Match my daughter: AZ Res, Top 1%, 3.9 UW, 32 ACT, wants smaller school with 'chill' students who are smart, open curriculum

Chance Me / Match Me
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About her:

  • Large public urban high school
  • Female/White
  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.9
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.7
  • Class Rank: top 1% out of class of over 500
  • ACT Score: 32
  • Maxed available APs at school: 10 AP classes by end of senior year
  • One sport varsity athlete all 4 years (assume she will next yr)
  • 300+ hrs of volunteering
  • Started a club with ~20members, served as president 1 yr
  • Worked part time off and on since Freshman yr
  • Has add’l smaller clubs/awards but nothing state/nat’l level
  • No budget constraints

Solid high school career but not extraordinary. Looking for Target schools and even Reach schools for ED.

What she is looking for:

  • Not sure exact major but something in social sciences.
  • She wants to be around smart classmates but not an overly competitive or super stressful environment.
  • She wants an open curriculum since she isn’t sure on her major.
  • Preference is for a school with fewer than 10k students.
  • Coming from AZ she would like a warmer climate but that’s secondary.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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Do you have a budget?

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You don’t need target or reach (or to ED).

You need to find the school that she’d be happy to be at four years, and that you can afford.

The most important school on your list is a safety, with those two features - an admission and affordable safety, that she’d love.

Different colleges have different levels of curriculum - some will be more “lenient” than others while others describe themselves as open.

The ones you always read about - Amherst, Brown, Colorado (one class at a time), Grinnell, Hamilton, Rochester, Smith, Wesleyan, Williams. This article talks about Flexible Curriculums at CMC, Trinity, and Vassar. Wake Forest claims an open curriculum option.

The above are all reaches - except maybe Trinity.

For a safety as I described, you can look at Kalamazoo College and their K plan.

But as asked, you need a budget. If full pay, some of these will be close to $400K.

Good thing the warm climate is secondary - but if you want warm, you’re looking at schools like Occidental, Trinity in San Antonio, Tulane, and schools in Florida like Rollins, Eckerd, Stetson, or more - just throwing out LACs but not looking at curriculums.

In the end, budgets drive decisions.

U of A is excellent in social sciences and the Honors dorm is awesome. The big schools use Honors colleges to “shrink” the overall cohort. And the cost would be great.

There are lots of articles like this - but they list the same schools over and over.

The Best Colleges with an Open Curriculum - College Transitions

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Thanks for the thoughtful response. Budget isn’t a limiter we are more trying to get ideas on finding the right match.

She has expressed an interest in Grinnell and Wesleyan but I also want to have some more realistic options in mind. I will have her look into Trinity. I also hadn’t heard of those schools in Florida. I’ll have her take a look at those as well. Many thanks

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No real budget constraints. More focused on the right match. Any thoughts would be welcome.

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You said warm :slight_smile:

Have her look at Kalamazoo (safety that sends a lot to PhD - it’s a good school - it’s likely very regional but big merit and they have the K Plan.

If she’s interested in Wesleyan or Trinity, maybe look at Connecticut College - not open but easier and a fine name.

Grinnell and Wes aren’t warm - but for social sciences, you might look at Dickinson and Gettysburg in PA too - and really a ton of schools all over - but of course not warm. Furman in Greenville SC is getting warmer. While you’re not budget constrained, Hendrix is Arkansas is very good - and will match your flagship.

But then your curriculum is likely more ‘fixed’.

As for warm, you also have CA schools - not LACs but the Jesuits/religious types like USD, LMU, Chapman, etc.

Good luck.

K-Plan | Academics | Open Curriculum Colleges | Kalamazoo College (kzoo.edu)

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Have you looked at WUE schools?

https://www.wiche.edu/tuition-savings/wue/wue-savings-finder/

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The Jesuit schools hit her sweet spot for size, but most have a strong core curriculum.

I live in CT and I can tell you first hand that Wesleyan, Conn College, and Trinity have cold winters and sometimes snowy ones too. Kalamazoo is cold in the winter. So is Grinnell.

What about University of Richmond, Elon, Santa Clara. But really those do not have open curriculums.

Actually a college with a strong core course requirement might be a good choice if she is so undecided. These core courses expose students to many disciplines and often students find something that piques their interest that they hadn’t thought of previously.

Is weather negotiable? Is open curriculum negotiable?

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Just clarifying that we don’t need to discuss college funding? You have that covered?

What about Rice, Washington and Lee, Southern Methodist University, Vanderbilt?

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My D22 (social science major) had identical stats and applied/was admitted to the following warm weather colleges that fit your size criteria (she wanted urban, so she only applied to schools in bigger cities):
Rhodes
Trinity U, San Antonio
Tulane
UMiami (slightly over 10K students)
George Washington (slightly over 10K students)

She is attending Tulane, which I see as having smart kids that are cooperative. There are core requirements but how you fulfill them is flexible, for example you can satisfy the writing requirement through certain PoliSci or other social science classes. And some classes satisfy more than one core requirement. You don’t need to declare a major until end of sophomore year and creative double major combinations across the different colleges are not uncommon.

We also had several visits to Rhodes and know students there. They also strike me as smart and cooperative.

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Below are some schools that your D may want to consider, sorted by my guesses as to what her chances for admission would be:

Extremely Likely (80-99+%)

  • Hendrix (AR)

  • Loyola New Orleans (LA)

  • Sonoma State (CA)

  • U. of Denver (CO)

Likely (60-79%)

  • Chapman (CA)

  • Elon (NC)

  • Texas Christian

  • Southern Methodist (TX)

  • U. of San Diego (CA)

Toss-Up (40-59%)

  • American (D.C.) – they like to see a lot of demonstrated interest

  • Loyola Marymount (CA)

  • Occidental (CA)

Lower Probability (20-39%)

  • Furman (SC)

  • Trinity U. (TX)

Low Probability (less than 20%)

  • Tulane (LA)

  • William & Mary (VA)

  • Emory (GA)

  • Davidson (NC)

  • Washington & Lee (VA)

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Thank you! Many new options to consider and appreciate the breakdown in selectiveness. We’re new to this college admission thing and really don’t know how to gauge.

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Really good to know. I was thinking Tulane would be too far of a stretch. Also good perspective on the core requirements - probably a lot of schools offer many ways to satisfy them. That’s a good question to ask on tours.

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As long as you have an assured admission she’d like - the rest of the list doesn’t matter (short of rejection fear).

So if you have two assured, etc. you are good.

My daughter goes to College of Charleston. She is majoring in International Studies and Poli Sci - and like all schools, they have various social science majors - including an Urban Studies, which on paper sounds good to me.

More importantly, within the Honors College, your daughter may have a chance at the Charleston Fellows - a Small Cohort within Honors.

The school is a safety, Honors is likely and Fellows is a reach. It’s about 10K kids - and it’s an urban school (Downtown Charleston) but a small campus.

U of Tampa is another - it’s become very popular - right outside downtown Tampa. Highly likely.

Smaller, not cold, and reasonable reach (like W&M) - Brandeis (not warm) and if Catholic/Jesuit ok, Holy Cross another reasonable reach.

American U too.

So many names above.

It sounds like she wants an LAC - but consider larger (under 10K).

College of Charleston | Charleston Fellows

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Vasssar, Grinnell, Smith immediately come to mind in terms of open curriculum.

Based on what you say, though, what she wants isn’t so much an open curriculum (no requirements) but no core (=everyone must take specific classes). Since she wants to explore, having a few general education requirements would actually help her see what she wants (ie., she’d take one introductory class in a variety of subjects) as long as she can pick from a wide variety.

Cold weather, but St Olaf (very solid academically, safety if she shows a lot of interest) and Macalester (match) are worth investigating.
For an academic kid, Wooster would be a safety.
American U (match for social science if she shows a lot of interest), Denison, Dickinson, would be warmer than the above.
Agnes Scott (safety if she shows interest), Davidson would be warm weather.

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Sent you a direct message :slight_smile:

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Thanks - that’s another new one to add to our explore list. Appreciate it

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Look at Kenyon as well. It does have distribution requirements, so it’s not a completely open curriculum, but they’re pretty easy to satisfy (e.g., the Physics department offers cool entry-level Astronomy courses that meet science and quantitative reasoning requirements). I think the school checks off most boxes for your daughter; students are very smart and motivated but kind and not very competitive. My daughter is graduating from Kenyon in a month (with a double major in social sciences and humanities), and she has received a fantastic education there and had a wonderful experience overall (she was also admitted to Grinnell, Macalester, and St. Olaf, when she was applying, so some of the schools suggested in this thread).

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Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX
Trinity University in San Antonio
University of Redlands in Redlands, CA (has really good merit scholarships)

also consider some other Colleges That Change Lives schools (www.ctcl.org)…a lot of them have pretty open curriculum (Southwestern is 1 of them).

You could also consider Colorado College (that might be a reach, it’s pretty hard to get into). Their classes are set up where you take just 1 class per month.

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Thanks - I’m starting to look at Kenyon now…may I ask if your daughter planning on going straight to the workforce or is she going on to graduate school?