If D22 does not get accepted to Yale or Columbia tomorrow, she has a few interesting choices that are very different from each other. She’s interested in all of them for different reasons. We are full pay and have money saved to fund her undergraduate education at a private school.
UCLA: Accepted as a Pre-Political Science major. This is an in-state option and a great one. It wasn’t really on our radar tbh—a low acceptance rate plus D’s desire to be on the east coast or Midwest made UCs less interesting. She still applied to a few since they are in state. We live in the Bay Area. D loves LA as a visitor and is attracted to opportunities, variety and the ranking. She is worried about the size, the quarter system, and the ability to double major (Political Science/ Econ or English—she adores literature and writing.) because UCLA has a lot of GE requirements. She will come in with a lot of AP credit.
Smith: A favorite from our summer tour. D loves the open curriculum, flexibility to double major, the housing system, the close community, the alumni network. She loved Northampton with its book stores and live music venues. She wants to experience seasons. She worries about culture/fit — she’s very liberal but not SJW if that makes sense. Also, it seems the campus paper is somewhat overlooked, and she wants to be a part of a newsroom.
Kenyon: A surprise favorite. 15k in merit. We just got back from a tour. Stunning campus, very intentional community, students spoke passionately about their relationships with teachers, their studies, the community. A literary tradition that she finds interesting—she doesn’t know what she wants to do but publishing is a possibility and she liked the idea of being able to be a reader for the Kenyon Review. The Kenyon-Exeter study abroad program seems great for a student who loves literature. It is in the middle of nowhere, and she wonders if that stays appealing as the years go by. The people seemed like her people though.
So—the decision is really… top public school closer to home or LAC with a very distinct experience. I know she’s the only one who can make this call. But if anyone has experiences related to this kind of decision, it would be great to hear them.
If she seems likely to hone in on her interests and then want to go on to grad school, I would say go to Kenyon, then look at the UCs again for grad school.
If you can afford it, the beautiful thing about an LAC undergrad and top research university grad school is that you get to experience both worlds.
For the LAC, I would pick Kenyon based on the merit, the extracurricular aspects she likes, and the feeling that it has her people.
I’m sure she could have a great experience at any of these three!
Three-way decisions are complicated. Rather than pit UCLA against an LAC abstraction that could be an unfairly-idealized amalgam of the best attributes of both Kenyon and Smith, I would take on the Kenyon vs. Smith question first - pick one and eliminate the other. Then assess whether her actual first-choice LAC (at its actual price point) beats UCLA.
The argument for LAC for undergrad, research university for grad school does have merit. This is the only chance she’ll ever get to have the LAC experience, whereas grad school at a UC is a very realistic goal if she wants grad school at all.
OTOH, it depends on the student - some students thrive on an undergrad setting where they’ll never run out of new social, extracurricular, and academic frontiers to explore. Small LAC’s can start to feel a little confining after a few years. (Study abroad - or in DC for poli sci & public policy kids - can go a long way toward mitigating the risk of cabin fever, so make sure to compare opportunities in that regard.)
Once you’ve drilled down on the details, there’s no bad choice here, and nothing at all wrong with just going with her gut!
The differential in cost will be substantial. You can pay, and fit should be a significant consideration, but how would she view things if you shared some of the savings with her? If you put say $40K in a trust for 20 years invested in a broad basket of stocks, she could have a UCLA education, a huge alumni network, AND $200K.
Great advice to pick between Smith and Kenyon, then compare that choice to UCLA.
I agree that a LAC undergrad experience is unique and meant for a special time in life. But also think she is drawn to all the possibilities at UCLA too. If it were me, it would be Kenyon all the way. But it’s not I’m trying to lay out the decision and the facts and then
Irrespective of their obvious differences, your daughter’s choices share some statistical aspects. In this analysis of standardized scoring profiles from several years ago, for example, UCLA tied with Kenyon:
The UCLA GE requirements only total about 10 classes (48 units) according to https://caac.ucla.edu/policies/ge-requirements/ You need a minimum of 180 units for a degree so she would have at least 132 units free to take anything she wishes. That’s 33 more classes. Plenty for a double major with room to spare.
And depending on what AP credit she has some of it may count for GEs freeing up those units to take more classes if she wants (At all UCs AP is like magic credit, you get class credit based on their chart but can separately decide whether or not to count it towards the units you need to graduate). See https://admission.ucla.edu/admitted-students/ap-credit-the-college
That all said, if I were in her shoes given her intending major(s) I’d go to a LAC.
UCLA GEs are pretty light compared to most LACs. If you have an AP language you get out of the required year of foreign language and you can complete the rest with only half your classes during freshmen and sophomore years.
S is graduating from UCLA this year, he started in PoliSci/Econ but switched to Public Affairs as he liked the applied aspects (eg urban planning). He’s had an amazing time, despite Covid, and great opportunities (interned at a famous DC think tank after sophomore year, then consulting last summer with a job offer at the end). However, you do have to be very self-motivated to seek out opportunities. He has had really great relationships with his professors, despite not meeting most of them in person the last two years, if you are a strong student (he will graduate with a 4.0 GPA) then you get as much attention as you seek out.
PoliSci and Econ are both very short majors, unless you are planning for grad school in economics (in which case MathEcon is strongly recommended) then it is easy to double major, especially if you have Calc BC to get out of the math classes. Many people graduate in 3 years or part way through the fourth year and that’s been particularly common during Covid due to lack of study abroad opportunities.
Kenyon is a great school! Given her interests and your description of her, it seems the best fit by far. That merit award is nothing to sneeze at.
Kenyon has AMAZING professors. Students love their classroom experience there. The writing programs cannot be beat.
I know kids who attended Kenyon and they work in wonderful careers. They loved their experiences. Kenyon is beautiful, its campus is inspiring, and it’’s got lots happening on campus to keep students engaged.
Oh, wow. My daughter ED’d to Penn and was rejected, too! It’s what started her re-evaluating what she wanted and she started to lean more toward LACs. I’ll definitely share this. Thank you!
Undoubtedly there’s a big difference between a class size of 600 and 6000. And there’s a big difference in social experience between a large city and a small town, large and small classes, and between D1 and D3 sports, etc.
I do think the long term benefits may be somewhat different depending on where you rank in the class. While you can’t easily know this in advance, my sense is that UCLA is best for someone who ends up in the top 2%-20% of the class there: those kids have lots of ways to stand out and will have great job opportunities, likely surpassing those at a small LAC.
But if you are in the middle of the class at UCLA then it is certainly possible to fall off the radar (if force of personality doesn’t keep you there), and conversely UCLA isn’t particularly helpful in singling out students and creating opportunities for them if they want to win a Rhodes scholarship (you have to do it all for yourself). In either of those cases I suspect a small LAC might offer better support.
Small point: although I know Northern and Southern California are different, Ohio is more different. I think it’s a huge plus to experience another part of the country – it’s part of your child’s education!
Another (admittedly biased) vote for Kenyon. Recognizing “her people” at Kenyon during our accepted student visit seemed to be what ultimately made the decision for our D, and her experience has lived up to the expectation. She has found incredibly engaging and supportive professors, a close-knit group of friends from around the country, and such a fun variety of clubs and other activities. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to chat further, and best of luck to her on the decision. With these three choices, she really can’t go wrong!
I’m going to +1 this comment. It describes my first year’s experience at Kenyon as well. She too felt that she had found her people and everything about her year so far has confirmed that. It’s clearly not for everyone, but it has been an extraordinary fit for her. Like @kbm770, I’m happy to share more if it would be helpful.
With respect to this, @apple23, although not as of yet present on this thread, has posted enthusiastically elsewhere about her daughter’s experience at Kenyon.
I’m trying to lay out the decision and the facts and then 
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