Strong LACs w Merit Scholarships?

[bethievt]

padad

Carleton gives $2,000 per year to NM finalists. That's not nothing, but it's not a lot.

[nngmm]

I heard great things about Carleton & Macalester (though I don't know how generous they are with merit aid), but you have to be ready to spend 4 years in Siberia if you go there ...

[bethievt]

You mentioned St. Michael's earlier. That is a very good school. The profs I know are really smart and also caring people. It's quite near Burlington.

[mythmom]

I wouldn't worry about academic challenge if money is really an issue. I agree with bethie, that all good schools are going to offer intellectually stimulating teachers and colleagues. In fact, the absolutely brightest kids to talk to aren't always the ones with the highest scores (though I'm sure your D is, I didn't mean it that way.)

Curm's daughter is absolutely brilliant and she's had a wonderful time at Rhodes as far as I can tell and has great research opportunities.

The culture varies from school to school.

I can say as a parent of a Williams student the school really is as wonderful as it seems. The faculty is not as personal as Vassar's from what another CC'er told me of Vassar, but they do want the kids to negotiate for themselves a bit. The kids are incredibly supportive of each other and the coursework is very creative. That was my big surprise.

However, I think Grinnell would be every bit as good. I really do.

My kids would not consider Davidson because of religious connection and they are both atheists, so that would bother them, but maybe it wouldn't bother your D. My roommate from college sent her son there on a full ride. I know he was admitted to Hopkins as well; I'm not sure where else. They are not southerners, and her S was a NMF. He had a wonderful time at Davidson and found the environment sufficiently challenging.

Perhaps UofChicago. it's not a LAC, but the college itself is LAC-like and they do give some merit money.

I think your strategy should be apply to some need-blind schools she really likes, some merit granting schools and state u and see where the chips fall acceptance/money wise and make your decision then.

[janieblue]

padad: Yes, my daughter was offered a Trustee Scholarship at Bryn Mawr as well (some years ago). They never said it was based on leadership; we just assumed it was the whole package (academics, leadership, etc). Maybe they advertise that they offer this now; back then, they didn't. You're right, though-- not need-based.

[EMM1]

Katja:

First, let me congratulate you on raising such an accomplished daughter. You should be very proud.

If I were you, at this point, I would be suffering from CC information overload. So rather than throwing more schools at you, I'd like to suggest a framework for looking at the problem.

IMHO, the first question that you should ask is, how important is it for your D to be surrounded by lots and lots of people who were extremely high achievers in high school, which is correlated (not 1 to 1) with being extremely bright. One advantage might be educational--some students need to be surrounded by their peers to be pushed to their potential. Others push themselves. Another advantage to a highly selective school might be prestige. If that is your (her) priority, then something in the Swarthmore/Bowdoin/Davidson range would be first choice.

On the other hand, there might be some advantages to being at a less selective school. If your daughter went to St. Michael's (average new scale SAT score less than 1800), she would be the franchise. Because she stood out, she would get lots of positive attention and support from professors and administrators. If she keeps her head on straight, that could be a very good thing.

Then there is that money thing. Assuming that in the ideal world she wishes to be at Swarthmore etc. and you are not entitled to need-based aid, you have to ask yourself how much are you willing to pay to have her at the school that you and she consider ideal. $50,000 per year? $25,000 per year. If it is not $50,000, then you have to look at merit money. I have NO doubt that your D could get full tuition at least at some perfectly respectable LACs where she could get a fine education. The rule of thumb is that the farther up the selectivity scale that you go, the more likely that you are to get big bucks, but you have to check out each website individually for details. But beware--when you reach the Rhodes level of selectivity, you have to be a superstar (not just a star) to get a full ride.

Beyond that, there are lots and lots of fine LACs in the Northeast and the Midwest. Maybe a place to start is the Princeton Review top 366 Colleges book. See if any of the schools in that book catch your eye, and then look at the school website for the merit money info.

Good luck! Hope this has been at least a little help.

[condor30]

katja,

some schools you might take a look at:

grinnell, trinity (in texas), southwestern (in texas), hendrix, case western reserve, tulane, loyola-chicago, marquette, baylor

look for merit aid calculators at the school websites. i remember that baylor had one.

use the peterson's college search website.....the search engine there allows you to bring up lists of schools by level of selectivity, i.e., most difficult, etc.

[blossom]

Agree 100% with Emm1. At a large research U (think U Illiinois) the fact that the motivation, ability, SAT score range, work ethic, etc. of the student body will vary tremendously is not going to impact the average high achieving undergrad. There will be kids who were Vals and Sals and scored in the stratosphere, and there will be kids who phoned it in during HS but managed to get in to the flagship U by virtue of numbers above the cut-off and in-state residency status.

At a small school, the variance IMHO is significantly more important. That's not to say that your D wouldn't love St. Michaels or get a great education-- but kids like her are not going to be in high abundance (and don't have the PC police come down on my head please.... this is reality, folks.) For some kids it doesn't matter. For others it will matter a lot; their social networks will have some influence on their study habits, their motivation, their desire to work outside the box, and all the other intangible stuff.

I look at kids from my kids HS who ended up at various big U's (some flagship, some not) and the truth is, they've all done pretty much how you would have predicted based on their HS performance. The highly motivated ones found professors to mentor them, great internship opportunities, research grants, wonderful EC's to get involved in. The less motivated had fun, worked on making friends and social connections, did respectably (or less so) academically, and basically got out of it what they put in. I see where these kids are in med school, law school, corporations, non-profits, and other than one former slacker who got his act together and is now in med school there are no surprises.

The ones who ended up at small LAC's are really all over the map. I think it reflects the fact that for every kid who has a life altering experience at a small LAC (think Loren Pope) there's probably another kid who fails to find "my people" or gets bored with the small, cloistered environment. One day that kid may discover that as romantic as it sounds to have classes all consist of 18 students sitting around a big table talking to a professor... sometimes you end up listening to 17 naive and uneducated Freshman instead of hearing a world class lecturer address a room of 800 people.

If a kid can find a "fit" at an LAC then that's fantastic..... go for it. If the "fit" isn't there, or is unaffordable, I think a big U is a safer choice- just more options, more bodies, more chances to really connect both academically and socially. The "serial" transfers I know (both my generation as well as my kids) seem to be the LAC kids-- from Hampshire (too fruity) to Bard (too hard) to Emerson (too pre-professional). Degree finally completed at U Mass much to the parents relief.

And to your specific point- I have never been to Bowdoin and don't know much about its student body. Around here (New York Metro) it is considered a match or safety (depending on the kid's stats) for kids who are solid prospects at Williams or Swathmore. It is (at least reputationally) more like Colgate or Hamilton. You will definitely have those off the charts intellectuals and polymaths and uber achiever kids- but based on the dozen or so kids I know who were accepted over the last 5 years, you don't have to be an intellectual or an uber achiever to get in. Don't flame me... I think it's a great place but generally not in the same category as Amherst.

[EMM1]

Hard to imagine Bowdoin being a safety for anyone, although stat-wise it is marginally lower than Williams, Swarthmore and Amherst. However, like many of the NESCACs it has the reputation of being very white bread/preppy.

[LurkNessMonster]

Wow, blossom, great post! Lots of wonderful insight and personal observations. (I do agree with EMM1, above, that Bowdoin isn't a safety for anyone.)

All I can possibly add to this discussion is the advice to cast a wide net. You don't know exactly what your D will get from each college until she applies, is accepted, and the financial aid letter arrives. Things change from year to year, and I'm convinced that colleges have "unadvertised specials" that they pull out from time to time for the right student. Also, kids tend to change their minds in the months between application and acceptance. So just make sure your daughter applies to a range of schools that might suit her, with varied locations, sizes, and selectivity levels. Do the research, be realistic, and you may be very pleasantly surprised by the results. Best of luck to your daughter!

[mamenyu]

These days it is not a good idea to think of most of the schools mentioned here as "safeties." Some may get fewer applicants than the NE LACs but that doesn't mean that they are inferior experiences (there is a good deal of NE bias that is not well-founded -- not that the NE schools aren't great, but the Midwestern, Southern, and Western LAC's are also excellent -- and the spread of SAT scores and GPA's is not the be all and end all of what makes a positive academic/social environment) or aren't as selective -- e.g., for students who demonstrate a real interest in that school or have a particular skill that brings something to the mix that the college is looking to put together.

[blossom]

The dataset from my kids HS suggests that kids who get into Williams and Amherst also apply and get into Dartmouth, Brown and Princeton. Many of these kids also apply and get into Colgate, Bowdoin, etc.

The overlap for the Bowdoin kids who do not get into the Williams type schools has them applying and being accepted at Colby, Conn College, Trinity, Fairfield, Villanova. All fine schools and your mileage may vary. Apologize for having mis-described Bowdoin as a safety.

[arkitex]

One piece of advice I received from another parent who had a NMS was that if merit money is important, your student's stats should be quite a bit above the middle 25-50% of students at that school. Your D's scores and other achievements should put her near the top at most any school, so there would be many choices for her. Also, consider that some large public schools have great scholarships for top students which bring the costs for out of state within reason.

[teriwtt]

These days it is not a good idea to think of most of the schools mentioned here as "safeties."

I agree and will add, since I'm not the only one to suggest Muhlenberg, that 60% of this year's freshman class are ED. Kids that want to go there, really want to go there and apply early. But their ED plan has a later application date than most schools (mid-February maybe?). All those ED kids then get first dubs on dorm selection.

[BayPoodle]

Three colleges that have been very generous to us this year: DePauw, College of Wooster, Mills College. All three gave very high merit awards with acceptance.