She sounds like a great kid! I’m sure she’ll find the right place.
–Juniata PA - small, diverse, welcoming, generous merit, can create your own major
–Allegheny PA - they would roll out the red carpet for her, great merit and rigorous
–Knox IL - understand they stack merit scholarships
–Centre KY - terrific school, good auto merit plus interesting additional merit programs including full ride plus stipends for travel and internships
Tulane has been shifting aid dollars from merit to need-based for the last couple of years. Our HS typically sends many kids there and the awards are decreasing, both in how much a kid might get, and how many kids are receiving them. https://tulanehullabaloo.com/44695/news/money-matters-tulane-reduces-merit-aid-budget-increases-need-based-financial-aid-spending/
There are some great suggestions here. I particularly think Sarah Lawrence should be strongly considered. It ticks all the boxes.
OP you’ve mentioned some extremely selective schools such as USC which offer scholarships. Be aware that those scholarships are probably awarded to the creme de la creme of all applicants, and probably number in the single digits. Your D is obviously a great student, but I personally think unless she has some kind of national award or something equally prestigious, those scholarships are like catching a unicorn. She should, of course, try, if she is really interested.
There are a few LACs that seem to offer full ride via Stamps Scholarships, and of those, Oberlin also fits the bill. With her stats, I think she would get some kind of large scholarship to Oberlin, at the very least. Hendrix and Agnes Scott are respectable schools that she might consider which offer some full rides.
Case is trying to broaden their appeal by attracting more students in the social sciences. While they seem to be decreasing merit for the math and science student, it is increasing for many applicants with majors in the social sciences.
We are in Ohio, so I will have her take a look at Case. It would be a quick, easy visit. I actually worked there many years ago and hated Cleveland winters, so it I don’t love it myself. My kid is from heartier stock than me, so I will have her look at their English program and see what she thinks.
I called Oberlin and asked about their maximum merit awards. They said that it depends on the year. Some years it is as low as $8,000 and others as high as $28,000. It depends on the pool of applicants and how they decide to spread it around. This did not help them move up on our list at all.
Many colleges have to juggle their scholarships from year to year. My D was actually awarded a small scholarship at Oberlin after they called her from the waitlist. @mamaedefamilia has a D at Oberlin who was awarded a big scholarship.
My son was awarded an extra scholarship, which he did apply for, at an OOS public U. He received it quite late in the game, and they told him to please tell them as soon as possible if he wouldn’t be attending, so they could award it to someone else. My son did so.
I don’t see a problem with Oberlin being upfront about how they use scholarships. They are an enticement that colleges use to lure desirable students. They are finite.
Do you know about this very helpful resource from the Human Rights Campaign? While most campuses are liberal, the legal environment for LGBTQ students when stepping off campus is also important IMO.
https://www.hrc.org/state-maps
FWIW, I know of parents who reported merit awards of around 30K or a little higher at Oberlin in the past year or two. Message me if you want more details.
Many of the schools people have been mentioning are CTCL (Colleges that Change Lives) schools. It’s a book (originally) and now a non-profit organization of forty-four mostly private LACs. Most important to you, many of the schools dish out significant merit. I recommend finding the book (for purchase or at your library) or at least visiting the website/Wikipedia entry. For the sake of transparency, I need to state that I am a graduate of one of the CTCL schools.
Also, your original post questioned the rigor of Kalamazoo C. K College is one of the CTCL schools, and its academic reputation is stellar. The only complaint I’ve heard is that K-College has become, like so many LACs, a very progressive environment, but this would probably be great for your daughter. Don’t be fooled. A lot of the quiet midwestern LACs (Earlham, Kalamazoo, Beloit, Macalaster) are rigorous, progressive places.
After many recommendations, today we visited the College of Wooster for a special admissions event. We had a wonderful time and Wooster is now solidly in my daughter’s top 2 or 3 schools.
We were totally sold on their academic program & Independent Study system, the campus was beautiful (even in 15 degree weather!) and even the side features (study abroad, internships, transferring in college credits so she can have more flexibility to double major or do more study abroad) were very close to a perfect fit. We ended up sitting next to the admissions counselor for our region during lunch and he was great. Answered our questions (even some tough ones!) and gave her some good advice about admissions and school research in general. We also ran into the sister of her HS teammate on campus (it is a small campus!), so even seeing a familiar face added to the good day we had.
The only reservations my daughter had were related to diversity, the very rural location and the fact that it isn’t quite as far from home as she would like to go. We talked about the trade-offs she would make for her other favorite schools too and she decided the pros far outweigh the cons for Wooster. We will go back for a more in-depth visit in the spring to get answers to a few more questions and take tour (we were in info sessions and panels all day), but at first swipe it was a big hit.
If it ends up being affordable, it would be very hard to say no!
Sending a big thank you to @pishicaca, @MAmom111, @AlmostThere2018
@MAmom111 , @AlmostThere2018, @mamaedefamilia, @momofsenior1, @realmmom and anyone else I am missing who recommended Wooster!
Glad you had a worthwhile visit! Regarding Wooster’s diversity, it’s actually one of the most diverse in OH and has the highest percentage of international students in the state.
53% women, 47% men
22% U.S. students of color
16% international
28% Ohio, 72% non-Ohio
45 states and 61 countries represented
And while the city of Wooster itself is situated rurally, there is a fair amount for students to do off campus and in the surrounding community…the city of Wooster “hipness” factor has been steadily increasing the last few years.
Hope the spring visit is equally helpful…it really is a special place.
My D received 33k from Wooster and your D’s stats are much higher than hers. She could apply for and most likely receive their top scholarship which is $37k which would hopefully put in range for her.
We are from Ohio so our concerns with respect to LGBTQ diversity has to do with the safety of the surrounding community. There are parts of Ohio where this would be no big deal at all and other parts where we would have real safety concerns if our daughter was out with her girlfriend.
22% US students of color is actually not that many when you are at a small school and happen to be a student of color. According to their stats, they only admitted 7 multi-racial kids last year, which is a pretty small cohort for my daughter to belong to. There did seem to be some community-building activities for Black students, but we aren’t sure how or if other kids of color find community on campus. We really loved the diversity of the international students and considered that to be a huge plus. Most other campuses we’ve visited have had overwhelmingly Chinese students in their international population. My daughter is studying Chinese so in some ways, that is a positive, but the large numbers from one country can lead to (understandably!) less interest in mixing with other students.
We were also surprised that in 4 hours of panels and sessions, not one mention was made of diversity at all. No mention of special programs or inclusion or anything from anyone (though their was a flier about the diversity center in the packet if information). On other LAC tours we have been on, tour guides have addressed both gender/sexuality and racial diversity and how the school addresses them as part of their spiel. I did feel we got honest answers and good suggestions about how to get more information when I asked the admissions guy about it, which was great. He didn’t flinch at all when I asked. I was a little concerned that nothing was mentioned because the administration (overwhelmingly white at these events) weren’t quite comfortable addressing it. I hope that isn’t the case and we didn’t go on an official tour, so we will wait and see how it is addressed there before we worry too much about it. We will meet with the diversity office the next time we go, too.
We know every school will not be perfect and these issues haven’t turned us off at all so far. It is just an area for more exploration as we move forward.
**In case anyone happens upon this post later looking for discussions about diversity, there is a FB group where parents are trying to share resources around diversity and college searches called Belonging: College for Diverse Identities.
Just want to mention that NCF’s LGBTQ population is about 40% of the school, which is majority female by quite a bit. Dating was never a problem for me as a gay woman - at all.
OOS tuition for NCF is also effectively $15K because of the automatic OOS scholarship they grant.
International students aren’t always people of color. My daughter’s school was 1/3 international, but many were from Sweden and England.
I asked my daughter if she interacted or studied much with international students. She didn’t. She said the language barrier is too hard, especially if you are on a deadline to get a project done. Socializing, she mostly stuck with teammates. She is Chinese but doesn’t speak Mandarin and most of the Asian internationals were Taiwanese and she doesn’t speak that either.
Other daughter happened to be on an international floor in her dorm. Very little interaction and that daughter is very friendly. Don’t expect a big melting pot.
Did you check out Denison? I know they have a concentration in Queer Studies and have been known for generous merit aid.
Checking back in. We just finished a quick trip to Atlanta to look at Emory and Agnes Scott.
Kiddo liked Emory, which would be a big financial reach and require a good (probably unachiavable) amount of merit aid. I suspect the high school focus on school ranking is influencing her opinion more than the actual fit of Emory. The campus was gorgeous, but I didn’t see any kids there that reminded me of our particular kid. It made me wonder if she might be better off on a much bigger campus where there is more diversity than at the mid-sized schools. LACs still seem like the best fit to both of us, but since we are searching for good merit, we want to have a lot of options.
Emory is a long shot in any case, so I am not going to lose sleep over her application there. We absolutely loved Atlanta and found that very reassuring given our concerns coming from a very liberal city in the Midwest.
We didn’t do an official tour of the Emory Oxford campus, but we had some extra time so we drove out to take a quick look. Oof, the location made that a hard sell, even though the campus itself was very pretty. She would have to really want to graduate from Emory to apply and spend two years out there.
Agnes Scott was beautiful and nearly perfect in some ways. Kiddo loves womens’ colleges in general and Agnes Scott hit all those buttons. An added plus was that it is incredibly diverse and that diversity felt much more natural and comfortable than it had at some women’s colleges and LACs. Buildings were lovely, dorms were amazing and large.
Downsides: It was a little small and they don’t put much focus on the consortium/course option at other nearby schools, which is a big draw at some of the other LAC/women’s colleges she likes. The thing that probably sunk it was that it didn’t sound rigorous enough to her and they don’t have a track record of getting a significant number of students into T14 law schools. We don’t know that she definitely is set on that route yet, but she wants it to be an option available to her. I don’t know if she will apply, but I suspect she won’t. For a less academic kid that wanted the same kind of school fit, it would be such a lovely option.
Schools we are considering visiting over spring break or sometime soon: Oberlin, Sarah Lawrence, Allegheny, Case Western Reserve, Washington University. We will also visit Smith, even though she knows it will break her heart if she gets in and we can’t afford to send her there. We also need to select a few full-ride NMSF schools for her to look at more closely.
If anyone has any more suggestions that can be rolled into a trip to Western Mass or around NYC when we visit those on the list above, I would love to squeeze as much into those trips as possible. We are from Ohio, so we are familiar with most schools here.
If you’re looking at Smith, you should go to Mt. Holyoke too. My D was NMF and offered 1/2 tuition merit award there two years ago. They also have a handful of full tuition awards – key is to show lots of interest so she should ask for an interview if you visit.
My D has a friend there who loves it. Very warm vibe – nice community. It’s gorgeous too. Plus, a lot of support for students to pursue their interests, esp. if you get a merit award. My D’s scholarship offer included special events and mentoring – 21st Century Leaders or something like that.
We visited Case Western earlier this year with my S21. It’s got tons of diversity so your D will like that. It exceeded my expectations.
@pickleberry7 What was it about the Oxford-Emory location that was off-putting? Just too far from Atlanta? Or?
@AlmostThere2018 We have already been to Mt. Holyoke and it is her #1 favorite school so far. By going to Smith, we can go back to Mt. Holyoke and demonstrate more interest, since I have heard that matters a lot for their merit aid. We will also go back this summer or next fall for an interview. She wants to wait bc she has some activities this summer that will be a nice extracurricular leadership thing she can talk about then. We both thought it would be an amazing fit for her culturally and with her academic interests. If we can afford it and she gets in, I would send her there in a heartbeat.
@amsunshine Oxford didn’t even really have a downtown that we could find. It was a campus surrounded by some houses (not always well kept houses), and the only commercial strip was along a highway and included gas stations, chain fast food and a few shops. It…wasn’t great. I didn’t think I would want her walking around off campus at all. It is also very far from Atlanta, which was a big plus for Emory.