The irony here is that you are making this thread more about someone who may or may not be representative of all religious students at Wesleyan. Indeed, the source of everything we know about “Tom” is Roth himself who is obviously using him to prove a point; that teaching religious texts as historical artifacts rather than received truth will land on different ears in different ways. The OP has already indicated that he is “fine with it”.
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Our son attended Caltech. We paid full fees. It is a research institution.
Everyone at that school would qualify for merit. They are all National Merit Winners (including son). They are all the top 1% to 5% with strong HS rigor.
Because it’s such a small school, every award winner is there, and is educationally being financially sponsored by those corporations. They can afford to go there because they are being sponsored.
There were less than a handful of students that he knew of who were funded by need-based dollars, per his information. Those students had work-study and he knew them well because they were on his floor.
Our son transferred out because he was expecting a typical small university experience. He didn’t expect a stressful, pressured, solitary, research experience.
Find a university that is affordable and fits you, not one that your classmates are socially pressuring you to apply. (Son had 4 years of foreign language.)
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It sounds to me like you and your parents are being very sensible, particularly since you have a very good affordable option. I am also quite anti-debt, although I do understand that sometimes it is necessary. I have compared debt to a chainsaw. Sometimes you need it. If you are going to use it, make sure that you know what you are doing and be cautious.
Both daughters after graduating with their bachelor’s degree had opportunities that they were only able to take advantage of because they had no debt. One took a dream job that paid terribly (they could pay terribly because the job was that interesting). This led to a second job, which was valuable experience for the graduate program that she is in now. The other got to travel to Europe for a few months because she had no debt and had banked some cash to pay for the trip from a paid research project that she had done in university.
Prestige is mostly for high school seniors, management consultants, and investment bankers. The rest of us should be more interested in a good fit, a good program in your major, and affordability.
One daughter was just as anti-debt as I am, and attended a small university in Canada both because it was a good fit and because it was affordable (we have dual citizenship). She got a great education (including the paid research project over one summer). However, during her senior year of high school her friends were bugging her and asking “where?” and “why?”. I told her that as soon as we got to the border this would change to “great school”. We got to the border and told them we were there to attend orientation, and that she would start university in September. They asked “what school?”. She pointed to her t-shirt. The next two words out of the border agent’s mouth were “Great school!”. He and I had not rehearsed this, but couldn’t have done better if we had. The agent who checked us into our B&B that evening said almost the exact same thing.
It sounds to me like you are being sensible, and will have at least one and perhaps multiple very good options. You have earned this with your great effort in high school.
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I think that, through a combination of the encouragement in this thread, research into the many other options available to me, and the specific needs of someone in my major, I’ve almost entirely given up on that idea of prestige. I only think one of the schools I’ve ended up applying to is T20, and only a couple more are T30.
Thanks for this insight; I appreciate the perspective. (I never really wanted to go to Caltech specifically, I more meant it as an example of a prestigious, extremely selective university that I have friends targeting.) I suspect that for a variety of reasons, an institution like Caltech would be a notably bad fit for me.
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Thanks for this example, too! It’s really heartening to hear these stories that are about people going to universities based on fit (and scholarships/aid/etc) that aren’t just the big names, and having positive outcomes. I’ve been getting a lot more excited about my prospects lately, and I have a few that I think are on my short list of targets that would be a good fit for me.
Thank y’all:)
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Okay so got some more results:
TAMU (accepted)
SMU (accepted, 30k merit, honors, invited to apply for Presidents’)
UMinn (accepted, 15k merit, honors)
Georgetown (deferred)
UGA (accepted, honors, we’ll find out about Fellowship soonish)
Drake (accepted, 34k merit, invited to apply for other scholarships)
Trinity (accepted, 33k merit, chance at Tower)
Bama (accepted, 28k, honors, applied for the Witt Fellows program)
Macalester (accepted, 20k merit, but a less than stellar aid package)
Been super excited with these results, and super hyped to see what comes next!
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Congrats - so who is coming in at your $20k max all in.
Assuming no need, I’m guessing:
Bama.
Not sure about A&M with total costs.
SMU with Presidential would be a home run
Same with UGA if you win. And Trinity - which is much smaller than the rest.
So if your budget is truly strict, short of winning the full tuition/rodes, your decision may be made for you.
Or what am I missing?
You mentioned Mac - very small. If you liked it, then Trinity if it comes through would be that sub.
Great results.
Best of luck in deciding.
So here’s what happened: I quoted that cost, and my parents meant that they only wanted to pay that much in tuition, and that they could pay the cost to feed/house me. I don’t think that budget is extremely strict. As we’ve gotten these acceptances (I guess we’re still waiting on aid packages from SMU/Trinity), they haven’t been too concerned about any of it. I’m the first kid to go to college, we don’t have like a set budget. I appreciate your concern about the limit, though.
If I ended up going to A&M, and costs were a problem, I could live at home.
I agree that any of the full rides would be amazing, especially because I’m considering law school
Thank you!!
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It may be helpful to you and others to list your admissions with the net prices after applying scholarships and grants in order to make the comparison more obvious.
Also, if you have younger siblings, you and your parents need to be careful to avoid overspending on your college, so that your younger siblings can be treated fairly (by how your family determines “fair”) in college funding.
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Best of luck - are you waiting on any more schools?
The good news is - you’ll have a home.
And given you are going to law school, where you go undergrad won’t matter - Harvard, Penn, UVA - the top law schools have students from well over 100 schools of all names, sizes, prestige levels.
So you’re in a great spot.
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Great to hear and great example of why discussions with parents are much more important regarding finances than the opinions of strangers.
Well done!
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Yes around 10 more, my top choice right now is W&L (had an awesome interview!!) so we’ll see what happens
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You need the Johnson there?
Well good luck - thanks for your updates.
If you like W&L, then hopefully Mac or Trinity come through with enough $$ - sounds like you want the small vs. the large.
I don’t think I’d need the Johnson because they have good aid packages, but I’m sure it would help!
Yes, I’m pretty sure I’d like a small school environment. I’ll find out more in February, when I go to Trinity for the Tower thing
Thank you!!
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There are current W&L students and parents participating on the site. Let us know if you have questions. 
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Just so you know, not everyone agrees with this statement, and specifically I do not.
It is true that going to a college that sends a relatively high number of applicants to highly selective law schools is not a guarantee you will be one of those people. It is also true that going to a college that sends relatively few applicants to highly selective law schools is not a guarantee you will not be one of those few.
However, I do not think it is safe to assume that means every college is therefore an equally good choice for you.
First, I think you should reflect on where you think you are most likely to thrive. This is really critical for highly selective law schools, but also many paths.
Second, I think your margin for error could be higher at some colleges.
Like, for example, suppose you have a somewhat rough transition to college, as many do. Maybe in general, or maybe you start in what turns out not to be your best choice of majors, or so on. You then recover and finish very strongly.
I think in scenarios like that, going to a college that sends relatively many people to highly selective law schools could be an advantage. Again, no guarantees at all, but maybe.
Anyway, that’s my perspective on all this, and I thought you should hear it for balance.
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Your gpa, LSAT, and for some today work will be what matters.
We can agree to disagree but a higher % come from higher tier schools because as undergrad students, they were higher tier to begin with.
But all have the same opportunity - gpa, lsat wise etc or as one prof told me, that kid with the 99th percentile LSAT can name their school.
But I appreciate your opinion and civility.
And btw all these schools are solid in that regard so not really a concern vs say a Lamar or Tarleton State.
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Agreed in full with @NiceUnparticularMan entire post.
As highlighted previously law schools like Harvard and Yale have traditionally populated 50%ish of their law school classes with students from 11 schools (8 ivies + Duke, Stanford, Chicago). Those schools represent only about 1/10th of total students.
Hope that math provides some context.
Also worth considering that some schools may afford you greater optionality post grad if you opt not to go to law school.
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My daughter is at Trinity and my son and I will be at the Trinity Tower day as well, if you have any questions I’m happy to help if I can. I’m also a W&L alum so while my info is not as up to date as many on this board, I can wax poetic about Lexington and small schools in general
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That is certainly one plausible hypothesis, and in fact I am confident that factor contributes. But I believe it is inconsistent with the known results to insist it is the only contributing factor.
Specifically, I believe the number of successful applicants from a variety of colleges is too low to be explained solely that way given the number of highly qualified students who choose to attend those colleges for a variety of reasons, including favorable in-state costs, merit/honors offers, just preferring that sort of experience, and so on. Again, I would agree we would not expect the per capita rates to be identical. I just think the difference are way too large even still.
Absolutely. Many, many people change their minds about academic and career paths in college, sometimes quite dramatically. I think this is one of the better rationales for choosing certain well-regarded colleges–not so much the crude notion of generic prestige, because that usually doesn’t work. But to the extent you can spend some time figuring out what actually makes the most sense for your developing talents and interests, then still finish well and be well-positioned for whatever comes next, that’s a lot of potential value.
That said, I am also very supportive of not paying so much for that sort of college it actually limits your options instead. Like if you feel like you have to follow certain paths to make a sufficient “return” on your investment.
So to me the tricky bit is balancing all these concerns to maximize your potentially useful options. And that will lead to different college choices for different kids and families, and that is fine.
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