Just wanted to chime in to say that if you/she are interested in WPI, let me know. My older child is a senior there right now and we’ve been overall very happy with it - I’d be happy to discuss more (but don’t want to take over your thread if you aren’t interested). I’ll say that I think it’s a very LGBTQ friendly campus. For example, my son is in a fraternity - which stereotypes would tell you might be the biggest bro-culture and not LGBTQ welcoming place. But they have had more than one trans brother, they have a national philanthropy but have decided that The Trevor Project is more important to them so they’ve adopted it as a chapter philanthropy and they do a lot of fundraising and work for them, and they are just a generally good group of guys. And there are places/groups all over campus that are similar. (Plus Massachusetts is just a generally very LGBTQ friendly place to be. It’s a lot of flights for someone coming from AK, but at least Boston is a big hub, and it’s not hard to get to campus from Boston.)
I would recommend taking the calc BC test this spring if she can, as many colleges will use that for math placement — even if she has already advanced beyond that in actual math classes.
Edited to say that if the advanced mathematics classes are DE then what I wrote above is likely not an issue. My son ran into problems because all his advanced math classes were not DE but were taught at his high school.
Before or after the MIT fly-in, can she arrange to visit other nearby colleges of interest? Brown is only a short train ride away and I agree with others here that it would be an excellent choice for her. It has great APMA, CS, and computational biology majors (Brown calls them concentrations) and several combo concentrations as well: APMA/CS and APMA/Bio. There are no distribution requirements except for two writing courses — and some STEM classes can even fulfill them (including a couple of specially designated CS classes). Very LGBTQ friendly and an entire residential program house of kids who like board games and other similar interests where she can join as of February freshman year as out-of-house and then live in as a resident from sophomore years on. They also host a board game night once a week for the whole campus (ie, non-members), and there is at least one other organization that does the same on a different day).
As with MIT, definitely a reach, but since she’ll be nearby anyway, definitely worth a visit. I would just check the calendars and try not to be there during parents’ weekend if possible, which is coming up, as that skews the atmosphere.
Based on her interests, it sounds like computational biology or bioinformatics would be of interest to her. A lot of the strong programs are at ivies (Cornell, Harvard, Princeton) or the big flagships University of Washington and UCSD, but have her check out CMU (are purple states ok?) and University of Southern California and see how the net price calculations work. University of Rochester has a very math/statistics bioinformatics program - less computer science than some of the others, but has the flexibility she likes. Questbridge will obviously open a ton of options if you qualify.
Also don’t hesitate to look at schools where double majoring is easy - that’s what my daughter ended up doing to create her own computational biology program with degrees in Biology and Computer Science.
FYI, I would be wary of Brown at the moment given recent changes (see story linked below). Also, Hamilton requires three writing-intensive classes, which is two more than the standard freshman writing seminar required by most LACs. Yes, the classes can be in any subject area, but it was still a con to my writing-averse kid.
I would consider looking at Tufts if in the Boston area. I have a trans child and have vetted/visited many of the schools mentioned here in the northeast from that angle, so feel free to message me if you want first-hand impressions.
So ultimately she has to feel very secure, and if that means ruling out women’s colleges, that is fine.
But as another poster also suggested, my sense is these institutions (at least the sorts I named) are as deeply committed to welcoming kids like your daughter as any can be. And since they are not publics, and also not nearly as dependent on things like federal research funding, they are less subject to various forms of political pressure.
Again, though, if she wouldn’t feel secure, not a problem with me. But perhaps it would be worth doing something like talk to some current trans students, and see what they say about all this. Probably a good idea in general, really, not just for these schools.
I note there are various ways to make that happen, but one of the easiest is just to contact Admissions and see if they can put you into contact with a current student who can help. Among the pros of that approach is it is also a great way to demonstrate interest.
Just a thought!
Thank you for pointing that out. My kid just graduated, so my info is a few months old and yeah, things are changing quickly.
And yet, the post above about Brown is probably enough to at least give pause. Who knows where this administration will stop?
Yes, I was referring to Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke specifically. Scripps as well, and others in that peer group we have not named.
But I completely get the concern about Brown. That was part of why I intended to point out that LACs in general may have less exposure to the sorts of leverage discussed in that article, although I see now I could have been clearer.
And I don’t want to suggest that is a silver bullet either. I think it is a point worth considering, but seriously, whatever helps this kid feel most secure.
Answering some questions:
Questbridge/$: Family income qualifies, don’t know what they think of a grandparent investment account, but I found a way to fill out a contact form on their site and asked. I think the money is in some kind of investment account, not sure if it’s an official education one or not – just that the grandparent opened some kind of fund in the stock market somehow for each kid (I have another kid 1 year behind this one). I trust them. That said, I think the schools on Questbridge (at least a couple I checked) give good financial aid anyway, so I’m not sure it matters a ton in making a preliminary list to research?
Trans student policies: This is maybe a separate reason not to do any sort of binding programs like Questbridge or early decision – at least that gives her a bit of time to pivot. Maybe a good thought that non-Ivy League schools aren’t such big targets? This is a giant terrifying rabbit hole with no solid answer and potentially no safe way to exist in this country at all, depending on how things go. I think policies are a bigger worry than students – I think finding welcoming young people to hang out with is probably less hard than ensuring insulation against, say, a school being forced to give up names of all their trans kids to be added to a list of violent extremists. Also why I’d rather avoid non solidly blue states.
Yes, this is one she was curious about
Is there any reason not to wait until next year when she knows if the college she’s going to will care? Her math classes aren’t DE (some online for highschoolers, some self-study with MIT open courseware– our university system doesn’t have what she needs online), so it is relevant, but I figure she’ll have to talk to the math department somehow wherever she goes. She took multivariable calc and differential equations and is now studying calc-based probability and statistics, and will do some more math classes next year (linear algebra and discrete math maybe?).
That makes sense . The only concern might be as she moves further away from calc, how well will she remember the material for the exam if she ends up having to take it?
Would Canada or another non-US country with more progressive policies be something to look into? I know a lot of US students like McGill and UBC in Canada and St. Andrews (Scotland).
@DadTwoGirls usually has good information about Canadian schools.
Love the many suggestions with so much variety. Seconding University of Rochester and adding Case Western as a really good academic fit.
This site may offer you still further ideas:
If you qualify QB, it’s a no brainer. Free is free and you’ll find schools she might find later anyway.
Need aware schools you might like might say no anyway - if you are that low income.
If the grands simply have money aside but not in the kids name - they are simply paying - there’s nothing to disclose.
don’t pass by QB.
A student with mathematical interests could fulfill one of Hamilton’s writing requirements with a course in linear algebra, real analysis, or modern algebra.
Edited to reflect subsequent information.
Per the Catalogue and Standards for Written Work: “Only one writing-intensive course in mathematics … may count towards the required three courses. … At least one course must be outside the student’s area of concentration.”
But I take your point that the requirement can be filled in different ways.
I think it would be unlikely we could afford international tuition and living costs, and international students probably don’t qualify for financial aid. Out-of-state public schools have the same issue except for WUE schools.