Chance me: for a range of small colleges (3.90 UW, no tests, computer science, no hook) [OR resident]

[AustenNut]

Thanks for the list! When your kid visited the schools with an asterisk, were classes in session or were students on break?

If he’s thinking about Macalester and St. Olaf, he may also want to investigate Gustavus Adolphus, which I suspect would be a likely admit for him.

@AustenNut

To read more about Gustavus, check out posts #93 & 94 from the thread on schools with admit rates of 60-100% that people like and this post in the One(s) that Got Away thread. I definitely think it’s got the collaborative and kind student body, though I don’t know how quirky/nerdy it is in relation to your other options (I have no firsthand intel). And since the Niche student descriptors have had some traction on this thread, the top three for Gustavus are:

1. Invested students with varied interests (48%)

2. Full of ideas and motivated (16%)

3. Friendly, driven and know how and when to have fun (11%)

And though I (and many on this board) don’t put much stock in USNWR, it just came out with its annual rankings which I looked at earlier. So for some context here are the rankings for some of the schools on the list: St. Olaf (#49), Reed (#60), Gustavus Adolphus (#62), Lawrence (#68), and Whitman (#78). Essentially, it may not have as much name recognition on CC as some of the other schools, but it certainly has some strong students and outcomes.