It depends - a few of those aren’t urban. They have access to small city/town things but aren’t urban or adjacent.
Are you ok with that?
There are many schools listed through the thread.
IMO the best place to start consolidating schools to research is in a spreadsheet. Add notes as you do your research. You can always remove a school if you rule them out. Also stay on top of the deadlines and pay attention if merit or special programs have a different deadline from the main application.
This is the first sample that came up with a search. You can use it as a template and customize how you want. There are many templates out there, but I don’t want to link to one affiliated with a commercial site or service in case it may appear I am endorsing it.
1 Like
I agree that Wesleyan should be considered. Especially if you want an artsy vibe. Connecticut College is another good option. And I agree with the mention of Vassar and William and Mary. All great choices for an artsy kid.
Our DS went to grad school in Winston Salem (not Wake) and he loved the small city feel of Winston Salem.
@AustenNut mentioned Loyola Chicago…and I’m wondering whether Loyola Maryland might be worth a look see also.
1 Like
Wouldn’t there be a distinction between “safety” (100% chance of admission, affordability, and suitability) and “likely” (not assured admission or affordability, but highly unlikely to result in non-admission or non-affordability)?
So at our HS, you don’t need a Safety to get sign off on your RD list, you just need at least two well-chosen Likelies–assuming you have not been admitted anywhere yet, which is increasingly uncommon.
Of course if a college has auto admissions and you qualify, that is certainly one way it could be a Likely, and in cases like that you might be able to go with only that one college–although they will still encourage at least one more because choice is good. Similarly they strongly encourage kids to check out rolling admissions colleges, so if you get into one of those you can drop any other Likelies if you want. Also people get into other colleges earlier than RD, so those also cancel the need to have any Likelies in RD.
Because of the way our HS defines Likelies, at least for our kids they are more or less going to be what other people tend to call Safeties, but again they won’t necessarily have auto admit policies. If your comfort level requires an auto admit, though, that is fine. I note, though, we are well-informed that after the traditional March offer season, many colleges are still accepting applications. So if in the extremely unlikely event you somehow manage not to get any of your early or RD Likely colleges to give you an offer, then you can still quickly pivot.
All these have to be suitable academically and comfortably affordable, and really they are supposed to be more than that, they are supposed to be particularly good fits for some concrete reasons.
1 Like
A good chunk of the ones from the other thread and this one are in this post.
I totally agree with this. In fact, whenever you get a suggestion, I would just add it to the spreadsheet. You don’t need to complete all the details for every school, but at least then you have all suggestions in one place. And if you do a bit of research on a school and decide it’s not for you, then I would still keep it on the list, but do a strikethrough on it. That way you will know that it was considered, but eliminated. And if you end up changing your mind and want to consider a school, you will not have deleted any of your work…all you’ll have to do is undo the strikethrough.
3 Likes
I 100% agree with this. In fact, we recently visited Pomona, Pitzer and Scripps and each of those schools is wonderful in its own way, and each has things that seem to resonate with what OP is looking for. Individually, they may be too small for them, but collectively with the 5 Claremont Colleges, it really does offer a mid-sized university environment with 5 very distinctive home base colleges, that students can find which one matches them best. We are visiting Emory this summer, and many of the things my daughter likes about the Claremont Colleges are things that made her want to go see Emory (though she’s perhaps the opposite of OP in that Emory is at the large end of what she’s comfortable with). My hesitations for OP for Claremont Colleges would be: 1) it is on the west coast, and the list looks mostly east/south so not sure if they are willing to come to CA even though they are an AZ resident; 2) it is not urban adjacent. That said, train stops right in Claremont and students can easily train into LA (or drive for those who have a car). Claremont Colleges are a gem in my opinion, and while others would know better than I would, OPs information seems like at least some (if not all) of them would be feasible options to consider.
3 Likes
i’d love to hear what your daughter has to say about emory, even if it’s on the large end of what she wants. my parents are hesitant about me even looking at it (they don’t want me going to the south).
i don’t mind the west coast at all. not being urban adjacent is a drawback, but i know that going to a consortium like the claremont colleges would probably open up plenty of opportunities anyways, so it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker in that regard.
2 Likes
My two cents is Atlanta is a very cosmopolitan city. That may or may not persuade your parents, but I would personally see it as a quite desirable place to go to college.
2 Likes
Atlanta is not what you necessarily think of about the south. It’s a melting pot. Many companies have moved there - mine did from the northeast. It’s large area wise (sprawl) with all the urban trappings of traffic etc. Emory is a few miles northeast of downtown but the city has many areas such as Buckhead, Vinings and more. Lots of colleges.
3 Likes
@twothousandandzero I will report back on our Emory visit. I agree with others that Atlanta is not like what many west coast folks think of when they think of the south. Very national big city vibe with lots of folks who have come there from other parts of the country. It is the only place in the South we feel comfortable about our non-white daughter potentially going in the current national environment.
Also, I highly recommend you check out the Claremont Colleges. The distance from LA may ultimately be something you decide you don’t want, but they really have a lot going for them that you may decide outweighs that.
4 Likes
@twothousandandzero reporting back on our visit to Emory as I said I would. In the end, my daughter didn’t feel like it was a good fit for her. The campus was beautiful and seemed to have great facilities. But, the vibe felt too pre-professional and almost transactional to her. Both the admissions counselor and the tour guide spent a lot of time focused on all the business/corporate connections Emory has, and the admissions counselor spoke about it in a return on investment for how expensive it is terms, in a way that turned her (and frankly me and my wife off). Lots of discussion about the professional schools, pre-med, those who go to law school, MBAs, how much consulting jobs and others pay folks straight out of school. There is nothing wrong with any of that, and in fact my daughter is interested in developing a career direction in college, but it felt too focused on money way (the fact that they have a “Coke toast” sponsored by Coca-cola corporation as part of orientation, and highlighted that in the info session didn’t help). Both Atlanta schools we visited talked about connections to local employers for internships, employment, etc. But, Agnes Scott talked about it in a way of helping folks find and explore what they want to do and supporting them on that path, while Emory felt like it was essentially like, “look how many rich friends we have, we’ll connect them to you so you can be rich too.” To be clear, I don’t think that was their intent, and I certainly don’t think that is the heart of what it would be like to be a student there, I’m sure it would be a good place to go to school. But, that is how it came across to my daughter (and to us too honestly), so it really was not a good fit for her.
9 Likes