Hofstra, I believe is a safety with those stats.
I am an Ursinus grad and love it there, but there is not a large, active Jewish population.
Are Rutgers and Temple too large for her tastes? They have Greek-letter organizations, but neither is dominated by Greeks, and both have active, longstanding Jewish and Hillel organizations.
Another vote for Muhlenberg.
. Thanks everyone for these wonderful suggestions! There are many schools here we would have missed. Rutgers is not necessarily too large but from what I know, too spread out. I believe you need to take busses to class and I think she wants more of a self contained feel. On the other hand, she absolutely love Umass Amherst (I consider that a match not a safety). We will look at Temple. From everything I have read, Muhlenberg seems like it was built for her. We are going to visit in a few weeks. I’ll let you all know how it goes.
@Massmomm Brandeis is not really a safety even though her stats make her an excellent candidate. Frankly, Jewish girls from the suburbs who want to go pre-med are just too common to consider any school that only accepts around 30% a safety. I have seen kids, especially girls, with really excellent stats get rejected from schools they surely thought were shoe-ins. I want to make sure we have some true safties too.
Bard?
UMass is pretty spread out too!
True thumper1 but she loved it! It felt like a campus. Not buildings scattered around a city. But we will not rule out Rutgers.
Sarah Lawrence? 28% Jewish, with Hillel, premed programs, under an hour to NYC. Great school!
Skidmore
Bard
Sarah Lawrence
SUNY Binghamton
SUNY Stony Brook
Binghamton has a large Jewish population, very smart students, and a good nerd factor. It is big, but my small-college-loving son liked it very much during our visit. Apply early action.
A possible downside to SUNY Stony Brook, Hofstra, and Adelphi is the large number of Long Island commuters who depart on the weekends. A lot of our teachers attended these colleges… as commuters. At Stony Brook, you will have a higher percentage of students at your daughter’s level. At Hofstra or Adelphi, she should be sure to get into their reputable honors programs for her to be surrounded by peers more similar to herself. She could probably get some good merit money at either of those two.
Bard and Sarah Lawrence are fantastic, intellectual schools, but avant-garde, hipster, and quirky. Bard might be better for STEM-oriented kids than SL.
Skidmore- 3 hours 11 minutes from Manhattan, as per Google Maps. My son loved visiting it and would have been happy to attend. His uncle went there. It is an amazing school, with many of the same strengths shared by schools like Williams (which my son will be attending), Vassar, Hamilton, and Bates. What’s not to like?
And you might contact someone in a Jewish organization at Connecticut College to see how active it is. Hillel does list them as one of the colleges with a branch of Hillel. Conn Coll is lovely and an excellent school. Son liked it a lot.
Hillel has a list of colleges by percentage of Jewish students (Binghamton, Sarah L. and Muhlenberg are way up on the list), as well as a “small but mighty” list of colleges that have small percentages of Jews but an active Hillel. Here is the link. It starts with a list by population, but scroll down for a list by percentages.
Thanks @thegreyking. Hofstra is definitely on our list. My older daughter is in the honors college there now and loves it. it. They give excellent aid which is a real plus. I don’t know anything about Adlephi, but will look into it. Bing, Bard, Skidmore and Stony Brook are also on the list, although I hadn’t considered them safeties. Maybe I have been overly pessimistic. We visited Sarah Lawrence and she just didn’t like the vibe there.
What about the College of New Jersey? I think that would be a safety for her. Everyone we know who has attnd3d has loved it.
@thumper1 college of new jersey looks like a really good prospect. Thats why I love this place. Thanks!
Drexel just built a new Jewish Center. Lots of premed with research opps. Right beside 30th street station for easy back and forth to NYC. Check out both Temple and Drexel in Philly.
Connecticut College does have an active Hillel, if she likes the school, it even has it’s own building. Dickinson?
Yes, Skidmore and Bard fall into the “low match” (likely but not a sure thing) category, and Hofstra into the “clear safety” (almost definite) category with her statistics. Skidmore has been admitting smaller percentages lately.
The SUNYs are relatively safe with her stats, especially if you apply early action, because they do not appear to be concerned with yield protection and seem to weigh stats more strongly than do other schools; for example, in November/December this year, Binghamton admitted many over-1500 SAT candidates one day, and then many 1450-1490 candidates a few days later. Kids with slightly lower scores came next, and so on. My sons’ friends all got their admissions offers in the exact descending order of their SAT/ACT scores. Then lower stat kids were deferred.
Near NYC safety:
Seton Hall
Purchase College
Manhattan College
New Paltz (2hours tho)
Manhattanville College
Sacred Heart
UConn
Sarah Lawrence has a rather lopsided set of academic offerings. Extensive in arts, writing, literature, psychology, but limited in many other subjects. Check the catalog if interested.
@TheGreyKing Skidmore is definitely not a safety coming from our school. They seem to be very erratic about who the accept. Many students with fabulous records are rejected each year, while others with lower scores are admitted. I’m guessing that a lot has to do with showing interest. I’m glad a few people have suggested Bard. It should have been on our list and for some reason was not. We will be looking at a bunch of the Sunys but my understanding was that Purchase was mostly an arts and music conservatory. I don’t think she will be too happy there as a science student. Uconn is on our list as well.
I think SUNY New Paltz is a good safety, while Binghamton is a good safety/match. While I do think that this student will get in… I am not sure that it will happen during the first round of acceptances. This student would likely make the honors program at the U of Delaware ( should be ok distance wise) and I would consider UDel a safety.