<p>Macalester too close to home!!! Carleton we think would take her. Our school gets a few in each year. She did interview and they really liked her, BUT she really had a hard time with the fact the kids all looked unhealthy. It was a beautiful spring day and they all looked too dull for words.</p>
<p>Well she plays two wind instruments and the guy at W&L liked her tape. She doesn't want to go to a music conservitory because then it becomes too cutthroat. Her school is very icky that way and she just wants to play for fun. I think that many schools would be very happy to have her drop in there laps so to speak. She does a great deal at school and has be invited to play for regional things.</p>
<p>Swarthmore has the reputation of not being collaborative. It was takin off the list several months ago.</p>
<p>if she has a chance to revisit W&L, i recommend that she do an overnight there. for a non drinker AND non southerner, it can be a little overwhelming</p>
<p>The drinking part does make me worry but it seems that every school has tons of drinking! Well not Earlham.</p>
<p>And that whole southern thing well doesn't W&L have kids from all over the country?</p>
<p>This just makes my head spin!</p>
<p>^^thats why i said nondrinker AND nonsouthern. obviously non-southern kids love it there, and there are a few students who choose not to partake in frats/heavy drinking, but combining those two aspects might be a big deal. just a thought.</p>
<p>thanks huskem55</p>
<p>Alumother- she ruled out the west coast, and the southwest I thought Rice would be a good school but she ruled out Texas. We were all kindof thinking that Haverford would be considered a super reach too.</p>
<p>Knowing Earlham well, and W&L by data and reputation, I guess I was just surprised at the notion that a kid might be equally happy at one or the other. It seems unlikely to me, but of course I don't know your d.</p>
<p>Hi Midwest, my D's scores and grades were very similar to yours and so was her list, maybe a shade higher, and she was applying 2 years ago, so, in a slightly less competitive atmosphere, BUT, I do not think your D will have any problems with that list (in at half would be a conservative estimate, if there is no skeleton you aren't sharing with us), and I wouldn't worry about the 10% thing. If the school is so concerned about it, why in the world do they still rank???
One way the 10% might matter, is if an unusually large number of students from her high school are applying to the same one of those smaller LACs - that might be a good question to pose to the GC - do I need to apply to a couple of other schools because a lot of students are applying to Denison or W&L. etc?
2 years ago D's school had 3 admits to W&L, certainly none had higher stats than your daughter. As I said, my girl's list was similar to yours - other schools she looked at, but discarded for various reasons - Wooster, Mary Washington, Kalamazoo, Univ of Richmond. What about St Olaf and Lawrence? St Olaf has a wonderful "Great Conversation" alternative. On the reach side, she should consider Davidson - it is a cousin of W&L, but even more academic - kind of the Williams/Dartmouth of the South. I think Dartmouth and Brown or AWS are more her big reaches, if she wants a what the heck app.</p>
<p>There are any number of other schools she could consider - I understand the Earlham and W&L on the same list, DD had Swat and Dartmouth and Davidson as her top 3 choices, it is OK if they can articulate reasons why they are considering all three. D was lucky enough to be able to apply to a small LAC that had basically rolling admissions, which really decreases the pressure - are there any of those in the Midwest?</p>
<p>Are you dizzy yet :)????
Keep us posted on her progress.</p>
<p>My daughter did look into Davidson but she thought that the kids were cutthroat sounding. Where did your daughter end up? Richmond seems to have just added an anthro major and she was a bit worried that it would be too new.</p>
<p>About Brown it seemed to us that they liked kids in the top 3%. That is a least what the rep said at the info night.</p>
<p>Midwest, my D ended up applying Ed to Dartmouth, and she's a soph this year. I don't think she got the impression that the students at Davidson were particularly cutthroat. One of the downs to Davidson is that it is quite rigorous, and outside its traditional base of students - upper mid class Southerners, it is not well known, although that is changing. ALso it is not as diverse as most of the others, especially few Asians, they are working on that too but with less success.
Sure, Brown and Dartmouth and Duke like students in the top 3%, that doesn't mean that anyone of them might not admit your daughter - that's what we mean by a reach. My D was not val or sal or NMSF, for a number of long reasons I won't get into here, and she went to a much smaller, and probably much less competitive school than your daughter did, and got into her most selective school. You just don't know.
Richmond has had some interesting ups and downs - they just tremendously raised tuition, to the point, frankly, that they are turning off their old traditional base for students (those upper middle class Southerners again), most aren't going to pay those prices when they can go to Rhodes, W&L, Davidson, Sewanee, etc., for less. My D looked at Richmond as a possible safety/match. We had made the rule that safeties should have opportunities for merit aid - Richmond's merit aid application was very long, and involved more essays, so it got dropped!</p>
<p>You don't really need more suggestions, but perhaps she should at least look at Beloit and Hendrix, as possible merit aid schools. Since she liked Haverford and Earlham and not Davidson, but yes to W&L, I wouldn't recommend Williams or Amherst, per se - those are fine schools, but don't use honor code as a selling point.</p>
<p>Kids are funny though, I said D liked Swat and Davidson, but she didn't like Williams and Haverford made her "feel like I'm drowning" - they form opinions based on many things, often illogical things.</p>
<p>If you are serious about merit aid, be careful applying to reach schools. To some kids it can kind of feel like test driving a Porsche when you have no intention of buying her one.</p>
<p>Appropo probably of nothing, you should know that apparently there has been a great row regarding W&L's honor code of late:</p>
<p>oooh, oooh, oooh! Lawrence and music? yes. I forgot all about it....</p>
<p>now, if you follow all of our advice, you will spend the equivalent of first year tuition on all the application fees.</p>
<p>We don't know anything about Beloit or Hendrix. We'll look into those! I have read the info on the honor code. I asked several questions when we visited W&L. From what they told us it sounded as though students really don't have problems living with it. The town really seemed to love the students and everyone said how trustworthy they were. We did hear about the infractions but it seemed that not documenting others work was wrong and that was generally the big violation .</p>
<p>Lawrence: Honor Code, Excellent Science Programs, Conservatory (not cutthroat) with 5-Year Double Degree Option. You D would have merit money at Lawrence.</p>