Match Me - VA junior looking for college with academic culture and good food! [4.0 UW, 1520 SAT, Likely IR/History]

Chance Me / Match Me
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I’m a little surprised that you aren’t including W&M more prominently. In many ways, it seems like a really great fit for you. I understand that food is important to you, and if it really is at the top of your criteria list, I hear VT has among the best food in the country, though I suspect you’d have to seek out your people. On the other hand, you can’t throw a candlestick at W&M without hitting a slightly nerdy IR/History major singing a cappella, having just emerged onto the contained campus from a smaller class. Further, it’s only an hour to the east of you, and very safe, both of which I imagine would be welcome by your family. I’d give it another look, especially in light of @lkbtnc’s mention of a new food service provider.

To answer your original question, a few of the more selective schools that I think of in somewhat similar orbits to W&M, or that come up often in threads here: Wake Forest, Washington University in St. Louis, Rice, Emory. Further afield, Carleton, St. Olaf, and Whitman, which I think have all been mentioned already. For not-quite-as-rejective, I’ve seen Miami University in Ohio praised a few times recently.

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Thank you so much guys for all of the helpful suggestions!

Also - not sure if anyone notices and if so I’m super sorry but under SAT I put 1510 with 720 math 790 EBRW - my math score was actually 730 with a composite score of 1520! Sorry about any errors!

@tsbna44 I think the JMU poisoning incident was more of an extremely mortifying event for me rather than a bad food experience. I ended up having to throw up in the audition room during the sight reading, so I’m not sure if I’m totally comfortable applying there. Nevertheless, I will definitely look into Charleston and CNU!

@randommom1 Regarding budget, my parents are willing and able to pay for any college I desire as both them and my grandparents have been saving since I was a baby, so I am extremely lucky and grateful. However, when discussing cost with my parents, they brought up that if I were to attend graduate school, I might not have enough money left over to afford it in my college fund if I go to an expensive school.

@Mwfan1921 thank you so much! Quick question: what are LACs?

@MYOS1634 Will definitely look into St. Olaf - the global semester program sounds super interesting! Are they particularly religious?

@lkbtnc I was actually there when they switched over! I have to say, the new food provider’s brownies are magnificent. However, I am slightly worried that the food quality would deteriorate over time!

@AustenNut Thank you so much! I had no idea about tuition exchange! After discussing this with my parent this morning, I am pretty sure the program is available to all faculty children!

@thumper1 Thank you for your insight! My harp teacher and I have reached out to a couple of schools - Wake Forest, Washington and Lee, William and Mary - regarding harp programs. Funnily enough, afterwards two other schools reached out to me - Davidson and VT. I have met the harp teachers at W&L and Wake Forest, and both think I may be eligible for scholarships!

Okay, I think I answered all questions, but if I forgot you, please let me know! SO grateful for all the suggestions - putting a list together right now! (And I will take a second look at W&M, just didn’t vibe with it first time around)

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Also I promise I really don’t mean to bump this, but I forgot one thing mentioned by a lot of you guys! For me, distance isn’t an issue, as long as the college is in North America!

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you can’t throw a candlestick at W&M without hitting a slightly nerdy IR/History major singing a cappella

This made me laugh because it’s so true :grinning:

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I don’t know if you’ve visited WM since they opened the new Arts Quarter, but you should see it if you haven’t. The music building is just so nice with beautiful performance spaces. I wasn’t sure about harp at WM but see they do offer high level harp lessons!

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Vandy should be a school you consider. They usually are highly ranked in campus food and of course Nashville has lots of great restaurants.

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No, they’re not particularly religious, not in an evangelical sense but they do take people’s faiths and spiritual growth seriously if it matters to them -if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. It’s more Georgetown than Notre Dame.
You do have to take 2 classes in Religion: Christian Theology in Dialogue (Christianity in Dialogue with other ideologies such as feminism, or with other religions - there’s a Rabbi and an Imam on campus in addition to pastors/priests and I think they have Sikh and/or Hindu representatives for students) and “Faiths and Values” which involves Ethics (some classes I know of include Women in the Bible, Judaism&Psychology, Apocalypse&Dystopia…)
They’re also nationally known for students who are serious about music.

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I agree with another that CNU is likely beneath.

For foodie environment, most any big city will work - Houston (Rice) can be another as could Emory and WUSTL.

A large, safe, and excellent school for IR and History (so not necessarily the small you seek) - by safe I mean admissions wise - is IU and its Hamilton Lugar School. Bloomington is known for its number of ethnic food offerings.

My sense is with free tuition at Richmond or some type of “exchange” - that your parents would steer you to this type of school. It’s just a perk of working for that employer - so people will take advantage. It’s natural behavior. I work for a car company. Its cars may not be my favorite - but I still lease them as my rate is incredible. Many could afford others but get from our company because it’s a benefit. Same concept.

I’d start with learning your parents financial benefit and the schools it covers - and use that as a basis to build a list.

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Yes you did. Read what you wrote.

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TE covers about 600 schools, with many colleges that meet your criteria. It’s competitive but your stats make you a strong contender.
You may want to read through the "TE"or Tuition Exchange threads on CollegeConfidential, lots of useful information.
2 colleges that I think would match what you want really well, Bryn Mawr and St Olaf, aren’t part of TE so run the NPC.
On top of TE&UR+BMC+StO, you’ve got W&M (for History&IR and the vibe you want) and VTech (for nerdy&food). :sparkles:

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These are some statements that OP made:

This site has aggregated the information to show how many students graduated with a bachelor’s degree in a particular field in 2022. As there are some schools that are actually eliminating history as a major die to lower demand (:scream:) and since the number of history electives typically have a strong relationship to the number of majors, I thought that this was a good metric to look at. I narrowed down undergrad enrollment to 10,143 (the closest I could get to 10k) as those schools are likelier, on average, to have smaller classes than their larger brethren. So within this pool of schools from across the country, these were the results:

  • Christopher Newport tied for 16th most bachelor’s in history, with 48 majors. U. of Mary Washington was 35th most with 37 majors, right behind Emory and Brandeis with 38 majors.

  • With international relations/studies, it’s a bit harder to look at as there are multiple majors (International Relations and Affairs, International/Globalization Studies, etc). But in International Relations and Affairs, U. of Mary Washington had 22 majors, coming in at 37th most in the country, coming behind Vassar and Marquette.

In terms of alums who have gone on to earn a PhD in history between 2000-2018, U. of Mary Washington had 18 such alums while CNU had 3.

To provide a comparison with other schools, I’ve gone through my original list and indicated the number of students who majored in history in 2022 and the number of alums who earned a doctorate in history between 2000-2018. I did not have the time to go through and do ratios based on the size of the schools, but the size of the school should also be kept in mind when making comparisons between schools. I will grant you, however, that most of these schools were selected because they are relatively heavy hitters and/or are punching well above their weight in the fields of OP’s interest, and helped to fill potential buckets with an unknown budget (and TE is available at some of these institutions, but TE can be quite competitive at the most popular schools, many of which are on this list).

All of that to say, for someone who was interested in history, I likely would have included UMW and CNU as extremely likely admits if they met the person’s wishes. As class size is an important factor for OP and her family would prefer for her to stay in-state, that gives even more weight to including those as schools for OP to investigate. I most definitely stand by my recs of those two schools in the extremely likely bucket for this OP.

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My daughter and I just toured St. Olaf and according to their stats (and if my memory isn’t failing me) 43% of students are non-religious. This was a concern for my (very non-religious) daughter as well.

It’s a Lutheran college, but everything I have heard and read indicates that there is no religious agenda at all. You are required to take two theology courses, but there are lots of interesting options that are more philosophical than anything.

Another plus - their food is amazing. Leg of lamb was offered at lunch. We ate there and were very impressed. And as someone else mentioned, the folks from town actually go there to eat by choice. (Confirmed as I know a local family who has done so.)

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Yep, you are CC’s premier data analyst and I agree the data is compelling. I guess I’m used to how high stats kids react when less selective schools are suggested (esp the two in question in VA, where I live although CNU is generally perceived as more desirable than UMW). Moreover, the OP’s family is pushing for more prestigious schools. I don’t know if your excellent data, that you worked very hard to produce, would sway them either (re the two schools in question).

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Well, it certainly hits your mark for academics + good food.

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Has anyone mentioned Oberlin yet? Don’t know about IR, but for a mix of humanities and music it seems to check a lot of boxes. They offer merit aid, too. Have no idea about the food.

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You’re always very gracious. Reading OP’s post after my earlier one definitely cleared up some info…as in the continental U.S. being game and a budget that would cover any U.S. university. When budget is unknown, I always like to include schools that are on the more affordable side. Nothing like a list of suggestions that are all way out-of-range!

Virginia really has some amazing publics…just about any other state would be thrilled to have UVA OR Virginia Tech OR William & Mary. Not only do you have all three of them, you also have some schools that would be considered very desirable public options if they were in any other state (my own state included). I know that many “top” students (and their families) only want to look at the “top” schools. But sometimes it takes an outsider to point out that schools that are not the “top” of their own state would be top schools in many other states.

Written from a jealous non-Virginian :slight_smile:

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Harp is a tricky one. Most orchestras need one at any given time. And if they have one, or (God forbid) two, would they let you rotate in?

This probably seems obvious but I imagine at schools like Oberlin, the awesome performing opportunities and maybe even teachers will be allocated to people who are studying in the B.M. program. If you go to a school with a conservatory, you’re probably going to be looking at a non-majors orchestra, which means a school big enough to have something like that.

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LACs are Liberal Arts Colleges

The University of Richmond, like Wesleyan University, is actually classed as a LAC

Conversely, Boston College and Dartmouth College are universities.

What’s in a name?

ETA:

If you like Virginia Tech and the U of Richmond, I think they are fairly safe for you, and you’re in good shape.

Many other excellent schools have been mentioned, and concentrating on IR and History – and these are fine in many other areas too – would be reaches like Georgetown, Tufts, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, and Cornell.

I’m not sure about UVA, William & Mary and Gettysburg College’s IR programs, but they would be great for History, and would probably be matches/high matches for you.

There are many other great recommendations in this thread worth checking out.

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With respect to your interest in international relations, this site may offer you ideas:

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I also immediately thought William & Mary seems perfect on paper, assuming the new food vendor is working out, but you do have to go there in the real world . . . .

Some other strong IR schools to consider:

University of Denver has the Korbel School, a top IR school, and also robust merit programs. Pretty low student to faculty ratio and a lot of smaller classes, and it is in Denver! Denver is a very cool city.

Macalester has a very strong IR program, also very strong in History, fairly robust merit. Again low student to faculty ratio, small classes, probably a little nerdier than Denver. It has a FANTASTIC location in the Twin Cities, in fact right between the two Downtowns, which again is a very cool setting.

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