While @vwlizard asked about the kid’s college search, I guess I can only really talk about myself. I feel like I am a lot LESS anxious about it than I was when applying to BS. It all worked out well for BS and there are so many more choices for college, which is really a relief. I read a book suggested by the college counseling office called “Who Gets in and Why” and it made me more clearly realize that there are “sellers” (schools that focus on yield) and those that just wants to offer a great education to whomever wants one (thank goodness). My kid has a specific major in mind and we’ve visited schools that are strong in that major (whether it be via a strong undergrad research component, to world class research facilities on campus) and admit rates range from 6%-80%. Of course the wealthy schools with the 6% admit rates are the ones that have a small population/community and beautiful facilities, which is something else my kid wanted. That being said, my kid is going for area of study first, so is OK with a larger state school (albeit, not our state so the tuition isn’t that much of a break). His priorities are area of study and close community.
The most interesting thing about touring that I’ve noticed is that after the first batch of guided tours, my kid insisted on doing self-guided (one of the benefits of covid I guess) tours because he didn’t really care about the mail room or fitness buildings - they all generally are the same as BS and he doesn’t enjoy hitting the weights that much I guess). I made him go on so many tours (we did loops in various areas of the country that we happened to be in, with two schools having to be a destination since they weren’t near anything else) that he bagged the last two schools on one loop and didn’t mind that I couldn’t figure out a way to check out a school in Canada. Similar to the mailroom thought, I think since he’s already done BS, he just doesn’t care about that stuff as much and 90% of the schools either didn’t match up to Mercersburg or were the same (a dorm room is generally a dorm room) as long as the school had the research facilities he was looking for.
Good luck to all our kids and thank goodness there are more colleges and universities out there then there are boarding schools.
I’d love to know which colleges fit these criteria. LACs in cities? I leaned there until I saw the last bullet point since many of those have had very strict and limiting Covid rules!
Haa! Pomona, HMC, Scripps and CMC have been AWFUL during the pandemic. Practically shut down the whole time. Stay clear.
This thread is interesting because D and H go to college with a lot of boarding school kids and they are both at rural LACs. Some boarding school kids do choose to continue the small, rural experience but the ones they know do call it Boarding School 2.0.
“How target colleges responded ro COVID was also a factor.” = Does not indicate–at least by my reading–anything for or against “very strict and limiting rules”.
And I agree with @Golfgr8 that many boarding school kids view LACs as “Boarding School 2.0”. And some like it, while others do not want to repeat certain aspects of the boarding school experience.
College of Charleston
Sarah Lawrence (close to city but not in it)
Macalester
Colorado College (big bump in applications past 2 years)
Richmond
William & Mary
Rollins
Rhodes College
Wellesley (take advantage of classes with their college partners)
Haverford, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr
No it’s not. I have a friend with a D at Scripps and it’s been an awful experience. So locked down. And the last letter they just got from the President was all about the rules for incoming semester with no mention of anything returning to any semblance of normalcy. The D took last year off and she and her friends are now planning on finishing this sad year and trying to transfer.
Your friend’s daughter wasn’t even there last year, and your third-hand information about this year is incorrect.
All the schools were in person all of last semester, dining halls were open, sporting and cultural events took place with vaccine mandates and health checks. While students weren’t allowed to eat at each others dining halls, they were allowed to take classes at the other institutions. Masks were required indoors, and testing was mandatory, but it was far from “practically shut down the whole time” as you claim. As for this semester it hasn’t started yet, but so far the policies are in-line with what other comparable California schools are doing, including the UC’s and Stanford.
Perhaps it isn’t such a great idea to make blanket proclamations about schools about which you personally know next to nothing?
Maybe it is just our student, but kiddo is less impressed by name recognition, perceived prestige, and/or ranking on the USNWR list. I believe the entirety of boarding school experience has made our student more discerning about finding a “best fit” university, as well as the purpose of the experience. For our student, there seems to be a different focus on what is valued compared to same-age peers back home.
We’ll, we had hoped that BS would shape our son’s college search in some way but, just as we didn’t ask a lot of questions about BS (solely looked for better academics than what he could get at home, didn’t know to be concerned about anything else), he wasn’t interested in anything about colleges other than whether or not they had the programs he was interested in. He didn’t see the point of tours as he felt college websites could give him everything he needed to know. He put his college list together in about ten minutes and that was that. As horrified as we were at his choice, hindsight has proven it was the right one for him. So, if BS helped to shape his college search, it was by deepening his already well-developed sense of independence. He’s never really listened to us, only the voices in his head apparently. They seem to be wiser than we.
ChoatieMom. That sounds kind of like my kiddo. She only applied to 3 BS, despite me suggesting others. And in the middle of her (repeat!)Jr. year right now still has no college list, and no idea what she wants to study. Hopefully we can get to work on that over the long Spring break, but every time I mention college she says she doesn’t want to talk about it now.
DS’s school has a 2 mod class (7 weeks) that seems to be very helpful both in starting their essay and helping them wade through the search. They start sometime in the first few mods of Junior year.
My original thought was that he was in great shape, really focusing in on his intended major (biomedical engineering), size (not so small it felt like BS 2.0) and location (doesn’t take a whole day of travel to get to and not in the middle of nowhere). He was targeting schools that seemed to be a great fit academically and athletically (D3 baseball), then BAM … wrestling coach tells him he could go D1 (I’m not sure I agree) and everything is out the window.
The good news is that D-1 wrestling coaches typically inform high school / prep school wrestlers as to whether or not they could compete at the D-1 level.