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<p>Have you visited? This sounds like a safety school that you really could LOVE. Whitman is becoming more known. It used to be a Western secret, but all sorts of people from the midwest and northeast are discovering it.</p>
<p>These days, I am not so sure that the parental connections, or special meetings with admissions people, are a good idea. I would try to avoid these things and “do it on your own.”</p>
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<p>Aaah, but parents sometimes don’t feel they can be as blunt as others can be (remember the thread a few months ago about why parents tell their kids they are beautiful when they are really ugly?).</p>
<p>If the answers you are getting are “apply and let’s see” and “let’s see some first semester grades,” then I think we have the answer. Grades are a sticking point at the top colleges on your list and right now, you’re on the fence. Could go either way…</p>
<p>How crowded is the field of applicants from your school? Around here, people applying to LACs from public schools are almost nonexistent (for most schools) to relatively few (for traditional powerhouse publics). It’s hard to imagine that the OP would be competing with a lot of classmates at any of these colleges other than Williams or Middlebury.</p>
<p>I didn’t mention Middlebury or Dartmouth before because both of them are essentially like Williams all over again. The OP should apply to them if he wants, but that isn’t exactly a strategy.</p>
<p>I think the OP’s list is perfectly fine, except there ought to be a couple of somewhat lower-odds bets, and he should look for a safety he likes better than UVM. In the first category, I nominate Vassar (He will hate Poughkeepsie, but the Hudson Valley is beautiful, and I think jocky boys get a counterprogramming boost there.); Colorado College (He doesn’t like the course structure? Boo hoo! It will be fine when he gets there, and he will be a geographically diverse applicant, much more so than at Carleton.); and Whitman. </p>
<p>I have one more ridiculous reach, high-fit college to suggest: Deep Springs. The OP ought to get an interview with his profile. After that, it will be him, not his GPA, that will be being evaluated. It is cooler than any place his relatives went to; Mom would be able to brag about him at work. He will get enough outdoorsiness and intimacy in the two years there that he won’t have to pick his transfer college on that basis, and he will have a world of options for that.</p>
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<p>From Williams website</p>
<p>Sounds like you won’t lose anything by applying ED to Williams. If you are obviously out of their league, they’ll reject you. Otherwise, you’ll be punted over into the RD round where your first semester grades will factor into the mix if you don’t get in ED.</p>
<p>My advice: As an exercise, set aside all thoughts of prestige and think hard for several hours about this question: At which colleges will you really thrive? I asked my son this question a month ago and the end result was a little surprising. </p>
<p>His stats (rather like yours?) ACT composite=34; SAT reading/math=1450; SAT subject tests= 750; 750
Courseload: the most rigorous possible at a top Silicon-Valley high school where more than 10% of the kids in his class receive National Merit recognition.
GPA: 3.5 unweighted</p>
<p>We visited Whitman last week. He had narrowed his “college list” from over 30 schools to 17 by June, then whittled that down to 10 by mid-July. We had taken him to see the following schools during his junior year: Middlebury, Emory University, Duke University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Claremont-McKenna, Pomona. He had also visited a number of the University of California campuses (we’re California residents). The reason we went to visit Whitman is that near the end of July, he put Whitman at the top of his list and started talking about applying Early Decision. Without having ever set foot on the campus.</p>
<p>We were very impressed with the campus and the town. We went down into the bookstore in the belly of the student center, and my son carefully looked through all the required texts of the courses offered in the programs he’s interested in. Based on what I’ve seen and what I know about my son, I’d say the school is a great match for him, and he is a great match for the school. He still has Whitman at the top of his list.</p>
<p>In my opinion, Whitman is not a safety for my son, nor is it a safety for you. The reason is that while your standardized scores may exceed the mean at the school (a bit), your unweighted gpa, like my son’s, is significantly lower. And like it or not, there’s now quite a bit of published research available indicating that gpa can trump standardized test scores when it comes to predicting college success.</p>
<p>I agree with everyone else about applying to some reach schools. But try to find some matches and real safeties where you’d be happy and where you’d really get a great education. </p>
<p>My two cents. :-)</p>
<p>JHS: Most of the kids in the top 10% at my school are primarily looking into large research institutions - not my thing at all. But there are a few kids every year who apply to most of the schools on my list (except for Whitman, Carleton, and Macalester)… I think we’ve sent two to Bowdoin in the past few years, one to Middlebury, three to Williams, one to Dartmouth, two to Amherst, and 5+ to Colby, Colgate, Hamilton, and Bates.</p>
<p>Obviously, the primary thing I need to focus on here is finding some TRUE safeties that I could see myself attending…</p>
<p>Forgive me if this has been mentioned, but why not “use” your ED on Bowdoin and not Williams? You have a significantly better chance at the former.</p>
<p>I actually tend to agree with JHS, you should apply everywhere that you like including Dartmouth and I agree with JHS that you need a few solid safeties to balance out the reach and reach/matches. We don’t know you well enough to interpret how your entire application will be received especially if you nail your senior fall. If you were my son I would agree with having Whitman on the list and I would suggest Boulder has a safety, too bad you don’t like Colorado College but the University of Denver would also be a great safety for you maybe UC Santa Cruz or UC Santa Barbara if you’re interested in the west but don’t want the big urban U scene.</p>
<p>I’m going to put in another plug for Whitman. It’s filled with students just like you, TG-- bright, outdoorsy kids. You’d be in the Pacific Northwest, with all those mountains and with outings groups that go to them.</p>
<p>I visited Whitman a few months ago and I must say, I was pretty impressed with it. I’m certainly going to apply there… and with you all singing the school’s praises, it makes me even happier to think that my chances of getting in there are pretty good!</p>
<p>And as for ED1ing to Bowdoin - or any school for that matter - I’m not going to… I’m instead going to wait for my (hopefully good) first semester grades to be released. I’m also gonna attempt to find out if I can get these grades in before any EDII deadline that is in place at Bowdoin or Carleton, for example.</p>
<p>I like the plan! As Captain Picard would say, “Make it so, Number One.” Study hard and get those stellar grades.</p>