Calling all prep school Northeasterners: what schools are usually on everyones safety school list and mid range list?
Liberal arts schools and universities
I would guess that it depends on the prep school and the individual student.
samantha, most prep schools list matriculation data on their website. Any prep school in particular?
I analyzed the college choices of students at 10 “elite” US high schools based on matriculation data on their web sites.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19144668#Comment_19144668
(see post #78 and subsequent discussion)
This depends of course on what you mean by “mid range”. It’s also likely to depend to some degree on the high school or region. Let’s assume you mean alternatives to the 8 Ivies, other super selective private research universities, and the most selective LACs. So you might be referring to schools with average SAT CR+M scores at or below 1400, admit rates at/above 20%, and USNWR ranks in the T100 (but not the T20). Here are a few matching (or nearly matching) schools likely to appear high on many prep school matriculation lists:
NYU
USC (admit rate < 20%)
Michigan
Berkeley (admit rate < 20%)
Emory
Boston U.
George Washington
UVa
Lehigh
Case Western
Wesleyan (SAT M+CR ~= 1400)
Barnard
Colgate
Kenyon
Oberlin
Hamilton
Colby
Occidental
Reed
Connecticut College
Most of these 20 schools would be reaches for most students. But again, I’m thinking of preppies who might be realistic contenders for the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Williams, or Amherst.
As for true safety schools, I think those are more likely to be all over the map.
Consider your own state flagship (if it isn’t a very selective public university such as Berkeley or Michigan). Other than that … maybe some of the less selective LACs such as Hampshire, Sarah Lawrence, or Eugene Lang. A little more selective than those? Skidmore, Gettysburg, Lewis & Clark. A notch above that would get you to Colorado College, the University of Richmond, and some of the LACs I listed above.
All the NESCAC Schools plus many Patriot League like Lehigh, Colgate, Lafayatte them Gettsyburg, Dickinson, Muhlenberg, Franklin & Marshall.
I don’t think the schools are any different than public school kids from similar towns especially from NJ, CT and Mass.
Colleges by Concentration of Representation for One Northeastern Private School, Forbes’ #1 Ranked Trinity School (minimum 5 TS matriculants, 2011-2015)
- Hamilton
- Yale
- Harvard
- Colgate
- Columbia
- Brown
- Kenyon
- Amherst
- Dartmouth
- Penn
- Wesleyan
- Bowdoin
- Chicago
- Pomona
- Middlebury
- Williams
- Duke
- Princeton
- Emory
- Cornell
A guide such as Fiske (which lists overlap colleges) will help you find alternative choices to those above.
At our BS, a lot of the kids are"done" with small schools in non-urban areas after 4 years, so schools like BU, NEU, Pitt, NYU, American, Temple, etc. are very popular. For those who want to continue their college experience in a similar environment, the Nescac schools are popular as are the schools in PA (Bucknell, f@m, dickinson, lehigh, Lafayette ) and Ohio (Kenyon, denison, Oberlin ). But the concerns of these students are as personal as anyone else’s – affordability, inclusion, majors, size, location. … Most schools report % from private vs. Public, but I don’t really know what difference it makes. Note that few of these are real safeties… I think only 1 or 2 of the Nescac admit more than 20% of their applicants. Focus on fit.
If you want to identify realistic “match” schools, you may need to look farther down the preppie preference lists. Kenyon stands out in merc81’s list because it has a much higher admit rate than the others. However, that could be deceptive if it is attracting a self-selecting pool of strong candidates from competitive high schools.
The OP may want to consider slightly less selective colleges farther outside the NE such as Sewanee, Occidental, Whitman … Florida, Wisconsin, or Washington. It would help to know stats, size preference, budget, etc.
These colleges were listed under The College of Your Choice in the Preppy Handbook. For a well-qualified student, some would not be particularly difficult admits:
The Top Ten
Princeton
Hamilton
UVa
St. Lawrence
Hampden-Sydney
Lake Forest
Babson
Sweet Briar
Hollins
Pine Manor
The Runners Up
Amherst
Reed
Williams
Georgetown
Colorado College
Trinity (CT)
Colby
Vassar
Connecticut College
Wheaton (MA)
Note that at this time many of the above schools take pride in their diverse student bodies, even as some of them may have when the PH was published.
I think some typical NE preppy safeties and matches are Trinity, Hobart and William Smith and St. Lawrence, and possibly Rollins Collge
Regarding post 6, Yale had been miscalculated:
- Hamilton
- Harvard
- Colgate
- Columbia
- Brown
- Yale
- Kenyon
- Amherst
- Dartmouth
- Penn