I actually think that Beloit can still be regarded as a safety for kids who have the stats, because I don’t believe it plays the yield protection games that so many schools do. I think many Midwest LACs still make admission decisions in a pretty straightforward fashion. Partly this is because they struggle for enrollment, but partly because they know that certain strong Midwest students really may prefer a local option.
I agree that Beloit is a terrific school and doesn’t get enough love on CC. I tried to get my S22 to consider Beloit due to its marvelous Museum Studies, including proven placement of its grads into top grad programs and jobs that my kid would consider dream jobs (curator at The Met etc.) But he was dead set on NYC (wouldn’t even consider Vassar, another school that I thought would be a great fit for him, because he really did want to be in the city not a train ride away.)
Though I have to add, Denison is not preppy in my view (and I’m actually from Main Line Philly, so have some experience with that). It’s economically and geographically diverse.
I’ve bored people for several years now with my raving about how the Denison student body doesn’t fit into a single category. There is everyone from lax bros to hippie, bluegrass playing students living at the Homestead (the campus organic farm and housing collaborative), activists, artists and performers etc. And they aren’t “siloed” into a single experience – both @tkoparent and I had four year varsity athletes who were not involved in greek life, and were active in all sorts of campus activities beyond their sport.
Any insights into why/how applications at Denison have skyrocketed from 2020 to 2023 cycles and the acceptance rate has gone from 40 pct to just 17 pct this year? The new programs, President Weinberg and Knowlton do look terrific, and full need financial aid for international students is probably very attractive to international applicants. Seems like 18 pct of students are international now, which is in line with Macalester and Grinnell.
This was a fantastic summary and (having lived in the Midwest, East, and South, with the shortest period in the Midwest at 6 years) it rings true to me.
I would add that the other difference that I have observed between the student body of the different regions’ schools (more recently) is (1) the number of students planning on going into finance/consulting. Some of those students everywhere, but seems more at the NE schools. My children found the “where they go” pages on school websites to be very useful; and (2) it seems the midwest schools are struggling to diversity their student bodies in comparison to comparable NE LAC’s, and their resulting strategy is to admit even more international students.
Beloit is known in Wisconsin (and probably Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota at least), and it’s regarded as a very good school. Beloit and Lawrence are generally considered the top small colleges in Wisconsin. Ripon College is another good little school in the Badger State.
I have a senior at Denison, and I’ve thought about this question. I think it is probably a combination of factors. Denison has been test-optional for a while, and they do not charge an application fee or require supplemental essays up-front (there is an optional “why Denison” essay that comes up later in the process), so they do make it relatively easy for kids to apply, which probably drives the applicant numbers up. At the same time, I think the high quality of the educational experience at Denison has become more widely-recognized, in part through Adam Weinberg’s efforts. Denison has a big endowment and they have used it wisely to provide both merit and financial aid that attracts a very diverse group of excellent students. We’ve been really happy with the school and the opportunities and encouragement our son has received over the past four years.
On the increase in apps, I think with President Weinberg’s leadership, there is more cohesiveness and intentionality both in Denison’s identity as well as how to communicate that. The generous merit aid helps “doughnut hole” families. And its location is just the cherry on top – a charming village, but still close enough to Columbus to take advantage of urban resources.
We were surprised by Denison’s generous merit aid, which maybe other applicants know about. They offered my test-optional D $25k/year and paid for her airfare and hotel to visit the school. I’ve since learned about their large endowment per student but we did not know that when she applied.
Also, to Midwestmomofboys’ point, we got to hear those bluegrass students perform and they were great.
We are not in the mid-west and Beloit is relatively well-known and regarded here as well - I’m not sure anyone is quite sure what state it is in but many people have heard of it. Not as true of some of the other mid-west schools (I got a lot of blank looks when I mentioned Macalester for example)
@gablesdad it sounds like at this point you are really thinking about what the experience would be like for your S24 to be an Econ/business major at each school. My S23 just did this for Neuroscience at almost each school you listed. One thing we considered was whether his major was one of the bigger/smaller majors at the school comparatively (strength of program) and how many faculty are part of the department. We also looked at the different curriculums because it turned out some were more interesting to him than others. On the website, some discussed internships, study abroad pipelines, and other experiential learning opportunities. When it came down to a final choice, he asked admissions for a professor to meet with 1-on-1 with and had a great conversation which sealed the deal.
For him in Neuro, Trinity was the right place, as he liked all the internship opportunities in Hartford and the department, but we know other students who found their place at Denison and Kenyon. Good luck!
