Hi! New here, and thank you for helping. I have a student who goes to a rigorous private school, has a little over 4.0, and wants a college where he can explore creative careers and get a well rounded education. COA <50K ideally. We’re planning a week long college visit trip this summer of the northeast, and I’m trying to narrow down schools. He’s a very laid back kid, not super ambitious, but very easy to engage when he’s interested in a subject. Looking for a supportive, diverse environment.
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Will your family be eligible for need-based financial assistance?
Not much, I don’t think
What kinds of “creative careers” does he want to explore?
Also, the college counselors at the private high school should be able to provide some suggestions.
I can think of a few good choices for creative students…but I’m not sure you will be able to get to a $50,000 price point.
Wesleyan, Skidmore for example.
It’s possible to for your student to get to the $50,000 price point if they get significant merit aid at Connecticut College.
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What does he view as creative career?
Creativve art/writing? More entrepreneurial? Marketing/Media/communications? Intellectually curious and doesn’t want to be limited in what they can take? Wants to be able to combine majors?
Hampshire College - The most “creative” college I can think of in New England is Hampshire college. You basically design your own major.
Emerson - If you are talking about communications/Film
Wesleyan and Sarah Lawrence- All around good performing arts, writing, film, etc,
These would all require merit, so you might want to run an NPC before falling in love with anything.
Don’t overlook large state schools, especially if he is unsure of his major, as they have so many majors to offer. The good thing about New England is that you can hit a bunch of them. I joke with my kids that we could get to 3 other state flagships in less time than it takes to get to our own. And even that is only an hour and twenty minutes away.
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I have also wondered what this means. I have seen creative accomplishments in mathematics, engineering, metal sculpture, music, writing, and biotech research. I am sure that creativity is useful in a wide range of other areas as well. The details of what is creative may vary, and might not always be visible to the casual observer.
If you want to keep the cost below $50k/year without qualifying for need based aid (a situation which sounds very familiar), then a number of the highly ranked private schools just will not work. However, there are quite a few schools which give enough merit based aid that with a GPA a bit over 4.0 and coming from a rigorous private high school merit aid does seem likely at multiple schools. Note regarding GPA: I am not sure how this is calculated and more detail here might be helpful.
UVM (Vermont) is a school that is expensive OOS without merit aid, but does give quite good merit based financial aid to out of state students (and when we ran it the NPC did predict merit aid and was spot on). U.Mass Amherst also has merit aid for OOS students. I would expect either to come out under $50k/year with merit aid given your son’s stats (although I am not sure whether SAT or ACT scores are needed for merit aid at either school).
There are of course a number of famous universities and highly ranked LACs up here in the northeast that do not give any merit aid.
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Welcome to CC!
What is your son’s unweighted GPA?
Some schools that your son might want to consider include:
- Muhlenberg (PA )
- Bard (NY)
- Sarah Lawrence (NY)
- Ithaca (NY)
- Connecticut College
- SUNY Purchase
- SUNY New Paltz
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Several of the schools will be pretty dead in the summer. Do you have other times you can visit?
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Since you also mentioned Midwest, I would suggest St Olaf, Kenyon, Oberlin, Grinnell and Macalester. Not sure if all of them would give enough merit aid to bring the COA to under 50K, but it’s worth trying.
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Oops, totally overlooked the Midwestern part of the conversation. I particularly love @Motherprof’s suggestions of Oberlin and St. Olaf. Some other possibilities include:
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DePaul (IL): About 14k undergrads in Chicago
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U. of Cincinnati (OH): About 31k undergrads
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Baldwin Wallace (OH): About 2800 undergrads
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Lawrence (WI): About 1400 undergrads
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U. of Minnesota - Twin Cities: About 39k undergrads
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Webster (MO): About 2200 undergrads
Also, it’s not exactly northeast, but Virginia Commonwealth (about 21k undergrads) in Richmond would definitely be worth checking out.
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Just to echo others, I know that St. Olaf does, in fact, have merit scholarships that could bring the total cost of attendance under $50K. It’s a fantastic school I only really learned about because of the forums here, but now encourage families to check it out in person, early in their search process.
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I agree the Midwest can often provide a lot of interesting opportunities for cost-conscious families of kids with strong academic qualifications. Not least for kids looking for strong academic opportunities combined with a friendly, collaborative vibe.
In addition to the above, I wanted to mention the University of Iowa. It doesn’t necessarily get a lot of mentions in independent private school or Northeast circles, but it has a lot of quite strong departments, not least in “HASS” areas (Humanities, Arts, and Social Science), and including a legendary writer’s workshop (which is a grad program but I think also benefits undergrad writers in various ways). It tends to get a lot of good student reviews as to things like the professors being very engaged, Iowa City being a lot of fun, for a large public it actually has a relatively compact campus, and so on.
Of course that is not exactly a unique description, but Iowa also happens to have automatic admissions based on GPA and test scores, AND also a robust OOS merit program. So while it would be a bit above budget without merit, it could get well below budget with attainable merit.
Of course this may not be the sort of experience your kid is currently looking for, but on the other hand, to me it sounded like a potential good fit based on your description. I’d be very interested to see their reaction to a visit–sometimes kids are surprised with how much they like such visits, and if nothing else it could clarify what they really need versus just want.
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These would be very likely admit (maybe not all great fit) for your kid (mine had a much lower UW GPA) and with just merit below were less than 53K (upped a bit as the merit for 4.0 would be higher and wanted to add in Clark!) The starred ones strike me as good for a creative type (though we didn’t actually visit 100% of that below list)
Scranton
Champlain **
RWU
Ithaca **
Merrimack
Quinnipiac
URI
Temple
UNHampshire
UNewHaven
Clark **
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U new Haven very pre-professional, fyi. A focus on practical career preparation.
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got it, that is one we didn’t visit ..got in through NICHE but did it as decent engineering!
Also was really going for real-world costs, more than fit to creatives, but excellent insight.
Quinnipiac is same, really lots of pre-health majors. People seem to really love it though-- They have pretty big film/tv producition program though, which is creative-ish.
My creative, artsy kid applied to many of the schools already mentioned (Connecticut College, Skidmore, Bard, Emerson, Clark, Ithaca, UVM, Oberlin, Wesleyan, Vassar, Muhlenberg, Hampshire, SUNY Purchase and New Paltz). His GPA was lower (3.7). Accepted to Conn (committed), Hampshire, Purchase, Clark, Bard, Muhlenberg, Ithaca with very generous merit aid. Accepted to Emerson and UVM with some merit, but not enough to make it affordable for us. WL Skidmore and Oberlin.
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I don’t think there is enough information given to comment usefully. Not sure what creative field he is interested in, the selectivity desired or appropriate, or the financial needs.
In general I like a lot of the Colleges that Change Lives colleges ctcl.org. That list includes St. Olaf, Hampshire, Bard, Lawrence and one of my favorites, Clark U. I would add Bennington, Skidmore, and Vassar.
Colleges that Change Lives holds fairs in 17 cities- check out the website.
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Insufficient information regarding stats (SAT/ACT/AP scores), likely major in college, any career goal, what type of “creative career”, ECs, preferences, etc.
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Quinnipiac has its share of pre-everything- but also some strengths in the humanities. VERY different place from U New Haven! UNH great place for public safety, labor relations, stuff like that…
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I feel the pain of many of you in regard to not knowing what “creative” career he may be interested in. He enjoys music, drawing, film, writing, etc. etc. He doesn’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career to be cheeky about it. I apologize for not being able to give more info on that front. He has a 1390 SAT, 3.9 UW GPA. I appreciate the personal experiences of some of these smaller schools since I think he would enjoy that environment. He wants to be in a big city, but I think he would do well in a smaller liberal arts school in a cool town.
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