I am sure the place that you ultimately land will be thrilled to have you and you will bring something special to that campus. Chin up. These things have a way of working out for the best.
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I applied to Oberlin, and I got an invitation to interview with Denison. Currently thatās scheduled for this February.
Also, Iāve been checking out Scripps a little bit. I really, really like it.
Thank you, that makes me feel better. Tonight hit me very hard. Iām slowly starting to realize that thereās a place for me elsewhere.
Youāll get into a good college. The feeling is always tough, I felt really sad for a couple weeks after not being able to go to Caltech -I was heavily recruited there and the coach kinda left 
-. Things will work out for you.
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I would recommend to people who like Carleton to also check out Kalamazoo. Probably not as your only other college, but my two cents is it is very much on the same branch of the college family tree. It has a nice campus in the cool college town of the same name, and like Carleton it is particularly academicky. For example, if you search for Kalamazoo on this list of PhD producers, you will see it alongside some illustrious names in a variety of fields:
It also has a really cool approach to integrated academic planning called the K Plan, and part of that is an extremely robust study abroad program:
And it offers all this . . . but it has an 80% admit rate! And a robust merit program as well!
OK, and to be frank, that high admit rate is in large part because it doesnāt get a ton of applications (3334 for a target enrollment of 382ācompare that to Carleton which got 8583 for a target of 532), and it has a low yield (14.3%, compared to 37.3% for Carleton). That combination means Kalamazoo HAS to admit a higher percentage of its applicants, indeed a multiple of Carletonās admit rate, to fill its classes.
But that low yield is precisely because well-informed kids who are applying to places like Carleton, Grinnell, Oberlin, Kenyon, Macalester, Denison, St Olaf, and so on often have Kalamazoo on their list. So, often they end up choosing another such college. But not always, particularly if they end up scoring a big merit offer from Kalamazoo.
In fact, take this with a grain of salt, but according to Parchment, 33% of cross-admits between Kalamazoo and Carleton choose Kalamazoo. There is a wide confidence interval on that, but at least anecdotally, that happens when people get really good merit offers from Kalamazoo, which Carleton does not offer, and on reflection they feel like they canāt turn down such an offer.
Other numbersā40% against Grinnell, 43% against Macalester and Kenyon, 50% against St Olaf, 63% against Denison (!), 76% (!!) against Oberlin . . . a lot of these have too small a sample to be statistically significant, but collectively they paint a pretty consistent picture that supports my point: well-informed kids who like these sorts of LACs are sometimes wooed by Kalamazoo, not least because of merit.
Anyway, that sounds like I am making some sort of fanatical pitch for Kalamazoo, but I am actually using them to make a point. The experiences and opportunities you get from a Carleton are attractive, but they are not unique to Carleton. And in fact, colleges like Kalamazoo are competing in this space among well-informed prospects by providing such experiences and opportunities AND merit money.
So thatās pretty cool too, and it just reinforces the point that there are very much a variety of different ways to get a great result out of looking at colleges like these.
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My D applied to Carleton RD last year. Others in the Midwest that she liked enough to apply to were Oberlin, Denison, Kenyon, Beloit, Grinnell, and Macalester. I agree that Kalamazoo is worth consideration (I had another kid who applied there as well as to Knox College and College of Wooster in the Midwest, and we found a lot to like about all of those).
Scripps does seem great - we saw it while touring Pomona. If you like Scripps, what about some of the other historically womenās colleges? And I might also suggest Dickinson. (Iām trying to focus on easier admits here for the most part, but know that some of these are need aware which may affect your admission chances).
My kid felt really knocked down in December last year. I get it. She was deferred at 2 (one reach and one target) of her 3 early schools. There was a lot of angst and a few more schools added to her list. So many essays to write while not feeling great. And also, she did revise her personal statement a little and tweak a few activity descriptions before putting in the rest of her applications. In the end she had lots of amazing schools to choose from (and plenty of waitlists mostly from need aware schools) and ended up somewhere she is loving. You could start a new thread asking for recommendations if you want to revise your list, too.
And to the future Carls who got in, congratulations !
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Yes, just thinking in terms of acceptance rates and covering contingencies, apparently Scripps was 28%, which is not the lowest but still pretty low. So if that was of interest I would suggest at least considering Bryn Mawr (31%) and Mount Holyoke (40%). I note all of these are in some form of consortium.
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Congrats to you! 
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āThe experiences and opportunities you get from a Carleton are attractive, but they are not unique to Carleton.ā
This is exactly what I needed to hear. Last night, I was convinced that Carleton was the only option for a LAC of its kind. Yes, its unique, but there are plenty of other options.
I will certainly check out Kalamazoo! Thank you.
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Thatās what Iām going to do. Iāve made a shortlist with some colleges that Iām interested in, and weāll see what the community thinks about them in regards to my stats.
Iām also wondering how I can find someone to look at my personal statement. My guidance counselor and English teacher have already, and I donāt want to ask them again. They think that itās fine. Would someone in the community here be a good resource for that?
Also check out College of Wooster, thereās a poster here whoās son is a freshman and very happy. He was also looking at midwest LACs last year, you might search for the user andygp (sorry I donāt know how to tag him)
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Yes - click on the link below and follow the instructions. Best of luck with the rest of your process!
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I know you have another thread where people gave you a lot of ideas for schools. I would take a look again. Carleton was a big reach for you (as it is for many) but I am sure there are some great options for you!
Maybe a @mod could merge all the great suggestions from this thread with her other one.
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Not that I donāt understand why it has evolved this way, but as a sympathetic parent, this is part of what I really donāt like about this whole ED thing.
The proper way of thinking about all this is you have a huge menu of available choices for your college applications. And you need to cut that way down to a manageable list that makes sense for you and your family, but there is really no reason why every college on your list cannot be a great option.
ED, though, then makes you pick one particular name on your list to treat as special, even on a very carefully chosen list. And of course it is fine to have preferences on your list, but if you did it right, any college on the list is at most just one of your favorites.
OK, so you didnāt get into one of your favorites. Thatās not something you need to be thrilled about, but nor should it really be that big of a deal. Indeed, if you are like most people, you will have pushed the boundaries of what is likely with some of your favorites, so it is nearly inevitable you wonāt get into one or more of your favorites.
Which, again if you have done your list right, wonāt be something you actually care about in the future. You will just be loving the college you actually attend, and will almost never even have a passing thought for the other colleges to which you applied (successfully or not). Among many other things, this is a great forum for hearing such storiesāso many kids that parents talk about here are loving their colleges, because they and their families took the care necessary to make sure they were applying to colleges that made sense for them. And now that is all paying off for them.
So ED creates this false sense of this being your best possible outcome, and it is necessarily all downhill from here. That is completely wrong, very likely this is instead nothing but another little narrowing of your list that wonāt in any way prevent you from becoming yet another such wonderful college success story.
But again, I totally get why it can feel worse than that in the moment.
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Thank you!!