<p>In alphabetical order Fairfield, Marist, Providence, Stonehill, U. Rochester. Just base your ranking on what you know or have heard. I'm NOT looking for the USNWR view. D's Major would be Biology. Merit aid is a necessity. ACT score 29, SAT 630 math/630 verbal, top 7% of class, 95 GPA out of 100, many AP's and honors classes, solid EC's. Please be candid. Time to get serious.</p>
<ol>
<li>Rochester</li>
<li>Everything else</li>
</ol>
<p>I am impressed with the academics at the University of Rochester.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>UR far and away best of the list. Also very different (Catholic lib. arts schools, vs. private research university)</p></li>
<li><p>Providence</p></li>
<li><p>Fairfield
4-5. Stonehill/Marist</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Rochester for the academics, but some of the others might be better in your D's case for merit aid. A few years ago Rochester awarded $10,000 for a 1350 SAT, but apparently they have stopped this and made merit $$ more competitive.</p>
<ol>
<li> Rochester (well known, even on the west coast)</li>
<li> No clue (we on the west coast are unfamiliar)</li>
</ol>
<p>I think your D would have to pull up her SAT scores to have a shot at merit aid at Rochester. My D's close friend who was offered merit money there was val and scores in mid-700's. She opted for Williams though and left the $$ on the table after having a disatrous overnight.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that colleges use merit aid to bring in students who they wouldn't otherwise have a chance of attracting. So to land merit aid, your daughter would have to be looking at schools where 1260 Math + CR is way above the median; probably well above the 75th percentile. That's not the case with need-based aid.</p>
<p>Rochester first choice, Fairfield/Providence second. The rest tied for fifth.</p>
<p>IMO, Fairfield > Providence.</p>
<p>Wow! I was just reading "The Best Northeastern Colleges" (2007 ediition) by Princeton Reveiw. This book ranked U. Rochester's "academic" rating at 65. Providence, Fairfield, Marist, and Stonehill all scored 80 or above. In fact Stonehill out pointed U. Rochester by 23 points with an 88. "Academics" is defined as "How satisfied students are with the education they're getting." After all I've heard about U. Rochester (you folks as well) I just don't get this.</p>
<p>My son looked at and applied to both PC and Stonehill. Was accepted at both - got ZERO merit aid from PC, $18k/year at Stonehill. Was offered a spot in Stonehill's Honors program, when we attended a program for Stonehill Scholars there were a lot of kids there - with your child's stats I'd say their chances of significant merit aid are very high at Stonehill. (At our hs, PC has a rep for giving almost no merit money). PC may be better known, but my son definitely liked Stonehill better. It's in a small town, while PC is a nice self-contained campus but in a sketchy neighborhood. During the entire tour, the PC people kept talking about how great PC was because "you can take the bus to the Providence Place Mall for free!" Not a big draw for my son. Stonehill seems to really take the needs of the students in mind whenever they build a building or a program. Also, you said to ignore USNews (yay! good for you!) but Stonehill has been ranked 1st on their regional Northern college list for years, and is really moving up academically. </p>
<p>My son actually turned down both of these schools to attend another small LAC. A neighbor has 2 kids, one at Stonehill and one at Fairfield, both are quite happy.</p>
<p>Stonehill is a good school, but very few people have heard of it. How satisfied a student is with their education does not really mean much because different students expect different things. A student who goes to a third tier school would be happy to get a decent education, whereas one going to Harvard would be disappointed if they were not taught by Nobel prize winners.
I'd go with Rochester. It is a great school which is underrated.</p>
<p>Re OP post 10: Take that rating and some of the others on the web like S*****Review with a grain of salt, or better yet a salt mine...</p>
<p>We visited four of the schools on your list. Providence was eliminated because the campus and location were not too appealing (although Providence has a lot to offer) and the religious presence seemed much stronger than at other catholic schools we visited and for my non-catholic son it was a deal breaker.</p>
<p>He was accepted at Marist, Fairfield and Stonehill. </p>
<p>We expected far more merit and need based aid at Marist than was given, and son decided he wanted to be in New England anyway, so Marist was eliminated.</p>
<p>Fairfield and Stonehill surprised us. I can't speak to merit aid, but both schools met 100% of need (with very generous grants), and with a second child already in college the need was substantial. </p>
<p>In the end, son decided that he didn't want to stay in the suburbs for another four years with students that "look just like me". And despite my pleas that he really, really consider Stonehill, he opted for university life in Boston instead. And just my luck, it came with the worst FinAid package of all.</p>
<p>I do know that Stonehill considers Providence its #1 competitor. So maybe applying to both schools, and making sure they both know it, might shake that money tree a little bit more.</p>
<p>And if I had to rank:</p>
<ol>
<li>Rochester</li>
<li>Fairfield-Providence-Stonehill</li>
<li>Marist</li>
</ol>
<p>I was just reading "The Best Northeastern Colleges" (2007 ediition) by Princeton Reveiw. This book ranked U. Rochester's "academic" rating at 65. After all I've heard about U. Rochester (you folks as well) I just don't get this.>></p>
<p>Always pay attention to the methodology whenever you look at "rankings." In the Princeton Review's case, the "methodology" is that they "survey" students of the individual colleges. The surveys are not necessarily statistically accurate (like US News' peer reviews, PR doesn't tell you how many surveys were actually counted - one? 100? 1000?). So, there's a lot of wiggle room for bias and inaccuracy. As someone else said above, take rankings like these with a very big grain of salt. </p>
<p>And, as the answers to your question shows, ask any random group of people for their opinions, and you'll likely get a lot of different answers depending on individual experience, knowledge, and perspective. It's not just the group of schools you mentioned -- try asking people to rank the Ivy league schools and see what happens.</p>
<p>The best "ranking" is to come up with your own criteria, decide on each criteria's importance, and then compare the differences yourself (i.e., class sizes, depth of departments, faculty backgrounds, fiancial aid, merit scholarship opportunities, etc.). Ultimately, what matters is how YOU and your child rank the schools based on your own research and specific needs/interests/desires.</p>
<p>Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Yale,... (truly enormous gap)...University of Rochester. You did say it was time to get serious.</p>
<p>I'm sorry Alhambra, Stanford isn't an "Eastern College". If you don't have something nice to say.....</p>
<p>I think I'd do...</p>
<ol>
<li>University of Rochester</li>
<li>Marist College</li>
<li>Providence College</li>
<li>Stonehill College</li>
<li>Fairfield</li>
</ol>
<p>Hi Carolyn- I know the surveys can be off at times, but all the other colleges I asked about hovered in the eighties, (academic ratings). I flipped through the book to look for other results that might seem way off.. but really located none. I'm thinking that U. Rochester may lure away some Ivy and baby Ivy candidates who wind up not being significantly challenged. Perhaps that explains the 65 for U. Rochester and 88 for Stonehill. 76% of U. Rochester students ranked in the top 10% of thier class.. not nearly that high with the other colleges I asked about. I just think a lot of REALLY bright kids might be not feel as challenged as they thought they might and thus the 65 academic rating. Trust me I'm not being lazy. We're doing our visits and reading plenty. I absolutely need input from other parents and I take all thier opinions seriously. Obviously we'll put our "boots on ground" at these places and learn more.</p>
<p>The percentage of students with SAT's in the 700's is much higher at Rochester than at the other schools on your list. Rochester is used as a safety school for kids who apply to many ivies, and is used by many kids who may qualify to apply to ivies or other elite schools, but choose not to apply there, for whatever the reason. </p>
<p>Our daughter has 2300 SAT's but refused to apply to any ivies. She's going to Rochester instead. Rochester trumpets its place on Newsweek's "new ivies" list, FWIW.</p>