<p>An aside: this year, Bryn Mawr’s acceptance rate was 5 points less than the figure cited in the previous post. It was 41%.</p>
<p>A few others I’d add to the list (over 50% admission rate/very good academics): Alma College (Michigan), Knox College (Illinois), Augustana College (Illinois), and Allegheny College ¶.</p>
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<p>It has a lower acceptance rate (falls below the poster who asked for 50%), but GPA and ACT scores are comparable to most of the schools mentioned so far. It would fail to make the list only because the acceptance rate is below 50%. Acceptance rates do not equal “selectivity” if looking for colleges with similar stats kids.</p>
<p>I agree with bclintonk. My boys were top 5% of their high school class, all AP’s and honors, and really like to hang with an intellectual crowd. They are attending Lawrence U. and College of Wooster. The like-minded kids are there, but they don’t feel the ultra competitive aspect that you might get at an Ivy. Both were given great merit scholarships, which was a nice bonus. I’m a big fan of The Colleges that Change Lives. If you haven’t read it, please do. Those schools have a lot to offer, without all the admission insanity that you might get at another “higher ranked” school. My boys both received acceptances from “better” ranked schools, but chose these for the overall quality of life plus an excellent education.</p>
<p>Nice list bclintonk, I would have added Rhodes, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Alma and Knox would be good choices with a kiddo at the lower end of ACT scores (21 - 26).</p>
<p>Thank you for posting this…and for all the responses. My D is one of those students that you describe. It does seem like there are a lot of similar students seeking that type of environment, it seems surprising that it feels like a challenge to find. It adds to the challenge when you are looking for someplace relatively close to home (which for us is the SE). I am taking notes though!</p>
<p>
For those living in NC, UNC Asheville is a terrific option. My sister wound up choosing it over UNC Chapel Hill (honors program), which she felt was far too big for her, honors or no, and has gotten a great education so far.</p>
<p>If I could do college all over again, I think the College of the Atlantic would be very, very close to the top of my list, although it would’ve been a safety for me. Great, quirky school with a very unique and hands-on approach to education. Surprisingly diverse with an international population that exceeds all but two or three LACs.</p>
<p>UNC Asheville is also not super expensive for non-NC residents.</p>
<p>By the way, some of the colleges I listed in post #19 meet 100% need AND give significant merit packages, which is somewhat unusual; more typically, it’s one or the other. My D2 got substantial merit aid offers from Grinnell, Bryn Mawr, and Mt. Holyoke, the three on this list she applied to. They all meet 100% of need for 100% of their students with need, as do Smith and St. Olaf. But you should always check the Net Price Calculators, because what “meets full need” means in actual dollars might vary from school to school. </p>
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<p>I completely agree with this. I wasn’t proposing a list of “safeties for all,” simply answering the more specific question about schools with admit rates over 50% and strong academics/intellectual cultures.</p>
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<p>Completely agree that a safety needs to be determined in light of the academic credentials and financial situation of the individual student. However, admit rate also matters. Williams isn’t a safety for anyone, even those who are in the top quartile in academic stats for Williams, because its admit rate is so low. But I’m fairly confident that someone who would be in the top quartile at Beloit, with a 70.6% admit rate, should be able to count it as a safety unless there are bad teacher or GC recs, major character issues, or insulting or offputting essays. </p>
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<p>I did. It’s in the “just under 50%” list.</p>
<p>Another LAC that fits the bill is Wheaton, in Norton MA. It’s a former women’s college that went co-ed in 1988 and has an acceptance rate of around 60 percent.</p>
<p>From Wikipedia (admittedly biased, but still offering useful info.):
Wheaton College is consistently ranked amongst the top liberal arts colleges by various publications. For 2011, a national collective of guidance counselors ranked Wheaton among the top 50 liberal arts colleges in the country,[17] while U.S. News & World Report ranked it 59th in Best Liberal Arts Colleges.[18] The Princeton Review also recognizes Wheaton as a standout Northeastern college and as one of the 373 best colleges in the United States,[19] while College ******* ranks Wheaton as one of the top 114 schools in academics.[20] Since 2000, over 130 prestigious scholarships have gone to Wheaton students, including 3 Rhodes Scholarships.[21] In 2011 Newsweek/The Daily Beast placed Wheaton at number 19 of 25 in their “Braniacs” schools ranking.[22]</p>
<p>Grinnell isn’t a safety school.</p>
<p>Midwest has several strong “safety” LACs in great communities. I’d highly recommend StOlaf and Lawrence.</p>
<p>^ Again, what’s a “safety” depends on the student’s academic qualifications and financial situation. St. Olaf and Lawrence aren’t safeties for everyone, and Grinnell may be for some students.</p>
<p>The other thing to remember is that your safety school will undoubtedly have other smart students who, like you, applied to more competitive schools but were either denied or couldn’t work out the finances. Just about any school will have a core of intellectually able students and those kids can often have great success in arranging internships, TAships, research, and other opportunities to work closely with the faculty at a small school.</p>
<p>University of Tulsa. Just more than 3,000 undergrad. Acceptance rate in the 40s, in the 90s for those going early.</p>
<p>Oxford College of Emory offers great need based aid and accepts around 40% of applicants. </p>
<p>Most excellent liberal arts colleges outside of the Northeast are not particularly selective, and a great number offer good need or merit based aid.
Here are some small schools that I’m familiar with that not only accept a relatively high percent of applicants but also have good to great academics:</p>
<p>California:
-University of Redlands (particularly Johnson’s Program)
-Occidental College</p>
<p>Oregon:
-Lewis & Clark College
-Willamette</p>
<p>Washington:
-University of Puget Sound
-Whitman</p>
<p>Texas:
-Austin College
-Southwestern University
-Trinity University (very strong in the sciences)</p>
<p>Oklahoma:
-University of Tulsa</p>
<p>Arkansas:
-Hendrix College
-John Brown University (maybe. Heard from an Arkansan friend that it’s a good school, but never investigated it)</p>
<p>Louisiana
-Centenary College
-Loyola New Orleans (for music majors)</p>
<p>Georgia:
-Morehouse
-Spellman
-Oxford College of Emory (best. I’m not biased or anything)
-Agnes Scott (also benefits from its close proximity to Emory allowing for cross registration)
-Berry (maybe. They do have a fantastically large endowment)</p>
<p>South Carolina:
-Furman
-Wofford College (phenomenal English program)</p>
<p>North Carolina:
-Warren Wilson (work college. Very environmentally focused, and attracts many stereotypically hippy students)
-Guilford College</p>
<p>Tennessee:
-Sewanee: University of the South
-Rhodes College</p>
<p>Virginia:
-Hampden-Sydney (all male)
-Sweet Briar College (all female, but less radical than other all women colleges)</p>
<p>Kentucky
-Transylvania University (I believe)
-Georgetown College (hired a fantastic philosophy professor from this Evangelical institution. Based on her description of how classes were set up, it seemed that she and the other professors truly pushed their students. Not sure if it’s a good safety for an A student however)
-Centre College</p>
<p>Maryland:
-St. Mary’s College of Maryland (see the thread for more details about it)</p>
<p>Iowa:
-Cornell College (block program)</p>
<p>Illinois:
-Illinois Wesleyan (heavy emphasis on writing across the curriculum)
-Lake Forest College</p>
<p>Minnesota:
-Gustavus Adolphus
-St. Olaf</p>
<p>Indiana:
-Depauw (very very greek school)
-Wabash (all male)</p>
<p>Ohio:
-Denison
-Ohio Wesleyan
-College of Wooster</p>
<p>Wisconsin:
Lawrence University</p>
<p>Pennsylvania:
Allegheny College (interesting program that requires a major in one field and a minor in an entirely separate discipline)</p>
<p>There are obviously more, but these are the colleges I’ve investigated and thought at least good academically. What I mean by good academically is that they’re at least decent across the board or are unique enough to the point that some academic shortcomings are excusable. I’ve never seriously looked into Northeastern schools, hence the exclusion.</p>
<p>People looking for good safeties should bookmark whenhen’s list–it’s fantastic. My son was a high-stats kid in high school who wanted a small, supportive, collaborative college environment. He considered a number of the schools on the list above (as well as several on the east coast that others have mentioned in this thread), and settled on Hendrix. There he has found a great fit with like-minded peers who are intellectually curious and interested in the world around them. We did substantial research on the academic strengths of the student bodies at the schools he was considering and Hendrix was in the same zone as schools that are much more selective, better known and higher ranked. For instance, on the USNWR LAC list, Hendrix is ranked #70, with a 25%-75% ACT range of 26-32. Bryn Mawr (#26) has a range of 26-30. So does Trinity (#38). Dickinson (#41) and Lafayette (#39) are 27-30, Bucknell (#32) is 27-31. Very few colleges or universities outside of the top 20 have a 75% ACT range above 32. There are a lot of really smart kids who just don’t want to be on the east coast for college.</p>
<p>Since the OP mentioned schools in the SE specifically, I’ll put in a plug for New College of Florida. My safeties when I applied (asides from my state schools) were New College, Lawrence, and Beloit, and I got a good $10-15,000 merit scholarship from each one.</p>
<p>Look at the common data sets for the SAT/ACT ranges…that will tell you about the students who are attending…some of the colleges particularly in bclintonk’s list (sorry my eyes missed Rhodes) accept a strong percentage of very good students and some of the colleges people are posting are excellent bets for the B averaged unweighted students. I think UCB was looking for colleges that would be competitive with the highly regarded public universities and students that might prefer the smaller atmosphere of an LAC but still enjoy a more selective academic environment.</p>
<p>My D applied to several of the LACs mentioned above and probably would have been very happy with the quality of the students and academics at Earlham, Wooster, Beloit, Knox, Goucher, and Agnes Scott. She chose Mills, another women’s college with a fairly high acceptance rate, because of its location in the SF Bay area and its strong programs in psychology and the arts. She was offered merit at all of the LACs she applied to, but significantly more at those outside our geographical area (NE). We also appreciated the diversity of the student bodies at the women’s colleges we visited (Smith, MHC, Mills, Agnes Scott) compared to other LACs.</p>
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<p>Not exactly. The highly regarded public universities do not necessarily have particularly high average or 25th-75th percentile stats, but their large size means that there is probably, for example, an embedded Harvard (in terms of number of “top” students) among the students at the University of Texas. But a very small school with similar selectivity as the University of Texas would have very few such students in absolute numbers, which may affect a “top” student’s ability to find a peer group (and the size of such a peer group may affect whether the college offers honors or other highly intellectually oriented courses).</p>
<p>Note that this issue is not restricted to the “top” students. A student with a 3.3 high school GPA could see similar issues at “safety” small schools where most frosh come in after completing high school with a 2.7 to 3.0 GPA.</p>
<p>This type of situation can make it hard to suggest safeties for those who prefer small schools, since pointing them at various in-state publics and the automatic full tuition and full ride list would not match their small school preference.</p>
<p>Great lists and suggesttions here. Definitely google “Colleges that Change Lives” or buy teh book by Loren Pope.</p>
<p>My thoughts were Goucher (Baltimore), Bennington (Vermont)and Lesley U. (Cambridge).</p>