Applying to Wellesley, Amherst, Georgetown, Williams... [Pre-Law, 3.95 GPA, 35 ACT, FL resident]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Hello everyone, I’ve never posted on a forum site like this before so please bear with me. I am currently deciding on my ED choice. I know it’s due soon but I have written all the supplements for each (maybe this was dumb, oh well) and now it’s just time to decide.

Originally I would not want to ED somewhere if I don’t have my heart set on a school, however I go to a very competitive high school and while my test scores and course rigor are top of the pile, my GPA is a little low to be applying to ivies early. (Just due to the fact that almost my entire class is doing this and while I do go to a feeder school they aren’t going to accept the entire grade at, say, Yale). But some of my favorite schools in my search so far have been Amherst, Williams, Wellesley and Georgetown.

My main dilemma comes from the fact that these I don’t have my heart set on a specific one of these schools, but I fear that if I wait until regular decision, more of my classmates will be applying and I will have significantly less of a chance at these four. Whereas according to Naviance I am in target range otherwise for early.

More specifically, for Wellesley I do have a pretty good shot at both regular and early, for Georgetown I may be a little lower in the REA group, but it is still a significantly smaller pool, but for Amherst Williams it looks like I have a good chance ED but regular would probably result in a waitlist or rejection, but I guess you never know? Finally, should I just go to UF if I were to get in? (my state school)

A little bit about me:

I am a woman, a U.S citizen from Florida and as for cost constraints it is looking like all of these schools would be about the same that my parents are already OK with, except for UF (or FSU?) because I am eligible for Bright Futures. So this is not a major factor. I have a 3.95 gpa (my school does not weight) and a 35 ACT. I have 6 5s on APs and 2 4s.

I want to major in English, and maybe double in a political-type major. (For example the Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought major at Amherst) I really want to end up at a top law school, but I know I shouldn’t base my entire ED decision based on what school I think will give me the best shot at a t14 because college kids are always changing their minds. HOWEVER I do feel extremely set on this. After law school, I would want maybe go into academia, but probably into politics. (This is why I would maybe like a more grad-school like law program like at Yale and not a purely pre-professional one? Maybe I am thinking too far ahead)

I say this because I would also like a school that would provide me with political opportunities during the summer or other breaks. I would like to add here that this is a BIG reason Georgetown is still top on my list even though it seems like the odd one out between the 4.

School Specific Questions:

I have toured and loved the campuses (based on what I saw) of all of these places. One thing: I am not a party person by any means but I would still enjoy the opportunity like twice a month to be involved in some sort of social scene.

Also, is there really a prestige difference between Amherst and Williams? Or is it negligible? I have noticed that Williams seems to be (barely) held in a bit of a higher regard.

I would also like to know the prestige (in terms of post-grad and during school opportunities, I don’t care about name-brand as much obviously since most of these are liberal arts schools) difference between all 4 schools.

I would appreciate an intellectual culture as well. Part of the reason why I am kicking myself for not trying for a higher GPA is due to the LOVE I had of the conversations and classes I overheard and sat in on at more “prestige” schools, specifically Princeton and Yale. Obviously all my schools on the list attract INCREDIBLY smart kids and I am so grateful to even maybe have a chance to attend one of these institutions, but I am the kind of loser that wants to have cool philosophical discussions in college, and I know that Amherst/Williams especially have a big sports heavy culture as a part of the NESAC.

Some things I am thinking:

Williams: I LOVE the idea of the tutorial system. It absolutely appeals to me greatly. I am a tad worried about the rural aspect of it all, but not necessarily in a social way. I am not the type of person who needs to go out every weekend. But I am worried about the connectedness of it all. I want to go into politics and I like feeling connected to the “outside world” for lack of a better way to put it. Will the ruralness of Williams impact my ability to garner opportunities?

Amherst: Based on what I’ve found it seems great for pre-law, since it’s open curriculum and writing-heavy. I would have a car freshman year probably, and I like how it’s only a 1 and a half drive (weekend trips every couple of months?) from other schools like Tufts and the schools in Cambridge where I already know a few people and have some friends. I don’t think I would utilize the five college consortium SO much, but I think the feel of being a part of a grander community would be nice.

Wellesley: I LOVE the idea of a women’s college, especially one near (?) Boston where, again, I have a lot of friends so I don’t think it would feel very isolating. Also, astronomy is a niche interest of mine and would love to take a class or two at MIT. That seems like it would be super awesome. However, is it regarded as lower than these other three schools? Does it matter since they are strong in politics? Love the campus, so beautiful!

Georgetown: The obvious outlier. I love the liberal arts vibe but that’s not necessarily the only thing my heart is set on. I visited for a weekend and loved. They are strong in politics (of course) and they have the cool opportunity for juniors where if they have a high enough GPA they are able to apply early to Georgetown Law without having to take the LSAT. A city would be nice, but I can always live in one after college or during law school. Also worried about student population, of course I would experience much larger classes here generally especially during my first two years then at A, W or W.

And then of course there is always FSU and UF (permitted I get in). Amazing in-state options and very affordable thanks to Bright Futures. According to school trends I have a pretty solid shot, but I don’t want to say assured because you never know, at FSU and a pretty good shot at UF since MANY and I want to say most who applied last year got in. I have found the UF honors program very enticing but honestly, in true 17 year old fashion, I would really like to leave the state. Also, I don’t know if a big state school environment is the right fit for me.

Hope this is enough info, sorry if it’s too much! These are all INCREDIBLE schools and there is always a chance I get rejected from all. Thanks!

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Law school admission is mostly based on college GPA (in the LSAC recalculation) and LSAT score.

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I might differ with your charactization a bit here. Williams offers tutorials, but not quite as a system. Students may take just one, or even, I believe, none in their four years there. This isn’t to diminish your enthusiasm for the opportunity to choose tutorials at Williams, however.

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Williams’ tutorials seem like a way of saying that they have enough resources to offer some courses enrolling a very small number of students (like 2 to 4) that other colleges would likely cancel in order to deploy instructors to other courses where there is demand.

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I can speak to the tutorials at Williams – my son, a first-year, is taking one this semester. He loves it. The way it works is this: a prof will teach a tutorial with about 12 students, but they’ll be broken up into groups of 2-3. So the tutorial is a class with a syllabus, not an independent study, but it feels like an independent study. There is a lot more work than a typical class (in his class, he creates a presentation, writes a paper, or responds to another student’s paper every week), and you definitely can’t slack off with just 1-2 other students in your section and the professor’s undivided attention! But he tells me that they have great conversations every week.

There is no requirement to take tutorials, but a lot are offered. I don’t know if there’s a limit on how many you can take, other than the fact that you can’t fulfill all of the requirements for your major and distribution requirements through tutorials alone. My son is definitely interested in taking another one at some point.

As to Williams in general – it’s definitely an intense place, but it’s not competitive. It has a reputation (well-earned) for being very demanding, but there are lots of clubs and social outlets on campus, and students seem friendly. Yes, it’s quite rural, but there are lots of study-away opportunities (during Winter Study as well as study abroad), and some majors require some kind of experiential learning off campus. My son is considering the Political Economy major (which combines the two disciplines and is more policy-focused), which requires a DC trip during spring break of senior year plus an internship, either during a summer break or during Winter Study. So, that’s just an example of how Williams connects students with the world beyond Williamstown. So far (and yes, it’s early), he’s had a great experience.

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Thanks for your message.

I think this is very important. You know what I don’t think is important?

Kids are applying from a zillion schools. Not just yours. I wouldn’t worry about others. I would worry about making the best decision for you. You have to be somewhere four years, day after day.

Someone on another thread mentioned applying early to BC (different school but very selective) 60% of their class was admitted ED. I pointed out to them colleges use an old marketing scheme of FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt. I didn’t look at the #s of these schools but at BC, they have to admit more than 4 times the amount of kids they need to fill that other 40% - because most kids are going to say no. So they needed more than 4 admits for every seat they filled in RD. And while 40% or so of the class was RD, they admitted far more in RD than ED.

Here’s a few other questions:

  1. Are you sure you can afford all these schools - approaching $100K?

  2. If you can, are you sure your parents want to pay that much when you have other schools, maybe a fifth of the price, knowing it’s unlikely law school will care if you went to Williams or Wyoming (although you’ll likely learn to write better at Williams). Look at Harvard Law (as one example) - 138 schools represented this year (prior it was 164 I think) for under 600 kids - schools like Abeline Christian, Cal State LA, College of Charleston, Iowa State, Loyola New Orleans, U of you name it from Alabama to Houston to Utah. I’m sure all these kids had great LSATs and did great stuff out of the classroom, etc. Sure, they have kids from top schools too - those kids were already identified as top before they hit college. You’ll see the same at a Penn, UVA, GTown, etc.

  3. If they’re on board with #1 and #2, do you have another $300K set for law school?

What I’m getting at is this is a 7 year endeavor, so please keep that in mind because you don’t want loans. I’m not suggesting you don’t go to a high end private school and from what you describe from high school, I’m sure it was always the plan but this might be by the time you are done, a 3/4 million dollar endeavor - so make sure you have a way to fund it. It will likely be easier to save in undergrad - someone goes to Connecicut College instead of Amherst as an example - then at the law school level.

Once you bind yourself to a college, there are no do overs. That’s it - if you decide later that you want the larger school or DC but you ED’d to Williams, then you are spending four years in the sticks. And at 17 years old, people change their minds.

If you want to go into Politics, I don’t think a high end school is the be all and end all. Who was the star of the Trump Trials? Kent State and Christopher Newport. My College of Charleston daughter interned for our state and for a top DC think tank. And she had 7 offers for internship, with 6 of the 7 politically aligned and one with the DC Tourism bureau/group.

As for opportunities - you will make them moreso than your school. But it helps if your school has a mechanism. Most have a DC semester or go through American U. My daughter turned down higher ranked schools like W&L (that has a DC program) - but ended up at Charleston, as a Charleston Fellow - where she got a ton of enrichment and great mentors (look up Professor David Merkel’s background). Fellows is through the Honors College (invitation only thing) - and one of her cohort is at Gtown now (but studying in the school of Foreign Service) and then I believe planning on med school. Another from her Cohort did a Masters at Oxford and just started Harvard Law (class of 29).

At C of C, the DC program went through U of SC Honors DC semester and all the houses that surrounded my daughter were of other colleges. So many colleges have these programs. If a college doesn’t offer you a DC program, they will allow you to go to one (likely via American U) and as long as classes are pre approved - count. So that is all out there.

But do you need to go to the top college for a top law school. No - in addition to what I showed you for Harvard, Penn has 192 in the current school - I bet you can’t name 192 schools - are you familar with Augustana in South Dakota or Arkansas State or Albion? I’m not even out of the As yet :slight_smile: UVA in its 2029 class (it’s a top 8 school) has 124 colleges, 302 students - and I’m sure they are UVA and W&M heavy.

I won’t answer the party question but there are parties anywhere. I’m not one to answer but I’ll find the LAC overview from, I think @merc81 and will post, but I’ve read on some threads there might be an athlete/non athlete divide at some - so that might be something to look into.

Prestige difference Williams and Amherst? Prestige, if it even exists, is in the eye of the beholder. You will wear a Williams sweatshirt in Florida and 95% of the people will have no idea that you are an academic superstar. Never heard of it. There was a parent on here whose student went to Hamilton (top school) and transferred to St. Olaf. The parent said, way more people know about St. Olaf than Hamilton. Know why? You’re likely too young to know the show the Golden Girls - it’s for us geezers - but Rose (one of the main characters) was from St. Olaf Minnesota. But I would say, in the grand scheme of magazine rankings to sell product and get clicks, you’ll find, depending on the ranking, one school higher than the other. You’ll also find rankings, like The Wall Street Journal, basing on outcomes - having the top LAC as Claremont McKenna, followed by Davidson and Harvey Mudd rounding out the top 20 of overall schools and others like Babson (#2), Bentley (#12) and Loyola Maryland are in the top 20.

LACs in the next top 20 are Swarthmore and Colgate. So your schools aren’t top 40 and trail such stalwarts as U of Detroit Mercy and Fresno State.

Then there’s Colby, Lafayette, and Amherst finally made an appearance at #60. Unless I missed it, I don’t see Williams in the top 100. I do see Quinnipiac though :slight_smile: Rankings are just - someone created a metric system and the school aligns to that metric system. I wouldn’t put more into it than that.

If you love the Williams Tutorial system but need a back up, then look at Ohio U - they’re the other school with a tutorial syste I linked below for you.

If you want schools where you will write - well, that can and will be everywhere, especially with your majors. Amherst doesn’t have a monopoly.

If you love the idea of a women’s college, maybe add more - Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Agnes Scott? Bryn Mawr is a mile from Haverford - so you’d likely use both campuses but you can also take classes at Swarthmore and Penn. At Agnes Scott, you can take classes at Emory, Ga Tech, Ogelthorpe and more.

FSU and UF are both awesome and I’m guessing you’ll get into both. But given you like small, don’t turn your back on FAU’s Wilkes Honors College.

It sounds to me like you shouldn’t ED because you don’t truly know what you want - and there’s going to be tons of opportunities for you.

I’m not a fan of ED because at 16/17, things that matter to you change so why be bound? Of course, the colleges like it - it’s an assured butt in seat and usually at good revenue as wealthy people tend to use it.

But you are a consumer so before your parents spend their hard earned money, make sure they can afford 7 years of costs and that you are thrilled with your entry (wherever it is and surely it will be many places).

You may also want to do a chance me once you have a final list.

Sorry to ramble but I hope that helps you.

Honors Tutorial College | #12 Best Honors College in the U.S.

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For convenience, my opinions appear here:

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I was just going back to edit as I found it - so now it’s a second source - you both have. I was referencing this - with @circuitrider - and I’m sure both are great resources. And certainly the @merc81 name association to a list stuck in my mind :slight_smile:

An Outsider’s Guide to National LACs - College Search & Lists - College Confidential Forums

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No, the course is actually the size of a seminar (12 students) but broken into small sections. I would imagine, though, that the professor has to get some kind of a break on their teaching load, because they’re teaching 3-4 sections a week with 2-4 students each, and that’s probably twice as much classroom time (for the prof, not the students) as a typical class would be, even if the number of students is the same.

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Alternatively, would you appreciate being able to see astronomical features through naturally dark night skies? At Williams, for example, you can look back in time two and half million years with the unaided eye.

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Plus, Williams has its own observatory!

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I am pretty sure that Wellesley College does also. Many, many years ago I knew an MIT student who took an Astronomy class at Wellesley because of their observatory. My vague recollection is that the class started at midnight Friday night. I have no idea whether the class still exists.

I would expect the skies to be just a little bit darker and clearer around Williams, since it is further from the city and further from the coast and a bit higher in altitude. I have no idea how the observatories compare.

MIT has the Haystack radio telescope. However, I am not aware of any undergraduate classes that have anything to do with it. It is also somewhere roughly around an hour’s drive from the MIT campus (depending on traffic). I did have a tour of it a number of years ago. I thought it was interesting that the most accurate way to determine the exact distance between the Haystack radio telescope and a similar telescope in Europe was to capture signals from some of the very furthest away objects in the universe arriving at these two radio telescopes and compare them. Apparently the US and Europe are still moving apart very slowly.

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This.

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These are very competitive stats. One “B” grade isn’t going to necessarily lead to an automatic rejection. What are your ACT section scores & AP scores for specific subjects?

If you are not completely sold on a school, avoid applying ED anywhere.

You don’t need to attend a T14 or T20 school to place into Harvard, Yale or Stanford Law. Undergraduate GPA & LSAT/GRE scores will matter.

Schools like Princeton & Yale are not more prestigious or intellectual than Williams & Amherst.

You could apply to Dartmouth College, an Ivy, if this schools appeals to you. For in-state options, I’d consider Florida Southern College & Rollins College. You could win nice merit packages at these colleges. UF & FSU, both large universities, don’t need to be your default options.

What’s missing from your profile are activities, leadership, & awards? These matter more than just a GPA, test scores, & future professional plans for most of the colleges you are currently targeting.

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Political opportunities are everywhere. Every single zipcode in America belongs to a congressional district, which means its citizens are being represented in Congress, and the congressperson has both district offices and staff in DC. Every governor in America maintains an office in DC which monitors legislation relevant to its state, and has a full staff in the state capitol. Every mayor, city council, etc. has opportunities for part time work, internships, summer jobs.

Take this off the table. You will find political opportunities wherever you land and wherever you look.

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@olibb

Could you please go back to the chance me/match me and complete all of the questions as they are presented in the template. This will give us complete information about your application info.

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I think that you may be overestimating the possible “boost” that an ED application would give you, for all of these schools. You need to realize that ED includes recruited athletes (who only need to pass an academic pre-read, and who are routinely admitted with lower GPAs/test scores than those who are not recruited athletes) and at many schools, ED also includes “legacy” applicants, because at some schools, legacy is only considered if the student is applying ED. This means that the overall ED test scores/GPA may look lower than the RD scores/GPA, but really, it would not be the case if the school were to filter out recruited athletes and legacy admits. So assuming that you are neither, there might be absolutely no advantage to applying ED, and were your application to be in the ballpark, you could easily wind up deferred to the RD pool.

All that being said, with you being absolutely sure that you want law school, you need to be looking at the long game - law school admissions, and preserving available family funding for law school. Law schools tend to admit based upon GPA and LSAT score. It matters less whether the GPA came from a highly selective school, or a school with grade inflation, or a state college, or a less selective private college. What matters is a 4.0 and a sky-high LSAT score. So you need to consider the competition for A’s at the college that you choose to attend. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t shoot for the best college that meets your needs; I’m just saying that if you’re planning on law school, one of your “needs” is a very high GPA. That might be more easily achieved at a less selective school, where the competition for the A’s might be more manageable, for you.

If you are interested in the political process, you need to consider schools located in the DC area or in state capitals, so that you can get involved as an intern throughout the school year, potentially for all four years, instead of just as a summer internship.

So, overall, I’m not sure that ED is the best idea for you. Georgetown has only a non-binding EA program, that does not preclude your applying EA at any other school - you are only prohibited from applying to binding ED anywhere else, if you’re applying EA at Georgetown. Wellesley, while located in the Boston suburbs, is not that easy a commute from Boston (state capital of MA). The traffic in Boston is horrible so driving is not a great idea, and it would take you nearly an hour on the commuter rail. Believe me, when you’re in college, most of your life takes place on campus - and Georgetown is an exciting place, and a walk or a short bus ride to the legislative buildings. Wellesley is definitely farther from the State legislative buildings, more of a barrier to regular involvement on an ongoing basis. Plus it only has binding ED. Amherst and Williams are much more remotely located.

So, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t limit yourself to one binding ED because I don’t think that it will boost your chances. I do think that you have a possible shot at any of these schools, because your GPA and ACT are excellent. I would do EA at every one of your schools that allows it. I’m hoping that you get into Georgetown, because of your very strong pre-law interest, and desire to get an internship in government/politics.

And of course, U Florida is an excellent alternative, and unless the tuition means nothing to your family, of course a great value. It’s a 2.5 hour drive from Tallahassee, making a year-round internship impossible, but Gainesville is a substantial city, so there would be the opportunity to get an ongoing city gov internship.

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I have heard this, thank you. I meant more so in the preparation for things like LSATS and other demands of law school.

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That’s what I meant sorry! Yes this is a better way to put it.

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Thank you so much for this! I didn’t know about the DC requirements and internships That’s definitely something I will look into. I also thought the political economy major was interesting.

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