New England Options for B Students

[concerned123]

My child is a solid B student and has never gotten a C; however, there have been very few A's. The course load has been somewhat rigorous with 50% of courses being at the Honors level. What are some examples of schools that would be matches in New England, New York and perhaps as far down as Delaware? I doubt that a tier 1 school would be a possibility but what about tier 2? PSAT scores are approximately 170 (59, 58, 52) with a 3.3 GPA. EC's are mostly sports with some volunteering. Plans are to do an unpaid internship this summer in the field of business or engineering.

[concerned123]

I forgot to add that the 3.3 is weighted.

[MarathonMan88]

Can you give us a little more information? Does he/she prefer a large school or small? Is the option of a pre-professional program in business or engineering important, or would a liberal arts education be OK? Any preferences for rural vs. urban? Would a catholic college be acceptable? Is the presence of DI sports important or is possibility of playing DIII appealing? The good news is that there are scores, maybe hundreds of schools that will welcome a solid student like yours.

[concerned123]

Can you give some examples of large and small schools? I don't see a liberal arts education as a possibility; my child is a boy and a very logical thinker. English and History are not favorites. Math and Science are. A Catholic college would be fine; I don't know if he'd play sports in college; he has been on school teams in high school but not first string usually (although he is a very strong athlete) because of the competition in the school. He certainly would enjoy the comraderie of having sports events to go watch, though. I don't think there are any preferences between urban/rural. Thanks for your help.

[northeastmom]

Off the top of my head, so there are many, many more options:

New England-University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont, Champlain College (Vt.), St. Michael's, Roger Williams, Quinnipiac (apply early here, rolling admissions), Clark, Northeastern (reach, but why not try), Sacred Heart, Keene State

New York- Marist, Hofstra, Le Moyne, Ithaca, Hobart and Smith, might look at some SUNY schools, Manhattan College, Syracuse, Siena

NJ-Drew, Monmouth, Rutgers-NB

PA-Susquehanna, West Chester University (public U), La Salle, University of Scranton, Drexel, Moravian

[Muffy333]

All the state schools, Clark, LACs with more girls than boys, Ithaca, Syracuse, Drexel, Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac, Siena, University of Hartford. There really are still a lot of options for B students; you just hear a lot of freaky stories about the very competitive schools!

[Chedva]

Stonehill College in Easton, MA; Emmanuel College in Boston; UMass Lowell, UMass Dartmouth; Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.

What state are you from?

[Muffy333]

Make sure you look at all the "minor" state colleges; like everyone knows of University of Maryland College Park but there is also St. Mary's, Towson, Salisbury, Baltimore County - Or in PA - there's West Chester, Kutztown, East Stroudsberg, lots of other lesser known state colleges.

[marny1]

2 helpful resources that I found were:

Colleges of Distinction - A College Search Tool and "America's best colleges for B students" by Tamra Orr
alot of the colleges mentioned above are also on the college of distinction website- so its's a quick and easy way to get more info about these schools.
also- be open minded about having your son take the ACT. Some kids do much better on that test than the SAT. My d scored about 130 points higher on the ACT than SAT with very little preparation.
My kid was also a B student, and we were looking mostly at Public U's in the mid-Atlantic. Some of the schools that she applied and was accepted to were George Mason-Temple-Towson and a bunch of the SUNY's as we are from NYS.
I really liked Tamra Orr's book. It had a wide variety of schools- small/large
urban/rural. And I was able to get it from the library!
Good luck.

[kmaqMom]

Saint Anselm College in NH

[Iron Maiden]

Stonehill might be a good choice. Their Merit Scholarship awards dropped drastically this year so watch out for that

[MidwestMom2Kids_]

Visit some urban/rural colleges and see what he thinks. Many kids have a strong preference for an urban or suburban campus.

[jmmom]

Lots of good ideas, above, I think. Northeastmom took most of my list right out of my mouth .

If they haven't been mentioned: Fairfield (CT), Loyola (Baltimore), Bryant, possibly Wheaton?

I do think Holy Cross would be a reach for such a student but not out of the question.

[my-3-sons]

USNEWS has a section called "A+ options for B students". The premium online subscription is well worth the $14.95.

[icy9ff8]

Wheaton College in Massachusetts, formerly an all female school, has (or had?) a very good chemistry dept. St Lawrence University in New York State is a LAC with outstanding science facilities.