I think the advice to visit is good, but it’s not always practical especially with the OP’s family living on the west coast and interested in a lot of New England schools.
I was one of the posters who suggested Connecticut College as a “likely”. D19 and I have visited twice and did not find the vibe to be preppy. I would say artsy, well-rounded kids, no greek system, liberal. (My review is in the CT College forum.) They do look at demonstrated interest, but off campus interviews are available to show it. I suggested Skidmore due to current students we know who say it’s similar to Vassar (on the OP’s list) but a little more laid back and nice town (Saratoga Springs).
I should clarify that, when I meant “liberal” in regards to Oberlin, I specifically meant “social justicy”. We “met” 12 kids between our tour guides and the panel and every single one was very much about social justice and very vocal. Now, that may actually work for the OP. It’s just not S19’s cup of tea. We’ve visited Denison, Kenyon, Carleton, Davidson, and Grinnell and Oberlin felt like a big outlier when it came to the vibe. So hard to be clear in writing and visits always seem to be the best way to go to see if a school fits.
@homerdog hi there, sorry for the late response. lindagaf said nearly exactly what i would have said though, lol.
@Lindagaf i don’t know, i think the OP’s daughter stands a very good chance at most of the schools. perhaps “getting into” was not the correct choice of words, but i still think she stands a very good chance at most of them.
Agree w/ the posters that say add Skidmore and Conn Coll to the list. They ‘sound’ like they would be a fit for your D. I think that she will get the legacy boost at Oberlin no matter if she applies there ED or RD, but of course at ED. she’s going to get an ED boost plus a legacy boost. @homerdog makes a good point about the sportiness of Williams/Bowdoin/Colby - those may not be the best fit. But Wes, Oberlin and Vassar which are on the list sound like good ‘fits’. You may want to check out Bates - very inclusive place.
The 35 ACT is of course excellent. Congrats on that. Being in the top 20% of the high school vs top 10% could be an issue for some of the schools, unless your high school is very small or particularly known for rigor.
I attended Williams. I never played a sport, I am terrible at all sports, and I never once attended a sporting event at Williams. I had friends who were athletes and friends who were not.
My son is on the GroupMe for entering freshmen at Williams, and the kids there have a wide range of interests. Some play sports, some are into theater or mock trial or music or robotics, etc., etc. By no means are they all “sporty.”
Williams does amazingly well in Division 3 sports, winning directors’ cups (I think that is the term) most years, but that does not translate into a culture that is dominated by athletes.The entry system does a good job of helping everyone meet people from diverse backgrounds and interests.
Like any school, Williams has a range of students.
I think the stereotypes of each school’s student bodies have a grain of truth to them. Maybe athletes and hikers may be more notable at Williams, and protesters more notable at Vassar. But they do not describe the entire student body. There are protests at Williams and there are athletes at Vassar. A wide variety of students are comfortable and happy at both schools.
At Haverford, 96% of first-year students entered 2017-18 from their high schools’ top 10%.
That is with only 28% of them reporting class rank, but it’s also despite what must be a rather high percentage from demanding programs at competitive high schools.
You can find this percentage in section C10 of the Common Data Set for many colleges.
I think class rank outside the T10% could be a show-stopper especially for an unhooked RD applicant to some of the reaches on your list (although it may depend on your high school and program).
@homerdog hope this isn’t considered hijaking a thread, but your list of schools is similar to my D2’s list and I had a question about one of them. I know we had talked briefly back when D1 was deciding in Kenyon a few months ago, and no rest for the weary I suppose… here I am again! Could you tell me your thoughts on how Carleton compares to Kenyon since you’ve been to both? It’s become a front runner on D2’s list because of the bigger town. She likes Kenyon but isn’t sold on Gambier. What do you see as similarities? Differences? Thank you!
This is hijacking — you should start a different thread and tag the poster you want specifically to weigh in (I’m sure many of us have opinions on this as well, but it should be taken to another discussion).
It’s all good – we all digress sometimes – but you’ll get way better answers on a separate thread AND not distract from the main thread.
Also, to the OP, lots of good advice here. And yes, all kinds of kids thrive at all kinds of schools, but if you’re looking to thin the herd, sometimes something arbitrary like “has a sportier vibe” can be a way to go.
If she likes Grinnell and Oberlin, you should look at Beloit as a safety. She should be able to get the net cost around $30k/year. As a not rich full pay, it will make you think if you don’t get a 1/2 tuition+ at one of the other schools.
Wow - thank you everyone for all of the feedback! I stopped looking last night after responding to post #17 and woke up this morning to find tons of great comments! I’d love to reply to each one, but in the interest of keeping things manageable, I’m cherry picking some things to reply to here. Also, after I wrote up the full response, it said my reply was too long, so I’m going to split this response up into separate posts.
Thank you. I’ve seen that thread but haven’t had the time to sit through it and read it all. I do understand the general premise, though. As much as I love to think how special my kid is, there are thousands just like her. A friend of mine who went to MIT for grad school said that at a reunion an AO gave a presentation of what they were looking for in applicants. They gave an example of 2 profiles - one very well rounded, straight As, with great standardized test scores and ECs, the other a kid who worked on a farm and repairs tractors. They said that they’ve get thousands of applications from the first profile but few of the 2nd, so they’d probably go for the 2nd kid. It was kind of an eye opener.
@LoveTheBard
@doschicos
Since we’re trying to cull from the list, I think a substitution might be in order. Haverford did have more of an emphasis on sports than some of the other schools, so it’s probably lower on the list than some of the other schools. Sounds like Bryn Mawr should be on the list regardless!
@3SailAway:
Thank you. Yes, it was an awful time, and somehow she put it behind her. We don’t even really talk about it much anymore, but at the time it took over our lives. She missed about 6 months of school and needed help walking from her bedroom to the living room since standing up made her too dizzy, and she couldn’t balance. She threw up about every 10 minutes for months on end. We weren’t sure she’d ever come out of it, but little by little the dizziness got better to the point where she could walk for a bit as long as we had a wheelchair handy in case she needed to sit. Then she needed the wheelchair less and less, started going back to school part time, and finally back to her normal life. This was all during 7th grade. Fortunately, she was able to get caught up academically and went on to 8th grade with the rest of her class.
I’ve heard people submit their sob stories as essays all the time, and since she doesn’t consider it a major part of who she is, she decided not to make it a focus. That said, I kind of want it known somehow!
And thanks for the recommendations of Skidmore, CC, and the thread for Parents of the Class of 2019. I’ll need to check all 3 out!
@aquapt:
That was what I was thinking. Let’s say, for example, that her chances of getting into any of the 4 reaches (as I’ve defined them in the OP) is 5% each. And the 8 match/high matches are 20% each. The way the math would work is that she’d have a (1-(0.95^4)) = 18.5% of getting into at least 1 reach and a (1-(.8^8)) = 83.2% chance of getting into at least one of the match/high match schools.
And the probability of getting into 1 of any of those non-safety schools is [1-(.95^4)*(.8^8)] = 86.33%.
These are obviously simplifying assumptions, but the logic still more or less holds as long as the probability percentages are roughly in the right ballpark.
@Lindagaf:
Yes, getting into more schools would certainly be better, but I’m also hoping that even if she gets into just 1, if we’ve put the list together carefully, she’ll be happy at any of them.
@Midwestmomofboys:
So true. I’ve been glad that my D hasn’t fallen in love with any 1 school to the point where she’ll be crushed if she can’t go there. We’ll be visiting Lewis and Clark and also another school called Willamette U. in about a week. Both of those would be in the safety category for her, so I’m curious to see how she feels about them.
Yes, this is why I mentioned in my OP that her class rank is what scares me the most. I don’t want to provide so much info that people could dox me or her (not that I expect anyone would! ) but we live in a relatively affluent suburb very close to Microsoft. Pretty much everyone at the school is the son or daughter of a software engineer or other kind of professional. My neighbors are all highly educated - lots of PhDs and other graduate degrees, and many from Ivy League backgrounds. (I personally have 2 graduate degrees - MA and MBA.) My D’s guidance counselor did mention that she would point out that the school is very competitive and has lots of highly motivated students driven by equally motivated parents. I’m sure there are many more competitive high schools than hers (it’s not like she’s going to Andover/Exeter or even Bronx School of Science/Stuyvesant in NY) but it’s also not a middle-of-the-road high school where only a handful of students are even trying.
My perspective is very skewed on this, because I went to high school in the rust belt, where top 10% meant a 3.0 GPA. We had no AP classes, and at any given time, there were about 5-10 pregnant girls at the school. My “advanced” English teacher senior year used to like use class time to reenact the Oprah Winfrey show from the previous day, and I had lots of teachers preaching about Jesus. The fact that my daughter is actually learning something in high school still blows my mind. I didn’t really start learning anything until college. I keep thinking of going to a good college as a way to escape, but my D doesn’t feel the need to escape. It’s more just an extension, a natural progression of what she’s been doing in high school. Very different mindset.
The main reason I was saying that she doesn’t want an overly sporty school is that she wouldn’t be happy at a place where all of the social activity centers around going to the football games, everyone painting their face the school colors, etc. Or worse yet, that athletes feel like they own the place, and everyone is there to support them. My guess is that most LACs don’t have that culture, so it’s probably a non-issue, to be honest.
“Haverford did have more of an emphasis on sports than some of the other schools, so it’s probably lower on the list than some of the other schools. Sounds like Bryn Mawr should be on the list regardless!”
A large percentage of students at Haverford are athletes because the school is much smaller than most LACs but, IMO, it doesn’t have a sporty, jocky vibe to it, not like some of the NESCAC schools. I think that is because of the type of students that Haverford attracts, the fact that admissions doesn’t give a lot of weight to athletic skill vs other schools over other criteria (athletes are very much good students first), and also because of the sports it offers - no football, no hockey for example, big emphasis on cross country and track (although men’s baseball, soccer and lacrosse do well). So, there are athletes on campus but it isn’t a sports driven campus.
“That was what I was thinking. Let’s say, for example, that her chances of getting into any of the 4 reaches (as I’ve defined them in the OP) is 5% each. And the 8 match/high matches are 20% each. The way the math would work is that she’d have a (1-(0.95^4)) = 18.5% of getting into at least 1 reach and a (1-(.8^8)) = 83.2% chance of getting into at least one of the match/high match schools.”
It doesn’t work that way. Each admission’s decision is its own, unique decision independent of the other. Applying to more doesn’t increase your odds. Each time you flip a coin, the odds remain the same. In fact, although there is a chance an applicant might appeal to one school more than the other, the greater odds are that if one school doesn’t take an applicant, others won’t either. Every year we see applicants on CC who apply to a list of reach heavy schools with this thinking in mind and it very often doesn’t work out.
Willamette has the advantage of close ties with a lot of state-level political stuff, given its OR state capital location.
What you need is a single safety that combines the theater-centric, LGBTQ-friendly LAC vibe of Southern Oregon U with the poli sci chops of Willamette. (Not to say that Willamette is unfriendly - I don’t really know and assume it’s plenty welcoming.) SOU, as a very affordable WUE school, would be an admissions and financial safety. My d has a friend who fell in love with it and turned down a more competitive east coast LAC to go there. And I just talked with another of her friends who’s home for the summer from there and was bursting with enthusiasm, rattling off all of her leadership roles and internships. It’s a rolling-admissions school so it could be a sure-bet ace-in-the-hole. Just 5K students, lovely residential campus in Ashland, home of the Shakespeare festival. https://www.campusprideindex.org/campuses/details/195?campus=southern-oregon-university
@aquapt - great idea for SOU as a safety, esp. for a theatre kid! Ashland is a theatre-lover’s dream!!!
I’m partial to New College of Florida, personally, but any add-in-the-hole rolling/EA admit that the kid would want to attend makes a fine safety.
And while it was a potential hijack, @2manycollegequestions4me’s query included two of the schools that have been mentioned and bear some elaboration.
To my mind, Carleton tends to have a highly intellectually curious student body and they tend to be know as a strong feeder school for PhD programs (It’s ranked 3rd, right after Reed and Swarthmore and just before Pomona in all subjects; Kenyon is ranked 17th).
Kenyon is probably a bit more artsy than Carleton – their creative writing program is very strong, as is their theatre program.
Carleton is on a quarter (trimester, actually) system and is probably a tad more intense academically for reasons described above. Kenyon is on the semester system and is probably a bit more of a traditional LAC.
Carleton is in a suburb or a large city with a lot going on. Kenyon is more rural.
“My numbers came from the 2017-2018 Common Data Set”
@LoveTheBard Both our numbers are accurate. We’re just talking different admissions cycles (30% 2017, 24% 2018) but it’s all good because we’re in agreement that schools with those admissions rates are better off not being called safeties.
Who knows how competitive it will be this cycle? Every year I think to myself it must taper off but it gets worse and worse each year.
