Prelim list of LACs son is considering.

College Search & Selection
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<p>Would appreciate your opinions (or alternatives) to the prelim list of schools son is considering.</p>

<p>Hope this is enough background information to work with:</p>

<p>1) He would like to attend LAC in the East.
2) Currently attends "competetive" public high school in the Midwest.
3) Rigorous coursework (ie 2-3 AP or Honors courses out of 5 core each Sem)
4) 9th grade performance and "C" in AP Math in 10th grade hurts Cumm GPA (3.8 wghtd) and Class Rank (Top 1/3).
5) However, improvement in GPA (with progressively more demanding course choices) – 3.5, 3.8, 3.6, 3.7, 4.2 and 4.2.
6) ACT Composite – 33
7) AP Euro -3, AP U.S.- 4, Math II – 4</p>

<p>Prelim list of schools he is considering:
• Bard
• Bates
• Bowdoin
• Bucknell
• Connecticut College
• Franklin & Marshall
• Gettysburg
• Guilford
• Hamilton
• Kenyon
• Lehigh
• Vanderbilt
• Wake Forest</p>

<p>Comments and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,</p>

<p>pmm</p>

2

<p>Bard is a women’s college
Lehigh, Vanderbilt, and Wake Forest are LACs</p>

3

<p>If he likes sports the Patriot League has Division 1 Sports: Bucknell, Lehigh, Holy Cross, Colgate, etc.</p>

<p>[The</a> Patriot League - Official Athletic Site](<a href=“http://www.patriotleague.org%5DThe”>http://www.patriotleague.org)</p>

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<p>No, Bard is not a woman’s college. Perhaps Poseidenj is thinking of Barnard??</p>

<p>I am familiar with all of those except Guilford. They are all good, solid schools. IMHO, Bard is a bit more “out there” than the others – the others are generally preppy-er.</p>

<p>I think he has a shot at these, although Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Bowdoin and Lehigh might be reaches for him. There are lots of others that are similar that we could suggest, but I’m not sure what info you’re looking for from us.</p>

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<p>Guilford would be the safety on that list</p>

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<p>Bowdoin will be most difficult to get into.</p>

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<p>What is his unweighted cumul. GPA? Has he taken the MOST rigorous courseload, or the level just below that?</p>

<p>In selectivity, Bowdoin and Vandy will be the highest reaches.</p>

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<p>I think the list is very good. It has enough schools in each category of reach, match and safety. What I will suggest is to add an in-state Flagship university as your financial safeties, unless money is not an issue.</p>

<p>This is just my humble opinion. :)</p>

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<p>Any idea of major or general area of interests?</p>

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<p>@Veryhappy. Yes actually I was thinking of Barnard, sorry for my mistake.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for your input. College Selection Process appears to be as much of an Art (function of experience) as it is a Science. Believe he is in good hands as he has been working with a very well respected Admissions Consultant and his HS Guidance Counselor has LAC/s admissions background. Not second-guessing guidance provided to-date but personally don’t have any experience/expertise and this is too important a “life choice” not to seek second, third, fourth opinions from others who are also qualified to provide.</p>

<p>In general, my take-away from your comments is that The List looks pretty good to most. A good sign considering the fact that he was the one who identified/chose 95% of the schools on the The List and it has since been screened, and tweaked, by his Admissions Advisor and Guidance Counselor.</p>

<p>For whatever it’s worth, I too like The List. However, wondering if overlooking some small to mid-sized Nat’l Universities with smaller average class size (in the Match category) that could provide similar level of personal attention as LACs with relatively smaller Total Student Enrollment numbers. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.</p>

<p>Second question is whether any of the Reach schools on The List will give greater consideration verusus the others to 99th percentile ACT score and trend of improvement in academic performance (versus his absolute cumulative GPA).</p>

<p>Thanks again for your advice, feeling pretty good right about now.</p>

<p>Regards,</p>

<p>pmm</p>

12

<p>ppm,</p>

<p>In answer to your questions: yes, I would agree that mid-sized universities have a lot of commonality with small liberal arts colleges.</p>

<p>In my opinion small LACs will pay attention to an upward trend in GPA. In fact, small LACs pay attention to just about everything in the application package. To that end, your son should think very carefully about how he presents himself – both on paper and in person, if he interviews.</p>

<p>Small LACs have distinctive personalities. The have two seemingly conflicting objectives in admissions: first, they need to fill all kinds of diversity percentages and talent pools. In diversity they are looking for racial, religious, geographic, economic, sexual, ethnic you name it. In talent they need to fill their athletic teams, their orchestras, their choruses, their theaters, their art departments, their student governments. All of this is hard to cover in a class of 400 to 500 kids and thus students who can offer more than one attribute are appealing. </p>

<p>Secondly, the schools admit into their unique personalities. This has to with trying to find kids who will fit with the prevailing culture and not decamp because it wasn’t what they expected. Thus, it’s important for the applicant to convey that s/he understands and appreciates the character of the school and that s/he considers her/himself a good fit. </p>

<p>This can be accomplished through those “Why X?” essays or just through any of the subjective material – like personal essays or recommendations.
Visiting is a good way to demonstrate sincere interest.</p>

<p>Statistical information like scores, grades and rank *are *important to selective LACs, no question about it, but so are the subjective elements. Essays, recommendations, interviews, supplemental arts packages, even examples of creative writing – LACs review all of it in effort to get a holistic picture of the applicant. </p>

<p>The key for the applicatnt is not to fabricate but rather to focus on his/her strengths that align with the college’s culture.</p>

<p>My son was very interested in several of the LACs on your son’s list and it seems that there’s a consistency there in personality. The one that seems the old man out to me is Bard. I would also suggest Colby, Skidmore and Furman.</p>

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<p>Think about Hamilton and maybe Bates</p>