Parents of the HS Class of 2021 (Part 1)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
7947

Just watched first ten minutes of a Dayton tour. 70% Catholic. Likely a deal breaker for D! And mass in each dorm once a week.

7948

We watched that too @homerdog - but technically I call myself a Catholic and I’m not the least bit religious. It’s free to apply to so she may throw an app and we can see if we visit when/if Miami accepts her.

Edit to add - I really need to re-read before posting! Ducking Apple autocorrect making me look dumb! ?

7949

oh wow – well, the more you know!

@th03 --well, the Northeast and Midwest are chock full of LACs that would fit the bill. Here’s a list to get you started but not exhaustive. I’m trying to list the ones that aren’t too far removed from cities, don’t emphasize sports, and not much Greek focus. I’m sure @homerdog and others can add more and other thoughts

Midwest

  • Macalester
  • Carleton
  • St. Olaf
  • Grinnell (might be too remote for you but it’s not too far from Des Moines)
  • Kenyon
  • Denison – but it might be more Greek? not sure
  • Oberlin – in Ohio, not sure exactly where, tbh
  • Earlham (sp?)-- also remote

Mid-Atlantic

  • Franklin & Marshall (too Greek?)
  • Haverford (particularly small)
  • Swarthmore (very intense)
  • Bryn Mawr (women’s)
  • Goucher (women’s)

Northeast

  • look at all the NESCAC schools though some are more preppy – particularly Colby, Conn. College, and Middlebury? – so might not be right fit.
  • Mt. Holyoke (women’s)

I know there’s others, but this is a start at least!

7950

Congrats on driving and BTS @TVBingeWatcher2 ! My D was very reluctant for a long, and didn’t get on the list for behind the wheel until May- along with everyone else a year younger- and restrictions requiring 1 student driver per car instead of two caused quite the backlog- she won’t get to take it until September. At least she won’t have anywhere to drive with school 100% virtual. SUPER political here. So frustrating.

D is dragging her heels and it’s driving me crazy. She has a big final list 15 schools. A few have no supplements, or very easy ones, but quite a few are going to require a lot of effort. She sees the November/December/January dates and thinks she has all the time in the world. Main essay is done- idea ready for most important supplement: the Johnson Scholarship essay for W&L. She doesn’t need it for a while, but I’m insisting she work on it next so she has time to set it aside and revisit it later. Just decide to add Pitt for a rolling admissions decision. It had been on her list earlier and has a great program for what she is interested in, but it’s much bigger than anything else on her list.

I mentioned before she’s unmotivated because no one in her close friend group of 10 is applying to any highly selective schools, and nobody else has started anything. They all got together last week and two friends announced they are getting an apartment together and doing the local CC to start thanks to Covid. Two others are have been offered spots on small regional D3 school sports teams and will most likely be signing. I want her to cross a bunch of essays off her to do list in August. She thinks I’m a micromanaging, over zealous parent. Long few months ahead.

7951

@th03 you’re looking for reaches, no? That’s the problem. There just aren’t LACs that are reachy that offer merit.

These do not-

Carleton
F&M (and likely not a reach)
Haverford
Swat

And I think Conn College might be the only NESCAC that gives merit. And it wouldn’t be a reach.

If you go down the USNWR rankings of LACs, Washington and Lee is the first one that gives merit but it’s full tuition and competitive (#10), then Smith (#11), then Grinnell (#14), then URichmond (#23 - competitive merit) and Macalester (#25) and Kenyon (#26).

These each have very different vibes so you’ll want to check them out! Washington and Lee is southern and pretty conservative. Smith is of course all women. Grinnell and Mac are similar in vibe but very different since it’s rural Iowa versus downtown St Paul. U Richmond feels polished and has a little bit more pre-professional feel. Kenyon is very liberal-artsy is very remote but so beautiful.

7952

I have a quite a few friends who went there. I grew up in Ohio and didn’t realize UD was Catholic until I was in my 20s, so that tells you how Catholic it is. Everyone I know who went there are well rounded, engaged, happy people who all have fond memories of their time as a Flyer.

7953

@NJWrestlingmom @homerdog I think @EconPop knows a lot about U of D.

7954

@th03 @homerdog has made a great point about LACs and merit.

I’d second @AlmostThere2018’s suggestion of Bryn Mawr if your D is open to a women’s college. They share a course catalog with Haverford, so the academics are similar, but Haverford doesn’t offer any merit and Bryn Mawr does. The vibes on the campuses are different, though, so you’d want to research (and one day visit!) to determine which is the better fit.

We know lots of families with kids at Dayton, and they all have nothing but love for the place. It would be too Catholic for our kids, but honestly, that is not a high bar!

7955

@Rue4 15 schools isn’t too many if your daughter is willing to put in the work. She could always start with what she feels are her favorites (as long as there are safeties in those favorites). If she later gets tired of writing essays or filling out applications, then she can stop (and her list will be naturally shorter).

My daughter’s friends aren’t applying to nearly as many schools as D21, but that’s because they all really want to go to safeties. If your list completely consists of schools that accept more than 80% of their applicants and you are a straight-A student with great ECs, then there is no need to apply to more than a handful of places. If your list mainly has schools with acceptance rates of less than 40%, then having a larger list makes sense.

We visited Pitt two years ago and D23 loved it (D21 wants more of an LAC feel). That one will likely be on her list. Love that it has rolling admissions!

7956

@th03 Check out the Colleges that Change Lives schools (website and/or book) if you haven’t already done so. It focuses on LACs where an A- to B student can get decent merit scholarships. Many were test optional (even before COVID)

We did the LAC merit hunt a few years ago with our older daughter, who sounds similar to yours - zero interest in Greek life and sports. Quiet, likes to learn.

Of the great list that @AlmostThere2018 gave you, I’m going to rearrange them slightly with an eye to selectivity and merit and add a few, some mentioned elsewhere up thread.

Also if you’re in state, William & Mary is worth a look. OOS, not much merit and very competitive.

More selective (with merit)

  • Macalester (very close to Minneapolis/SP airport, within St Paul but feels upscale suburban)
  • Oberlin (30 minutes from Cleveland airport, small town)
  • Kenyon (about an hour from Columbus airport, beautiful campus/tiny town)
  • Smith & Mt Holyoke (not convenient to an airport, but there are buses and shuttles. Both women's colleges)
  • Bryn Mawr (near Philadelphia airport, all women)
  • Grinnell (about an hour from Des Moines, tiny town)
  • Denison (45 minutes from Columbus airport, town has a charming New England feel, is less Greek than it used to be)
  • U of Richmond (as mentioned earlier, a bit preppier and preprofessional and larger than the typical LAC)

A notch down, also with merit:

  • Earlham - small Quaker school, warm and nurturing, don't remember how to get there.
  • St Olaf - 45 minutes from the Twin Cities, lovely kind school, great placement for med and grad school
  • Dickinson - interesting school with strengths in music, dance, foreign languages. Sustainability emphasis. Offers a "study abroad" semester in Washington DC. Shedding its Greek image
  • College of Wooster - north central Ohio, maybe Akron is the closest airport? Has a senior thesis requirement. Small city with a revitalized downtown.
  • Muhlenberg - closest city is Philadelphia, especially good for theater and premed
  • Lawrence - Appleton, WI. Good for music. Small city location. Not sure about the travel.

Another notch down:

  • Goucher (no longer all women but still skews heavily female). Small and less selective. Suburban Baltimore.

Lots to choose from - good luck!

7957

During our 18-month search/apply/search/apply adventure. UDayton ended up being one of the schools S20 applied to. Initially, he and I also thought it had the potential to be too religious. It’s mentioned a fairly often in the literature, and we’re as unreligious as it gets. But, we’re not anti-religion, just unreligious. Upon deeper research, UDayton isn’t pushy about it’s religion. After move-in a few days ago, it seems that about half the kids/families were Catholic of various degrees of practicing, but nothing alarmed us. For instance, it doesn’t seem as religious as Pepperdine. As unreligious as S20 is, he doesn’t think UD will be a problem for him in that area.

Move-in was great. Everyone we met was fantastic, from the staff to each and every student and family. @homerdog we met a family from Chicago, whose brother is next door to my son. They came in and talked to us like we were old friends. It was very welcoming. Their son is an incoming freshman, and their daughter is a junior at UDayton. That’s something else we’ve come to learn since accepting the offer at UDayton - families seem to absolutely love the place. My son’s roommate (a freshman also) also has a older sibling currently at UDayton. And we’ve noticed quite a few students are following in older siblings’ footsteps. UD seems to engender a great deal of loyalty among families.

Our search was widespread. After digging deeper into UD, I’d say it’s similar to Richmond, Wake Forest and similar schools. We visited those two and several other schools, and the “feel” on campus was similar. No, UD doesn’t have the national cache of those schools and the stats of incoming students aren’t as high, but the student bodies seem very similar to each other across broad segments. {aside: I’ve been doing some digging and my opinion is many schools’ actual averages may not match their advertised averages. A TO school like WF can hide not-as-impressive test scores and use only the higher scores for public consumption.] Overall, the kids seem preppy, very friendly, smart, and just plain happy. Aside from lamenting that it’s not higher ranked, my son couldn’t find a bad thing to say about UD. He’s only been on campus for a few days now, but so far it’s been a very positive experience.

One thing that appealed to my son about UD is its size. He was a little concerned about going to a school that felt “too small” to him. He would have for the right school, but all other things being equal he wanted to be around more students, not less. UDs overall enrollment is over 10K and that suits him just fine.

I encourage anyone who stumbles across UD to investigate it further. I’m glad we did. In the end, you may choose another school, but UD checked a lot of our boxes. One thing that appealed to me is that it has a good engineering school or strong CS programs. Son is not an engineering or CS student, but I thought it would be good to be on a campus with students of diverse majors - for some smaller schools that’s a challenge.

It’s somewhat less expensive than the most costly schools and it offers merit scholarships. For doughnut families, it might be a more cost effective alternative than some of the higher ranked schools that do not offer much in merit aid. Homer is correct that most of the higher-ranked LACs don’t offer much merit aid.

Also, on Princeton Review, it ranks well in several categories: Best Dorms (#18); Best School For Internship (#11); Best Run Colleges (#15) and about a dozen others. Some of these mattered less to me than my son, but I think we should all consider the student’s perspective. Son like that UD was ranked high for Happiest Students (#11) and Students Love These Colleges (#15). He felt that if it ranked similarly in those categories as schools like Rice, Richmond, Brown, WUSL, Williams, Colby and Emory, then it must be a good place to be. Those were his thoughts, not necessarily mine.

Personally, I think UD is a hidden gem of a school.

7958

@EconPop – your portrayal of Dayton matches well with what I took away based on the woman I worked with who attended. She came from a very middle income family in Ohio and prolly has a loosely Catholic background. I got the impression she chose Dayton largely (or at least partly) b/c of its affordability. She’s one of the brightest young people I have worked with in recent years. I honestly didn’t know much about the college at all, but working with her certainly put it in a new favorable light for me.

@mamaedefamilia – tks for sprucing up that list for me and @homerdog adding the merit info

7959

@th03 if you are looking for merit you may want to consider the catholic schools including Dayton which folks talked about above. I actually spent my first year of law school at UD and found it to be nice place to go to school. Lots of school spirit, nice folks and although a lot of catholic kids go there I did not find it overly religious. Other catholic schools all about 5-7K students that give fairly generous merit money are Duquesne, Xavier, St Louis, Creighton and St Joe’s. Out west you have Gonzaga and USD among others. I am sure there are others that I can’t think of off the top of my head. And at all of those schools you don’t have to worry about a football as they all are basically basketball schools. And generally pretty good D1 programs which contributes to the school spirit.

Another small LAC that my brother, his wife and my nephew all attended is Allegheny College. It is in the nice small town of Meadville Pa which basically halfway between Pittsburgh and Eire. They give a ton of merit money. Go on their Net Price Calculator and you will see.

I highly recommend for any school you are considering to google the Net Price Calculator for each school. The ones who give merit will ask you to insert your GPA and test scores and will use those to calculate the merit award. Very helpful tool. Also when searching for schools that give merit money take a look at https://www.bigjeducationalconsulting.com/resources. Their chart on need and merit based money for each school is very helpful.

7960

@burghdad Not all schools that give merit have that calculation on their NPC. Dickinson, Grinnell, and Kenyon do not since it’s not auto-merit and competitive.

7961

@EconPop thank you for that! The Catholic piece was the only thing turning my D off, but other than that, it ticks a lot of boxes. Football, nice size, variety of majors, study abroad, merit possible, dorms (that’s how she found it - some tic toc video of a dorm room she loved!!), most students living on campus. She wants a strong community with school spirit. I think she’ll definitely apply and we can hopefully visit at some point. Please keep us posted how the semester goes for your son!

7962

Maybe D21 should take a closer look at Dayton too. I want more safeties in the midwest. She’s pretty liberal, though, so even if Dayton isn’t super religious, she’d need to be able to find some kindred souls when it comes to politics. The other schools she’s applying to that are affiliated with the Catholic church (BC, LMU, Santa Clara) present as schools with a balance on political viewpoints.

@EconPop any read on the conservative/liberal balance there?

7963

I didn’t. I’ve seen UD ranked as leaning conservative on a couple of sites, but in person I didn’t see any worrisome overt indications of anything like that.

The school seems to have a little outreach that could be presented as religious. For instance, every year during the holiday season, UD invites hundreds (thousands?) of local elementary students to campus for a large Christmas celebration. Each kid gets paired with a UD student who stands near the kid around a large decorated tree outside while they sing holiday songs and present the children with gifts. Now, some might say that’s a religious event, but I prefer to say it’s a positive outreach to the lower SES community in the city. Not all UD students take part in this, so a student could choose to not take part.

The chapel thing on campus doesn’t seem unusual. For instance, Duke has a huge chapel on campus that is a big feature of tours. In comparison, Dayton’s chapel is a mole hill.

The parents I met did not seem strongly religious. Admittedly, it was first meeting and soft-ball conversations, but they just seemed like nice, fun people. A few mentioned Parents Day and how great it was. It’s kind of like Homecoming at other schools. A September weekend for all the parents to visit school, attend a football game, and hang out with each other. The Chicago family and others said that although there would not be a school-sanctioned event this year (because of c19) many of them planned to fly in and do it anyway. That strong sense of community appeals to me.

I’ll update you if my son mentions anything about the political feel on campus.

7964

@homerdog according to Nice, Dayton isn’t any more conservative than BC. Both had a pretty even split between conservative/moderate.

7965

@homerdog is correct not all schools NPC will give you the merit amount but many do.

As to the Chapel thing I went to Lafayette College as an undergrad. Lafayette has no religious affiliation at this point and many students get married in the Chapel on campus. I suspect that is the case at many schools.

I also graduated from Duquesne Law school and I was married in the Duquesne Chapel by the Lafayette College chaplain who happened to be a catholic priest.

As to Dayton when I was there for a year of law school 
a long long time ago
 it was a pretty big party school. Didn’t find anything overtly conservative about it.

7966

@burghdad Some of the biggest partiers we know go to Catholic high schools and/or Catholic colleges. And many of them are politically very conservative!