Searching for Liberal Arts Colleges

College Search & Selection
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<p>I am looking into LACs that would be good fits for my children. They are a rising junior and sophomore (boy and a girl), respectively and are top students at two of the more competitive (British) schools in London. We plan later this year to go to New England and see schools such as Middlebury, Amherst, Wesleyan, Wellesley and Williams and take a separate trip in the spring to see Pomona, CMC and Harvey Mudd. Since these schools are all so competitive,. I am looking for some other LAC schools that are still very good, but maybe not quite hard to get into. Kenyon, Franklin and Marshall and Rhodes spring to mind? My son will probably major in math and/or economics and my daughter in English and/or drama.</p>

<p>Does anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks, Londondad.</p>

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<p>Are your children UK citizens or American expats? This makes a big difference in the acceptance rate. Also, do you want or need financial aid? Your demographic – race, ethnic group, economic status, religion – will also play a major role in acceptance, for better or worse.</p>

<p>In the Northeast, I’d look at Weslyan, Hamilton, Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, Haverford – for either son or daughter. For your daughter Skidmore, Vassar, Bard, Sarah Lawrence. These are just one notch down in selectivity from the schools you list (and still very good academically). </p>

<p>On the next level of selectivity, your daughter should look at other women’s colleges: Smith, Holyoke, Bryn Mawr. </p>

<p>Less selective and coed is tough in the area. I think you’re doing the right thing in looking at the midwest and south.</p>

<p>If you absolutely need safeties (meaning that your children definitely will go to college in the US) then I’d suggest that you devote a portion of your visits to researching true safeties. Good safeties that appeal are difficult to find, but they’re out there and a visit can make everyone – student and parent – feel better about the prospect of attending.</p>

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<p>Take a look at Grinnell College. It’s one of the top ranked LACs, but because of the rural midwest location, it has a much higher acceptance rate. We visited Middlebury, Pomona and 8 other highly regarded LACs but Grinnell was love at first sight for S. He’s now entering his senior year and still loves it: It was indeed the right place for him (a science guy who loves music and athletics).</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/grinnell-college/438138-why-grinnell.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/grinnell-college/438138-why-grinnell.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Grinnell, Carleton, Hamilton</p>

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<p>UnC-asheville, phenomenal school</p>

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<p>D goes to Swarthmore. Loves it. Beautiful campus. It’s outside Philly, near Bryn Mawr and Haverford. Admissions is similar to Williams and Amherst though.</p>

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<p>Thanks. My kids are US citizens (although born and raised in the UK) and we will probably not receive any financial aid.</p>

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<p>When you visit Pomona, also visit the other Claremont Schools, and take a trip up to L.A. to check out Occidental. If you visit Swarthmore, also look into Haverford.</p>

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<p>If you like F&M, consider Gettysburg and Dickinson.</p>

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<p>“If you like F&M, consider Gettysburg and Dickinson”</p>

<p>Agreed, and its makes for any easier visit since they are all clustered within a 60-90 minute radius. We did that road trip and topped it off the next day with Bucknell.</p>

<p>Also, if you are looking at Kenyon (a personal favorite), than you may want to consider Oberlin.</p>

<p>We also did the Carlton, St. Olaf and Macalester visit trip. It is an easy visit with the schools clustered so close together. Good luck to you!</p>

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<p>If you’re looking in the west, give Whitman College a look. The theater department is top notch, as are the academics. It’s located in the smallish town of Walla Walla, WA which some people think of as remote, but the town is friendly, charming and in a well established wine producing region. I bring this up because it means that the town has it’s own cultural life, good restaurants and amenities. The students and townspeople are mutually supportive. The school is in the center of town, but you can get out to the magnificent landscape in no time.</p>

<p>If you do take a trip to the northwest, also add Reed, Lewis and Clark, and Willamette to your list. All great schools in the Portland/Salem region.</p>

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<p>Thanks, everybody.</p>

<p>Bopambo - I forgot about Reed. Good catch.</p>

<p>BobbyCT - We will definitely check out Oberlin, although I fear that it may be as hard to get into as the Little Ivys, Claremont schools and Swarthmore.</p>

<p>Momrath - What do you mean by it makes a difference whether they are American expats or UK citizens? (by the way, they are dual citizens) The more that I have been checking out this issue, I am not sure that it makes much of a difference so long as we don’t require financial aid. Both of my kids’ schools only send around 3%- 5% of their graduates to the USA every year, so it might give them a small advantage over kids that go to, say, the American School in London, but not much advantage overall. (Having said that, schools that get lots of London kids that apply every year, such as Amherst, will probably give fewer points than some of the non-East Coast schools that get fewer British residents applying every year.)</p>

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<p>Franklin and Marshall is one that comes to mind thats well rounded. Why the focus on smaller schools?</p>

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<p>Collegeboy1234 - My kids are used to smaller class sizes (their total high school years have around 100 kids each). Also, I just think that the British curricullum, particularly at GSCE level, is a good match for a LAC curricullum. </p>

<p>Depending on their SAT scores, we will probably apply to a couple Ivys (probably Brown and Dartmouth) but these will always be stretch schools given their low acceptance rates.</p>

<p>I used to know a few people when I was in grad school who had gone to undergrad at F&M and they were all really talented, so we will definitely check that out.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>I was going to recommend Brown and Dartmouth actually, as both are liberal arts based and on the smaller side of the Ivy League. But the small liberal arts colleges are just as good as these schools with better acceptance rates (Americans are ivy crazy). Schools like williams and amherst are definitely at an ivy level, while other schools you have mentioned are not far behind, and I’m sure you will like many of the schools you visit</p>

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<p>The only college I can think of that’s like Harvey Mudd but less selective is Rose Hulman Institute of Technology. It isn’t quite a liberal arts school, but it’s more well-rounded than most tech schools.</p>

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<p>Davidson is very strong in econ, theatre, and English. It’s an overall excellent school with a great quality of life, and I highly recommend it to both kids. The Royal Shakespeare Company is frequently in residence, which may be of interest.</p>

<p>Southern LACs are frequently overlooked in favor of those in other parts of the country, and I think it’s tremendously underrated. Gorgeous and well-equipped facilities, strong academics, a beautiful campus, decent weather, very friendly and accomplished students and faculty, an honor code, free laundry, a nice city, a lake campus, and decent sports…a wonderful mix of things in a college.</p>

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<p>Collegeboy1234 - Believe me, the English are becoming Ivy crazy too, particularly with the tuition over here tripling next year. I believe that many British parents will only take on the extra expense of a US university education if their children get accepted to an Ivy League school. Which is another reason for trying to be a bit flexible and look at LACs! Thanks.</p>

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<p>Warblersrule, thanks. Davidson is definitely on our list, although it also is highly competitive (26% acceptance). However, on the positive side, they have only 4% international students (Amherst and Middlebury are 10% international and Williams is at 7%) so they might like more international applicants.</p>

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<p>LD, we are also American expats (although we live in Asia). Our son is a graduate of Williams and is now in graduate school at Cornell. He looked at many of the schools on your kids’ list and has friends who have attended quite a few different LACs. </p>

<p>Applicants who are Americans living abroad get the best of both worlds, because you get the advantages of international perspective without the disadvantages of being in the highly competitive international pool. If you look at the percentages of all internationals accepted, you will see that the numbers are quite small. So in that sense it’s better to be American nationals than UK nationals.</p>

<p>[I think your conclusion about Davidson may be backwards. The fact that they only have 4% international students may mean that that’s their informal “quota” for internationals, not that they want to attract more. I like Davidson a lot, but don’t know much about their admissions policies, so I may be off-base here.]</p>

<p>Colleges like US expats in general because they have interesting life experiences (which enhances the campus community) and don’t have visa and language issues. Living overseas becomes, in essence, an extracurricular. Your kids need to make sure they emphasize their experiences in their applications, in their essays, recommendations, resumes, and supplemental materials.</p>

<p>Although I don’t have any statistical basis, I believe that many colleges, especially those that have difficulty attracting high achieving URMS, use internationals to increase their diversity percentages, often recruiting from non-White, non-Judeo/Christian majority countries. </p>

<p>Our personal experience has been living in a developing country which had a unique appeal to admissions; I’m not sure that living in the UK would garner as many points on the “exotic” scale, though London has its own panache. I agree that you’ll get more mileage at Midwestern and Southern schools as well as at some of the rural colleges in the Northeast, like Hamilton or Holyoke.</p>

<p>If your children will definitely study in America (versus using UK schools as their safeties) they should plan to visit more safeties than reaches. As I mentioned it’s fairly easy to love the super selectives, but safeties fare better after a visit. Also, LACs like demonstated interest. </p>

<p>Since you’re not expecting financial aid, if, after visiting, a number #1 rises to the top, they might consider applying ED. This is a big boost at schools like Williams and Amherst.</p>