Congratulations on Dickinson! It’s a great school.
Your daughter has alot of the same schools on her list as my D did a year ago. Our favorite LACs were Dickinson, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, and Bates. She ended up at Skidmore because they were the most generous. Of note, she was able to get a single room in the substance free dorms too. She is really enjoying it thus far. Good luck to your daughter.
I’m from the PNW and can tell you right now the schools here are divided between hippies/non-hippies. Western WA University is an excellent choice and probably best encompasses what you described. The other school I would suggest is the Evergreen State College, but it is quite liberal and you will find people with Birkenstocks for sure. But there are also people like your daughter there as well. WA state sounds like a good fit for your daughter.
@cranberries21, I’m pretty sure @Lindagaf’s D’s lots are already cast, so where to apply is no longer relevant. It’s just a question of where she gets in and what seems like the best fit along all dimensions (including financial!) at this point.
Yes, ray rock is correct:-). Now it’s all about where she will end up. I expect April to be a bit crazy, as she will have a month to decide, and I expect she will have 6 choices all told. If anyone has any suggestions on how to manage accpetances/accepted student visits, and getting deposits done on time, please share.
Do the overnight visits before acceptance if possible.
I really want her to do that but she refuses. She says it would be weird to sleep with a stranger in a dorm room. I told her lots of kids do it.
What will she do when she has a new roommate in college?
Agreed about the overnights. My D did them at her top three. She still agonized right up until the last weekend, but I think they helped.
@ErinsDad , she won’t have a problem with that. She was fine when she did summer courses at both BU and Carleton. Remember though, she is a shy kid. I get that spending a single night with a total stranger might feel weird, especially when she might never see that person again. If it was me, I would do it, but I am an extrovert and that wouldn’t bother me. She is going to a dinner one night at Clark, then the next day is accepted students day. I am sure she will get plenty of exposure to the campus and kids from all that.
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I think overnights are overrated, unless you are an athlete checking out team dynamics, etc.
An overnight is only as good as your overnight host. It can be a mismatch of personalities or a poor host negatively influencing one’s opinion of a school. One of my kids had a bad experience with someone who should never have volunteered to be a host. I’ve heard of other situations, too, which were not really representative of whether a school is a good fit or not.
Regardless of steps you take, April will be a crazy month. One thing to do though is to make sure parents and student are both on the same page regarding prioritizing factors in the decision making process. Your daughter has wisely applied to a range of schools along the acceptance spectrum, however, you’ll find that some schools will be more generous than others. Some schools will give merit aid and others will not, which will likely put your family in the situation of making decisions where costs will differ, most likely an inverse relationship to desirability. What if she gets into a school she likes better with less aid? What if a lower ranked school offers generous merit aid? The more you can iron out your family’s stance on these types of things, the less anxiety you’ll face in April.
It looks like a very well thought out list. Best of luck to her!
@doschicos , you have nailed it. Thank you, and yes, so far you are right. Her safety has offered her $20k, her low match has offered $15k, and while I do think she might be offered money at a couple of other schools, the money offerd by Clark makes it more appealing to us, her parents. This has been a real learning experience for all of us. I now wish she hadn’t applied to 12 colleges. Let’s say she gets accepted at 6-7 total, I feel as though she will now have an insane month in April trying to decide. This also means revisiting, which is time consuming.
In fact, as her safety schools are by no means her top choices, and we would pay for Dickinson, which she prefers to both of her safeties, maybe we should just forget about Clark? But then I think, maybe when she goes to accpeted students days as a potential student, that perhaps makes a difference. And Clark is better for psychology, which I suspect she will end up majoring in. I thought we had done the hard part already! What is the experience of other parents?
My experience is that before results come in most kids play it close to the vest because they don’t want to get their hopes up, but once they have some results at least a few schools will naturally fall off the list. That said, I think doschico’s advice is spot on, both about the overnights and having some advance discussions about prioritizing factors that will go into the decision. The danger I see in having a mixture of merit and need-only schools is that she may feel peer pressure to accept an offer from the highest ranked school even if it doesn’t fit your family’s budget. This is not to say that kids or teachers will purposefully try to sway her, but the “Wow, you got into XX?!” factor can be mighty powerful.
Well, the good thing is she can go visit both Clark and Dickinson before April and get that out of the way.
What if she gets into Bates, Brown, and/or Carleton without any merit aid at all? How will that factor into her and your decisions?
If she gets into a handful or more schools. you’ll likely be able to knock some off the list right away. But, it’ll still be a lot of analyzing and angst. One of my kid had 9 acceptances to choose from plus a waitlist to consider whether or not to stay on. Narrowed it down easily to 6, one being an EA school visited before April but still in the mix. Then the hard work started. Planned on visiting the remaining 5. After more thinking and with time flying by, decided to cancel accepted student visits at 2 schools. Visited 3 remaining schools (spread across the country) which was tiring but helpful. A lot of angst about giving up some generous merit aid (some from student, more from parents - ha!). Decision between last 2 schools came down to the wire on April 30th. Thus far, student seems happy with the choice and doing well, but I think several of the choices would have worked out well.
Having choices is good though. Never hurts for the ego. Also, if we had narrowed down the application list, at the time back in early fall, we probably would have cut out some of the schools which wound up being amongst acceptances and the better fit. Also, the school that was finally chosen was the last school added to the application list. Funny how it worked out.
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@doschicos , ay carumba! Yes, what if… Well, of course she won’t get into Brown. She may well get into Bates and Carleton, which I say confidently are her top two choices. I would say yes to either in a hearbeat. I think they are both great. But hubby is the bank, and he is foreign and I have already had a very difficult time convincing him that LACs are just as good as universities. He will be reluctant to pay full whack for any LAC, despite me showing him boring articles over the last couple of years that prove that LACs are just as good as universities.
Has your husband visited the LACs yet? Drag him along to accepted student days and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t change his mind once he gets to kick the tires more closely.
Yep, I plan on doing that. He will take her Dickinson.
Despite earlier advocating for overnights, this is totally true. My kid had a lousy host at one school – it was exactly as @doschicos described: why did this introverted loner kid ever volunteer to be a host? – and it really turned my son off. Nothing against introverted loners, mind you! They just don’t necessarily make the best ambassadors.
Lindagaf, you may also want to show him some information from the LACs’ career counseling pages. Here’s Bates’.
http://www.bates.edu/career/class-outcomes/
Note: 99% of Bates students in a job, internship or grad school as of 6 months after graduation.