Seeking college recommendations for progressive intellectual student

gotham_mom
Thu, 31 Dec 2020 17:17:43 +0000

I like Amherst and Northampton, too. My D loves Northampton and is a city kid through and through, so I was surprised that she didn’t apply to Amherst. It just felt bland to her (and we visited when school was in session). She had enough reaches on her list, so it wasn’t worth pushing it. Yes, Williams and Midd have their fair share of econ majors with their eyes on working in finance or tech, but if you look at the break out of majors, you’ll see that there are lots of students majoring in other disciplines. FWIW, my D loves to draw and paint and go to museums and it’s hard to top Williams in those areas. (Vassar was a close second in her mind.)
Of course, these are all wonderful schools with a huge overlap in applicants so their differences are probably much less than I’ve made them out to be. Your son sounds terrific, and like someone my D would like, which I’m sure makes me less than objective.
Last thing I would suggest is to have your S look for the Instagram accounts for the campus newspaper and academic departments and extracurriculars that interest him. Some schools even have “Humans of [school]” accounts. These can help give him a better sense of the community.