@socaldad2002 Bowdoin has ED2, so OP could always ED to Brown and ED2 if necessary. BUT, I totally understand that even if OP’s parents loved the school, not everyone does, and that’s fine too.
@sunflowah I was in your shoes last year (except for the legacy,) when it came to deciding to ED and something I found helpful to do was to create pros and cons lists. Barring prestige, are there facets of the Open Curriculum vs. Bowdoin’s distribution requirements that you really admire? Are there specific faculty members, courses, alumni-sponsored internships etc. that you’re interested in? Do you like RI vs. Maine more?
My daughter is currently a Bowdoin student and loves it. She said the same thing you did after visiting the school as a high school junior. Something just felt right about the place for her. She is a Princeton legacy but that school never clicked with her despite its obvious prestige. I’m glad she went with her gut and that Bowdoin said yes to her. So far, I’m very impressed with Bowdoin’s classes. The largest class size she’s been in is about 28 students and most classes are smaller than 15. One class last year only had 6 students. All classes are taught by professors (no TAs) and you have direct and easy access to the professors. Bowdoin really provides personal attention.
@sunflowah One more vote for NOT applying ED1 to Bowdoin. Although it is unlikely that they’ll handle spring 2021 and fall 2021 the same way they are handling the current semester, I know first-years who are not enjoying their fall 2021 as practically the only students on campus with almost all virtual classes. I have heard from parents of first-years that their students are lonely and isolated, which is certainly true on other campuses, but I think it’s worse at Bowdoin given that they have the most restrictive COVID policy of any NESCAC. I would try to connect with current first years, if possible, read the student paper online, and consider applying ED2 if you still feel the love.
It is true that Bowdoin chose the most restrictive approach amongst NESCAC schools but several other schools choose a similar conservative approach, Harvard being one of them. I totally understand that the first years had a very different experience to starting college due to the pandemic, but Bowdoin chose safety and a conservative approach over a more risky policy. Given that Covid is ramping up again heading into winter, it’s too early to criticize imo. The plan is to bring the sophomores, juniors, and seniors back to campus in the spring. Hopefully, it will be safe to have all classes on campus at the start of fall '21.
On the tech side, Bowdoin supported all the students by giving them brand new iPads with cellular connection if they didn’t have access to wifi, so the transition to online learning would be easy to access for all students.
“Brown since they graduated, the legacy bump may be negligible.”
They legacy advantage is definitely not negligible, even if the parents don’t contribute a lot, and this is a double legacy. It doesn’t mean that you get in since of course many legacies are rejected, but we know the Harvard data had it around 11x advantage (44% for legacies, 5 percent overall). And if you’re a legacy with a high academic rating (1 or 2), it goes to the 60s. Only athletes have a bigger advantage.
Given Bowdoin has ED2 as others have mentioned, I’d go with Brown ED and based on that consider Bowdoin ED2.
I wasted my legacy status because you can’t get the education at Brown that you get at Bowdoin. The classes at Brown are taught mainly by TA’s, the professors are disinterested because many are there to better their own careers, and the enviornment is competitive and no fun. The professors at Bowdoin are top notch and available. Bowdoin is one of the top LAC’s in the country and don’t believe that nonsense about test scores- almost everyone who goes there did submit test scores, and high ones at that. I think you will never regret choosing Bowdoin, if you are lucky enough to get in.