<p>Hi - my older son is a quirky guy and ended up at Hampshire. He’s in his last year and loves it there. Several of the schools on your son’s list were on my son’s as well. His top two choices were Bennington and Hampshire. We all loved Bennington but it’s even smaller than our town and is pretty isolated. The added “plus” of the five college consortium made Hampshire that much more appealing. My son has taken several classes at Amherst College so it’s worked well for him. So - echoing those who suggested Hampshire. Oh - and adding - my older son initially was very interested in Ithaca College but on revisit crossed it off his list. It’s pretty rigid in terms of course requirements and didn’t seem to have much wiggle room. That just didn’t fit with S1 although agree re: the town of Ithaca - it’s a great place. Then too, Amherst and Northampton Ma are as well.</p>
<p>Conn College isn’t really “quirky” – it is quite preppy.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t suggest HWS as a school for a quirky kid. It’s about as preppy as it gets. I say this as a parent whose D will probably apply to HWS. That’s not to say that the OP’s S couldn’t be happy there, just that it’s very far from the Bards, Hampshires and Oberlins of the world.</p>
<p>
I think it may be a somewhat regional thing because while Bates has a significantly lower acceptance rate than the other colleges you mention (Bates-24.2 percent, Oberlin-30.4, Grinnell-35.1, Bard-37.6, Bennington-64.9) it also draws a large percentage of its students from the Northeast, in particular from NY and MA. An applicant from the heartland would have a significantly better chance of admission than a kid from Massachusetts with the same stats.</p>
<p>As to the Parchment estimation of chances at Bates, I’ve noticed that Parchment and other “chancing” websites don’t seem to do a very good job with the test-optional schools, perhaps because there’s not enough data to crunch.</p>
<p>thanks for all the replies:</p>
<p>compmom - goucher is on our list of schools to look at. We’ve had the ctcl book for a couple of years.
broomfield - he nixed conn college
sue - I don’t know what to say about parchment predictions, these seem to be very optimistic:
UMich - 78%
Bard - 71%
Bates - 53%
Carleton - 49% (!)
Grinnell - 73%
Wake Forest - 64%</p>
<p>the only thing I can think of is that the computer algo they use has figured out certain schools weight SAT scores more heavily than was previous thought.</p>
<p>Be careful of UofM because GPA is the most considered factor and then test scores. Use the common data sets to check those variables. I am not sure where that 78 percent is coming from but it doesn’t feel right. </p>
<p>For instate kids 3.8 unweighted is the benchmark.</p>
<p>Intp: I was speaking more to the theater opportunities at Conn College–not quirkiness. If the OP’s son is interested in theater and wants to participate, he is going to be pretty much surrounded by quirky kids, even if the larger environment isn’t quirky.</p>
<p>I would not call Lafayette quirky. It is in fact quite preppy, and being a Division 1 school there is a healthy population of athletes. I speak as an alum, and although my daughter did not enroll with the class of 2018 it was her second choice. She is pretty much the opposite of quirky. My son would be the quirky one, and we are just starting to look for him.</p>
<p>My suggestions would be Goucher and Vassar. Vassar is tougher academically of the two and would likely be a reach, but phenomenal arts program. My quirky theater kid liked Tulane, despite the big sports school personality that coexists there.</p>
<p>Acting/singing nephew who sounds a lot like OP’s S really liked Wesleyan, Oberlin, Skidmore, Sarah Lawrence. Can’t remember his reaction to Vassar, but I know it was on the list. He’s now a freshman at Oberlin and seems to like it, although he did just send my D a video he took of a woman doing a protest/performance piece on an Oberlin lawn that involved what appeared to be used sanitary pads.</p>
<p>^^^That’s a whole different kind of quirky! </p>
<p>Definitely a little out there. I couldn’t tell from the video if she was part of the Oberlin community or someone who’d simply chosen the campus for her protest. </p>
<p>I’m glad we relied on Naviance instead of Parchment when my S was applying to college. I just plugged in his HS stats and Parchment gave him 0 percent admissions chances…at the school he attends!</p>
<p>Kenyon College is another LAC with a good theater program. Not sure of the quirkiness factor.</p>
<p>What about The New School in NY City. I know kids who got great merit aid with stats not as good as your sons. </p>
<p>Parchment is generally less reliable than Naviance. It is self reported, a lot of students don’t bother to enter their results, and I think some students exaggerate. Naviance isn’t perfect, but it does rely on GCs and their staff to enter data (more reliable that high school students’ own entries). </p>
<p>
Kenyon is not at all quirky… unless you consider understated elegance to be quirky. Most Kenyon College students are so smart and so hip that they refuse to act hip. In fact, most of them seem reluctant to draw attention to themselves. It is not that they are at all conformist. They just have a strong sense of self and have nothing to prove. Plus, most are more interested in learning than in making a statement. I would say they are more philosophical than activist. Oberlin is the place to go for activism.</p>
<p>I would agree with NROTCgrad about Kenyon. Lovely school, very nice students, understated and smart…but not quirky (at least not emo-quirky. Let’s put it this way - my weirdly quirky kid barely got out of the car for the Kenyon tour…)</p>
<p>My lovely (in every sense of the word), highly intelligent niece went to Kenyon and loved it. She confirmed that it is not quirky, though maybe the theater kids are. Grinnell is quirky (and btw is in the town of Grinnell), but I’m not sure the theater program is a great strength. Colby has a good theater program, but would have been too conventional for my kid. Again, the theater kids might have more quirk. There isn’t much town at all at Kenyon.</p>
<p>OP, what do you mean by quirky? Off the top of my head I thought of Lewis and Clark in Portland OR. But I’m not sure if that’s what you mean.</p>