My younger son is starting to look at schools. He has liked all of the above. We know his stats aren’t in range and are looking for similar liberal arts schools that would be matches, safeties. He does not want to be in a rural area. Interested in Political Science, History and film/media studies.
Stats are top 5% of class, will have excellent recommendations.
Sat CR 800, Math 660 and Writing 730. He plans to retake this in June. Subject tests are US History 640 and Literature 700, he plans to also retake these in October.
UW gpa 3.72, weighted GPA 4.34.
Upward trend in grades, all A’s in the most difficult curriculum for 11th, but he does have a second semester C in AP Chem from 10th grade.
In range for a good chance or in range for certainty? He looks like a perfectly good candidate for Wesleyan, not that he is a lock but as good a chance as anyone. Any school in the top 25 of LACs is tough sledding.
Lafayette, Bucknell, Gettysburg, Dickinson, Union, Connecticut College, and Holy Cross are all possibilities.
Pomona, Amherst, Wesleyan and Vassar have USNWR selectivity ranks of 2, 5, 14 and 17, respectively. Two examples of schools in the same category that are somewhat less selective and are not in rural locations are Oberlin and Macalester (tied at 21).
I agree that he’s certainly in range for Vassar and Wesleyan. I would add Goucher for merit money- required study abroad (you can intern with a member of Parliament), and it’s just a quick ride away from Baltimore.
Thank you for the suggestions. I thought that with his 660 math score, subject tests, and the C, he was out of the running for the schools mentioned. Hopefully he can raise his scores. We are not full pay, but I’ve run the net price calculators and with the exception of Pomona (which was 9k more than the others) they were affordable for us.
Wesleyan and Vassar are a bit less selective than Pomona and Amherst. Wesleyan is test optional so you might consider that option if the scores (which are actually very good with exception of math) don’t improve but that 800 in CR is impressive. Wesleyan has ED and ED II so he might consider that option. I agree that Oberlin, Bard, Reed, Hampshire, Skidmore and Pitzer might be worth looking at.
Bates is another option. It is certainly not rural and his scores are right on the average for regular decision but the acceptance rate of 17% still makes it a stretch.
He did like Pitzer, but they also have a low acceptance rate. Also Hampshire looked good, but concerned about the low retention and graduation rate. We’ll be looking into the others. Thank you so much for all the wonderful suggestions!
Kenyon, Occidental, Reed, Clark (probably a safety or near-safety), Macalester, Colorado College, Earlham (safety, with likelihood of generous aid), Grinnell . . .
For the class of 2019, Pitzer is actually the fifth most selective LAC based on admissions rate (12.9%), following Pomona and Claremont McKenna (both tie at #1), Swarthmore, and Harvey Mudd. Although Pitzer may seem like a second-tier college to most people, you should be aware of how difficult it is to get in.
I certainly don’t consider Pitzer to be a second-tier college, but it’s worth noting that their average scores are a good deal lower than other schools with ridiculously low acceptance rates like that. OP seemed to be concerned about her son’s test scores, so I thought it would be a good school to mention.
The most recent USNWR ranks Pitzer 47th in selectivity within its category. People may need to be advised that the school does have a low acceptance rate, but, for whatever reason, when posters point that out, they usually don’t mention Pitzer’s other statistics.
Pitzer is part of the Claremont Consortium so he will be taking classes at all five colleges throughout his four years. My daughter was admitted to Pitzer and was told that her two potential majors would have to be taken at Scripps and Pomona (I think). Scripps was given a huge grant to create/enhance their ceramics studio program so Pitzer was dropping it and the creative writing program at Pitzer was mostly poetry so for fiction she would be taking classes at Pomona (or maybe Claremont McKenna). This was actually the reason she chose another school, she didn’t want to be required to take her classes elsewhere.
My point being that once you are admitted to any of the consortium schools you attend them all. It really just determines where you sleep.
PKMG - I’m surprised at that statistic, my daughter’s GPA was lower than OP and Pitzer is a test optional school so she never submitted them. This was three years ago if that matters.
Pitzer is decidedly holistic. My son was accepted in '14, with lower stats, but he had demonstrated a great deal of interest (including campus visit and interview with regional rep), had a lot of leadership credentials, and their college had not accepted anyone from his school in recent history. They did not offer him a nickel in financial aid, however. We both loved the 5C consortium in Claremont. It’s worth a try, certainly.
My son did like Pitzer/Pomona and the 5c consortium. It’s easy to find reaches. Now looking for matches/safeties. He’s adding Connecticut, Colorado (this looks like a reach though), Hampshire and Lewis & Clark. Holy Cross also looks wonderful, but might be too conservative for him. Is anyone familiar with Willamette? This looks like it could also be a possibility.