What should I do?

I’m an athlete, and although I would consider ED at any of 5 schools, I limited my number of overnights to 4. The 4 places I have overnights are Hamilton, Williams, Haverford, and Washington and Lee, but the coach of my sport at Colby left so I haven’t been able to set up an overnight, and now don’t think I can. I feel like taking 5 overnights would be too much, but am I making a mistake? If I pick one of the others and don’t get in or if I don’t go ED somewhere I’ll still look at Colby regular decision (I should get in).

Overnights are a great way to learn about a school, but the majority of college applicants may do none, some do one, two or three, and a very few may do four. While I’m sure overnighting at more than four has been done by someone, it can hardly be regarded as a big mistake to choose a lesser amount than this extreme.

All great schools. Not sure what your interests are and what kind of environment you seek, but I would look at cultural aspects to get to 4.

Washington Lee (Conservative and very Greek)
Hamilton (middle of the rode, a little preppy and a some Greek)
Colby (middle/liberal no Greek, but a little of a Greek feel left from old days)
Haverford and William (liberal, no Greek)

Seems like you would eliminate either Washington and Lee or Haverfod, depending on your personal interests…Could be Williams instead of Haverfod but kept the perpetual #1 ranked school.

Colby: Near perfect LAC size. If the school were much smaller, then either academic breadth or sports would be diminished; if it were much larger, then some of the LAC feel would be lost. By a modest margin, has the coldest winter weather in the group, which is terrific for those who see adventure in that.

Haverford: Benefits academically from a consortium relationship with Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore. The consequent collegiate gender imbalance in the area may make for uneven social relationships.

Washington & Lee: By almost all measures an excellent academic school. Fraternity and sorority membership is on the high end for colleges of any type.

Williams: Refuses to apologize for its isolated location – that’s a good thing. Excellent academics are enhanced by an impressive senior tutorial program. Along with Hamilton, has a high percentage of math majors.

Hamilton: Benefits from the curricular, architectural, spatial and, to some extent, cultural legacy of having been two colleges. To overlook this aspect of Hamilton’s history is to partially overlook what distinguishes the school. Former fraternity houses are now beautiful residence halls.

Rob,

I do believe that the new Colby President is doing a fine job in leading Colby, and one of the ways that he is doing so is in improving the quality of the athletic teams. Are your other OVs invited by a coach or are they standard admissions OVs? If they are coach initiated, I think I would reach out to the Colby AD and present your situation. They see what he suggests. He may arrange one with team members even though the coach is not yet set.