<p>Of my 11, I had 3 oddballs:
-Lehigh: very small and very liberal artsy compared to the rest of my schools.
-USC: had everything I liked except it’s in California. Visited, love at first sight.
-Miami U (Ohio): I just threw in this app as another safety because I wanted to get the Benjamin Harrison scholarship. My friends were like ***?
In the end, it came down to USC, BC, and UConn. I chose BC, but would have been very happy at USC.</p>
<p>My daughter suggested a think-outside-MY-box idea when she suggested adding my own alma mater to the brilliant list I was concocting. Maybe I was assuming she just wouldn’t like the setting, or maybe I was hesitant to even suggest my alma mater to my own child … can’t quite remember, this was 3-4 years ago, so the memory is fading. So I said, OK, and we visited. She seemed to like it, but a couple of years later told me that she knew she wanted to go there from the moment she arrived. We ultimately visited 13 campuses, some twice. I would ask her to rank them all after each visit. Only one time did she NOT have my alma mater first. My wife and I would each do our own rankings, and then I would come up with an aggregate ranking [anal, I know]. My alma mater was NOT on top of my list, but maybe third or so. She applied to 7, got straight-up acceptances at 4, two with significant merit scholarships. My alma mater accepted her, but with no merit award, and my own top choice was her only outright rejection. I appealed my alma mater’s FA award and they came back with half of what the largest merit offer was. It’s also just an hour from our house, versus a significant distance for the two that offered bigger money. So I said I was willing to pay the difference as long as she agreed to earn as much as possible on her own, and everyone was thrilled. She clicked from the moment she arrived, and is now returning for her sophomore year this weekend … rooming with the same girl.</p>
<p>As I’ve told alumni friends whom I’ve kept in touch with, I never would have guessed this.</p>
<p>My alma mater: Clark University in Worcester, MA</p>
<p>Loved the story, TrumpetDad. Thanks. </p>
<p>I often recommend Clark to students I advise when I think that the fit is good, but I have trouble getting my advisees to actually enroll. For instance, one of my students visited just last week and said that she liked the academic programs but felt that the campus and surrounding Worcester were “blah.” I get that reaction a lot … even when the visit takes place when the semester is in full swing.</p>
<p>My standard retort is that I understand where the criticism comes from, but it’s too bad. I’m convinced that if some of these kids didn’t have to actually choose Clark but were teleported there and woke up one morning as freshmen, they would love it.</p>
<p>I am a big believer in the “TOB” Think Outside the Box and then keep it quiet!</p>
<p>My S was so determined to not go the way of his classmates that his most of list was a little out there. But he told everyone & they too applied! I had him throw in a couple of real main streams just for the sake of it & that’s where he ended up. So the really popular school was his TOB!</p>
<p>I also advise people when well meaning ask you where your child is applying have an answer that consists of the 3 most popular colleges kids in your HS apply. It’s really a great way to give a non answer without appearing rude & it may even be true.</p>
<p>Yay! at so many people considering UChicago which is an awesome top notch school. It is probably the only top 10 school that could be considered out of the box.</p>
<p>For me I waivered alot in my college process.</p>
<p>Junior year I was sold on Columbia and Johns Hopkins considering Chicago as a safety</p>
<p>Then Senior year it was WASHU and Chicago considering Yale as a safety</p>
<p>also in the summer before my junior year I fell in love with Kenyon when I spent two weeks there- plus my sis goes there and everyone was like apply apply</p>
<p>anyways in the end I chose a strong academic foundation over a big name and went with Chicago. </p>
<p>From time to time I think about Yale and WASHU, but essentially I am really happy I went with Chicago</p>
<p>ANY place but NMSU, UNM, U of Az, and ASU is outside the box for kids down here.</p>
<p>^To take it further, for AZ kids, even NMSU and UNM is outside the box. NAU may be a bit outside the box.</p>
<p>I just dropped my daughter off at her “think outside the box” college… SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry in Syracuse and she is happier than I have ever seen her. It is a wonderful little school right next to Syracuse University and they share their dorms, dining halls, activities & some classes. It is the best of both worlds & at SUNY prices!
It was not even on her list of colleges till late, but the more research we did & the more visits she made… it just seemed so right for her. She is interested in the environment, but is not the “tree-hugger-type” (Chem major), so we were a bit concerned that she might not fit in, but all the kids seem very friendly & normal. Time will tell if it is the right college for her, but I feel pretty good about thinking outside the box!</p>
<p>I have two oddballs currently on my list; Goucher College and Connecticut College. My other 5 schools (AIB, FIT, MICA, RISD, SUNY Purchase) are art conservatories (though Purchase may not count, it has the LAC feel, too). A small LAC college seems really nice, and although the sticker-price is hideous, I’m still confident that I’ll apply to them. The option of a BFA or a BA is nice, I don’t want to be limited to only BFA-granting schools when April rolls around. =)</p>
<p>^ How do you see Connecticut as a t-o-t-b college? Good school, but seems like a typical/conventional New England LAC to me. Unless you consider the LAC concept itself as a little iconoclastic these days.</p>
<p>One nice thing about RISD is that students can take courses at Brown.</p>
<p>D had many think outside the box colleges. She applied to typical small liberal arts NE schools Grinnell was a definite tosb college - she loves it there!</p>
<p>TOTB schools, to me, are the ones that don’t fit any given STUDENT’s list–what is one person’s perfectly conventional NE LAC is another’s TOTB if they’re otherwise applying only to West Coast schools or only to universities or only to art schools.</p>
<p>^^ I agree, TOTB is specifically defined by the individual student as it pertains to their own perspective</p>
<p>tk21769 - I consider it T-O-B because my other colleges are mostly Art Schools.</p>
<p>And yeah, I know that about RISD. If I end up going there, I plan on taking advantage of that. :D</p>
<p>nightpwnsj, does MICA have a similar arrangement with Johns Hopkins or Goucher? Have you checked that out?</p>
<p>Tufts and SMFA (Boston) too.</p>
<p>I’m not looking at SMFA anymore, it seems more focused on grad and fine arts related programs, idk. </p>
<p>And yeah, MICA lets you take classes at a bunch of colleges in Baltimore, Goucher included, but I think it’s limited. Idk I’ll research more.</p>
<p>My eldest S went to Marlboro College in Vermont, a school that doesn’t know the meaning of the word “box”! Individuality is their credo and although every student who is there is vastly different, that seems to be what binds them together. It’s a school which is worth a second and a third look and a visit to experience what the place has to offer.</p>
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<p>Thanks, My2Angels. This is very helpful. I recommended your daughter’s college to an advisee just a couple days ago but admitted to her that none of my past advisees had ever enrolled there, so I didn’t have any anecdotal information to pass along. So I forwarded your comments to her.</p>
<p>My S3 was all about LACs–he likes small classes, he has always liked to feel “cozy.” He thought he wanted to play Div 3 soccer in college. His college list, in no particular order: Goucher, Dickinson, Washington and Jefferson, Union, Lafayette, Muhlenberg, Bucknell, University of Richmond,Denison, Ohio Wesleyan and Wittenberg.</p>
<p>Visiting big brother in DC, we set up a visit at American University and GW. He fell in love with American, refused to go to GW.</p>
<p>Applied ED to American (on the safer side of a match) and was done.</p>
<p>I’m still a bit bemused because he truly loved Dickinson and was going to play there, and it is so different from AU. They couldn’t have more different vibes.</p>
<p>But he is loving every minute at AU so far…the only urban, relatively large school on his list.</p>