@CroissantMiser (my daughter’s a dancer so I pay attention to that) I think Denison and St. Olaf have dance programs…also, I know Goucher and Muhlenburg do (but you probably know that.)
Hey! Thanks everyone for all the feedback on St. Mary’s. We are definitely going to take a very hard look at this place. The bit about the cigarette smoking isn’t so great, but I have to believe that habit is dying out - Like how on earth can kids possibly afford it? And thanks @momofa12 for the Washington College suggestion, we will take a look at that one too!
@oldbrookie, I hope you’re right about the smoking…I was disappointed to hear it too…and as I said, it’s second-hand information. Will be very interested to hear what you think after you visit.
@inthegarden you are very smart starting your research early. I wish I had had more time to get up to speed. It really is pretty amazing how little knowledge about the whole college process is part of the collective consciousness, and how much of that knowledge is wrong! For such an important and expensive, and you only get one chance, experience it is kind of mind boggling how little anyone knows about it until they are in the thick of it.
ETA - And I agree with you, this is the best thread on cc!
@CroissantMiser I liked Muhlenberg too! The free access to an on-staff physical therapist for dancers also looked appealing! It mostly had to do with academic interests - D is interested potentially in studying Arabic, which isn’t really supported at Muhlenberg. We also have family within a reasonable distance of campus so she would have had a support net. But alas, it fell off. In the end, she applied to 9 schools so that was plenty!
If she likes urban, do take a look at Case Western (it’s not just for engineers, about 5K undergrads) and Macalester (St. Paul). St. Paul Ballet Company is also within a short distance of Mac if your daughter’s dance interests tend in that direction. Dickinson isn’t exactly urban but it is in the center of the town, if that helps. Fordham might be worth a look, if she is open to Catholic schools and a somewhat larger campus but wants urban. And Bryn Mawr if she’s open to women’s colleges.
BTW, Gambier is REALLY small. My D likes small towns but this was too small, even for her. A shame, because it checked most of the boxes.
@CroissantMiser Just to clarify…not sure if you understood that I meant that I went to boarding school in MA and got into competitive LAC, not my D. 
She goes to the local public HS and has grades and scores that are fine but nothing special. Took it upon myself to create a list of schools where she would hopefully get some merit and be successful if she attended any of them.
@kt1969 ah i see…got it. @mamaedefamilia --thanks…some of those are on the prelim list…I liked Fordham, but don’t have dance minor and non-majors can only take 3 classes over the 4 years or something like that. Their Alvin Ailey program is outstanding, but very competitive–too competitive.
Why, thank you @oldbrookie I often feel sheepish about it, as if I would appear super-obsessed. It’s just…it’s all so overwhelming and I can’t imagine having to digest it all in a few short months. I hope the knowledge I’m gleaning little- by-little will pay off with less-stressful junior/senior years. I’m NOT looking forward to her leaving so I hope to make the last years at home as pleasant as possible! Of course, her preferences/personality will change but really, they have remained remarkably stable over the course of her life, so far. She’s a more practical person than I am, and a little risk-averse (which can be good and bad, but makes my life easier, lol!) I have a feeling that schools that mayl be contenders for her will be Ursinus, Susquehanna, Lafayette, Dickinson, Duquesne, Pitt, Wooster, Denison. Or St. Mary’s, but I can’t imagine her as a hipster at this point! (So let us know if that holds true…) Wish St. Olaf were nearer…
I hear you about this nice thread! At five and six, DD wanted to be a librarian! A couple of years ago she said "Mom, I don’t know if there’s something wrong with me…everyone talks about having big dreams…all my friends talk about stuff like being ballet dancers or celebrities or curing cancer. I don’t have those dreams, I kind of like things right now. I would like to cure cancer but I don’t think I can. When I think of my dreams, I want a golden retriever, a family, a job I like and I want to be a grandmother some day! " (LOL!)
My husband graduated from a magnate school in NYC and a cut-throat STEM university (talked about with great interest on “other” threads of CC.) He said he would NOT make that choice if given the chance again nor wish it on his worse enemy (though I feel sure there must be some who thrive on it.) He felt most students were miserable and felt driven by fear to succeed. He then went to a good but more moderate grad school and felt his REAL education in how to interact normally with normal people began there. He now teaches at a little-known directional and is content with that. He really wanted to focus on teaching, not publishing, etc. While some students are unmotivated or unprepared, he does a lot of remedial tutoring and his core group of majors and minors are solid students and nice kids, many of them first-gen college students who couldn’t afford more. He recently said that sometimes his majors go away to conferences or internships and encounter more "elite’ students and say they weren’t that impressed.
Being happy is a GOOD THING IMO.
Seeing groups of kids standing around smoking on campuses was/is a real turnoff for D (and me). One of the many things we really liked about UVM is that the entire campus is totally cigarette smoke-free. We saw plenty of kids smoking on the downtown pedestrian area, but all seemed to respect the campus policy.
I’m really attracted to the idea of UVM too…too bad it’s far from us (and no airport to speak of for 120 miles.) Looks like a great place in so many ways… Did your daughter apply there?
@cameo43 and @inthegarden, I really liked that about UVM, too. We went to visit Clark about week before we visited UVM this fall, and I remember seeing ashcans all over the campus at Clark and being disappointed (I was holding a torch for Clark, but this was definitely a turnoff for both D and me).
UVM is just so cost-prohibitive for OOS and the merit $$ doesn’t come close to making it affordable, even if we were lucky enough to receive some
@inthegarden Don’t discount the Burlington airport…very close to campus at UVM. I went to college an hour south of Burlington and all the OOS kids seemed to use that airport just fine…have to make connections, but doable.
Great post @inthegarden. Being happy is the only thing as far as I am concerned. You are taking good care of that grandmother of the future.
@CroissantMiser, I don’t know if this falls too far afield of your daughter’s dance interest but I noticed Wooster has a big (full??) scholarship for Scottish dancers to perform with their bagpipers on the field. I saw the video and the dancing did not look too difficult to learn IMO for anyone trained in ballet.
If she likes urban would she consider Goucher? My daughter had one of their ballet instructors (Tim Fox) at a summer ballet intensive and he was good (and nice.) In his day, danced with Barishnikov!
Also, what about the dance program at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, (especially if she likes contemporary ballet?) Really nice city…
Clark is a hopeful for us too, so smoking is disappointing news.
I just did the web crawl over Washington College @momofa12 and it looks very promising indeed. Thanks again!
Thanks, @kt1969, I meant that we don’t live near a functioning airport…
@inthegarden, welcome; I wish I’d started earlier with college planning – better too early than too late!
@kt1969, we’re in the same situation with Smith. D loves it and will apply, but getting the aid is about as likely as winning the lottery. (And she might well not get in anyway!)
@MomStudent2017, that’s some seriously unprofessional behavior on the part of your S’s English teacher. I’m glad he had a second option set up.
@CroissantMiser, yep @eandesmom is correct about my oldest (dance major – sounds similar to your D). Ursinus would have been very close to in-state public price. She visited and liked it (would have been happy there I’m sure), but not enough to choose over our local U. The local dance community is very tight and she liked the idea of being able to stay in her troupe and building on the reputation she had. Just having some good choices was nice though.
She loved the atmosphere at Goucher (and they gave her the second best merit), but found their dance program much too ballet-focused. She is more into world dance, especially tribal fusion. If your D is into tribal fusion or West African dance, look at CU-Boulder!
She liked the sound of Beloit and almost applied, but it came off the list for some reason I can’t remember. She really liked the dance program at St. Olaf, but was wait-listed. Our assumption was that wait list = no merit, so she declined to be on the list.
Have you looked at the five-college consortium with Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Hampshire, Amherst, and UMass? The five-college dance department looks great and Hampshire was D’s first choice. It’s pretty quirky, so not for everyone. She got in with decent merit, but not enough.
Here are the colleges D did not get into that seemed to have good dance programs: Skidmore, Oberlin, Pitzer (also in a consortium with shared dance)
Some that sounded good but came off the list for one reason or another: Marlboro, Connecticut College, Bennington
So does anyone know when the financial aid awards get sent out?
Wow get busy for 24 hours and this board takes off.
Welcome to our newcomers @inthegarden @CroissantMiser.
My son isn’t looking at quite the same type of schools so I can’t help too much. My D12 (who graduated last spring) did go to college to study Art. She had lower stats that both of you post & did get into her top pick school with a small scholarship. (Sending her to private school might cost us less than S17 to OOS public university.)
The only school that we visited that had a good dance program would be SUNNY Purchase.