A diverse college list

S1732
Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:52:57 +0000

Hi all,

My son is interested in global/international studies and perhaps economics. He has a 3.7 GPA uw, a 34 ACT, leadership of the robotics team (about 350 hrs per year), good community service, part time jobs, and a few other ECs.

The problem is that he doesn’t know what is most important for him in a college and - in fact - likes big universities, small LACs, AND medium-size schools. The only thing he does know is that he wants to be relatively near or in a metropolitan area in the Midwest or Northwest (why, I don’t really know) and he wants to major in global studies (a topic for another day).
Here is is list. I think he has a mix of reaches/matches/safeties.

Carnegie Mellon (global politics)
Macalaster (international studies)
Carleton (economics or international relations)
Case Western Reserve (international studies)
Loyola Chicago (international studies)
Seattle University (international studies)
University of Wisconsin-Madison (international studies) - in state
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (global studies) - tuition reciprocity

We’ve visited a few of the schools and will visit more in the next month, but the bottom line is that he’s ok with all of them. At the very least, we’d like him to find another small LAC which might not be such a reach as Macalester and Carleton, but he seems to ‘be done’ with his search.

In any case, should we just leave things be or encourage him to keep looking?

Thanks!