Hi! I’m a junior at a very competitive high school in the Northeast. For some comparison, at my school top 10% is usually 4.6, which is considered competitive for Ivies and the like. My school doesn’t rank, but provides percentiles.
UW GPA: 3.5
W GPA: 4.5
SAT: 2320
EC: position on school newspaper (just below Editor in Chief), part-time job, highest position in student government
I’m looking at mainly liberal arts colleges in the Northeast or with that kind of intellectual, caring atmosphere. In my application, I’m planning to emphasize my intellectual passion. I also was recently diagnosed with ADHD and am unsure of whether or not to include that on my application. I also hope to improve my grades senior year. Here’s what I have so far. Any suggestions? Also I’m not sure of where I’d be able to get merit aid, which would definitely be a consideration.
Reach: Brown, Vassar, Wesleyan
Match: Wellesley, Colby
Safety: Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith
You are well in the top 25% in terms of SAT scores for Vassar and Wesleyan. Those are likely more matches for you and not reaches.
If your school is known to be rigorous by the admissions committees, you should be fine in terms of GPA.
You will have to check with each school but many listed don’t offer merit aid, just need-based so have your parents run the financial aid calculators.
Others to consider would be Dartmouth, Colgate, Hamilton, Bates, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Williams, Haverford, Holy Cross and Boston College.
Good schools for merit aid would be St. Lawrence, Dickinson, Muhlenberg and maybe Lehigh and Lafayette.
Given the places you will apply make sure the matches and safety schools are well thoughout. They are picky.
Just a thought, as you like Brown, Wesleyan, Vassar, you might like Bates (and might prefer it to Colby). Kenyon is another school with a strong east coast vibe that happens to be in a tiny town on Ohio.
Also, be careful with the match/safety slots for LACs, many schools do want to see demonstrated interest.
Okay perfect! Thanks for the advice!
Have you spoken with your GC about likelies? Does your school use Naviance?
My kids liked a lot of the same school on your list. Based on the schools you already like and your preference to stay in the Northeast, consider: Haverford, Bates, Bowdoin, Dickinson. These are other schools that appealed to my own kids who were looking for small schools with an intellectual caring atmosphere.
I have a friend who sounds a bit like you. She loved Bates and Connecticut College as well as the Women’s Schools you mentioned and Vassar. Check them out!
You might want to consider the midwestern LACs. It’s a matter of fit: They tend to be less preppy than the NE LACs and equally liberal. Since you are from the New England Area, you would get a bit of a boost for geographic diversity. A few also offer merit aid (Grinnell and Macalester for example, because it’s a bit harder to attract kids to the midwest, I suspect) making them a bit cheaper - and the cost of living is somewhat lower, if that matters to you. Academically, they are on par with the NE LACs in terms of academic quality and some, like Grinnell, have extremely large endowments on a per student basis which translates into lots of nice perks.
Suggested: Reach: Carleton Match: Grinnell, Oberlin, Macalaster, Kenyon Safe: Beloit, Lawrence
I would look at muhlenberg college and also if you have an open mind a really great school to look at would be hendrix college…it maybe a perfect fit.(not in the northeast)
https://www.hendrix.edu/
For what its worth, my daughter was also diagnosed with ADHD at the end of her junior year. Please PM me if you would like to talk about that. She did discuss it in her application as it had a direct influence on her lowish GPA, and she was able to show how the diagnosis and immediate remediation in terms of learning techniques to deal with it were successful in her senior year. My D’s criteria for colleges were #1) a very engaged and intellectually curious student body, #2) a supportive (not competitive) environment, #3) no Greek life or little of it, #4) Supportive and accessible professors.
My daughter had a very similar list and I concur with most of what the above posters have said. I would say, thought, that Wellesley is probably not a match, but more likely a reasonable reach. Even though your school is known to be competitive, your GPA is a low to consider Wellesley a match. I think you have a good shot at it (my D was waitlisted with similar stats, slightly lower, but also from a well-regarded school) but if you are making a list of 2-3 in each category I would move Wellesley up to the reach level.
I also agree you might like Bates more than Colby. It has more the vibe of the others on your list. Perhaps also look into Skidmore and Bard.
Mount Holyoke is known to be quite generous with merit aid. I do not believe Wellesley offers any merit aid. I could be wrong, but I think their aid may be all need-based.
Are you interested in a more liberal/artsy intellectual environment, or a more preppy/sporty one?
Thank you for all of the responses! Super helpful! I’ll definitely look into all of them. Yes, my school does have Naviance and I have met with my GC, which is how I came up with this starting point and the preference of liberal arts colleges in general, but there are so many schools that it has been very difficult for me to know where to begin (especially with which ones to visit).
@staceyneil That criteria is pretty much mine as well! Although there aren’t very many people who apply to Wellesley from my school (or LACs and women’s colleges in general), for Wellesley my stats are in the upper range. Anything is possible with these schools, though. Definitely prefer liberal/artsy, which is why I’m not looking at Amherst and Williams and the like. I definitely saw the merit aid from Mount Holyoke which would be really helpful and unfortunately Wellesley doesn’t offer merit aid.
If you’re looking on the artsy/liberal side of LACs, I’d move the following to the top of your list:
Bard
Vassar
Mount Holyoke
Smith
Brown
Wesleyan
Slightly less so would be
Bates
Skidmore
Less so
Colgate
Conn College
Colby
Hamilton
Bryn Mawr
Wellesley
^^^ Just my daughter and my opinions, based on her visits 2 years ago. YMMV.
For a true academic safety that has a liberal/artsy vibe, consider Hampshire College. It is in the 5-college consortium with Mount Holyoke, Smith, Amherst and UMass. I feel pretty confident you’d get into one of the others, but it doesn’t hurt to have a serious safety that you would be reasonably happy at!
Bryn Mawr is definitely on the liberal side, artsy more in the middle.
Yes, I would say that Bryn Mawr is more artsy and liberal than Mount Holyoke. Holyoke actually struck me as one of the preppier/less artsy of the remaining seven sisters when I visited a friend there. Apparently, Holyoke allows you to bring your own horse/pony to their stables…that concept made me giggle a little bit.
^ Wow, really? We had the opposite experience. D found MHC much more artsy/liberal (she said, “I’ll be the only non-pierced, non-tattooed person here!” - although she quickly remedied that on both fronts her freshman year) and thought Bryn Mawr was a bit too traditional, and not quirky enough, for her. I’m sure it depends on which student you meet on your visit, though.
@staceyneil Perhaps I thought of MoHo as being on the preppier side because I had visited Smith, a school that is extremely “alternative”, that same day, so I was comparing MoHo to Smith subconsciously. I would say that both MoHo and Bryn Mawr are the more “traditional” women’s colleges, compared to Smith, Wellesley, and Barnard.