Congratulations! Carleton is an absolutely wonderful college – among the very best in the US. Fingers crossed that’s his choice. But the others are good, too.
Hey - Just coming back to keep my promise to update this LAC thread with my Son’s final choice: as you can guess from my avatar, he picked Beloit College, which edged out Carleton College (despite my best intentions and yet-not-very-well-hidden bias for Carleton).
I’ve posted longer visit stories elsewhere, but he narrowed his choices to revisit five as an accepted student: Beloit (first visit - turned into the school to beat), Juniata (liked it, but just not quite as much as Beloit), ConnCollege (knew within about an hour - not his people), Wheaton College (came close to matching Beloit; but he preferred the vibe at Beloit), and Carleton, where he couldn’t decide based on the visit, because he liked them both for different reasons.
After returning from the visits and mulling for a few days, we had a long family meeting to compare the two side-by-side, and while my Son will say he felt more at home at Beloit with the smaller class sizes, I think he is more comfortable with the idea of likely being near the top in his classes instead of clearly in the middle, even though he thoroughly enjoyed the deeply intellectual classes he attended at Carleton.
And my husband is thrilled that means our merit aid chase was successful! And I'm thrilled that my son weighed his options, seriously considered that he *could* have fit in at Carleton, but decided for himself that Beloit is where *he* wants to attend. Plus, yes, even my rational side is really happy about the cost.
I also thought next year's crop of somewhat average to almost, but probably not quite CC-level excellent students might want a record of his merit awards listed in one place.
Just a reminder: (unhooked white male from Northern Virginia, looking for LACs with science/nerdy/intellectually curious vibe, preferably no frats, and not too artsy/sporty;
31 ACT/3.89 GPA UW/4 APs, which is all that is offered at his small school/Robotics for 4 years, and community service of 35 hours/year.)
Cost of Attendance is approximate, including tuition, room, board, and fees.
Beloit College ATTENDING
COA ~57,000; merit: 27,000;
Net price: ~30,000 annually
- 2,000 summer grant: nice little bonus
Carleton College
COA ~64,000; merit: none
Net price: ~64,000 annually
Wheaton College in MA
COA ~64,000; merit: 27,000
Net price: ~37,000 annually
Brandeis University
COA ~68,000; merit: 10,500
Net price: ~57,500 annually
Connecticut College
COA ~65,000; merit: 20,000
Net price: ~45,000 annually
University of Vermont Honors College
COA ~54,000 for OOS; merit: 18,000
Net price: ~36,000 annually
Juniata College
COA ~54,000; merit: 25,000
Net price: ~29,000 annually
Allegheny College
COA ~59,000; merit: 28,000
Net price: ~31,000 annually
George Mason University Honors College
COA ~23,000 for in-S; merit: none
Net price: ~23,000 annually
Hamilton College
WAITLISTED
William & Mary College
WAITLISTED
Haverford College
DENIED
Thanks for reporting back. Congrats to you and son and on the saved $$!
That was very nice of you to provide details to help others. Best of luck to your son. Beloit sounds like a great fit for him!
Congratulations! Sounds like a really thoughtful process. Your kid sounds a bit like mine in some respects (their lists have about a 30% overlap) and I was pretty sure he’d love Beloit, but it never really caught fire with him (didn’t visit). But the adult Beloiters I know are among my favorite people – thoughtful, original thinkers all of them. Sounds like a great fit.
Thanks for the thorough report, it’ll be really helpful for others.
and CONGRATULATIONS to your son!!
Thanks for generously sharing all of this and for being so helpful. Wishing your S all the very best at Beloit!
CoyoteMom, I (along with so many others, I’m sure) so appreciate your thoughtful thread with not only the details on what you were searching for, but what you found and what your son decided upon. I have a daughter (D18), rising senior, who is looking for a lot of what your son is looking for, so I read this entire thread with great interest. We are going out this summer to visit Beloit (along with Grinnell and some Ohio schools), so are delighted to hear about your son’s decision. My daughter is fairly pragmatic, and that elusive “fit” is so important for her in a small LAC, so I could see her choosing Beloit over other, traditionally more selective options if the “fit” is right. Once I realized that “fit” was really of the utmost importance to her, categorizing into “reaches,” “safeties” and “matches” became secondary to a close examination of the culture and community at each school (she rejected my alma mater, Brown, halfway into the tour on that basis).
Congratulations on a well thought-out and executed college search! And on what seems like a wonderful decision. (Btw, on paper I thought Carleton would be a great fit for my D18, but she visited and didn’t like it for some reason. Who knows? She is eager to see Grinnell and Beloit).
CoyoteMom, thanks so much for updating the thread and congratulations to your son! I’m always thrilled when I hear about a kid really giving thought to fit and it sounds like he has found his! This thread (and your experience) will be helpful for many. Best of luck to your DS.
@CoyoteMom, great outcome - congratulations and good luck to your DS!
@coyotemom, thanks for all of the information & congratulations!
Where did you son end up?
@bobbyray54 See post #81 –
@bobbyray54 - CoyoteSon picked Beloit over Carleton (which still gives me a small twinge of regret because Carleton is amazing! But even though my 18-year old self would have picked Carleton, I’m not the one going to college 
)
I am proud of my son for picking the school where *he* will thrive because it is his choice for himself. We both fell in love with Beloit's Anthropology museum, which literally has thousands of artifacts from all over the world displayed in a 2-story glass "cube". Beloit just seemed full of quirky students, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club which meets 6 days a week with rotating activities is a big draw for CoyoteSon, who is far less likely to make friends without the structure of a "club meeting" to attend.
Thanks to everyone who shared congratulations, including experienced CCers, and especially to @porcupine98 and @Mom24boys (we didn’t make it to Grinell, but have heard that’s a great LAC too!) for sharing the good thoughts you had about Beloit and Beloiters, given that you had students of your own with somewhat similar profiles.
Good luck to @Momtothreegirls as your D visits both Beloit and Grinnell in her search. I think the elusive “fit” is worth chasing, especially for students like mine, who need to feel very comfortable in order to thrive - I think with LACs it is important to find the right “vibe” because the schools are so small, so the student needs to increase the odds of finding potential friends.
Thanks again to everyone on CC who shared so much information, which certainly made CoyoteSon’s college search much smoother!
We are especially excited to see the Anthropology museum. And my daughter is certainly quirky, and into science fiction too 
This thread is especially interesting to me as my wife was a Beloit grad many years ago, and S1 and I were recent visitors to Carleton, which impressed us both.
For the record, Beloit took very good care of my then future wife, and allowed her to excel to the point that she was accepted into one of the top medical schools in the world. It will be under strong consideration for S1 as a safety, though he sounds like he is a very different type from OP’s son.
Carleton is certainly appealing, but I get that people on the coasts don’t want to come to a remote place in the country that is colder than many parts of Canada. If Carleton was located in CA or the northeast it would be overwhelmed with applications…but then it probably wouldn’t be Carleton any more.
I am impressed that the OP’s son went for fit before prestige. One can be absolutely miserable at a top school, and flourish at a so-called “lesser” school. On a more mercenary note, 30K/yr. is kind of nice to have around for a rainy day.
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One can be absolutely miserable at a top school, and flourish at a so-called "lesser" school.
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^^^THIS. So important to keep in mind.
@57special Unfortunately Carleton is coveted by people on the coasts now, making it very hard to get into. I wish it was a hidden gem.
I apologize for barging in (newbie, not many posts), but congrats on your son’s choice to attend Beloit. Twenty years ago, I had to choose between Knox and Beloit (I chose Knox), but I loved both. Beloit had a slightly hipper vibe, which apparently is still strong. Beloit also had a prettier campus (though I was charmed by Knox’s down-to-earth midwestern plainness, if that makes sense), which was very hilly, tree-ish, and New England-y. Beloit has a nice national reputation and draws from well outside WI and the midwest. It’s a solid choice. The midwestern LACs are overlooked, and they offer merit money to boot! I don’t think Carleton offers merit money, though, so I wouldn’t regret son not choosing it. Again, congrats.
@Hapworth, Grinnell, Kenyon and Oberlin are all top-30 LAC’s that offer substantial merit money.