rate these new england itineraries

SBmom
Fri, 01 Jul 2005 19:00:14 +0000

path1,

I heartily agree, it is important to look at the LACs. In fact, the Ivies are mostly pretty small, so top LACS will be very close in both academic reputation & “feel.” Also the LAC-like D1 non-Ivy schools (like Colgate & Bucknell) are worth a look.

The thing is, feel is much easier to get a handle on when school is in session.

One thing you may want to do (we did this) is to travel to the east coast when a regional tourney is going on in your D’s sport. My D plays tennis, so we visited the east coast during the regionals and saw a bunch of the D3 teams playing all on one day. This was great for meeting several coaches at once and also for getting a good feel for the ability level of the teams.

On the same trip, D did overninghts at several schools. Both the tourney and the overnights served to rule out or to intensify interest in schools. I strongly encourage this. Furthermore, the coaches can hook your D up with overnight hosts (this is one of the biggest bonuses of athletic recruitment!)



I want her to see some of the famous schools she’s heard of and allow her to see a selection of LAC or near LAC schools that have great undergrad reps before she discounts them out of hand.



Hopefully you can help her see that these LACs may actually appeal to her as much as or more than the Ivies, for diverse reasons. If not, they may be her best “athletic safeties.” Furthermore, depending on the Ivy that appeals to her, her “next favorite” school may be a LAC. For example if she fell for Dartmouth, Dartmouth’s most-similar schools are probably Williams, Middlebury, Colgate, Hamilton-- certainly not Columbia.