<p>Haven’t applied and decided quite yet, so these could still get me, but Beloit and New College of Florida.</p>
<p>I’ll give another nod to New College of Florida. The personal attention that school gives is absolutely amazing-- the dean called me to let me know of my acceptance a few days before my letter came and emailed me as well to compliment my essay.</p>
<p>Agnes Scott College.</p>
<p>I only visited because it was my best friend’s first choice school and they had a reputation for a lot of good financial aid, so I visited. Oh my gosh, it was wonderful. Friendly and welcoming students, a gorgeous campus, a lot of racial/ethnic diversity, a beautiful new science center and a great library. The dorm rooms were huge compared to some of the other freshman dorms I’d seen, and for a campus with only 900 students at the time, it was more than twice the size of the college I eventually attended in space. Plus the campus was that beautiful cross between great, old-timey buildings and modern fixtures.</p>
<p>Why didn’t I attend? The major reason was that my actual alma mater (another women’s college not too far away from ASC) gave me more financial aid. ASC gave me a great scholarship that covered all of my tuition and fees, and my best friend told me that had I asked, they probably would’ve raised it to cover my room and board too. She was right. This was something that was well-known at ASC, as their top candidates were often attracted away even from the full ride Agnes Scott had to other top schools, so they often gave that money to their second-tier scholarship winners. But since I already had a full ride to my favorite school, I didn’t bother.</p>
<p>I would’ve been extremely happy at Agnes Scott, think.</p>
<p>I also wanted to apply to New College of Florida - I loved the idea of the school - but I was a GA resident at the time and NCF would’ve been too expensive for my family.</p>
<p>Agnes Scott is an absolutely amazing institution, and had it been located in the Northeast, I would’ve applied in a heartbeat. I never heard of it growing up in the Northeast, but now I recommend it a lot.</p>
<p>Pomona. my fam had never heard of it and thought i was stupid for considering it… so they kind of got in the way and forced it off my list.</p>
<p>^ that’s a shame.</p>
<p>University of Mary Washington
It was an offshoot of UVA for women at first, but broke off and became coeducation. A really pretty LAC in Fredericksburg, VA. Most public colleges in Virginia seem to bee offshoots of either UVA or W&M.</p>
<p>juillet, both Agnes Scott and NCF sound like their personal and unique approach intrigued you, and those are things that I don’t believe get the recognition on this board that they deserve. It’s so hard to make a judgement on “fit” with so little to base it on, but I find it interesting what different people find important when making their choice. My feeling was if the school wasn’t willing or able to make the effort during admissions to show you how you’d grow and succeed there, what would make you think things would become more personal AFTER you were already attending? That’s not to say that a good admissions department means it’s a good school for you, but the opposite does raise big red flags (and eliminated a couple of schools we visited early in the process).</p>
<p>Scripps. Never heard of it. Didn’t know what an LAC was. Had no plans to look at anything but UC’s. They invited her for a diversity weekend, she went and was smitten. Daughter may have gone, if they had so much as waved $500 bucks in our general area. As parents, perhaps we were like BananaSandwich15’s. We did not force it off my daughter’s list, but we secretly did not want to pay 50K for it. She chose something else, and we never had to say it.</p>
<p>Interesting how our definition of “lesser-known” changes throughout this process. I’d heard of Scripps a year ago, but couldn’t tell you where it was, let alone whether it was considered a good school! :o In that sense, Scripps meets the criteria I’m looking for (at least for those of us not in Cali), but again, what I’m trying to highlight are all the less “prestigious” schools which people stumbled across and, after investigating them, discovered that they were a good enough fit that they nearly decided to attend.</p>
<p>What less prestigious school impressed you enough that you were torn over your decision to go elsewhere?</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins and Columbia.</p>
<p>College of the Atlantic. First net-zero carbon emissions college in the country, which was a big draw for me. THE most beautiful campus I have ever been to–it’s in Bar Harbor, Maine, right in the middle of Acadia National Park. The campus is an old monastery right on the coast, with absolutely gorgeous views. It’s a “non-traditional” school in that there usually aren’t any grades (though you can request them) and there is only one major: human ecology (though there are bajillions of ways to specialize within that major). Most of the classes are seminar-style, and the professors were some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met. Tons of research opportunities for bio kids, great grad school placement, absolutely lovely student body (which is surprisingly diverse, thanks to the fact that lots of United World College kids end up there), and they even have pretty good financial aid.</p>
<p>If I hadn’t gotten into my uber-reach school, I’d probably be there next year.</p>
<p>University of Dayton. </p>
<p>Awesome scholarships, some of the happiest and most welcoming students out of any college in the country (#7 for happiest students) solid academics, quasi-urban, great basketball, awesome for budding entrepreneurs like myself (#4 in country for entrepreneurship, part of curriculum is that you MUST start your own business), and anything you want to do is either in town or only an hour away in Cincy or Columbus… Heck, it would’ve gotten me if I didn’t live so dang close to it… oh well.</p>
<p>Rose Hulman. Rose came through with a Full Tuition Scholarship - if it had come through with a total free ride (including room and board) - I would have been there. But I’m not and I’m going to Northwestern.</p>
<p>Dayton sounds really interesting for a budding entrepreneur - didn’t know about the “start a business” requirement. Sounds really cool - learn by doing!</p>
<p>DS applied to both Rose and Northwestern, but he actually felt Bradley (his final choice) and Evansville (the school I pimped to start this thread) were both better fits for him. If he’d liked one school more than another and the difference in costs was only room and board, we’d have been OK with the more expensive school. Everyone weighs finances and other factors differently, though.</p>