My daughter is an IB diploma candidate with a 3.6 average not weighted. She likes school of education, fine arts and history. Would like a medium sized school in the northeast with no Greek life. Any suggestion?
Fordham is strong in all of those areas, has no Greek life, under 10K students, and a median HS GPA in the right range. They have non-binding Early Action with a higher acceptance rate than in the regular cycle.
If the goal is to become a credentialed teacher, it’s helpful to consider where she would like to teach, and look at programs in that state.
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Skidmore has an educational studies major, no greek life, and is known for its fine arts department. It is located in Saratoga Springs, NY, a lovely town. I’m not sure how the 3.6 for an IB student would work out in terms of admissions. IB students can “over perform” in admissions because the program is known to schools as one which prepares students for the multi-tasking and heavy reading and writing demands of a liberal arts education.
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What are her HLs and SLs? Any idea what scores she can expect ?
What’s your budget?
Possible:
Dickinson
Wheaton, MA
Wooster
SUNY Geneseo
U Vermont
Umaine Orono (safety)
USouthern Maine (safety)
Connecticut College (reach)
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Fordham was going to be my top recommendation for her
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@Ckoundo if your D is interested in teaching I would suggest compiling a list of all the teaching programs in the state and or states she wants to teach. On top of the usual stats you might look at from a college (freshman retention rate, graduation rate, etc). Look up their pass rates for the teacher certification. Here’s a list by state to get you started.
NJ
TCNJ
Seton Hall
Stockton
Monmouth
NY
Manhattan College
Marist
SUNY (Geneseo & Cortland)
PA
St Joe’s
West Chester
Penn State
Scranton
Kutztown
Millersville
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Fordham does not have an undergraduate track for teacher education. They do have a 5-year BA/MST program, so a student would have to be prepared for the extra year and extra cost.
I think a better choice would be Lesley University (enrollment: 2700), located in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. Founded as a teachers’ college, it has a special strength in Education and it includes The Art Institute of Boston. It has a full spectrum of liberal arts majors, including History.
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I think another good choice would be the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, a member of the Consortium of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (www.coplac.com). Founded as a teachers’ college, it has been successfully training classroom teachers for a very long time.
MCLA also has a strength in fine arts, offering multiple majors in the arts. Surrounded by excellent museums, it takes advantage of its location in the arts rich Berkshires. Located in the same town, North Adams, is the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts (Mass MOCA), now the largest museum of contemporary art in the world. It is just a spectacular place to visit and includes exhibits that are on world tour. Also in North Adams is The Berkshire Museum of Art. In the next town are the Williams College Museum of Art and the Clark Art Institute, both of which are first rate. There are numerous other art museums scattered throughout the Berkshires as well as in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts.
With an enrollment of about 2000, MCLA is not a medium size college. It’s enrollment is typical of any small liberal arts college like neighboring Williams College. So, there is a trade off if you’re looking for something bigger. This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that MCLA does have a cross registration arrangement with Williams College, effectively doubling the pool of college students. Otherwise it has everything you’re looking for at a public college price,
I would also look at Clark University, one of the Colleges that Change Lives.
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Anyone interested in fine arts should most certainly investigate colleges in New York, the city with more museums and more high quality museums than any other city in the country. A number of fine NYC colleges have already been suggested and are worth considering.
I’ll put in a plug for Barnard College, the only undergraduate college in the Columbia University consortium to offer an undergraduate track to teacher certification. Over the past quarter century, Teachers College of Columbia University, a graduate school only, has been the leader in developing programs and teacher training for children’s literacy. This certainly benefits Barnard students through Barnard’s affiliation with Columbia. Barnard’s partnership with Columbia also gives their students access to Columbia’s nationally prestigious School of the Arts in addition to Barnard’s own Art/Art History Dept for fine arts. As a top liberal arts college Barnard also offers a superb History Dept.
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At 3.6 Barnard should be considered very much reach. Even though Barnard has demonstrated to look beyond numbers, they’ll need to see other strong indications that a candidate will thrive.
I suggested Clark, not Barnard.
Since it only accepts 12-13% of its applicants, Barnard is a reach for anyone. But how do we know that a 3.6 gpa eliminates her? Barnard doesn’t report gpa information on its accepted students. All we know is that the vast majority of its accepted students are in the top decile of their high school class. We don’t have decile info on this student, nor do we have test scores, nor do we have EC’s. Nothing wrong with suggesting a reach since the list of schools suggested for her include few reaches.
Since I never said that a 3.6 would be eliminating, the rest of your response is not applicable!?
I literally did say that (on the scale: safety… match… reach) it’s a ”reach”.
We should be encouraging, but we also need to be fair. Posters deserve a realistic assessment, so they can tune their expectations.
PS: The class of 2025 had a 10.4% acceptance.
Sorry, pushed wrong reply button on little iPhone screen - should not have been directed at you.
Entirely my mistake!
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Sorry if I misinterpreted your post. When you italicized “very much a reach”, I took that to. mean almost beyond a reach. I guess I read it wrong. I think that a student with a 3.6 gpa can take a shot at a top college. Most of those applying to a top LAC like Barnard aren’t looking to become teachers. In my experience, those who make their interest in teaching clear in their application can find an unexpected bargain at a place like Barnard. The College still has to bring in students who will fill up seats in that department. If you’ll notice my other posts in this thread, I also suggested Lesley and MCLA, so I’m offering Barnard in the context of that range of schools.
I agree that we need to be realistic, but I don’t see what’s unrealistic about offering Barnard as part of a range of suggestions, especially when I started with schools which should be easy admissions for her. As far as being realistic is concerned, we both know that this year was an an anomaly at all of the top colleges, so 10% isn’t necessarily the most realistic measure of her prospects either. The acceptance rate at Barnard has ranged between 12-17% over the previous 5 years.
And again, I literally did not say that it’s unrealistic to include Barnard as a suggestion!?
I did explain that me having labeling it a “reach” was in the spirit of being realistic when ranking this college for this particular poster.
I wish you would simply quote rather than paraphrasing what you believe you read.
we both know that this year was an an anomaly at all of the top colleges, so 10% isn’t necessarily the most realistic measure
You might know that - I don’t have that knowledge.
Based the past five years, LAST year may have been the outlier (because the college visits, orientations, freshman in-person studies, etc. were effectively unavailable), while this year might just be resuming the 5 year trend of increasing popularity:
2015: 19.6%
2016: 16% (https://barnard.edu/news/2020-vision)
2017: 14.8%
2018: 13.7%
2019: 11.3%
2020: 13% (operating mostly remote, due to Pandemic)
2021: 10.4%
Naturally on all those subjects, you might have different, insider knowledge that I would gladly bow to.
When you italicized “very much a reach”, I took that to. mean almost beyond a reach.
Highly selective schools (like Barnard) are already a reach, even with a 4.0 GPA - as many applicants with near-perfect GPAs and SAT/ACT scores find out year after year. So the “extent” of it being a reach will get larger the further the distance from those perfect scores - thus my emphasis.
Still, I agree that it’s neither unrealistic nor impossible (there are many examples of Barnard having looked beyond the numbers), but one’s expectations need to be tuned to the above-stated realities.
In case the poster wishes to draw comparisons, e.g., standardized test results, or in which decile she is in her High School, etc., here last year’s class profile:
https://barnard.edu/class-2024-profile
(this one’s omitting some stats, such as the “decile” information:
https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Class%20of%202024%20Profile.pdf)
I’m not going to continue this back and forth any further because posts should be in the interests of the OP. But I will correct the record.
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I did quote you.
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I agree that there has been a trend at Barnard, but even within that trend, 2021 stands out as an outlier. I referred to the “previous 5 years”, which would include 2016 when Barnard’s acceptance rate was 17%. Columbia’s website published the following acceptance data for Barnard over that period:
2016 - 17%
2017 - 15%
2018 - 13.7%
2019 - 11.3%
- There have been numerous articles this year on the increase in applications to top colleges this year due to widespread introduction of “test optional” policies as well as to the fact that many students could not take either the SAT or ACT due to Covid cancellations - or at least take it a second time. In addition, there has been a boom in the college age population. Domestic births peaked in 2007, so there is expected to be a decline in college applications within the next 5 years, making current acceptance rates unlikely to be sustained. Economic factors during the pandemic have already resulted in a decline in applications at lower tier colleges, resulting in financial instability at some. As this trend works it’s way up, it also has the potential to decrease applications at top colleges.
I’m done.
Simmons in Boston?