I think OP did mention trying to visit several of the schools on the lists over the summer so perhaps these lists will get refined in that process. It’s hard to know what the “middle of Iowa” feels like until you are actually in the middle of Iowa!
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I think some kids have much strong preferences than others regarding factors such as location, climate, urban/rural, campus size, etc.
My kids express no opinions on these issues and I am somewhat envious of parents whose kids know what they want with respect to these factors. It sure would help in narrowing the search process if it were restricted to, e.g., liberal leaning, mid-sized colleges in or near cities in the mid Atlantic.
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I agree with you than kids often have preferences in mind, which is very helpful. This is a 17 year old international student who has never set foot on ANY college campus(according to OP upthread). Many here have been stressing casting a wider net and the addition of several schools does accomplish that to some degree. Visiting a wide variety of campuses may prove very helpful.
Apply to McGill and UofT if all you care about are rankings - although there are equal or better colleges in Canada from a student life and undergrad experience perspective. Admissions are based on clearly defined numerical grade and SAT thresholds.
Walk on for swimming. Teams aren’t hard to make. Recruitment not required.
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The Pomona coach is the Pitzer coach. The Claremont coach is the coach for Harvey Mudd and Scripps. The consortium schools are unique in that their teams are combined.
I am not sure why your daughter has not considered Pitzer or Scripps if she is looking at Claremont & Pomona although I suspect it has something to do with perceived prestige. Claremont has relatively few majors and environmental science is not one of them- the school’s strength leans towards Economics, Government, Poli Sci.
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Clearly the posters who suggested adding those schools also didn’t realize that!
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I am well aware of that and mentioned it specifically in my suggestion. The student may be a better academic fit at one of those.
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now there are so many ways to explore campuses from afar - online interactive tours, you tube videos, reviews and ratings pages, message boards, student athlete interviews, ect.
yes it is very difficult to actually get a foot on campus for all these schools, but it isn’t hard to have those types of conversations with your child. Do you want classes that may have over 100 in them or do you prefer smaller classes? do you want to be exposed to and take classes in a lot of areas or go to a school where you declare your major very early? do you want a campus where most students are from the immediate area or do you want a campus with students from a larger geographic area? does diversity or LGBTQ+ policies effect your feelings on campus? do you want warm weather or four seasons?
At 17 kids should be able to express if they want to be in a large city, near a large city, or is it okay to be on a rather isolated campus. If they want a campus that has the sports focused Power 5 vibe, a vibrant greek community, or a more quirky vibe. Being international, the family should be able to determine if there is a need to have access to an airport, train, or other means of transportation.
These aren’t life or death discussions but honestly I have a hard time seeing a kid who would be happy and thrive at UCLA also be thrilled about attending Grinnell. I hope that right fit is a discussion that is happening now that they are less then 6 months away from the start of application season. (for what it is worth the lack of bubble tea and sushi made Grinnell a no go for my kid, despite huge support from coaches, alum in our family and my urging so i get it that kids may not have the clearest picture of what is best for them, but they do have opinions and thoughts)
but again it sounds like McGill is the front runner and hopefully everything works out and the student will commit there and all this back and forth will be a distant memory soon!
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My bad. It appears that OP’s D is a double legacy at Stanford. That’s a really strong hook, but Stanford’s a really tough admit. Will it be enough? If it is, OP’s narrow list of schools becomes more understandable.
Legacy is a weak factor at Stanford, and D won’t be swimming on that team. Recruitment and legacy will require ED/REA, so Stanford is highly unlikely.
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I just found this article for the OP.
“Former Stanford President John Hennessy stated in 2013 that the ‘admissions rate for [legacy students] is two or three times higher than the general population.’”
Is there any distinction between being a single vs double legacy?
all, thanks for your input, there was a lot of traffic about her lists (recruit, non-recruit), and the boundless variety of schools on them, and the low overlap between them (50%).
we have communicated at various points in the thread, but maybe it’s worth reiterating for everyone’s benefit.
- D24 has never visited a school campus in North America. We’ve had numerous conversations about fit and her focus has been steadfast and consistent:
- academic major, strength and breath of program, international ranking of the school (indeed Toronto/McGill are ranked Top50 in the world)
- ideally with varsity swimming
- not a women’s college
(outside of Barnard which is essentially integrated with Columbia) - not a school in the South
- not a purely urban school like NYU (where her former teammate swims)
- not an hard STEM school like MIT/Caltech (not that she would be admitted)
It maybe “easy” for many of the commenters to further refine their list, it isn’t for D24 who lives half a world away, and this is exactly the purpose of her summer visits. After that, she will have a much more detailed impression of what she wants, to what extent small classes are important, and whether she minds attending school in the middle of nowhere
- Her swim list is focused very much on the above, and where she could potentially be recruited. It does include schools from East to West, from LAC to Universities. The purpose of this list is to be recruited at a strong academic school with a strong international recognition. The coach emails/zooms are naturally cutting her list down, and we expect that list to realistically come down to 0-5 schools by summer. If more than 1, summer visits with coach /swimmer meetings will help her decide where to apply ED.
Whilst we started late in the process, she’s in active dialogue with a number of coaches she will meet this summer, and we don’t believe they are taking time to meet with her if there was no measure of interest on their part. some may argue their interest is very low, which maybe true, and we’ll certainly know by summer.
- For the same reasons above, her non recruit list is also broad and diverse, and we expect summer on campus and summer visits to drive changes in her preferences. Some schools will be taken off, others maybe added. For tactical and sentimental reasons, the UCs/Toronto/McGill/Stanford will likely remain on that list
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Good luck to the summer college visits. Going to be a busy summer!
Sounds like the real challenge is that the most desirable school (Stanford) has such a low acceptance rate (even w/ legacy status), and the swim team there is so strong that your D probably not going to be a recruit there.
on the subject of Legacy/Double Legacy. Parents have been active in the community, active interviewers for 10+ years and our observations would be
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Legacy/double legacy provide a marginal advantage to admission. Good to have, not a game changer
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(former) President Hennessy confided last week that a global international school has the highest hook to Stanford (the room included many alumni of both)
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A $25m+ donation is the strongest hook for those interested.
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D24 will be training at Stanford this summer but has zero chance of being on that team. Her ex-teammate swims for one of the top ivies, and couldn’t get a look from the Stanford coach during his recruiting.
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Big issue with the timing though. The list is somehow both too narrow and too broad. Too narrow in that there are only 2-3 schools so far despite 5 months of trying that have shown much interest in recruiting.
Too broad in that the list is all over the map in terms of school size, geographic, area, atmosphere on campus, etc. and doesn’t indicate much thought put into anything other than ranking/perceived reputation. If that factor is the prime driver for the decision, it could mean being entirely shut out of being recruited and using that as way to increase admissions odds.
From a recruiting timeline standpoint, D3 swimming might be different than the team sport I have experience with in this past year’s recruiting cycle for D3 LACs. But for that, coaches at NESCACs were submitting pre-reads on July 1st (with info submitted beforehand) and others from conferences like UAA, NEWMAC, Centennial, and Liberty League were maybe a little bit earlier in June after spring semester junior year high school grades were out. All of them were saying they wanted to finalize their commitments shortly after (and many of them had essentially a closed list before official pre-reads came back).
In actual practice, some programs that wanted to wrap things up by mid-July didn’t finalize their list until early fall because potential recruits were still deciding and hadn’t committed. Coaches would also leave some lower-ranked recruits on their lists hanging without an “official” offer until they got commitments or not from their higher-ranked recruits. Weaker programs from an athletic perspective had a longer timeline and also potentially had some recruits using them as a backup choice in the RD round. Stronger programs had everyone committed early to apply ED.
Bottom line: visiting in the summer and then potentially trying to add schools to contact for recruiting at that point is not a very tenable strategy. Most programs (and especially the ones on the list now) are not on that extended timeline and the slots will have been long locked up by then. Backup/contingency recruits have already been long since identified at that point too.
That’s why commenters on this thread going back to December kept emphasizing casting a wide net and starting early to identify programs that had an interest in recruiting. That advice was seemingly ignored for whatever reason.
So instead of being 3%…it’s 9%? Sorry…that is still very very low.
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I don’t understand this decision point. Ranking/reputation is the prime driver for the list beyond all else because of a huge focus on prestige by the family and the perceived need for that for future job prospects, but there’s an exception for this for one school because of a “connection” and those considerations all get thrown away?
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@YoLo2 : what is the purpose of your comment:
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“her (swim) list is too narrow”: She’d love to have more coaches interested, but her times are her times, and it is what it is. She will not add a weaker academic school for the sake of being recruited at all cost, and certainly has no intention to add swim schools during the summer
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“her (non swim) list is too broad”: that’s why we’re doing summer visits!!
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Franklin and Marshall is a “safer” school on her swim list. Some commenters would have made another choice.
Top level HS athletes are not just doing HS programs, at least in our neck of the woods. D was a swimmer and with the exception of 3 weeks in the Spring, was in the water 13-15 hours per week and lifting 5 hours per week.
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