that she got at Reed, Whitman, and Lewis & Clark. Students seemed more pre-professional. We looked at 5 different Catholic schools on the west coast (UP, Gonzaga, Santa Clara, USF, and Loyola-Marymount. Gonzaga was the only one she ended up applying to and that was mostly because she has lots of friends applying there.
I think she figures if she is going to end up so close to home that she can take a city bus to school, she’d rather be at Lewis & Clark or Reed. And since Reed is unaffordable, that leaves Lewis & Clark as her stay-home option and UP kind of fell off the list.
If you are looking for Catholic schools in the Northwest then UP, Seattle U, and Gonzaga are your three logical choices. UP is kind of sleepy suburban and probably the most conservative of the three as it is run by the Congregation of the Holy Cross (same as Notre Dame) and not the Jesuits as is the case with Seattle U and Gonzaga. Seattle U is extremely urban, basically a stone’s throw from the Seattle central business district and is going to have a more liberal and diverse urban student body. Gonzaga is in the heart of Spokane just across the river from downtown and pretty much the classic picture perfect looking college with old quads and such.
If you expand to California then USF is very urban and sort of cold feeling…lots of 1950s style concrete buildings. Santa Clara feels like a very upscale country club, very posh and full of rich prep-school students who didn’t get into Stanford or USC. And Loyola Marymount is in central LA near LAX so sort of an oasis in the middle of the city.
My son got $18,000 merit. He has about a 3.95 UW, all IB classes (not full diploma though), and a 1480 SAT. His pre-read said $14,000, but he did not have the SAT score at that time. So maybe the SAT upped the merit? Not sure. They might also base merit on essay and recommendations too.
I have some similar comments to Camasite about UP. My D just felt ‘underwhelmed’ by Univ of Portland compared to other schools she saw in the PNW. She thought the campus was just ok, didn’t like that there was no track on the main campus (she likes to run) but didn’t see herself running through the local neighborhood, she didn’t want to take 3 instead of 2 religion courses as other Catholic schools she’s considering require (though UP is changing the core curriculum so that might change)…she thought she would love it but it just felt bland so it was easy for her drop off the list after seeing the campuses and feeling the vibes at both Univ of Puget Sound and Gonzaga. Full disclosure - I liked the school more than D did, in part I think because the last two presidents there came from ND and I remember them from when I was a student (my experience during college was far different than what others might perceive as what happens on a Catholic college campus…the religious faculty that I got to know a little bit were overtly kind, smart, and nonjudgemental, far more concerned with teaching compassion, social justice and support of those in need…like wise philosophers…YMMV). I like the dorm set up at UP too (students randomly assigned to a dorm and it becomes part of your social/sports/identity for as long as you live on campus) with no Greek Life. The President Fr. Poorman just resigned from UP, so I was wondering what the impetus was for that. D is looking for a school where the students talk about the fact that they love their college community, and where there is consistent feedback about the supportive professors. She just got that vibe far more from the students she met at UPS and the ones she knows at Gonzaga. Good luck!