Safety School ACT 33

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

My daughter wants to major in English at a liberal arts college, generally in the northeast. Her unweighted GPA is 3.9-4.0 and she takes a rigorous course load with maximal AP courses. Her ACT is 33 both straight and superscored. Her EC’s are solid but not Ivy league solid.

Her current list is below. I am asking for advice about LAC safety schools that are in the geographical and academic neighborhood of these schools. Thanks.

Duke
Barnard
Wellesley
Smith
Bryn Mawr
Haverford
Penn
Kenyon
Denison

2

Has she considered Swarthmore? If she’s considering Bryn Mawr and Haverford, Swarthmore is very similar. As for a safety school, Colgate seems like a good choice. The average ACT is a 30, but it’s still a top LAC. She might also want to consider Colby College, Bowdoin College (it’s test optional) and Emerson College, which are all lower than her 33 and could be good safety choices. If your daughter truly wants to go to a liberal arts school, she has the stats to get into a top LAC, like Williams, Amherst, Wellesley and Barnard. Best of luck to you two in your search!

3

That is good to know. She has no hooks (white female seems to be almost disadvantageous). Depending on which place I look, she is either a lock or unlikely for admission to most of these schools. We are doing a college tour this summer which - not the best thing to tour empty campuses but we have the time for a first look. I will ask her to consider Swarthmore but it seems like another reach school.

In my mind, Denison is the only safety on her list. She will probably apply to our state school, UW-Madison, but she really does not want to go there so I think she needs another safety.

4

Colgate is not a safety, nor is its average ACT 30:

http://colgate.edu/admission-financial-aid/class-of-2019-profile

Go 'gate!

5

Denison is likely a safety. Could also add Mt Holyhoke. Holy Cross has a top English department.
Skidmore could also be an option

6

Hi! My D has pretty much identical stats to yours :slight_smile: She’s more science leaning, but in terms of safety schools we’ve had recommended to us take a look at Dickinson & Muhlenberg (both in PA) Both seem to potentially offer merit money to girls with our D’s stats, which is a nice bonus.

7

@markham I don’t think that was intended to be a slight. After all, nearly everywhere is somebody’s safety. The stats linked to are for accepted students. According to collegedata.com, which mimics Common Data Sets, the average for enrolled students is 31. I’d suspect some of those kids with 32-36s needed a net in case Dartmouth rejected them.

8

Have you run the NPC’s together to see whether any of them are unaffordable?
Have you set a budget, a range of prices within which she’ll be able to choose but above which the college has to be off the table? Will you need merit?

Duke and Penn seem outliers. What does she like about them?

LACs in the Northeast are VERY competitive for girls with no hooks. For high-stats girls they could all admit her as well as they could all reject her. They’re all crapshoots except for Deniso. She’s eminently qualified yet they’re likely to get lots of applicants like her whom they don’t take in order to create a balance within a small class. Hence, crasphoot :s. The fact you’re applying from Wisconsin will help her compared to a girl from NYS/NJ/MA/PA.

Expressing interest is essential at all colleges (request info form + follow up questions to admissions, visit wherever you can with on campus interview, alumni interview when you can’t if it’s offered.)

A good result should happen but she should diversity her list with non-northeastern colleges and add Mount Holyoke at least to have less pressure.
UMN-Morris would be LAC-like and likely very cheap for you due to reciprocity agreements.
She could look into Ohio University Honors Program for an early reply.
https://www.ohio.edu/honors/
UWisconsin has Chadbourne, if push comes to shove.

If money is no concern, what about William&Mary? Not a safety but the field wouldn’t be quite so crowed with applicants with a similar profile as northeastern LACs.

For safeties, she should target LACs with acceptance rates of 40-50% and express interest before the end of the year.
Check out Colleges that change Lives (the book and/or the website).
Have her request info for all of these and pick 3-5 she likes - you absolutely want her to have a choice beside UWisconsin. Also, a lot of these have EA so you’d get a response in December- January.
Elon, St Olaf, Drake, Wooster, Earlham, Illinois Wesleyan, Dickinson, Muhlenberg,Centre,Hendrix, Agnes Scott, Trinity TX, Rhodes, Willamette, Whitman, Lewis&Clark.
Less unpredictable: TCNJ, St Mary’s Maryland, Geneseo.
Also unpredictable: Connecticut College, Trinity College,St Lawrence.

9

Dickinson isn’t quite a safety but a great LAC and should be very good odds with those scores.

10

Thank you for all the feedback. If she gets into a top school we would be able to pay full cost but merit aid would be great. Yes, there is some incongruity in her list. She went to a writing camp at Duke and loved the environment. I’m not a big fan, but if she were to get in we would support her.

She has mixed thoughts about what she would like. On the one hand she enjoys large cities (we are in a small town) so she thinks she would like to go to a LAC in or adjacent to a large town hence most of the schools on her list. Also, she wants a good program for writing so she is interested in Kenyon (but I don’t think she will like the surrounding area). She thinks she wants a small school but mid-size would do if it was a great school like Penn or Duke.

On vacation last year, we were in the neighborhood and visited Whitman College. It seemed very nice to me, but the location was a big turnoff for her. We drove from Seattle and it was a fairly endless 5+ hour drive. If Whitman had a commercial airport nearby it would be much more sought after.

She also visited Sarah Lawrence. It was summer so few students were around. It too seemed very nice but the campus is tiny and they seemed more interested in transgender housing options than English. I am not sure if she will apply there after the visit.

Denison is not on her list but I want her to look at it when we visit Kenyon. I have an old classmate who went to Denison and spoke highly of it (a quarter century ago!).

Both my wife and I went to large, state flagship college which we thought were great but our daughter has little interest. We want her to go to a school where she can change her major if she develops new interests so schools like Emerson are less appealing. We would prefer schools that are relatively easy for transportation back and forth, i.e. near a commercial airport. Some of the central Pennsylvania and central NY schools seem awkward that way.

11

About Mount Holyoke. Unless a woman is looking for a woman’s college, she is unlikely to thrive at a woman’s college even if she can get herself accepted. I don’t see Mount Holyoke as a “safety” for anyone. It is a poor choice for a woman looking at co-ed schools.

12

^Mount Holyoke and Agnes Scott would be easier to get into than the following on OP’s list:
Barnard
Wellesley
Smith
Bryn Mawr

13

@lostaccount The Op has 4 women’s colleges on the initial list, so likely that is why Mt Holyoke was added and it is easier to get into than Barnard and Wellesley

14

Northeast LAC safeties for a 33 ACT: Gettysburg College or Bucknell University – with her stats could receive nice merit at both.

15

@Middleman68 Whether or not it was intended as a slight, it was bad advice, and you’re just adding to it. Schools with 26% acceptance rates are not safeties for anyone. Colgate’s 75th percentile ACT is 32, making OP’s daughter one point above it; I applied to one school with a 75th percentile of 30 (my score was 33) and still got waitlisted.

Safety schools, as a rule of thumb, have acceptance rates of at least 50%.

16

@usualhopeful Obviously, I had no intention of misleading the OP. I was merely looking at the numbers. Also, a safety needs to be financially viable. Many of the privates mentioned may not be. Sorry about the wait list.

17

Skidmore, Wheaton, Goucher (mid-Atlantic, rather than northeastern, but close enough to the PA schools listed), Connecticut College . . . maybe Drew (in Madison, NJ), Quinnipiac, or Muhlenberg as a true, near-certain safety, with strong likelihood for merit aid.

18

She is open to going to a women’s college but not solely focused on it. Basically, she wants to go to the “best” school she can get into. Dickinson comes up a lot and it looks like a good school with a beautiful campus. I should have added that she plans to go to graduate school as well.

19

try to figure out how to visit College of Wooster in Ohio when visiting Kenyon and Denison - it would also more likely be a safety with solid intellect on campus

20

Just an aside, I know it’s too late for WISdad23, but maybe someone else can use the information when traveling to Whitman. There is a small airport in Walla Walla, it’s a very quick hop on Alaska Airlines from Seattle. There is also a larger airport serving multiple airlines in Pasco, 1 hour from Walla Walla, with a shuttle (Grapeline) that runs from it to a stop 3 blocks from campus.