Please let me know your thoughts on this list of LACs to apply to

College Search & Selection
1

After a bunch of college tours and discussions on CC, my daughter is trying to finalize the list of schools to apply to. Here’s the current thinking:

Reaches:
Brown
Bowdoin
Amherst
Williams

Matches/High Matches:
Scripps
Wesleyan
Oberlin ← She’s a legacy here. I went there, and so did one aunt and one uncle.
Grinnell
Hamilton
Vassar
Haverford
Colby

Safeties:
Whitman College
Lewis and Clark

Stats (copied and pasted from other posts I’ve made! :))

  • 3.78 cumulative GPA (unweighted). Her weighted GPA is either 4.18 or 4.34, depending on whether honors classes are worth +.5 and AP worth +1 or whether they're both worth +1. Her 1st semester freshman year GPA was a 3.58, so there's been an upward trend ever since.
  • Probably top 20% of the class based on prior years' cutoffs. (This is actually my biggest concern.)
  • 5 AP classes completed (5s on AP Japanese, World History, Lang. 4s on Micro and Environmental Science)
  • Will be taking 4 more APs next year (Calc AB, Psych, Literature, and Government)
  • 35 ACT
  • Biggest extracurricular is that she founded her school's ACLU Club in her sophomore year and has been president ever since. It has about 20 members. They've published a Know-Your-Rights guide, run a voter registration drive, got the school to change how they handled MLK Day, and a few other things
  • Other extracurriculars in order of priority/participation are drama (various roles in tech - put in tons of hours and is passionate about it), tutoring (tutored for a a few hours every Sunday at the local library), SAGA (also known as GSA - kind of vanilla member), Model UN (just vanilla member)
  • Summers in order of importance - JSA Summer School at Georgetown U. (took 1 semester honors class on media and politics, met lots of senators and other VIPs), ACLU Summer Institute (1 week in Washington DC getting training on civil liberties and activism by the ACLU), Washington Business Week, Speech and Debate program by Education Unlimited (2 years). This summer she'll just get a part-time job at the local supermarket and work on her essays.
  • Demographics - Half Asian (Japanese mother, Caucasian father). Gender fluid. US Citizen. We live in Washington State.
  • Probably not worth mentioning, but she has hydrocephalus which is treated with a shunt. The shunt malfunctioned when she was in 7th grade, which required 2 emergency surgeries, and she had a very rough recovery. She's totally fine now and doesn't consider the experience core to who she is, so she probably won't even mention it on the application.
  • Won't qualify for financial aid. We're not rich or anything, but we'll be able to pay full tuition at the best (for her) school she can get into. (That said, if she gets a full ride at one school and nothing at a school that she only prefers slightly more, we'll definitely consider that!)
  • Her class rigor was high (9 APs and 8 Honors classes) but she took regular US History instead of APUSH, and she took the 2nd highest path for math. (If she had maxed that out, she could have finished Calc BC senior year.) She also took some non-honors 1-semester electives (Forensic Science, Digital Graphics, Personal Finance, International Relations, and Biotech) when she could have squeezed in an extra AP class or two. She did squeeze AP Micro in, though.
  • The reason she was able to take so many electives was that she went to a Japanese Saturday school since kindergarten and so was able to take AP Japanese as a freshman and test out of the district's foreign language requirement. She chose not to take another foreign language after that, since she wanted to take other electives.

She’s ultimately undecided on a major, but at this point she’s leaning toward either Political Science or Psychology and a minor in Theater. She’s interested in all of the things that make LACs great (small class sizes, ability to get to know professors, long intellectual discussions that go late into the night, etc.) She doesn’t care much about location. She doesn’t want a school that’s overly dominated by sports culture. And she doesn’t want to go to a pressure cooker-type school. She expects she’ll probably want to go to graduate school at some point as well.

Curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on this list. Are her matches/high matches too ambitious given her stats? Should she have more/better safeties? I think she’d be a bit disappointed if she wound up at one of her safeties (as I suppose most people are if they wind up at their safety) but she’d be extremely happy at any of the schools in the match/high match category and above. She might even prefer some of the schools in the match/high match category to the ones in the reach category.

2

Does she like any of her matches/reaches enough to want to apply ED? Has she visited any/all of these schools?

If her matches seem more interesting than her reaches, why did she pick those particular reaches? At the same time, she should find safeties that she would be happier with. Scripps is probably more of a safety than a match, but she MUST show interest – visit, interview, sit in on classes, email, etc. For safeties, I’d suggest both Bryn Mawr and Kenyon. All three schools (Scripps/Bryn Mawr/Kenyon) offer merit, which her stats would likely put her in the running for. I also like the New College of Florida (public honors college) as a safety. Is you daughter a NMSF?

I am curious as to why she has Scripps and Haverford on her list but neither Bryn Mawr nor Pomona. I think Pomona might be a better reach for her than Bowdoin (for example); Bryn Mawr is a great school and has the consortium. Williams is more than a tad rural and harder to get to if you’re not in the northeast. It’s also kinda sporty.

You mentioned Scripps. Has your daughter looked closely at the other Claremont colleges such as Pitzer and Pomona? (Also CMC, with some caveats). Both Pomona and Claremont McKenna have highly regarded PPE programs (Poli Sci/Philosophy/Economics), and having the consortium is a huge plus in my opinion. The Claremont theatre program and productions are centered at Pomona, but they are open to students from all colleges and all majors.

Curious as to why Yale isn’t on the list as a reach…I know it’s not an LAC, but it has a lot to offer with respect to your D’s interests. The Yale Political Union, in particular, might hold some interest for her.

Another good match to consider might be Tufts.

There’s another thread here on CC that inquired about Vassar vs. Wesleyan vs. Middlebury for a kid with similar interests to your D’s. Wesleyan’s College of Social Studies was mentioned, and is probably a good fit for your D as well. I also wrote the following on that thread that I will repeat here:

This suggestion might seem like it’s coming out of left field, but Social Sciences at Rice University (a school typically lauded for its STEM programs) are quite good. Rice has a few programs that might be of interest to your daughter: it has a Social Policy Analysis major as well as a minor in Politics, Law, and Social Thought – a joint program between its School of Social Sciences and School of Humanities. Rice has both a student run theatre group (Rice Players) as well as a theatre program open to non-majors through their Dept. of Visual and Dramatic Arts.

If you are thinking about merit, however, you need to craft your list a bit differently. For example, Grinnell, Kenyon, Oberlin, Rice, Bryn Mawr, and Scripps offer merit; Wesleyan, Vassar, Bowdoin, Amherst, Tufts, Haverford, Hamilton, Brown, and Williams do not.

Disabuse yourselves of the idea of a free ride – they are few and far between. Most require separate applications, and, in some cases, nominations. None of the schools on your list offer them. Full tuition is about as good as it gets in many cases, and those are hard pretty to come by (and given that tuition often hovers around $50K/year, a full tuition offer is not too shabby). Big merit offers (e.g., full tuition/full rides) are most often used to lure students away from HYPS and similar schools, and students need to be at that level of competitiveness admissions-wise.

Anther safety that your daughter may like (and that that offers merit) might be Occidental (their Critical Theory and Social Justice program might be of interest to her).

I would also suggest looking at the CTCL schools (Colleges that Change Lives). Some of the schools on your list are among them.

3

I wouldn’t list Wesleyan, Hamilton, Vassar or Haverford as a “match” for anyone. Move them into the reach category.

4

Has she ranked the schools by preference yet? Are there schools towards the top of the list that offer EA? Have you looked at state honors program (could be in-state or out of state) where decisions are made on a rolling basis that offer a more closed environment to provide a LAC feel that she may rank higher than some schools on this list ? The suggestion here is to find ways to potentially cut the list down before RD deadlines. 14 apps are quite a bit to handle in terms of time, effort and money.

5

I’d like to post more detail later, but a quick observation that Bryn Mawr and Kenyon are not safeties for anyone. Matches probably, but not safeties. Seeing some overlap on that list for liberal, somewhat “crunchy” communities, safeties would be more like Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, Kalamazoo College, Beloit.

6

Good list for her interests. Has she considered Macalester? It could be a good fit for her social justice interests plus her excellent ACT gives her a good shot at merit money.

7

Correct. Bryn Mawr, Kenyon, and Scripps admissions are all too competitive and unpredictable to call them safeties, when a safety must (by definition) be predictable. There’s an unfortunate tendency for parents, post-admission-process, to succumb to the “My kid got in; therefore it’s a safety” line of reasoning. Schools with acceptance rates in the mid-20’s are low-matches at best unless there is a reliable “hook.”

Also, the PPE major mentioned above is available to Scripps students also. http://www.scrippscollege.edu/news/features/the-scripps-experience-beyond-the-elms-the-off-campus-major-at-scripps

8

The OP isn’t calling them safeties… Showing interest is important at a lot of these schools, so she needs to be attentive to that.

Also… I’d suggest the GC might mention the middle school health issue.

9

It’s unfortunately a little late to do too much about it, but I’m a bit concerned that she “tested out” of language classes in favor of electives, given that most schools will recommend/expect at least 2 to 3 years (in some cases, four) of language classes. This might put her at a disadvantage admissions-wise (although, I’d consult with a professional on this. What does her GC say?) You mentioned that she took the AP…has she taken the Japanese SAT Subject test (preferably with Listening – offered only in November). Might not be a bad idea.

Could she consider taking a dual enrollment class in advanced Japanese (say, an advanced language or a Japanese literature class)? Are you anywhere near U Washington or Western Washington U? They both offer advanced Japanese classes in the late afternoons that would probably work with a HS schedule. This might be a better option than AP Psych or AP Gov for example. Two semesters of advanced Japanese at the college level is equivalent to 2 years of HS Japanese. Another option to consider is that BYU offers online independent study Advanced Japanese classes. Just a thought…

And remember, safeties aren’t safeties if you wouldn’t want to go there…

10

@lovethebard: Thanks for the thorough reply!

Of the ones on the list, we’ve visited Bowdoin, Amherst, Scripps, Wesleyan, Haverford, and Colby. (I of course have visited Oberlin, as I’m an alum. :slight_smile: ) We’ll be visiting Lewis and Clark in a week or two. In addition to those, we’ve visited Occidental, Claremont McKenna, USC, U of San Diego, Bates, Mount Holyoke, and Reed. We also walked through Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore but didn’t take a tour, since it was a Sunday.

I think if she got into, say, Amherst and Wesleyan, she’d probably want to spend the night at each one to get a true feel for each place. There are things about both schools that are appealing. The reach/match/safety construct is really more about likelihood of getting in than about preference. That said, she really loved Bowdoin when we visited. She sat in on a class, and afterwards one student introduced her to her advisor and another student encouraged her to check out the student-run musical that was going to be showing that night - which we wound up attending.

Someone mentioned below that Bryn Mawr cannot be considered a safety, and I’m pretty sure Scripps is in the same category. Again, purely in terms of probability of getting in. Also to answer your question, she was not NMSF. (Her SAT was in the high 1400s IIRC. She just responded better to the ACT format for some reason.)

The main reason Pomona isn’t on the list is that I think it’d be among the hardest schools for her to get into. She might have a shot at a Bowdoin, Amherst, or Williams because she’s half-Asian and from the west coast - a demographic they’re more lacking in than, say, white students from Connecticut. Pomona on the other hand has tons of west coast applicants, and there’s a huge Asian population here.

Bryn Mawr also sounded good, and it was a tossup between that and Haverford. If given the choice, I think she’d prefer a co-ed school. She’s not opposed to a women’s only school (thus Scripps) but it’s a bit of a negative. Scripps also didn’t feel as much like a women’s only school, since the Claremont schools kind of feel like they’re on one large campus.

See above about my thoughts on Pomona. CMK was also great, but it had a bit too much of a sporty, type A culture that I don’t think she’d take to.

Honestly, the only reason is that I don’t think she’d have a shot in hell of getting in. :slight_smile: Brown is easier to get into than Yale, and Brown feels like it’d be an enormous reach as it is. If everyone seems to think I’m underestimating her chances, I agree she’d love Yale.

We considered Tufts, but, right or wrong, we kind of dismissed it as being too big. We’re already trying to cut down the list, so Tufts was one of the earliest ones to go. Not sure if that was the right call.

I did see that thread - thanks for pointing it out! I actually DMed the OP of that thread to compare notes, since our kids seem so similar! Rice is also interesting, and we hadn’t considered it much primarily due to location and its emphasis on STEM. The wife of a friend of mine is a professor there, so maybe I should just reach out.

Merit is a nice-to-have. If she got into Brown without merit and Oberlin with, I’d encourage her to go to Brown. (Brown was my top choice back in the day, so she can always live out my dreams! :stuck_out_tongue: )

We visited Oxy but kind of got a bit of a negative impression. My daughter didn’t like the tour guide who seemed very SoCal sorority-like. They also have a Greek system and somewhat onerous distribution requirements, which were a bit of a negative. They do have a great program with the UN that sounded interesting.

I’ve definitely heard of that but never checked it out. I’ll look into it! Thanks!

11

@porcupine98

Regardless of the semantics of how they’re categorized, how does that impact the list of colleges she’s considering? Are you saying that she should not apply to the schools currently listed as reaches? Does she need more matches? Better safeties?

12

@BKSquared

She hasn’t yet. In a way, we’re both kind of afraid to, since when you decide one of your schools is your top choice, it becomes especially depressing if she doesn’t get it. Our plan is to for her to apply to all of these (or some modified version of this list), see where she gets in, and then rank those.

Unfortunately, no.

I haven’t really. We’re in Washington State, so I believe UW would be the one with the state honors program. I’ll look into it, but I think she’d prefer to be a bit farther from home. (We live about 25 miles from UW.)

13

I think the list is great! Nice choices!

My main recommendation is to add just one safety that admits primarily by statistics, such as your state university. Small liberal arts colleges can be unpredictable with their “holistic” admissions, since they are working hard to create a well-balanced class with smaller numbers in which to do so, so even though her grades and scores may her look like a shoo-in for Whitman and Lewis & Clark, you can’t be sure.

And you may want to apply to a “low match” or two— colleges that are easier to get into than Vassar or Hamilton but maybe a little more selective than Whitman or Lewis&Clark, and where also someone from Washington would be at more of an advantage than she would at the west coast schools. From your description, Skidmore, Connecticut College, and Bard sound like possibilities.

Good luck to your daughter in her search and application process!

14

@Otterma

Macalester and Carleton were both on her longer list. (I think of this as her medium list. :slight_smile: ) I wish she could apply everywhere, but I’m not sure what Macalester should bump from this list. Perhaps if it’s more on the match-safety side of things, that might be a good option, since a lot of her “matches” are high matches.

15

An EA school that might make for a good safety is New College of Florida (a public honors college/LAC).

16

I can’t see any advantage to “ranking by preference” at this point. A set-up for disappointment, stress, and honestly, how could she really know? I can see trying to cull a few from the list, but at this point in the summer last year, my daughter’s preferences were pretty random (“I liked/didn’t like the tour guide/cafeteria,” “My friends have never heard of it/like it, etc.” She was wowed by the vibe at the Big Ten schools we visited, I was wowed by the education/attention available at LACs.

I encouraged her to apply to a variety of schools, had her check Naviance for likelihood of admission, and tried to visit as many as practical. She was admitted to all 12 schools she applied to, with quite a surprising variety of financial/merit assistance. All of her and my favorites were instantly discarded when we visited a mid-sized Catholic university across the country on admitted student day in mid-April and it was LUV. Who knew?

So I am backing you up on this, OP. Don’t have her set herself up for disappointment, and make sure you have plenty to love.

17

“Won’t qualify for financial aid. We’re not rich or anything, but we’ll be able to pay full tuition at the best (for her) school she can get into. (That said, if she gets a full ride at one school and nothing at a school that she only prefers slightly more, we’ll definitely consider that!)”

As another poster mentioned, it is doubtful that she will get a full ride from her colleges on her list. Many don’t give merit aid and the ones that do typically give smaller amounts. If merit aid is important to you, I’d revisit the schools on the list.

“Are her matches/high matches too ambitious given her stats? Should she have more/better safeties?”

Honestly, I do think the list is a bit ambitious. I’d add one more safety or a lower match or two as many of the schools listed as matches are more like low reaches/high matches, IMO.

“Scripps is probably more of a safety than a match”
I think Scripps is correctly placed on the OP’s list. The acceptance rate for the class of 2022 was 24%.

“She might have a shot at a Bowdoin, Amherst, or Williams because she’s half-Asian and from the west coast - a demographic they’re more lacking in”

West coast kids are not scarce at any of these schools. If your daughter was from Montana or Wyoming, that would be a different story.

18

@bobo44 Appreciated! :slight_smile:

19

@doschicos:

It’s not. I’d much rather her go to a school she’s genuinely interested in.

That was my concern as well, TBH. I thought there was too much of a dropoff between the “match” schools (as I defined them) and the safeties. There were some good suggestions for low-match/safeties like Bard, Connecticut College, etc. that I should look into.

I realize they’re definitely not scarce, but there aren’t as many as at Pomona. None of my D’s friends are applying to east coast LACs (most haven’t even heard of them) whereas I’m sure a lot of her peers on the east coast are applying. You’re right that it probably won’t have a meaningful impact. :slight_smile:

20

I do believe her core stats would place many of the options as high reaches.

Although a very strong student, these are the schools that say no to valedictorians.

But the ACLU club is a very interesting ec that may resonate at many of these schools.

She sounds like a wonderful child and best of luck. I am sure she will have wonderful schools to choose from in the end.