No worries! I just thought I’d mention them since physical proximity also seemed to be on the wishlist.
If you want any additional suggestions of colleges, feel free to let us know what your family is looking for.
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I did not consider Meredith for my D22. I may be banking on old reputation, but it was more of a traditional girls school back in the day and just didn’t have the vibe my D22 was looking for.
Agnes Scott is really cool. It is very racially diverse with white students not being the majority. I think it’s something like 40-45% white. It seems pretty accepting, but I couldn’t say if there are many transwomen there or not.
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Thanks! It would be helpful if my kid knew! 
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I don’t know much about Bryn Mawr – my daughter was accepted but never visited.
She did recently graduate from Smith. Anyway, after reading your comment I have to say yes, you could literally walk up to any student on the Smith campus and ask them about trans students. There is little that would be subtle or unspoken about LGBTQ+ topics at Smith or, honestly, in Northampton. Mt. Holyoke is much the same. The only obvious down side of Smith for a trans student would be that their acceptance rate has dropped to 19%, so it’s a bit hard to get in there currently. Regardless, best wishes for a successful college choice process!
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Lol! I know! No merit aid at Smith! Just lucky to get in! It feels that way with everything. Maybe some at Mount Holyoke? I use the Jeff Selingo book. I think this weekend will really let us know if we’re focusing on any more campus schools or all just urban schools. Thanks, everyone!
Smith does give a little bit of merit aid – my daughter got $10K/yr but there are bigger awards than that, and many come with stipends for research. They also gave her a significant amount of need-based aid, and our family income is not low. Their price was below our EFC by a little.
Mt. Holyoke also gave her both merit and need-based and would have been a little cheaper. It is certainly easier to get in.
My daughter chose to work and take out a small loan so that she could go to Smith instead of MHC because she felt the fit more – note that they have now eliminated loans from their financial aid packages, although I think you can still ask for them.
I would not label these schools as “affordable” because that means different things to different people, but full-pay students are in the minority at both of them.
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Happy to discuss trans apps more generally- my son is trans, heading to Northwestern where there seems to be a large and vibrant queer community (perhaps because of the famous drama school). We ruled out any red (or even purple - who needs the stress) states for obvious reasons and after visiting, ruled out the smaller and more remote LACs (though often very open and inclusive my kid didn’t want to be one of very few trans kids, he wanted a large and vibrant queer and trans community) his app list was Northwestern ED (where he is headed), Harvard, Brown, UPenn, Amherst, Wesleyan, Vassar, BU, UMd, UWash Seattle, UToronto. If your d is drawn to women’s colleges, Vassar has lots of trans kids and such a female heavy ratio that it is almost a women’s college lol. Happy to answer more questions as we researched schools very heavily from perspective of a trans student and parent.
We also researched many other schools where we didn’t end up applying, so happy to try to weigh in from our perspective!
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Agree with the idea of Mac. The Twin Cities have a long history of trans activism and acceptance. And since it seems that your daughter is interested in art (in addition to STEM) it’s nice that Mac has a strong art program and on top of that an agreement with Minneapolis College of Art and Design so that students can take 1 MCAD class per semester.
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Agree that there is a distinction. Tolerance is not the same as acceptance, and acceptance is not the same as large, vibrant and thriving.
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Didn’t see Barnard College mentioned - in case that’s under consideration:
https://bwog.com/2021/10/transbarnard-the-evolving-landscape-of-gender-inclusivity-at-an-hcw/
https://barnard.edu/dei/lgbtq
https://barnard.edu/admissions/transgender-policy
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If you happen to take the time to visit or research Scripps, you should also look at Pitzer. Pitzer is definitely the most liberal of the 4 Claremont Colleges.
One of my high school senior daughter’s good friends is a trans girl who is going there this fall. She raves about it. It is an extemely liberal environment, you are in a bedroom community of the 2nd largest city in the country, in a permanently liberal state, on a safe campus, with all the endowment benefits, resources and opportunities of 4 LACs built into one geographic location (as opposed to many of the other LAC consortiums which are composed of colleges/universities that are geographically separated and therefore not nearly as practical).
Your daughter would have the opportunity to make friends through all 4 colleges and if she finds she is more comfortable with the girls from Scripps, she can gravitate there socially, take some Scripps classes and possibly even transfer from Pitzer to Scripps if necessary.
Additionally, I know that my daughter’s friend will be doing a unique self-designed Major at Pitzer that includes cultural criticism, history and gender and feminist studies. Maybe your daughter could create a similarly unique Major that includes her love of art?
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Oh! That is funny! There is a fashion instagrammer I follow who also has a trans daughter who I think goes to Pitzer (based on what I’ve seen on her instagram).
I remember noticing because I was sort of interested in where her daughter went.
I admit I would be sad if she went all the way across the country. But it’s not totally out of the question. Ideally, I’d love to find somewhere that gives at least a little merit aid, and I don’t think the Claremont colleges do. I think they are quite selective? I’d also consider University of Washington, and I love the idea of Reed. I have a friend who went there so he kind of made me love it. But also definitely no merit aid. So expensive!!!
That’s a good point. Honestly, my daughter doesn’t seem to feel strongly about being one of only a few trans kids. She’s also not interested in specialty LGBTQ+ housing. I think about it more because she has not been ready to date—but I assume will want to at some point? And like…imagine a school like Carleton in Minnesota, which I’ve also heard good things about. But it’s tiny and in the middle of nowhere! Her options would be so limited.
My daughter has good grades and SAT scores, but I don’t think she would be competitive for Ivys. It would really help if SHE had a better idea. She says none of her friends talk about where they’re going to college!
No to NYC. I’ve actually heard Barnard and Wellesley are both a little more buttoned up?
According to this aggregator, the Claremont colleges do give merit aid. These are the stats for the percentage of freshmen without financial need who received merit aid and what the average merit aid was.
- Claremont McKenna: 11%, $14,403
- Harvey Mudd: 32%, $13,794
- Pitzer: 4%, $6,525
- Pomona: 1%, $5,000
- Scripps: 23%, $20,760
Also, Carleton and St. Olaf are less than two miles from one another, and St. Olaf has about 3k students and students can cross-register at the other campus. St. Olaf is reputed to have an intellectually curious student body.
What’s the budget? That could help people come up with suggestions.
Is she set on only attending an all women’s college? I agree with the posters who have said that maybe a larger college that has a strong LBQT community might be a better fit, especially accompanied by a diverse more urban environment which is welcoming off campus as well.
I have a non binary child, who wants only a large sports school in the south. I’m not worried about them finding their people on campus, but I do fret about off campus experiences.
Looks like someone is tracking state laws and potential legislation in terms of risk to transgender people. This may be a consideration for a transgender student looking at colleges.
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Yes it’s a tough one. I made it clear to my son it was solid blue states only. I think those kids fortunate enough to grow up in accepting and diverse places can’t really picture how much hatred and prejudice there is against gender nonconformity (as someone said above being T or Q is much tougher now than being LGB). When I looked deeper into some big western or southern schools I heard some horrifying things, including college towns where two boys or girls or other wouldn’t feel safe or comfortable to be seen kissing outside of campus and where the burden of the most basic education of roommates and classmates about gender and pronouns etc was on the kid, and being surrounded by “friends” who secretly think you are headed to hell. Not to say that lgbtq kids don’t survive and even thrive and succeed at many of these schools (particularly if they become part of a close community) and sometimes they can even work to be a voice for change, but it is not for us.
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I don’t know your budget, but these are all schools that offer merit aid, some very generously. They either score well on the Campus Pride Index and/or have the vast majority of the students identify the campus as liberal and/or very liberal & progressive on Niche. These school are all in states identified as being the safest for the trans community.
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American (D.C.): About 8500 undergrads. If your D is interested, she will have to really show them she’s interested, otherwise she might not receive a favorable response from their admissions office.
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Binghamton (NY): About 14k undergrads. A really strong school in so many areas, including CS, physics, and art. I’ve heard they’ve been more generous in giving merit aid to top students from out-of-state, and even the sticker price is much more reasonable than at a lot of the private schools mentioned here that don’t give any merit aid.
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Brandeis (MA): Not sure if this one was visited on your trip to Boston, but this school of about 3600 undergrads might be worth considering.
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Clark (MA): About 2300 undergrads
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Connecticut College: About 1800 undergrads
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George Washington (D.C.): About 12k undergrads
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Ithaca (NY): About 4800 undergrads
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Knox (IL): About 1200 undergrads
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U. of Rochester (NY): About 6600 undergrads
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U. of Vermont: About 12k undergrads
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Wheaton (MA): About 1700 undergrads
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This admissions cycle I believe the STRIDE merit scholarships are worth 1/4 tuition for 4 years plus the opportunity for $3000 research stipend each of the first two years. My D23 was offered the Zollman which is 1/2 tuition for 4 years plus the same research stipend. They also added need based aid for us which brought the cost very close to what the NPC said (which was close to EFC for us). We toured this week for the second time and confirmed our appreciation for the overall accepting vibe and Northampton itself.
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