I am a junior in high school and have recently visited a couple of colleges. The two that I really liked and would love to go to are Brown and Wesleyan. Both are prettt challenging to get into, so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of similar schools that are more midrange and not as much of a reach.
Thanks!
Connecticut College.
Connecticut College was historically the all-female counterpart to all-male Wesleyan. Both schools are coed now.
If you are willing to look outside of the Northeast, Reed College is sometimes described as a “West Coast Wesleyan”. It’s not an exact comparison, given that Reed is not as conservative or mainstream as Wesleyan.
What, specifically did you like about them? And did you visit others that you didn’t like, and if so, why?
Off the top of my head I’d imagine that kids who like both those schools might also enjoy the following midwestern schools: Carleton, Macalester, Grinnell, Oberlin, Lawrence, Beloit, Wooster, Denison… Some are also pretty hard to get into, but there’s a range. In the east, maybe Vassar, Skidmore, Bard?
Kenyon appears to overlap with both Brown and Wesleyan. If you scroll down on Kenyon’s site to “The Company We Keep,” you will find other colleges you could look into as well:
http://www.kenyon.edu/admissions-aid/admissions-statistics/
For schools with generally flexible curricula, similar to that of Brown, you could read through here:
http://www.hercampus.com/life/9-most-flexible-colleges-country
You might want to look at Bard, Oberlin, Tufts, Kenyon, Bates, and Skidmore.
Might add Earlham to @porcupine98 's Midwest list (which has some great options).
@merc81 - That overlap list is pretty handy! I don’t think I’ve seen many other colleges share that information, or have I just not been paying attention?
@porcupine98 : Kenyon posts that information and updates it annually in a way that I’ve not seen other colleges report it, though a few colleges list their peers (often aspirational) in their less for-the-public, but available, analyses.
I’m not sure what they mean by “overlap schools” (and why there are more than one group of them), but I think each year schools are supposed to list their “peers” (perhaps as part of the CDS?). A few years ago, the Chronicle of Higher Ed came up with this interactive feature, which I’d wish they’d repeat/re-run with the new data each year, it’s very interesting and useful:
Wow, that’s a really cool graphic. Now curious both about both the definition of “overlap” and “peer.” But both are good starting points for further research.
Overlap schools and peer schools tend to represent highly similar groups. “Aspirational peers” might represent a different set @porcupine98 .
Agree Denison, Kenyon, Bates, maybe Dickinson also.
I don’t think defining “peer” for the context of that interactive visualization is too complicated. Here’s the article that originally accompanied it:
http://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Selecting-Peers-for/134228/
It states:
So, I think it’s basically just the list of colleges each college submits. As the article states, some schools may be using aspiration (or other factors) in coming up with the schools on their lists, but they’re still just single lists of peers.
Now what does Kenyon mean by their “overlap” schools? I don’t know. I’m going to guess it’s based on some data collection they did, from applicants/admittees/attendees. But exactly what data is not clear. I’m not saying it’s not significant – it would just be nice to know how it was determined, and to have similar data for other schools.
Many schools set up their Naviance system so that you can see the application overlaps for each college. Of course, it’s only for your high school and for as many years of history as it uses, but it’s helpful because you can see which schools seemed to get lumped together by students and you can also see how well those students fared at each in terms of acceptances.
One of the print guides – perhaps Fiske – does this as well.
Note that overlaps tend to be geographically concentrated because many students do not want to cast their net all over the country.
Overlaps definitely are not the same as peers, because students may be applying to one school as a reach and a nearby school as a match or safety.
Peers for Harvard would include places like Yale, UChicago and Stanford. But overlaps for Harvard might include any school in the Boston area, or any midsized urban university, etc.
For different reasons . . .
URochester: By enrollment and curriculum, similar to Brown. Traditional campus, mostly in Georgian Colonial and Greek Revival.
Vassar: Similar geographically, curricularly and, generally, statistically to both Brown and Wesleyan. May be a tougher admit for some (particularly female) applicants than Wesleyan.
Kenyon: By applicant interest, overlaps both Brown and Wesleyan. Strong in humanities and fine arts, but home as well to a nice science quad and great athletic center.
Hamilton: Woodsy, somewhat spatially luxuriant, undergraduate-focused school with a flexible curriculum. Academically, architecturally and, to an extent, culturally diversified through its history of having once been two colleges of different characteristics and attributes.
NYU Gallatin: By urban setting and flexible curriculum, a nice alternative to Brown.
Smith: A single-sex option with a flexible curriculum.
Grinnell: May attract socially and academically similar applicants to those who like Brown.
Connecticut College: Similar to both Brown and Wesleyan in important areas such as course offerings, particularly in the humanities and fine arts, but also offers a notable botany program. Of the above group, the generally least difficult admit.
Oberlin, Macalester, Bard, Skidmore, Sarah Lawrence, Reed.
Vassar definitely isn’t midrange, but it shares a lot in common with Brown and Wesleyan, so it would be worth checking out.
Kind of hard to give helpful suggestions without knowing exactly what it is about Wesleyan and Brown that appeals to you. Can you provide more color?
Re #16, by USNWR methodology, Vassar in fact registers as being slightly more selective than Wesleyan:
“0verlap” schools are the ones that Kenyon applicants also most often apply to, right?