FWIW Smith and Mount Holyoke and Amherst have not a shuttle per se (though they do run them at breaks to the airports and cities, at least Amherst does), but rather a public bus system that students use for free. So service is very good in the Pioneer Valley, and is used to get to classes from one school to the other, and just to go shopping, exploring, etc.
That said, Amherst and Smith have a lot in close walking distance. MoHo has less, but still a pleasant little town with restaurants, movies, shops.
Spring Break here last week, so I got more feedback about what my kid is looking for in terms of fit, and used that to narrow things down a bit more. Plus she decided she didn’t care about any of the reach-for-everyone schools that want SAT subject tests enough to take subject tests, which also eliminated the two schools that had SCEA. Ability to apply non-binding EA moved one school that takes a lot of kids EA between groups. So the current list of higher-odds schools is:
Smith College
Bryn Mawr College
Macalester College
Whitman College
University of Tulsa (local to us, which I think will be a dealbreaker in the end, because we all agree that she will do better far from home)
Occidental College
Mount Holyoke College
Clark University
Lake Forest College
Knox College
Lawrence University
Mills College
Kalamazoo College
College of Wooster (34% RD acceptance, but EA changes that to 76%)
Willamette University
University of Puget Sound
Agnes Scott fell off because of the emphasis on leadership, which she considers to be so much not her thing that she didn’t think she’d be able to respond to the essay prompt.
My guess is that the reachier end of the list, which currently has 18 schools, will eventually be narrowed down to Scripps, Barnard, and one or two coed schools. Unless she turns into a very different person in the next year, which is entirely possible!
Initial impression: “This is too close to home, so I would never seriously consider it.”
Final impression: “Even though it’s too close to home, I think I’d actually be pretty happy if I ended up here.”
Pros: friendly students, extremely welcoming professors who obviously knew their students as individuals, Greek life described as low-key, the dead-silent quiet room in the library, “I felt like everyone really wanted me to go there.”
Cons: still too close to home, humanities seemed to be treated as an afterthought by the students, lovely new suite-style dorms (Hardesty Hall) felt cramped.
New data dump, and a different rating methodology produced a new list. The primary difference was in weighting, but DD also requested a change in criteria: she cares a lot about sunshine, but not really at all about whether other people are out drinking and Greeking.
On both the old list and the new, including reaches:
121345 Pomona College
121257 Pitzer College
161004 Bowdoin College
189097 Barnard College
168342 Williams College
153384 Grinnell College
212911 Haverford College
168218 Wellesley College
123165 Scripps College
207971 University of Tulsa
167835 Smith College
173902 Macalester College
211273 Bryn Mawr College
120254 Occidental College
166939 Mount Holyoke College
239017 Lawrence University
118888 Mills College
Match / likely additions:
173258 Carleton College
233374 University of Richmond
229267 Trinity University
212009 Dickinson College
221351 Rhodes College
136950 Rollins College
Really nice (and coherent) list. No serious ringers amongst the ones I’m familiar with. I’d happily go to most of them myself!
Given that it’s well stocked with reaches, I’m curious what bumped match/safety College of Wooster off the list. (My kid, who liked/applied to a bunch of these, and ended up at one also liked CoW.) Is Denison on your radar? I know you’re not really looking to add names here, just thinking about the less reachy (and more merit-y) end of things.
I’m not personally familiar with it, but based on buzz and a tiny amount of Googling (check Niche, though I always take that with a huge grain of salt) I think Rollins might be the ringer in this list in terms of student body/vibe. Others who know the school better may think differently.
Another consideration is accessibility from your home. If you are in the Midwest, some of these schools are quite difficult and expensive to travel to, which will likely decrease your student’s ability to visit over breaks. We discounted some schools that required a flight connection and long drive.
Nice list, though I’m sad to see that my alma mater was axed (Knox College). Oh well. I kind of agree with @porcupine98 that Rollins feels like the school that is not like the others. I live in Orlando and drive past Rollins often. Rollins is unique. It’s a liberal arts college, but it has a different vibe that is difficult to describe. The stereotype is white, wealthy, and party-loving. It’s also a magnet for northeasterners. I’d say there’s a stronger pre-professional interest among the student body. Still, it’s a fine school, and it has one of the most beautiful campuses you’ll ever see. Lake Forest College might be a good comp for Rollins. A work colleague who literally sits at the desk beside me graduated from Rollins. If Rollins becomes a finalist for your D, I can ask questions, though I believe that there are Rollins students here who post sometimes.
Honestly, at this point I’d be surprised if DD applied to more than one reach. She really wants to go someplace that loves her best. That part of the list is still long because it’s been pretty much ignored.
COW’s only negative point was comparatively few sunny days, where sunshine got a really heavy weight. Other than that, it was just slightly less awesome than the other choices when I did a “you liked TU well enough; let’s make the list shorter by eliminating the schools that the algorithm says aren’t as good.”
Denison had as negative factors sunshine, food quality, and reported difficulty of getting desired classes.
I agree with you on Rollins. DD has not really been interested in what schools were added - the 12 non-reachy schools on the overlap are a small enough list we could conceivably visit them all, and then expand if they’re unsuitable.
@NEPatsGirl Aww, thanks! DD says she’s happy I have a hobby.
Dickinson looks like it was another one that fell off purely for being not quite as awesome; the only negative it has is the low percentage of students of my kid’s ethnicity.
@roycroftmom Travel logistics will probably eventually become a consideration; I’ve got a file showing flight times, airlines, and distance from the airport for all of the overlap schools already. DD likes to fly and likes airports, and we don’t anticipate that we or she will want her to come home more than at term breaks, so my guess is that distance from the airport will be the primary consideration. We live close to our airport, which helps.
I realize OP is trying to cull, not expand list but can’t I resist responding to Denison – class size is capped at either 18, 22 or 28 for just about every class at Denison which means that, in my kid’s experience, yes, it can be hard to get into the fun, easy class as a first year because there are seniors, juniors and sophomores who also want to take Intro to Jazz or Public Address. At the same time, my kid has pretty much gotten all his first choice classes every semester, whether as a first year with no seniority or as a rising junior. Most departments, and certainly the departments with large number of majors, like Econ, Poli Sci, Psych, Bio, Environmental Science – offer multiple sections every semester of the foundational prerequisites for majors. As for food, well, it gets old at most schools for most kids, and my kid and his circle of friends don’t seem bothered by it. A long way of saying, if that feedback is coming from student rating sites such as niche etc., I wouldn’t give it so much weight that those pulled an otherwise good option from the list.
That second, revised list, has few matches, let alone safeties, for anyone. Tulsa, Rollins, Lawrence and Mills could be reasonably predictable in terms of admissions. Dickinson and Rhodes could be matches, but schools with acceptance rates below 40% get tricky to predict and I think many of us tend to think of matches are really much more as “likelies” than as schools where admissions could really go either way. I know OP said the reaches will likely be seriously narrowed, but the prior list which had Wooster, Knox, Lawrence with possible EA decisions had a stronger “middle.”
DD will take the ACT in June for concurrent enrollment eligibility, as a backup in case she has another scheduling fiasco. At that point we’ll better be able to judge likely vs possible vs unlikely. My guess is that she’ll want to be one-and-done regardless of her score. But it’s also possible that Scripps will be enough of a lure to retake if that seems advisable; I think Scripps is her secret favorite at the moment.
As far as predictability, UTulsa had a 32% acceptance rate in the 2016-2017 cycle! It is a crazy world out there.
Is your d a musician, @allyphoe ? I have a soft spot for Lawrence, having had a very nice visit there with D’13. But a lot of the appeal was around the pervasiveness of the arts there, and the accessibility of the fantastic music programs to non-majors. If that aspect hadn’t resonated, I don’t think it would have been enough of a fit just based on the academics, even though the academics are excellent in their own right.
Your d’s temperament sounds a lot like my D’17’s (first-year at Scripps). Feel free to PM if you have questions as your process unfolds - I think I have a fairly balanced view of the pros and cons, particularly for the more reserved and “leadership”-averse high-achiever.
@aquapt She’s a violinist, but doesn’t plan to play in college, because she likes playing but doesn’t love it. And there too, not wanting to compete for seating with people who care a lot more about winning is a thing - she likes going to contest where you’re judged against a standard and everyone could get a Superior, and she likes chamber camp where everyone is playing for fun. Being surrounded by people who enjoy music would be a plus for her.
Thanks for the offer! “More reserved and “leadership”-averse high-achiever” describes mine exactly.
I’d say Scripps is a place where she could potentially enjoy orchestra for its musical and social benefits without its being off-puttingly competitive. It might be a good thing to do in her first year, even if she’s not dead-set on playing throughout her college career. My d’s experience with choir is that it’s a step up from her high school ensembles, but only a small step. (Our HS is a performing arts magnet school, though, so that wasn’t as low a bar as it might sound.) She has made friends in choir and enjoys the music, but she wishes they were pushed harder for precision/pitch/etc. (That said, at least she’s doing music, which my d who considered Lawrence never ended up doing at Rice.) There are orchestra recordings online if your d ever wants to gauge how the sound compares to groups she’s been in: http://www.jointmusicprogram.org/orchestra/recent-recordings I think the musicians who really want to be pushed to the next level sign up for the chamber music classes where they form smaller, coached ensembles.
Sounds a lot like a Lawrence kid! My musician/athlete who did not want to major or maybe even minor in music at Lawrence, felt really welcomed by Admissions and by faculty in his instrument. He was pulled out for a “special” admissions meeting with music admissions rep (I don’t think he was special, I think they did it for kids who had expressed interest in music), and really enjoyed a 45 min conversation about opportunities in his instrument as a non-major/minor, including scholarship awards. Faculty in his instrument then spent an hour with him talking about his music interests and what Lawrence had to offer, very specifically, in terms of ensembles, scholarships for private lessons as a non-major/minor etc. Lawrence felt like a very special place for my non-assertive, non- Type A, sweet kid. He ultimately chose elsewhere, largely because of lack of competitive opportunities at Lawrence in his sport, but thought Lawrence struck a great balance in bringing non-Con kids into the fold.
I’m a big fan of Dickinson and think it should be added to your list.