As long as you have an assured, meets your needs including budget where the student would be happy, then programs such as Johnson at W&L or Presidential at SMU make sense. Just examples. I know U of Seattle has a full ride as do others.
Ps Virginia just saw both house and senate blue so while I can’t say I’d guess it’s laws won’t grow restrictive anytime soon as much as the governor did hope for this. But he got punched back 5 days ago. Ohio too. So far Roe has been a victory for women’s rights in red and purple states. Kansas. Ohio. And not ensconced in the constitution like those two but Va too. Other states to come.
If you’re chasing merit, you have 20 slots so I’d use them or at least many of them !!
W&L had been on and off the list a few times. I worry it will be super preppy and entitled, like UofRichmond. Has anyone here visited or have a sense of the vibe of the student body? Do the girls wear sweater sets w/ pearls and do the boys wear tasseled loafers? LOL.
My S16/20 liked to dress nicer his last two years of high school (think vineyard vines on sale level). He came out of W&L wearing sweats almost exclusively. He never owned tasseled loafers lol.
So I would say super preppy - no. But there are a lot of people with money there. We were not one of those families. We were not at the bottom, but roughly 25% from the bottom income wise. He got a scholarship that covered tuition that allowed him to attend.
My son had a fabulous 4 years. He is a straight white male, majored in math & econ. Not political at all, but probably leans a little to the right, especially in monetary policies.
GF definitely likes clothes, but sweater sets and pearls, definitely not. I’d say trendy casual?
(Of course, this is coming from someone who buys their clothes at Walmart. Target is fancy for me.)
I should also add that GF went to young alumni weekend recently. She said that the diversity on campus seems to have increased significantly from her freshmen year. S has remarked the same. So it might not be as high as other places, but they are making an effort.
When I’ve visited campus, most kids are dressed casually for class… along the lines of leggings or jeans with tees/pullovers/sweaters for girls and shorts with tees/hoodies for boys. Yes, some of those will be lululemon, Patagonia, Vineyard Vines and the like, but plenty will not. So daily dress is casual and will be a range from trendier to super casual sports attire.
My D is having a great experience and loves the campus and the amazing resources available to students. I’m happy to answer any other questions you may have.
I don’t have the bandwidth right now for a long, thoughtful reply (because I just drove 8 hours back from Lexington today!). Another resource to check out is the school newspaper, the Ring Tum Phi https://ringtumphi.net/
@DramaMama2021 's suggestion to scroll through the hundreds of photos in the " Seen on Campus" social media posts is an excellent one.
63% of all students receive financial aid, and the average award is $57,000. So clearly not everyone is uber wealthy, although there are a lot of wealthy families too.
I do think W&L is slightly more formal than some other schools on rare occasions. For example, many boys wore blue blazers and khakis to a first year convocation ceremony. And there’s a black tie ball, started in 1907 and held every year since. But – look at the photos of every day life, which aren’t different from many schools.
W&L has definitely changed. My husband and I went to an alumni event last summer and the alumni were all sports jackets, floral dresses, and pearls. Just like we remembered from the 90s. No tasseled loafers, I think that’s more New England preppy
But when we went again during this past school year the kids were in typical college sweatshirts and jeans. Even W&L changes, just slowly
I went down the “which schools are preppy” research rabbit hole, and it appears Lafayette may be problematically preppy as well. (“Problematically preppy” only for those that don’t want preppy, obviously. “Perfectly preppy” for those who do.)
I am sure it isn’t as bad other places, but here in the Rocky Mountain West, those who choose to be preppy tend to be pretty insufferable. Since being preppy is more normal in the East, it may include a broader swath of personality types there. But here at least the preppy folks tend to be (or act) privileged, entitled, out of touch with the real world, disinterested in true diversity, etc.
I have a freshman at Lafayette. I was worried it wouldn’t be a fit for for him as he is more of an artsy “cool nerd” type. He has found this crowd, including the theater crowd, D&D players, martial arts kids, environmentalists, etc. and I have heard no complaints. He’s an engineering major but has found a bunch of clubs quirky enough for him. Seems to be very happy.
I would encourage anyone helping their kid find a good-fit school not to rely on the presence or absence of brand name clothing, hairstyles, etc. as a “marker”.
I know blond/blowout/manicured to a fare-thee-well young women in Tory Burch/Lilly Pulitzer who would have looked perfectly at home at any Southern sorority who graduated from Reed, Hampshire, College of the Atlantic, Bard, Sarah Lawrence… i.e. the crunchy/granola ripped t-shirt places. And I know the gritty, ripped t-shirt types who loved their experience at Alabama, Trinity, Lafayette. And well groomed navy blazer men who went to MIT, and “I only wear second hand REI or North FaceI” women who loved College of Charleston.
Really. We’re adults and we owe our kids more. If your kids are at a HS where it’s common and acceptable to stereotype kids based on how they dress and the brands they wear and how they do their hair… well ok, it’s HS and most kids don’t have the luxury of setting the tone and culture of their HS. But encourage them to actually explore a college’s culture, not to use the HS snapshots of “preppy” or “boho” or “artsy” or whatever people think these terms mean.
There are entitled and obnoxious kids who get free lunch at school; there are down to earth and kind and generous kids whose parents have a net worth equal to actual countries. You have no way of knowing who is who based on the brand name of someone’s shirt or the logo on someone’s handbag. Let’s help our kids leave HS behavior behind when they leave HS.
My niece us from the Midwest and is at UR, legacy. My daughter is at Clemson, nyc metro, both juniors. My nieces freshman roommates and friends ended up being from our area, my sister was horrified at the insta posts with bralettes, lingerie dresses, bodycon, while my daughter left those in her closet and wore more pink, yellow, blue ruffled mini dresses than she’s ever worn in her life. We joked they should’ve exchanged clothes ahead of time.
I went to W&L after growing up in a major international city. I wore a lot of black and had a favorite beret. It was the 90s! The girl who became my lifelong friend was from outside of Richmond and wore gigantic hair bows, heels (every single day), and pearls. We wound up living in Brooklyn together for a few years after college and had the most fabulous time. I ditched the berets and she ditched the hair bows. She remains one of the most important friends I’ve ever had, thank goodness I looked beyond the pearls.
Yes, but “fit” is a real thing. There is nothing wrong with seeking out schools that align more closely with one’s preferences and values. If a school is generally known for being dominated by, e.g. frat culture, those that don’t like it would do best to find a school where greek life isn’t the end all be all. Likewise, if someone doesn’t jive with preppy culture they can also seek out other schools (“preppy” irrespective of clothing brands - I think most people understand that “preppy” doesn’t just refer to clothes - it is often used as a proxy for an uber-white, rich, trust-fund, sailing and lacrosse culture, wealth-worshipping snootiness).
I am pushing back on some of the pearls, heels, clothing comments on this thread. It’s a terrible way to evaluate the culture (or more accurately, “cultures” ) of a particular college, and as parents, we should encourage our kids to look deeper than just “I can’t go to a college where the women highlight their hair and the guys own ties”.
You posted this-" I am sure it isn’t as bad other places, but here in the Rocky Mountain West, those who choose to be preppy tend to be pretty insufferable. Since being preppy is more normal in the East, it may include a broader swath of personality types there. But here at least the preppy folks tend to be (or act) privileged, entitled, out of touch with the real world, disinterested in true diversity, etc."
Now you’re conflating the HS someone went to (i.e. a prep school) with being an insufferable personality? You’ve lost me here. Especially since I know a lot of allegedly down to earth vegan/sustainable Rocky Mountain West folks who are BEYOND insufferable. They’ll virtue signal with their Prius and homemade yogurt (so as not to use plastic containers, i.e. supermarket brands) and then fly halfway around the world for a triathlon. Carbon Footprint? who me? Or- have priced out families in the towns they grew up in because it’s not enough to buy ONE mountain home near a nice ski resort- you have to buy a few to build a family compound (which is used 8 weeks a year) thereby taking homes off the market for the locals who live and work taking care of the tourists.
See? Insufferable lives all over the place even if they didn’t go to Exeter, wear loafers, and “summer” in Maine.
I get your point, truly I do, but I think you are largely missing mine and that maybe this is getting a bit far astray. I am not saying that any of this is based on clothing or style in and of itself or where someone went to high school. I am focusing on school culture, and used “pearls and tassled shoes” as a proxy for that. And I assume we can agree that the kids who would generally enjoy and feel comfortable at a “crunchy” school, e.g CU Boulder or UC Santa Cruz might feel uncomfortable at Richmond or W&L, and vice versa. “Preppy” is a perfectly reasonable placeholder description for the culture of a school and is used as a proxy throughout CC and pretty much everywhere without people getting upset.
I can see that you are making a lot of assumptions about Rocky Mountain West folks here as well. lol. No one is arguing that there aren’t insufferable people of every type. I guess people are perfectly in their right, however, to choose which flavor of “insufferable people” they prefer.
It feel a bit like you are intentionally trying to take this personally. I am truly sorry if I offended you. What I said was that people here in the Rocky Mountain West who intentionally choose to personify “preppy” culture tend to be insufferable. I absolutely did not say that everyone who attends a prep school is insufferable. Also, I didn’t say anything like my D “can’t go to a school where people wear ties.”
But I understand that my aversion to preppy culture is painting with a broad stroke - trying to narrow down 100 schools to a list of 20 forces some back-of-the-envelope calculations and school culture seems a decent way to weed schools out, but I will try to keep an open mind.
Perhaps if your original post hadn’t focused on clothing, your “proxy” intentions would have been more clear.
Nonetheless, the more subtle cultural issues with various colleges are significantly more important than how people dress- and since we agree that there are insufferable people all over the world- rich, poor, members of a fraternity, avid recyclers, poets, lacrosse players included- we can drop this.
Long before we all became affluent enough to travel far and wide to explore colleges, kids left home for college at age 18-- sometimes knowing what they were getting into, and sometimes not. My spouse never saw his college until the day the Greyhound bus dropped him off. Was it the optimal “fit” for him? Was it the right cultural mix? Who knows. The price was right- and that was the beginning and the end of it. Rigorous and high quality education at the right price. Everything else? Barely secondary. Nobody gave it a thought.
Sometimes its worth remembering that our affluence and ability to make lots and lots of choices is both a blessing and a curse. Life is filled with trade-offs. And at a big enough college, most kids can find their “people” with a little initiative.
