Oh no. However do students manage to get educated there?
Before you go to school someone should tell you that it’s up to you to decide if you will graduate on time. Not what the other students are doing.
Three of those five are on my initial list (which, sigh, currently stands at 145 schools). Absent quantitative data, it’s going to be challenging to winnow the list to a handful of solid contenders since I live more than 800 miles from most of the schools I’m considering.
I’ve ruled out all of the schools you’ve listed for various reasons. Now to get my head around some other private colleges — schools like Beloit, College of Wooster, Hope, Juniata, Kalamazoo, Muhlenberg and the University of Rochester.
Since it looks like I can’t slash through a bunch with quantitative data, looks like I’ll be following Hunt’s advice to invest some serious time into checking each college’s qualitative info on the CC forums.
@schadenfreuden - Not sure what your exact income situation is, but some schools do offer fly outs for lower income students. 145 schools - that’s a lot! Tell the CC gang more about yourself and what you are ideally looking for and I’m sure we can make some helpful suggestions.
If Juniata appeals to you so would Allegheny College and Ursinus College. Muhlenberg is an excellent choice as is U of R.
I think this book is pretty good in terms of describing the tone of different schools: http://www.amazon.com/The-Insiders-Guide-Colleges-2015/dp/1250048060
“Carleton, Haverford, St. Olaf, Colorado College, Whitman are colleges that fit that description in my opinion, having visited at 25-30 LACs. I don’t think you can quantify this stuff.”
Colorado College - a school we liked very much, FWIW - struck me as having a lot of money. It takes a lot of money to have snow sports as your extracurricular hobby, IMO. Skis, ski passes, equipment, etc. aren’t cheap.
Re: Colorado College, there are kids with money, yes, but there are plenty of laid back, unpretentious types, moneyed or not. Aside from the cost of skiing, its not a student body that tends to flaunt wealth. Away from an annual ski pass, ski equipment can be acquired relatively cheaply, plus there are plenty of outdoor pursuits for those not wishing to ski.
Beloit is, along with Lawrence, known as the top private school in Wisconsin. (respect to Marquette, but to me, Lawrence and Beloit are better academically).
Beloit is less than an hour from Madison, less than 2 hrs from Chicago, and maybe 90 minutes from Milwaukee. Situated in rural upper-Midwest America – just like Grinnell – there are farms nearby. The people in the area will be mostly without pretense. This does not mean there won’t be any snobs, but Beloit College likely will be bearable.
@Hunt Maybe you need a snobbiosity scale in miliharvards!
I don’t know if this was serious or not, but there’s a difference in tone amongst these, too. Just judging from the info sessions and tours I went to, at Penn the tone explaining the lack of merit aid was along the lines of “we’re great enough that we don’t need to offer merit aid to attract great students”, while at Georgetown it was explicitly “we don’t offer merit aid so that we can direct more of our resources to need-based aid for students who aren’t wealthy”.
Now, one can argue over whether there’s any real distinction here, but yes, the difference in tone was palpable, and at least on that basis, I’d rank Penn (despite my own affinity for the place) as snobbier than Georgetown, in the sense the OP seems to have intended.
OP assumes that all, or most, affluent parents give their college-aged children hefty allowances. That’s not always true. There will be students from affluent families on a set allowance and budget, too.
I can’t tell whether you didn’t read that I also have public colleges on my list or you just default to condescending.
Regarding your assertion that it’s the student’s responsibility whether he or she graduates on time, perhaps you should ask the many students who are held up by “systemic challenges” (http://www.forbes.com/sites/specialfeatures/2013/07/25/the-rise-and-fail-of-the-five-year-college-degree/). My parents both attended public colleges. Mom got all of her classes when she needed them and graduated in 3 years. Dad didn’t. It took him 5.
Thank you! I welcome the help and the lack of judgment. I’m in something of an unusual situation. I’m a triplet with one younger sibling (20 months younger) in a family with a low six-figure income. All four of us likely will go to college, but my parents cannot afford to pay the way for all of us. I aspire to be a physician and plan to major in a science. I am a pre-IB student also taking some AP courses and haven’t yet taken my SATs.
Why am I planning already? I also am an athlete and would like to play my sport in college. The recruiting cycle for my sport is such that my club coach has encouraged me to begin thinking about potential fits already. If it is an option to play DI/DII (a big if), I’m reluctant to go down that path because if I have to quit playing to keep my grades up, I would lose any athletic scholarship money. DIII would probably give me more flexibility, but since DIII schools do not offer athletic scholarships, I would need merit help since four years of undergrad, plus four years of med school, plus at least three years of residency is going to put me in a deep, deep hole. In a nutshell, though, right now I’m keeping lots of options in play but am a little overwhelmed at how many options there are.
Here are the general criteria of schools on my initial list:
[ul][]75th percentile SAT scores equal to or higher than 1200
[]6-year graduation rate > 70% (although preference given to those with a 4-year graduation rate > 60%)
[]offers AP/IB credit
[]has at least 1,000 students
[]coed
[]in the Midwest, Northeast or Mid-Atlantic, with exceptions made for a handful of schools in Colorado and a few around the Southeast (mostly the Carolinas and up)
[]no Ivies or other schools with very high application rates
[]no military
[li]no colleges in giant cities (such as Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, D.C., NYC, Philadelphia) — although I’m OK with Denver, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Nashville[/ul][/li]
I seem to be drawn most to smaller private colleges in the Midwest but don’t want to rule out others that may be solid possibilities.
If you are saying you want to be able to “find your people” and get a quality education, look at the public Ivys, e.g.,U of Michigan, U of Virginia, UC–Berkley, U of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, UCLA, UT-Austin. There are probably one or two others I left out.
If all of your siblings are going to college at the same time, that should help all of you in getting FA. Some folks would say your parents planned it correctly in terms of maximizing FA.
Any nonacademic interests/ECs that might come into play in your college choice? What sport, if you don’t mind answering? Are you ok with the outskirts of large cities? As far as student body fit especially for smaller schools, would you describe yourself as preppy (I’m guessing not based on previous discussion), outdoorsy, hipster, crunchy, nerdy, etc? If female, would you consider women’s colleges?
ps Are those swedish meatballs in your avatar?
@bromfield2 “There are probably one two others I left out”
I would add The College of William and Mary, The University of Wisconsin, and The University of Illinois, and the public portion of Cornell University.
"Re: Colorado College, there are kids with money, yes, but there are plenty of laid back, unpretentious types, moneyed or not. Aside from the cost of skiing, its not a student body that tends to flaunt wealth. "
No argument. Which actually continues to make the point - having wealth is not necessarily the same thing as showing or flaunting wealth.
Consider schools in a rural setting. Being in a city keenly magnifies class differences. In the sticks, there aren’t readily available opportunities to spend big money off campus.
I’ve observed this difference in dynamic between my kids’ boarding schools: one in a rural setting and the other in a suburban setting.
You’re going to go to a good school and that’s not going to happen at the vast majority of good schools except when students screw around with their schedule. Just keep on top of your schedule.
What’s your major or career goal? That might lead to some good ideas for matches.
New College of Florida has grown to about 1000 students, and meets your other criteria gloriously. It is a public college, and so it is very inexpensive for Florida residents, and relatively affordable for out-of-state students. Since a high percentage of students receive aid, or (like my son) chose it over more expensive options, students of modest means can feel comfortable there. Sarasota is a wealthy community, but borders some working class communities.