^^ My recollection is the Earlham booked the plane tix so we were not out of pocket. There were a few official visit overnight dates, and this seemed to faciliate airport pickups. I might have it mixed up with another school, but I have a dim memory of a connection in an airport I would not have chosen on my own…
I concur with the characterization of Smith - there is an intensity in the vibe that seems at odds with the other places she thinks she’ll like.
@intparent first of all I wasn’t referring to most posters who all agree she should visit, it’s the snarky one liners. And I think she should visit, too. Coe offers reimbursement but the amount goes down if she doesn’t do it in January. Earlham apparently works with a travel agent that will be in contact soon. Many of the other schools are within driving distance so they’re not offering reimbursement or fly in.
And she has a list of schools but I still believe she’s down to two. But I could be wrong. I don’t think either one of us expected the outcome that we’ve had and we are so grateful and it’s a little bit overwhelming because we didn’t think we would have the kind of success that we have had. And I owe a debt of gratitude to the people here.
Like I said she’s very socially liberal, but her person is very conservative. She is a conservative girl. Straightlaced, I don’t really know how else to describe it. She gets really irritated by Kids who drink and smoke pot. She even gets bent if I have a glass of wine. Not really sure what that’s all about. And she’s going to have to get used to that, but limiting schools to ones that are not rated a for the party scene was a big part of this list process. And I think she’s been following Instagram accounts, and student YouTube accounts very closely, to see how much of a party scene it is.
I’m not making a judgment and I’m not that mom who would say kids shouldn’t live a little and college I’m pretty liberal and permissive that way, because that’s what I would’ve been down. Although I very rarely have a drink these days…And I’m trying to prepare her that that’s just kind of part of being a young adult she doesn’t have to choose that for herself but she’s going to experience it anywhere she goes. Although she’s had an easy time finding a peer group at her school that doesn’t partake. I’m sure it will be the same way in college.
I think the schools that she’s been accepted to all probably have a similar vibe, St. Olaf might be a tad more gregarious and cheerful, not like that’s a bad thing, it might be a good thing for her.
Some of the ones that we added at the very last minute because they were full need schools and her score had gone up a little. I don’t really know how serious she is about them because they were vetted as carefully as the original list.
And there’s been tremendous growth in the past 2 months, she’s willing to look beyond what she thought was her comfort level.
I’m guessing there will continue to be growth. I’m sure wherever she lands she will find her people. And I’m not disagreeing about visits, I’m just saying they haven’t been possible and we used whatever resources we could.
W.r.t. Smith:
@gardenstategal we were posting at the same time. She won’t have to pay out-of-pocket for that visit, it’s being arranged through their travel agent. Her admissions officer told me they do that for every student that lives more than 250 miles away.
“Straightlaced” and Smith don’t go together in my mind.
@intparent I actually appreciate that kind of insight. Those are things that I pass on to my daughter. I have banned her from reading this thread and she knows it’s in her best interest not to. And we absolutely rely on what we hear from other parents and other students. That’s how we came up with her initial list. She does her own research, I had just mentioned something about roommate situation and she just spit a bunch of information back out at me about StO. So she’s on top of it. She knows how the roommate matching goes anyway. I think it’s somewhat easy to identify what is a decent fit, at least to get your list. And I think she is on the right track with most of the schools. Maybe Smith is a terrible fit for her. At this point she’s not really that vested. I’m not going to be offended if someone says that doesn’t sound like a good place for her from what you’ve described. She’s not intense. She’s driven but she’s not intense. She’s very empathetic. She tends to see many sides to a situation. She’d make an excellent diplomat someday. If she sees something that she knows is just absolutely wrong you will definitely hear her voice, but she usually looks for an explanation as to why someone would do something, or say something incredibly insensitive. Her first assumption is that they lack the knowledge to know that what they’re saying is offensive, she tends to educate first. So, no I wouldn’t describe her as intense. She’s most certainly pro woman but she’s not a hard-core feminist. Sometime she actually surprises me with the things that she says. She’s probably much more conservative than I am. But again she’s trying to learn and she’s evolving. She’s not going to be quick to take a stance on an issue until she understands it from all angles. I think that’s the IB influence, maybe it’s some of my influence, I don’t know?
Maybe she needs a kinder gentler kind of Smith from what I am hearing described?
Or maybe just maybe her fit is already there.
Mount Holyoke would have been that option, but their dates are in the past now.
Re: SEOG
Besides the possibility of SEOG being eliminated by Congress, the college may allot funds differently in subsequent years.
My D’s significant SEOG disappeared in Year 2 and was replaced by increased loans both subs & unsubs. This was not due to any change in financial circumstances, as these were the two academic years when FAFSA was based on the same reference year, as it changed from looking back 1 yr to looking back 2.
My D loves the school & her FinAid package is quite generous, but we did feel it’s a bit of a bait & switch. Lure 'em in & then pull the rug out from under them (exaggeration of course, but scrambling for several thousand dollars more for a low income family is a big deal).
My D talked to the school about it. They didn’t specifically address their reasoning, but just pointed out that the 2nd year package met her full need. Because yes, loans meet need.
Heads up when comparing FinAid and affordability. SEOG is probably the most discretionary money in the pot.
I had already noticed a big difference from one package to another. I need to address the question of how it will be handled in her FA at Earlham because it’s a significant amount for us.
I don’t mean discretionary from college to college, I’m alerting you to the fact that it might not be part of the package at all after freshman year. And it might be replaced by loans not increased grants.
I doubt you could get a commitment about it from any college, whereas merit scholarships are generally guaranteed for four years as long as requirements such as GPA are met. Also keep in mind that merit scholarships do not necessarily increase with tuition or dorm fee increases.
It would seem to me that uncertainties such as future funding of SEOG (potentially merit aid in general) and the general health of the school would cause one to ensure that the schools ranked as 1, 2, 3 are the ones that have the largest endowment and endowment per student within the schools under consideration.
Based on reduced enrollment at many lesser known LAC’s (and in one unfortunate case at Oberlin because of an enrollment decline tied to several negative events; Ohio Wesleyan admitted similar issues as well - most don’t) endowments are having to be utilized to fund general operating expenses which depletes endowments at a precipitous rate, so I would imagine that things like SEOG may get hit first.
Smith and BMC have very, very substantial endowments, as does Earlham and St. Olaf - I would be very concerned about some of the others, especially anything less than $100mm.
@Momof2girlsandafrenchie I have not read all of the replies yet, because was just catching up with the thread and saw your post several pages back about dropping Beloit (before there is any need for decisions). Please try to have your daughter reconsider! Honestly, your daughter sounds so very much like mine (clearly, there are differences, but in so many many ways they sound so similar and like they are looking for extremely similar things). I forced my daughter to look at Beloit, and she LOVED it. She was surprised at how much she loved it, and how comfortable she was on that campus. My daughter was happily just accepted to her ED school (Haverford), and had to decline two EA acceptances, and withdraw her application (RD) to Grinnell. She was surprised that the only place where she felt bad about doing so was with Beloit. She said she actually felt sad about declining her offer of admission at Beloit. So did I (and agreed that it was the only place I felt sad that she was rejecting). It is truly a special, special place and you only realize that when you visit. My daughter, who sounds like she has quite a bit in common with yours (especially based on your last post’s description of her), LOVED Beloit. And she didn’t love many places. She liked Grinnell a lot, but she loved Beloit.
Try to have her reconsider. There is absolutely no reason to decline Beloit right now (aside from perceived psychological ones). Yes, the incredible deluge of emails, phone calls and even texts totally stresses my daughter out. I get that. She totally gets that. But pragmatically, if your daughter doesn’t get into St. O (and I have my fingers crossed for that, so that all this is moot), Beloit may be the proverbial glass slipper for your daughter. It came close to being my daughter’s (she looked at Amherst, one of the top SLACs in the country, and liked it fine, but told me she would rather go to Beloit than Amherst).
FYI: My daughter has similar intellectual interests, has ADHD among with some other issues, and is socially liberal while personally conservative in things like partying (drunk people annoy her greatly).
@Chembiodad I actually checked the endowments of both Earlham and StO.
I feel very certain that are probably the two.
I just thought it was healthy that she gave me a list at all. But I suspect that we really are at two and I know that people will not agree with that. But my experience with the others on the list not all of them because we don’t have acceptances from all of them, but the ones we have acceptances from, they don’t have the money to even really get to a comfortable number, the maximum she COULD borrow, not that she should borrow.
Again feeling really really blessed and grateful that she got into Earlham. Now we wait just a bit longer for StO.
But she would be fine and do well at either of those schools.
She actually did add Beloit back to her list. We just don’t have a financial aid package from them yet. And I haven’t checked on the size of their endowment. But that will be an easy thing to do. I think you make a really good point and it makes me feel good that I had already thought about that.
To clarify, most colleges use a portion of the endowment for operating expenses (the largest endowed schools such as Notre Dame can comfortably fund 30% of opex from their endowment because it is such a large number; others can only fund 5-10% because the endowment total isn’t large enough, and so if enrollment dips that’s a big deal). While endowment size isn’t the whole story, it matters.
I’ve been following this thread since the beginning but have little to add because I am unfamiliar with the majority of the schools. My D was admitted Early Write to Smith with a substantial merit package but in the end it was (IMHO only) still unaffordable. I didn’t think it was a great fit for her but others in the family were pushing. Smith is a self-selecting school, of course all female but much more than that, and deserves some deeper research than maybe your typical LAC.
I will say that I’m surprised that you “have banned her from reading this thread”. Could she not gain significant insight herself from all this information? Does she lack the maturity to digest, compare and reject or dismiss public comments? You really threw me for a loop with that statement.
This whole process becomes stressful and tiring at the end but know that there is an end in sight. Once that happens, its all about the celebration and anticipation!
@NEPatsGirl, outside of the Chance Me folder, our daughters found other sites were more helpful in painting the picture of what the students were like as the CC threads are hard to sift through for a kid who just wants a quick read - they found Princeton Review and College Niche best for that, although they didn’t like College Niche as much after it changed the way student reviews were profiled.
If you haven’t done so yet, I would try to get your hands on some good college guide books such as Fiske (my favorite although it doesn’t cover a ton of schools), Insiders Guide (good but also limited in the number of schools it covers), and Princeton Review (more comprehensive) to read up on some of the colleges on your list. If you can’t visit the write-ups in these books may help to give you a better sense of the personality/vibe of the schools. The books can be found at many guidance departments (although perhaps not at your HS since you noted that most go to CC and State U), may be at the public library, or even go to a bookstore and try to look through them.
“socially liberal while personally conservative”
This is the first I’ve run across this description, what does it mean exactly? This of course varies person to person but socially liberal is typically pro choice, pro lgbtq rights, anti death penalty, legalized marijuana.
@theloniusmonk She is just that, pro choice, pro lgbtq rights, anti death penalty. On the fence about recreational marijuana. BUT she herself probably would never consider an abortion if faced with that situation, she would never partake in recreational marijuana, or even drink. I don’t know what that is, and I told her it’s OK if she changes her mind about those things because it’s a really personal choices but she feels very strongly that those are not things she herself would do. At the same time feeling very strongly that it’s OK for others to make their own choices.
That’s what I mean…