College list guidance-undecided HELP [CO resident, 3.97 UW, 32 ACT, looking for Jewish population, rock climbing]

College Search & Lists
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College List Help - Trying to give my daughter some guidance on at least what schools to consider and research. She is truly undecided in terms of what she wants to study.
3.97 UW GPA
4.6 Weighted GPA
31 superscore ACT (likely not submit?)
Competitive rock climber (since 5 yrs old)
President of Climbing Club
President of Jewish Culture Club
VP of Jewish Youth Group
Rocky Mountain Youth Corp
Rocky Mountain Conservancy Leadership Corp
*other smaller EC of same genre

College criteria (not many)
Size- Large Medium to Large
Greek life -interested
Sports - good teams, fun to watch (not have to be Div I)
Jewish population - important
Weather - “nice” (ie no horrible winters)
Climbing - must be near climbing gyms, prefer also outdoor climbing too
Location - not too urban but want easy access to city/town with lots to do

Cost is not a major consideration.

THANKS!

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Is it any consideration?

Some private colleges in the US have list prices over $90,000 per year.

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Has she tried SAT? Some students do much better on one test vs the other.

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I assume that “no horrible winters” means that schools in the Midwest and east coast (ie upstate NY etc) are definitely off the list…? Is the south ok? Mid atlantic?

What about Tulane? They have rock climbing and a large Jewish student population. It may be a reach but might be worth looking into.

Other schools to look at with relatively large Jewish populations and rock climbing would be the U of Florida (reach?), UT Austin (reach?), UMd (reach?), and Towson (safety).

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This isn’t super-specific, but I’d suggest starting with locations that have climbing opportunities - I don’t think that will be too hard to find, so won’t narrow things down too much, but I do think it might eliminate or make some regions less attractive. I’d also suggest trying to identify universities where it is easy to change majors; it’s generally easy at small LACs, but that’s not what she wants. At large publics, it can be harder - especially if she’s looking at CS, sciences, or engineering. There may not be any issue with going from English to history to sociology, but if you throw biology or engineering or data science into the mix it can be harder to impossible (and, obviously, different majors can be impacted at different universities, but there seem to be definite themes). Once you combine those two and look for a significant Jewish population, maybe there’s a large-but-not-absurd list of schools to start researching?

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What is your home state?

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Wake Forest? They are legitimately accepting of test optional candidates, there is a larger than expected Jewish population and truly wonderful Hillel, might be a little smaller than desired but with a huge sports presence and a very active outdoor program ……

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UDel has an active Hillel, rock climbing wall and club. Very nice campus with an adjacent Main Street with ships and restaurants. Happy students. ETA 2250 Jewish students, 13% of the population.

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Screams UMiami if affordable.

Large Jewish presence, great sports. Coral Gables is beautiful and so is the school. Access to downtown Miami but campus is definitely suburban. It’s beautiful, medium-bigger school. They have a salon on campus, if that is a consideration :rofl:

Greek life is present but not mandatory, I’m sure there’s climbing somewhere near there.

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So, you might want to check Hillel.org which has info on Jewish populations at colleges.

As an example, I grabbed the page for Marist College which is 4% Jewish students (~250), 1 hr from NYC on the train, has tremendous study abroad programs, Div 1 basketball. Medium not Large. Looks like Hogwarts, same town as Vassar, and…it is close to the Shawangunk mountains. The people I know around NYC climb The Gunks. Again, just one example. Doesn’t check all of your boxes

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I was going to suggest Syracuse University until I saw not horrible weather but I would suggest looking into where Jewish sorities like AEPhi have chapters.

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William and Mary in Williamsburg VA (about 6900 undergrads) has a great climbing club with opportunities for competition. They are a D1 school. Football games are heavily attended, but it is not an SEC level rah rah type of environment. There is a very active Hillel and Chabad on campus. The Jewish population has been rapidly growing since they opened a beautiful Jewish center about five years ago. The Hillel college guide puts the Jewish population at 10 percent (650 students), but my rising junior says he thinks that the actual number is higher. He never bothered to join Hillel because he has made so many Jewish friends through other campus activities.

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Hi -

can you provide your weighting scale. When I see your #s it sounds like my kids - so would it be safe to assume a +.5 for Honors and +1 for AP - so maybe 10-12 APs?

31 ACT - you’d submit depending on the school.

So let’s look at a few things:

  1. Cost is not a major consideration - this means, you’re ok spending $380K, $400K potentially? If you’re not, set a budget.

  2. A great place to start is with the Hillel College Guide (I put below - you have to go deep in to see the lists) - which will give you the top 50 publics and privates - by percentage and overall populations. Use this directionally - not all schools are accurate. Also, you can google a school name and Hillel and get Hillel’s write up, etc.

So the guide will give you great ideas - like the Florida publics (UF, FSU, UCF, USF, Va Tech (might be a good area for rock climbing), the Arizona schools (U of A and ASU). And many more. Public school wise it misses many - Alabama (yes, the school has over 1000 Jewish kids and the very active Bloom Hillel). College of Charleston - where my daughter goes - 8-10% of the population is Jewish and it’s the only public, on campus Hillel in the country (or at least was) -and there’s others. CU Boulder - another great one - sounds like you are from out there. Private schools -AU in DC, U of Tampa, Miami. Schools like Emory and Vandy are great. Of course, many will be more North.

But what I’d suggest first is - if you haven’t, confirm the kind of campus your student likes. For example, are you sure they want large - have they seen, etc. I’d see schools of all sizes - even if on paper, they think they don’t want small. Some smaller schools are largely spread out. Some schools like Elon are - sort of - in an area by themselves - but 15 mins away from a town and less than an hour away from a few major metros.

When they say sports, does that mean they want football. Some have, some don’t. Like my daughter’s school - College of Charleston - rabid about mens hoops but they don’t have football. It’s very Jewish - but urban - but Charleston isn’t a big city and it’s in the tourist zone. it’s not a huge campus - like you’d see for example- I’m making an assumption that you live in Colorado - like a CU Boulder.

How important is rock climbing? I put a list below - when I combine what you seek and rock climbing, you might look at ASU (maybe too urban), Cal Poly SLO (lots to do, smaller city), Florida State, Florida Atlantic, Alabama, Arizona, UCSD, UCR, CU Boulder, UFlorida, Va Tech.

Right there alone are definite admits…and there are other schools too that could work outside this list of course.

But you need a starting point:

  1. Budget - it’s ok to say not a major consideration - but unless it’s of no consideration, you have to at some point, put a # - and your daughter will find schools $25K to $95K.
  2. How important is climbing - can they just climb at a nearby club or a wall in the gym? Or do they want to be outside climbing? Some schools will have “closer” climbing - a local Jewish student by me went to UT Chattanooga for this reason - but he didn’t covet Jewish life so that wouldn’t work for your student. My point being - does she need to be local to climbing or perhaps they have a club that travels?
  3. We know Jewish life is important
  4. Can they narrow in an area of the country?
  5. Does she want a Jewish sorority (like AEPhi or SDT vs. being in any sorority as a Jewish girl) - I put the aephi locator below - I’m sure there’s other sororities too.

Good luck

Hillel College Guide

Colleges With Strength in Climbing | CollegeXpress

Find a Chapter — Alpha Epsilon Phi (aephi.org)

Find a Chapter - Sigma Delta Tau

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I can suggest some from the climbing side because I have a competitive climber as well, although he wants a small to medium sized school. I can’t help on Jewish population so my apologies if this list doesn’t help.

Depending on what you think of as a horrible winter, University of Denver has a great team, William and Mary has an active club but there are no gyms in Williamsburg, Utah has the best team in the country but probably a small Jewish population. Wake Forest isn’t great for climbing, they have a small gym but the local gym isn’t great. Elon doesn’t have a gym on campus but they’re building one and there’s a pretty good gym about 25 min away and they have an active club and strong Jewish population. U of Richmond is convenient to good gyms and the Shenandoah Valley, it’s also very Greek. The UCs might be worth looking at.

I’m not sure if your daughter is a junior or senior but some general advice about climbing and college that we’ve kind of figured out in the last year is don’t count on the college gyms to be any good. My S25 didn’t see one that he didn’t think was super easy. Plan on looking at schools with gyms nearby and clubs that meet at the gyms. Good luck, I wish I could be of more help, it’s cool to see another serious climber on here.

ETA a good safety for your daughter may be the University of Arkansas, which apparently has an active Hillel and they do have a great gym on campus, heavy greek presence too.

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What about Brandeis, or is it too far north? It has a rock climbing club, and appears to be near a rock climbing gym as well as outdoor climbing venues. Might be a little on the smaller side, though.

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We live in Colorado

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Is she looking to leave Colorado? It would seem like CU Boulder or UD would be perfect unless she’s over the winter.

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CU Boulder is about 10 min from our house and she really wants to spread her wings.

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WashU has a large Jewish community and I think the sort of social vibe and urban-adjacency you’re looking for, and they evidently have an active climbing team, although I can’t vouch for whether the level is advanced enough. Winters are relatively mild. Could be attainable with a TO application, especially ED. But if the standard for climbing opportunities is Colorado, the outdoor venues that are accessible from STL might be disappointing.

Honors College at U of Utah would be a change of scene without a climbing downgrade. Not sure about the Jewish life question, though. Jewish students at the U feel safer than peers in other states but are still worried | KUER

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Not too much Jewish life in Utah (though there is a Hillel), but also far less antisemitism than elsewhere (California for example). However, the rock climbing is great - my D was a climber at the U and found SLC to offer amazing opportunities for both indoor and outdoor climbing (she went to Momentum a few miles from campus for evenings, Joe’s Valley which is 2 hours drive away was the go to outdoor place for many weekends).

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