@merc81 Cool!
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I am not a fan of Skinner!
I would like to put in a plug for the Claremont Colleges. The right size, suburban but close to LA happenings, all the programs/things/majors. She could look at Scripps for a match, the others for match/reach, and finally Pomona as far reach for anyone.
It’s liberal arts, a smaller feel within each college, yet the benefit of a larger school. Each campus has a unique personality and strengths (Google Claremont Scooby Doo for a fun twist and take on personalities), but cross registration is real. It’s very common and easy to take classes on anywhere.
The only unknown is the Ultimate factor but club sports are super fun and engaging there.
I have a kid on one of the campuses and am a therapist and have had clients head to the same one and other campuses- ALL of them are happy as can be. It’s a really really special place.
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Of the Claremonts, Pitzer appears to offer the strongest program for the study of psychology.
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@5280Gr8t Thank you - we’re not very familiar with the Claremonts, but it’s an interesting model. I think we might try to do tours of Oxy (she walked through Oxy once but no formal tour yet) and the Claremonts, but unfortunately it will likely have to be in the summer. DD has a friend who is a freshman at Pitzer and it sounds like she’s having a good experience so far!
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Good friend’s daughter went to Scripps and loved it. Recently completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at an Ivy League school.
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A quick update - thank you again for all the helpful feedback here! We just completed a week of touring New England schools. We didn’t make it to New York due to time constraints, but she visited the following (we included some larger schools in case she liked them more that expected): Northeastern, BU, Tufts, Wesleyan, Connecticut College, Amherst, UVM, Middlebury, Dartmouth (legacy), and Brown. She concluded that she prefers medium to small size as we suspected, but she liked most of these schools. Her two favorites by a mile were Tufts and Middlebury though, and she feels that she would be very happy at either despite their differences. She is currently planning to ED to Tufts and keep Middlebury as an ED2 possibility. She hasn’t quite found a solid list of targets and safeties that she loves yet, but we’re planning to tour Whitman near us soon as well as Lehigh and Lafayette when we’re in the Philly area for a family visit next month. Any other target or safety options near Philly that we’re overlooking? She has other schools on her list still, but we might not get back to the east coast again before application season.
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Dickinson one way, or Franklin&Marshall the other, when you go visit Lafayette/Lehigh, should be accessible.
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If looking for a slightly easier admit consider looking at Muhlenberg which is very close to Lafayette and Lehigh. As noted above, Franklin and Marshall and Dickinson are also fine LACs but I believe they are each about 90 minutes away.
Clark in MA is strong in psychology and would be a safety.
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Our area sends a lot of kids to Tufts.
IMO, your D is a strong candidate for Tufts.
- Strong academics
- Full pay
Im not sure what their reputation is but every family we knew whose kids got admitted to Tufts were all full pay students.
Im sure there are many non-full pay kids who get in, but Im just sharing what we observed.
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I agree - Tufts is a solid chance ED.
Tufts definitely loves the full pay families. It has a much richer student body than most but is need blind. Less than 33% of first years got aid, per the CDS.
Interestingly they don’t list ED stats in the CDS or on their student profile but I’m guessing it’s over half of admits. Wealthy kids apply early.
Just over half submit tests so that’s another win you have.
And they track interest. So hopefully you did an official session.
Good luck.
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St. Joseph’s is a Jesuit college (like Georgetown, Holy Cross, and Boston College) that is in Philly and could be worth a gander. It would be an extremely likely admit for your D.
Gettysburg might also be worth looking into. I think it would be a likely admit for your D.
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Haverford - a reach but less so than Tufts and Bryn Mawr (I’d say likely) are there - and for pure safety Ursinus. Not suggesting it as it’s regional but as you asked for Philly area names. If you want bigger - again not saying it’s a fit but TCNJ is a bit bigger and 45 mins from Philly.
But I do think Haverford and BM could be worth a look in addition to Lehigh and Lafayette. All four are possible acceptances.
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Deleted, misread post I was replying to.
DD26 has now seen most of the colleges we had time/resources to visit prior to application and has put together a list she would love feedback on. She goes to a very large urban public school that has only been open for a few years, and her college counselor told her that they don’t yet have any Naviance or similar data that would be helpful for admissions predictions. The good news is that she found a lot of schools that she really liked and feels she would be very happy with, including some that we think she has a good chance of getting into, like Whitman. How does this list look in terms of balance? All we’ve really found to inform “balance” is College Vine, but those predictions seem off - for example, it suggests that her current list does not include any “reach” schools, which we know from our reading on CC is untrue! Thanks in advance, and please advise if this would be more appropriate post for a new thread. These are listed in the order of her likelihood of acceptance according to College Vine:
Whitman College
University of Vermont
Occidental College
Macalester College
Middlebury College (possible ED?)
Colorado College
Haverford College
Carleton College
Tufts (possible ED?)
Dartmouth College
Amherst College
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I only looked quickly but didn’t see it called out, but Clark in MA has a big strength in psychology and think someone who liked Tufts, may also like Clark. I think it is one of the oldest psych departments out there,
Freud made a notable lecture there, at behest of Jung: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.44.17.0004
Kid would likely get great merit.
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Please don’t rely on College Vine to provide admissions chances. It’s a good starting point to get a general sense of how colleges stack up, but there are many nuances that its AI models won’t fully recognize or factor.
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Thank you @arcadia. I hear you on that advice! And, that’s exactly why we’re seeking feedback here on whether this list seems reasonable/balanced. We have looked at acceptance rates, test score/GPA ranges, etc. for each school as compared with those our DD has - any other recommendations for sources that could guide her? Unfortunately her school counselor is not able to provide guidance on this front.
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A good way is to look at the 25-75 stats range and the acceptance rate.
If the acceptance rate is sub 20%, it’s a reach for everyone and odds are low for everyone. If it’s around 25%, you better be well above the top 75 percentile to make it a target. If the acceptance rate is 50% and you’re in between the average and the top 75% it’s a likely and if you’re around the average it’s a target.
Just as an example not an iron clad rule! 
Sites like Vine rarely consider the acceptance rate and the inherent lottery aspect to a sub 20% acceptance rate (it’s not a lottery: Adcoms know what they’re looking for, what their institutional priorities are, etc. But for the applicants, it’s indecipherable. )
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