My kid’s friends felt Bucknell was a VERY Greek oriented LAC. Plus it is not near a city which is a desired attribute.
3 Likes
Aah…didn’t see the “within 2 hours of a large city” comment. I guess we’re not counting the Harrisburg or Allentown areas in that thinking. Philly area is around 2.5 to 3 hours or so. As far as the Greek thing, that is a factor. I poked around and saw that Denison is around 35% Greek whereas Bucknell is almost 50%. That said, when people say Greek and compare it to the south, these schools do not have that kind of feel to me at least. Best of luck to the OP.
Any thoughts or experience with Trinity College in San Antonio? All in price is $70k and I’m reading their merit is solid. 28% AR, 75% ACT is 33, and 3.75 GPA avg. They have neuro but hard to tell it’s strength. Their app due date is also Jan 17 so it gives her a few days and she’d like the warmer weather.
Very good overall. Solid academically, left leaning but not leftist, proud, happy students.
What about Centre, KY? Excellent merit, college town within walking distance , Lexington ~30mn by car.
2 Likes
I have heard many good things about Trinity in Texas in general (because there is also a prominent Trinity in Connecticut, I will call it Trinity (Texas)). In terms of assessing the Neuro program specifically, that can be tricky, but one thing I like to look at is how many people actually end up graduating with that major. The basic theory is people vote with their feet, meaning they will gravitate to majors that are working for interested students, and away from majors that are not.
The NCES collects this information and makes it available through College Navigator. But a number may not mean much without some comparative context.
So this is a cool compilation of NCES data:
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/jonboeckenstedt/viz/BachelorsDegreesAwardedin2022/Dashboard1
This is just a snapshot and it varies year to year. So don’t take it too precisely.
But still, you can select Neuroscience as a major, click on first major only, and then limit it to schools with up to 2898 in undergrad enrollment.
If you do that, Trinity (Texas) comes in at #5, with 30 graduating Neuro majors in the study year. The only higher were Lafayette (46), Rhodes (37), Wellesley (33), and Union (31). By the way, Trinity (Connecticut) is up there too, tied at #10 with 24.
Again, I would not be overly precise with this. Like Vassar was tied for #6 at 27. Is Vassar therefore worse for Neuro than Trinity (Texas)? Of course not.
Instead, I would say what this makes clear is plenty of students at all these colleges, including Trinity (Texas), are voting with their feet in favor of Neuro. And so that’s a positive indicator, and it means to me that if everything else looks good (location, cost, and everything else of relevance), then Trinity (Texas) is certainly worth considering for an application.
2 Likes
Great school - in the city. And they need geographic diversity!! Badly. So being from the PNW will help. They used to publish - now it’s just third party - but 80% of the kids used to be Texans. But it’s a fine school.
App deadline is Feb 1 though. You have time.
1 Like
Trinity University 
My daughter is a sophomore and having a great experience although I can’t comment directly on neuroscience. Almost everyone gets merit and the acceptance rate for out of state kids is higher than Texas kids.
San Antonio is a great town and the campus is beautiful. And she will get warmer weather for sure! We’re from the PNW and it is HOT down there. If you have specific questions please let me know.
6 Likes
Trinity University, not College (still called that, even though it’s a SLAC). I have an academic colleague who works there, he reports that it is very student-centered (as befits a SLAC), pretty campus, good location in San Antonio near parks, restaurants, etc, on the progressive side, diverse enough to be an HSI if diversity is important/a plus for your kid (it would be for mine). It seems like it would be a solid fit for your kid based on what you wrote!
6 Likes
Update
Rejected: from all the reaches but got BU guaranteed Sophomore Transfer.
WL: Case (w/inferred merit), Holy Cross, Villanova, George Wash, William and Mary, UConn
Accepted: UBC (merit), Denison (merit), Dickinson (merit), Pitt, Trinity-TX (merit), U Rochester, U of Az (honors) with merit, Loyola Chicago (merit), and U of O (merit).
Given the public WL odds, they sent CLOI letters to just Case and Villanova.
Visited UBC, Case, Pitt, Denison, and Dickinson over spring break.
UBC - loved the campus and but overwhelmed by student count and message that students are expected to figure things out for themselves.
Pitt - Loved the campus, area, school spirit, and the kids.
Denison and Dickinson - Loved the schools and their tours but nervous about the smaller town.
Case - Great city and campus. Pretty strong nerdy vibe.
Pitt is in the #1 slot…it doesn’t have the favorite major but it has most everything else but the NIH $ hits makes us nervous about future budget impacts. Planning to visit U Rochester on admitted student date but hard to consider paying full $ plus the weather and nerd factor. Engaging with current students at Denison to give further consideration.
They were feeling positive in late February but then getting the 6 WL’s and from a few schools they considered targets was morally crushing to all of us. in retrospect we recognized the last minute decisions to apply to more target schools in the last few weeks and then being unable to convince them to demonstrate interest surely didn’t help. I also learned the Weight GPA was closer to 4.1 then 4.2 and then later looking at many of the admitted student stats, we realized the relative class rigor was a notch lower then the competition.
They are realizing there are no perfect schools in the list that come even close to checking every box. Now trying to game out what really matters…and that is very hard for a 17 year old
We already have a google doc of ‘lessons learned’ for the next sibling.
10 Likes
I think you did great.
They’re a neuro major right ?
They have a neuro major and undergrad research opportunities. If they suffer at Pitt funding wise, they likely would at others too.
Initially you asked for an LAC, and I hoped K would have made the list.
Is Pitt too big ?
I’m not sure Case is better and the BU thing is just a way to get $$ next year. I’m guessing they’ll love where they enroll and put that out of mind. BU is much larger too so might not be a fit.
Sorry your student was crushed but they got lots of great admits and what you write above about Pitt sounds like it could be a home run.
You only need one !! So I say congrats. Looking back at message one - just guessing it was the lack of rigor relative to those schools which hurt (which you noted)
Best of luck.
It’s hard to see with so much rejection but they really did super well !!!
1 Like
The process can be rough on the ego, but that is a lot of great offers to consider!
I saw Trinity (TX) was on the admit list with merit, and I was curious if it was still being considered or not. Not that I think they need to, it really is just me being nebby (that’s a little taste of Pittsburghese if you are not already familiar).
3 Likes
If they like the urban of Pitt, it and Trinity would be moreso than Case.
So not a bad call. Fine school.
They were originally neuro focused but is now more excited about Cog Sci and U of R is one of the few schools with its own Cog Sci department as opposed to being part of Psych.
We also passed Kenyon College on the way to visit Denison and I believe the town is located is even smaller. They definitely realized even more after the spring break trip that they want to be in the city or very close-by suburb (Like Oakland where Pitt is or University Circle where Case is). The only exception would have been a school like Vassar where NYC was only a <2 hr train ride away. MaCalester college had also been considered since it’s in MSP but it was deemed ‘to quirky’ and required a supplemental.
We tried suggesting Vassar in the last month of apps season but it required at least one additional supplemental essay and by that point they were just mentally cooked. If we’d started the review process earlier and gotten their common core essay out of the way in summer as had been the original plan and not have been taking ACT in the fall, that also would have freed up cognitive capacity.
Looking back to sophomore year and forecasting, I think if we’d been more informed about the weighting of rigor when considering schools even in slots 50-20, we would have suggested taking another honors class. Before applying, we’d not considered the questions for each school around merit: How much (range), how many (% of students), and then the likelihood of they getting merit $ based upon the relative app strength. Some of those schools like Boston U, W&M, Villanova, etc. have a limited amount of $ and it only goes to very top students. Some of the other schools always give some so it feels more like dynamic pricing off the MSRP. They applied ED to one of the reaches but got denied and in retrospect it was never going to happen…should have used the ED at less reachy reach or higher end target. Three more lessons learned.
As much as the interest in U of R could increase, we’d need to rationalize why and if we’d spend ~30% more over Pitt to go there.
I appreciate the nudge to look at Trinity College in TX again. I need to ask why it hasn’t made the list.
3 Likes
Thanks for coming back and updating. I’m sorry that the process has been crushing at various points, but your D has some terrific options. Pitt gets a lot of love on the forum, and I’m sure she’d get a great education there. I’ll second the suggestion to take a closer look at Trinity and also just curious (nebby?) about what eliminated Loyola Chicago from consideration.
Denison is a 37m drive to Columbus, OH. Being from the PNW, you might be thinking…great, we’re talking about the distance to Ohio State? Not only is Columbus the capital city of Ohio, but it also has a metro population of over 2.1 million. That’s more than Indianapolis, more than Nashville, and more than Cleveland (source). So some friends split an Uber or Lyft (and I’m betting the Uber/Lyft costs are pretty reasonable in the area) or someone actually has a car on campus and they go visit a big city. Columbus is definitely not NYC, but it’s not podunkville, either. And rather than needing 4 hours of round trip train travel time for a place like Vassar, it’s 1h20m for Denison. So, just something to think about.
1 Like
I hate the post in that it sounds like you are settling.
I think you did hs right. Too many kids over do it…strain etc. you got into GREAT schools. I’m not sure you’ll find Rochester city enough but will find out.
I’ve only heard great things about Beloit. Maybe it’s too small but perhaps it could fit. It has the major (cog sci), stil taking apps, and I think might crush the Pitt price.
Just food for thought.
But honestly Pitt, Rochester, Dickinson, Trinity and others you got into - these are GREAT schools.
2 Likes
That’s a pretty fair question. I will say I really like Rochester’s curriculum structure, and as you noted they have a Brain and Cognitive Sciences major.
But Pitt is actually a pretty big deal for Cog Sci research, even though it doesn’t have a separate department. I’d also toss in a mention of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, which is a partnership between CMU and Pitt (CMU being another very important center for Cog Sci research):
Directly it is more of a grad thing (they have a certificate program for PhD students at both universities), but I think that center helps both universities recruit faculty interested in collaboration in this area.
And speaking of CMU, Pitt students can take up to a course per term at CMU. I would not be rushing to do that, and indeed they might find all the courses they want at Pitt. But that is a nice resource in case there is some specific interest that develops where CMU might have something.
And now that being in a city is an emerging priority . . . Pittsburgh is a much bigger metro than Rochester, and Pitt is right in the heart of all the cool stuff.
That is pretty much why I asked about Trinity. San Antonio is at a similar level to Pittsburgh in terms of scale (with lots to do).
Edit: Take this with a big grain of salt, but purely for research purposes, I like to check out Edurank, which provides purely research-driven rankings.
And for Cog Sci research, they have Pitt #18 in the US (between Princeton and Northwestern), #24 in the world. CMU is #7 US (#10 world). Rochester is at #42 in the US, #63 world, which is still quite good, but not of course at Pitt’s level:
I want to emphasize I don’t think this means it would necessarily be wrong to prefer Rochester to Pitt, particularly for undergrad where these research rankings at best have a complex relationship to the quality of the undergrad experience. But combine that with the lower cost, apparently more desirable location, and relationship to CMU . . . again, pretty compelling package, I would think.
3 Likes
AustenNut
- The ‘morally crushing period’ was temporary. Reading other threads and talking to other families, the % of WL was a common outcome this year and we have a better understanding of importance of rigor in conjunction with the other stats.
- Pitt Love: 100% agree. The vast majority of what we’ve read and comments from friends, family, etc. supports this.
- Trinity: This might be an 11th hour visit if they remove some of the current contenders. Theyalready feel stretched and stressed already.
- Loyola Chicago - They don’t feel the academic rigor would be high enough. School community not as tight as Pitt.
- Denison distance to Columbus: We agree. They are planning to connect with current neuro students this week. Currently it is slot #3. Big concern is that they only offer a neuro concentration. Pro is they expect a really strong well rounded SLAC academic experience that could counter the lack of a neuro major. Kids also seemed very happy there.
TSBNA4
- I understand the source of the ‘settling’ comment and that was not my intended message. I think it’s just the parents’ nature to (over) analyze what was done/not done to predict if anything within our control would have changed the outcomes. Also to help us with the next sibling.
- Beloit - At 1k I think it’s just too small even though the local town is 40k. It is actually more $ then Pitt.
NiceUndparticularMan
- U of R - They are excited about the academic approach.
- Pitt - They are going to ask https://www.cnbc.cmu.edu/ and https://www.psychology.pitt.edu/graduate/ if there are any opportunities for undergrads. Also looking at double major with neuro and psych.
They are very excited about the options but also stressed since there is no obvious right decision at this time. We’ve reinforced they have 3+ weeks and are trying to encourage reflection but also to continue to talk with the schools and their students. Compare and contrast the schools…weigh the pros & cons…consider the risks you’re willing to take.
At the end of the day…this is what matters.
- outside of academics where will they be the happiest?
- Where will they thrive academically? Very much big fish-little pond or vice versa discussion.
- What academic programs does they want to study (and then for each school…how can it be accomplished?).
5 Likes
Don’t slice the bologna too thin here. Grad schools, potential employers, etc. are not going to jump up and down about Cog sci as the major vs. Neuro. A doctoral student needs to have a laser focus about a research topic and the area of interest. An undergrad is going to study statistics, bio, chem, and a variety of Cog Sci related topics regardless of what the major is called. As long as it isn’t a college which offers Psych JUST for students interested in becoming a guidance counselor (which wouldn’t be deep enough for an academic Cog Sci grad program) or JUST for students interested in law enforcement (not enough math) or JUST for students interested in music therapy… there will be enough depth, breadth and rigor no matter which department houses the “science of the brain” faculty.
7 Likes