@OHMomof2 I think you’re missing some courses for Williams, including Harmonic Analysis and Algebraic Number Theory (which is different from Analytic Number Theory). In terms of courses someone interested in going to a PhD program in pure math would want take after analysis, algebra, and topology, the Williams list has five plus the two I mentioned (372, 394, 401, 403, 420), and the Amherst list has just four (380, 390, 410, 450). Not that the other courses are bad, but they’re just not going to be as useful for the specific goal of going to grad school in math. And the Set Theory and Geometric Group Theory courses at Amherst are, in my opinion, not really standard for people intending to go to grad school in math.
@warbrain you’re right, I left off two.
MATH 367 - 01 (S) LEC Homological Algebra (Q)
MATH 382 - 01 (S) LEC Harmonic Analysis (Q)
Must have accidentally deleted when cleaning up formatting.
DS is currently a freshman at the suburban Philly LAC that starts with an S. He had a great stats and of course he’s male and from an underrepresented state - but nothing you can do about the last two. I don’t believe his great stats got his application to the top of the pile of applications with great stats. They reject people with perfect stats all the time. Although he was an athlete and a debater, he never won anything of consequence in either, but he was passionate about both, especially debate. I think he got into the school because he visited there during his fall break senior year, stayed in the dorm and got to know his host, who was asked to review him for fit. Host + all of this friend wrote the letter to the admissions office and kept in touch with DS and discussed how to write a good admissions essay. He interviewed with a real admissions officer and had a fun interview about his passions and his future. He visited a class and talked with the prof for about 45 minutes afterwards about what he was interested in and how he could see himself in that program (not sure if the prof said anything to the admissions office). He went to a club he was interested in and participated (although he didn’t join it this year, different type of debate). He showed all people, and himself, that he had the intellectual curiosity, ability and passion to fit in well there. All that is worth far more than a point on the ACT, although it can’t hurt to take it again if it would alleviate some anxiety, or even a national award in an EC.
@PhxRising , thanks, she hasn’t fallen in love with any school so she’s not ready to commit in the way your ds did. Still, she has time, and lots of good ideas for her in your post if she really feels it.
Certainly visiting does not hurt, Swat does consider student interest (you can tell whether a school does by Googling the Common Data Set).
- Williams has a stronger reputation in math than Amherst does. One indication that is perhaps more powerful that comparing course titles (especially since Amherst students can take courses at four other colleges with relative ease): According to the NCES statistics from the class of 2014, Williams, whose student body is about 22% larger than Amherst's, had more than double the number of primary math majors, and roughly double if you adjust for the size difference: 26 (4.7% of the class) vs. 11 (2.4%). The Williams Mathematics and Statistics Department webpage lists 222 students in the classes of 2016 and 2017 who are declared math or statistics majors (including, of course, second majors, who would not be in the NCES statistics). Amherst doesn't have an equivalent list that's public, but the group photograph of majors on its departmental website is very much less crowded than Williams'. Both colleges list selected postgraduate activities of alumni math majors, and while there are lots of similarities in the lists, it's noticeable that Williams lists three students pursuing PhDs in core mathematics fields, and Amherst lists none. I think all this indicates that the math community at Williams is broader, deeper, and more vibrant than the math community at Amherst.
- @Data10 : I guess you're right, or at least more right than I was. The one-time snapshot of athletes is probably a little low for indicating the number of people who are on team rosters at some point in their college careers, since there is certain to be some churn due to injuries and changing priorities. About half the kids I know who played varsity sports in college did not play all four years. But I don't see anything to indicate that's a huge factor at Amherst, at least.
- @ucbalumnus : What this running sidebar has been about is the fact that elite LACs are much more limited than Division I colleges in the number of kids they "recruit," but many of them have strong athletic cultures that depend on large numbers of students who are skilled -- high school varsity or strong club starters -- but not "recruits". While officially the admissions departments are not lowering any standards to admit the non-recruits, it's hard for me to believe that they aren't paying attention to admitting enough football or hockey players that, when the dust clears, there will be enough potential walk-ons to staff all the varsity teams. Contrary to @cobrat 's statements about Oberlin, I don't think it's common at all at competitive Division III schools for newbies to walk on to varsity teams. Club teams, yes; varsity teams, no. It certainly didn't happen at my kids' D-III school. In fact, a BFF of one of my kids, a statewide independent school champion at the relevant sport, was an athletic recruit at Oberlin. That Oberlin team had high skill levels and required a great deal of year-round commitment; no one was walking on casually because they needed warm bodies. The way it worked with that student, by the way, was that the coach offered (and gave, at least so it seemed) significant support, but conditioned on an ED application that assured the student would not use the Oberlin acceptance and aid package as a bargaining chip with other colleges.
OP, going back to your original post, it seems like you have sized the situation up pretty well. If your student is an unhooked white female trying to get into a highly selective LAC, it’s tough without playing the ED card. Once you get into the RD pool, a good chunk of the class is already filled and you’re competing with some strong HYPSM-type applicants. Anything you can do at that point to make yourself stand out helps. Visiting and otherwise demonstrating interest helps show you’re not someone who considers the LAC their backup in case they don’t get into their desired national university.Others have made good suggestions and I’ll just add: get to know the local rep for that LAC if possible. Show that rep that you’re someone who genuinely thinks that LAC is a good fit and not a backup. And don’t forget about ED2 if she’s ready to commit when the time comes. And good luck to your D with the ACT re-take.
I think staying in the dorms, attending a class and meeting people is good for the student also. If your DD is not in love with any of the places she likes doing that can really help her to make the decision on where to put her real efforts in applying. We went to a prospective students weekend at another LAC in Colorado and while DS loved loved loved it, and DH & I loved it too, we realized that it was not the best fit for DS.
My point about Haverford was that top LACs really are all over the map in the degree to which they “have strong athletic cultures” in a competitive intercollegiate sense. Haverford and Swarthmore are perhaps at one extreme—being competitive in intercollegiate athletics is just not an institutional priority for them. Amherst and Williams are at the other extreme, perennial contenders in multiple sports in a highly competitive league, NESCAC. But apart from the NESCAC and Patriot League schools, how many top LACs are heavily invested in competitive intercollegiate sports? Not Swat. Not Haverford. So far as I know, none of the women’s colleges. So far as I know, not the Claremont Colleges. None of the top Midwestern LACs that I can think of.
We do have some athletically competitive LACs here in Minnesota, e.g., St. John’s which is a perennial national power in D-III football, but the most academically competitive LACs just aren’t up to that level of athletic competition. Carleton is the perennial doormat of the MIAC, the same league as St. John’s. Carleton’s football team is 0-8 this year in conference play and 1-9 overall, its lone victory a 27-12 thrashing of Macalester which competes in a weaker conference, the Midwest Conference. Macalester sports a pedestrian 4-6 football record, its only wins coming against Grinnell, Beloit, Lawrence, and Knox. So there you have pretty much all the top LACs academically in the Minnesota-Wisconsin-Iowa region, scraping the bottom of the barrel in intercollegiate athletic competition. Oh, and I almost left out St. Olaf which ranks just one notch above Carleton in the MIAC, its sole conference win coming against . . . (wait for it) . . . Carleton! Which pretty much defines a successful season for St. Olaf: if the Oles beat the crosstown rival Carls, it’s the pinnacle of athletic success for them. And vice versa. As for Oberlin, they’re so perennially non-competitive that their official school fight song pretty much centers around the line, “We’re Oberlin, we never win!”
These schools just don’t care that much about intercollegiate athletic competition. They field teams, but it’s viewed more as an EC for those who love the sport, not a point of institutional emphasis the way it is at Amherst, Williams, and perhaps the NESCAC schools more generally. But I don’t want to say these schools lack “strong athletic cultures” because many of them do take the old-fashioned idea of well-roundedness seriously; they’re into physical fitness and, yes, team sports, alongside academic excellence. But that just doesn’t translate into making intercollegiate athletic competition an institutional priority, and certainly not a priority in the admissions process.
well, since you mention carleton, here’s our data point. S and one other candidate applied from our hs with similar gpas
S: 9 aps, 30 college credits, 2200 sat, founded philosophy club, founded debate club, vp of class, all-league tennis, shakespeare club, performed in improv comedy, drama and musicals, team finished 4th in global problem solving challenge, great interview
other candidate: 4 aps, 2050 sat, varsity football, selected all-county baseball, I’m sure he had a great interview.
spot went to baseball player. He’s a great, great kid but we were surprised, It’s very possible it didn’t boil down to sports but it seems like a logical conclusion. To my eye, my s is the much better candidate academically but perhaps carleton viewed them as similar and went for the athlete.
I agree that Haverford doesn’t focus on sports as much as some other schools but a little shout out to some of the Haverford teams. Men’s soccer made it to the NCAA D3 quarterfinals this year and the perennially strong Men’s Cross Country team was 12th in the nation. Not too shabby combined with rigorous academics. 
and Swarthmore women’s soccer made it to the elite 8 in Div III this year!
And Swat women’s volleyball won the ECAC South conference! My DS is not a varsity athlete but he knows a bunch of them and they seem to take their sports very seriously. Work hard, play (sports) hard.
@quietdesperation S: 9 aps, 30 college credits, 2200 sat
Is that the son that has a gpa 10 pts lower than your daughter? That could have been a factor.
I don’t think you should feel that ‘the spot’ went to the athlete. Your son’s spot likely went to another very qualified, unhooked kid. The athlete perhaps took ‘the spot’ from a lesser qualified athlete.
Obviously there’s a range of competitiveness and admissions effect. I know Swarthmore, in fact, does recruit, because I know some kids recruited there, although I think it’s pretty obvious that no one goes to Swarthmore to focus on sports. There are lots of non-NESCAC, non-Patriot schools that have competitive teams, although they may concentrate on one or two strong teams. Hence Davidson in basketball, or Union in hockey. I don’t know how competitive schools like those are in other sports. I have the impression that the Maine LACs care about team sports, but I don’t know exactly how much. Those of us who have been on CC awhile will remember curmudgeon’s basketball-playing daughter, who was recruited by Rhodes as well as Amherst (and some Ivies); Rhodes also pursued a young friend of mine who was a borderline D-I talent in a team sport (who was intrigued but ultimately went with a NESCAC college).
@wisteria100 - no, that’s my middle child at oberlin and yes, that’s a good way to look at it.
Why do you care if some LACs seem to favor athletes or legacies? If kids from her HS are getting into Middlebury with her stats, it shouldn’t be impossible to find good schools where her stats are competitive without such a hook. Less selective alternatives might include Bates, Bryn Mawr, Colby, Dickinson, Grinnell, Kenyon, Macalester, Mt. Holyoke, Skidmore, or Whitman. These all fall within the USNWR top 40 LACs, and don’t seem to be too too different from Haverford or Middlebury in terms of size, curriculum, “vibe”, or overall quality (although BMC and Mt. Holyoke are women’s colleges).
@tk21769 I’m sure she’ll apply to some of those schools, colby is high on her list for example. My OP was more a post-visit realization that chances are very small for an unhooked candidate at a top 10 lac.