Yes, protests and activism by the Smith students. Which, IMO, was the right thing to do.
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But it is in the Atlanta metro area which is pretty progressive. Agnes Scott is a very diverse college, too. Much less white than those women’s colleges in the Northeast. It’s not even majority white. It’s about 15% Hispanic/Latina, 35% Black, 31% White, 6% Asian. It’s also very diverse socio-economically. Pretty fair number of Pell Grant students. And if I’m reading the CDS right they gave out 56 non-need based awards averaging $32K for a first year class of 274.
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I live in Atlanta. Not only is Agnes Scott liberal and LGBTQ-friendly, the surrounding neighborhood of Decatur is one of the most liberal areas in the metro area. The downtown is charming and filled with restaurants, shops and outdoor spaces. It is worth a look based on your criteria.
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Any student interested in women’s colleges and astronomy should read this profile of Holyoke’s astronomy chair: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/people/m-darby-dyar.
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Mount Holyoke’s program includes dual degree engineering programs with U Mass, Thayer (at Dartmouth) and Cal Tech. Professor Dyar will be working on research on Venus as well as her existing research on Mars. Mount Holyoke students may expect to be involved in her work.
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My daughter is a STEM student at Wellesley and loves it.
They recently invested in building a new Science Center, which is one of the reasons she ultimately chose to attend:
Students are doing scientific research there during the school year and over the summer, working closely with professors.
Due to COVID, we didn’t have the opportunity to visit beforehand, and she attended sight unseen. It’s a beautiful campus in a very nice town.
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Can’t comment on which is best for STEM but looks like you will visit Wellesley soon and wanted to say it’s a beautiful campus and we all loved the town (visited the town several times, campus once). D20 did not apply but sometimes she thinks it might have been a good fit. So easy to to get to Boston too. Good luck in your search.
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Mount Holyoke is the #1 institution in the nation producing women graduates who go on to get an advanced degree in STEM subjects.
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A year later, I’m wondering how things have worked out? We’re thinking of you here at CC.
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Ha thanks. My child will be applying this fall and has decided against womens colleges. Will likely be applying ED to Northwestern based on the college visits we did!
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Thanks for getting back to us. Best of luck.
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Thank YOU for the help. FYI here is the likely final list in case you have thoughts. Early apps - ED Northwestern, EA to CU Boulder and UW Seattle. Regular- UChicago, Brown, Harvard, Amherst, Wesleyan, Brown, Tufts, UPenn, Vassar. May add UToronto, U of Hawaii, Carleton.
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An eclectic group of schools for sure.
Let me comment on Wesleyan because I live nearby. Very LGBTQ+ friendly. They have a Women in Science organization on campus and are very proud of their efforts to promote the advancement of women in science. They also have an observatory on campus with multiple telescopes.
Wesleyan is an interesting choice because they are the rare LAC with a graduate school. Their graduate school includes a doctoral program in Physics and Master’s programs in Astronomy, Earth & Encironmental Sciences, and Computer Science. Graduate courses often serve as advanced courses for qualified undergrads.
Middletown is not Northampton, but it has dozens of great restaurants, some live music, and is right on the Connecticut River. There is live theater within 20 minutes by car at either the unique Godspeed Opera House down river or at several venues in Hartford.
I’m wondering if her academic interests have changed at all in the past year.
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Lots of things changed for my kid (including pronouns) but not his love of astronomy! Most schools are selected for great astronomy programs and LGBTQ friendliness with very small or remote or too- sporty and rah rah schools ruled out. Super intense and competitive schools generally ruled out too (except UChicago). Some is just vibe on visits. Thanks! We did love Wesleyan and it may be the ED2 choice.
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Great comparison. And as I’ve mentioned in other threads, I think Middletown is better in terms of food/restaurants than college towns with bigger reputations for that strength … Northampton included. D spent a year at Smith and we loved Northampton … and we really loved Sylvesters. But overall we found Middletown to have more and varied quality restaurants.
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You have a list of great schools. Not knowing grades and test scores, it’s impossible to know how realistic these choices. I assume that your child is a tippy top student or you wouldn’t have developed a list like this. Here are the acceptance rates for the private schools on your list for this year’s recent admissions cycle:
3% - Harvard
5% - Chicago
5% - Brown
6% - Penn
7% - Northwestern
7% - Amherst
9% - Tufts
14% - Wesleyan
16% - Carleton
19% - Vassar
A word of caution on acceptance rates. A number of spots are set aside for students with hooks - athletes & other special talents, legacies, children of big donors, children of faculty & other employees, underrepresented minorities, and applicants from elite prep schools. These hooked acceptances have a disproportionate effect on smaller colleges just because the number of acceptances is so small. So, for a school like Amherst you can cut the acceptance rate in half for unhooked applicants as a rough estimate because hooked applicants can comprise as much as 50% of the acceptances or more at such a small college. As a general rule. The sheer size of the numbers means that the chances for any student, no matter how well qualified, are a long shot for any school with an acceptance rate under 15-20%.
Here is a just published Forbes article detailing this effect based on the analysis of data made public during the current Harvard lawsuit.
The public colleges deserve comments of their own with the caveat that I don’t know if you are in state at any of these. Colorado and Hawaii are safe bets as both have accepted about 80% of their applicants in recent years. However, admissions rates will vary depending on which undergraduate college yours is applying to and what the intended major is. It’s also important to check in advance what the school’s policy is for admission to any particular major. At many state schools, admission to majors is determined in sophomore year. Students can find that some majors are highly competitive and that after 2 years invested in that particular university, they can’t get into their preferred major. So, admission to the university may be relatively easy, but not necessarily to the major of choice. University of Toronto has an acceptance rate of 43% for international students.
University of Washington is a good one to look at as an example because a breakdown admissions data for recent years is available:
60% - in state applicants
51% - out of state
33% - engineering direct admit (out of state)
3% - computer engineering direct admit (out of state)
These UW numbers are a 3-year average and not for the most recent year. The trend has been tougher each year than for the year before.
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You have gotten a lot of great guidance. I wanted to mention that Vassar’s acceptance rates are a bit deceptive. Meaning much lower for candidates applying as female and much higher for those identifying as male. This difference is typically about 10-15%. As a male Vassar alum I proudly took advantage of that difference😀
Please see below (a bit dated but representative)…
Given your son’s pronouns and Vassar’s highly LBGQT friendly community Vassar may be both a great fit and a higher acceptance likelihood then the numbers at face value suggest.
Best of luck but I would as others suggest find a few other safe options just in case.
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Thank you for providing the link to the Forbes article. These paragraphs seem to sum up current admissions to the T5 pretty succinctly:
Indeed, Goldstein says that the only populations with non-trivial odds of admission at these colleges are athletes, legacies, children of faculty or donors, certain racial minorities, first generation college students, students from upscale private schools, and those whose academic records put them in the top one percent of applicants. About half of all admitted students belong to one of those preferred groups.
Most everyone else (for whom the acceptance rate is about 2%) might be better off saving their admissions fees.
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Thanks very much as usual. He will ED Northwestern and EA the state schools so will hopefully have the safeties locked in early. He LOVED UWashington Seattle and CU Boulder so will be very happy to go there if the selectives (rejectives?) don’t work out (we haven’t visited UHawaii but hard to believe he would hate that!). If Northwestern turns him down, he would consider ED2 to Wesleyan or Tufts or UChicago (his private school is a big feeder to UChicago). He is a legacy at Harvard but likely won’t be rolling those dice and wasting the ED or ED2 boost, so the long list is really there in case EDs don’t work out.
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