William and Mary [$61k], Santa Clara [$57k], St. Olaf [$36k], Bryn Mawr [$53], UNC-CH [$57k]

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Gathering opinions on final options - top 5 from acceptances:

William and Mary [$61k], Santa Clara [$57k], St. Olaf [$36k], and Bryn Mawr [$53].

UNC-Chapel Hill [$57k] OOS, is also in the mix, but she thinks wants a smaller environment, so it is probably not a finalist, but I would love thoughts on UNC at well.

William and Mary - Monroe Scholar
Santa Clara - Honors Program
St. Olaf - doesn’t have an honors program
Bryn Mawr - doesn’t have an honors program
UNC - Not in honors

All starting on campus in the fall.

Domestic Student.

Major: Physics
Minor: Theatre
Pre-med

All are comfortably affordable for us, and we would not take out any loans (though spending less is always welcome).

Preferences: creative, artsy, and intellectual student body, very little greek life (zero would be ideal), academic rigor, comfortable dorms, good weather a plus but not required, good pre-med advising. She wants to be pushed academically and be around smart kids (I think her major - Physics - will do that anywhere she goes). Would be great if dorms are comfortable / nice and the food is good.

Obviously they have very different vibes. She has visited St. Olaf and Santa Clara, both of which she loved. She hasn’t yet visited Bryn Mawr, UNC or W&M.

Preliminary assessment of each college based on the above.
St. Olaf seems like the best fit to me (and bonus that it is the lowest cost). She was set on that, but as more options have come in and as the decision gets closer, she is considering all of the finalists again.
I worry Santa Clara and William and Mary might have a sportier and more preppy/rich vibe than she ideally likes. I don’t have a great sense of the overall vibe of Bryn Mawr. I think she would like the academic vibe at Bryn Mawr or W&M (and UNC?) the best, I know she would like the weather and dorms at Santa Clara best, and I think maybe St. Olaf would have the strongest arts/theatre community, but that one is hard to determine. She is attracted to the prestige of UNC for sure. I know the others are all just as good from a life impact standpoint, but she definitely likes that it has more name recognition.

But I am trying to help her keep an open mind and gather as much info as possible about her options, especially since they are all on the table.

We already know a lot about the program options, the requirements of the major at each school, the IB/AP credits, etc. What I am hoping to get is more intangible opinions from people here who know the schools and their vibes / strengths and weaknesses. Thank you!

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Sounds like St. Olaf from everything I’ve read on here but the W&M name is a great one and it might work too.

Best of luck.

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I would lean towards St. Olaf and Bryn Mawr. I’d recommend taking a visit to Bryn Mawr before making a decision. Have her talk to students enrolled in both schools.

My reasoning:

Women make up only about 25% of physics graduates and the pipeline is often more robust for women at liberal arts colleges.

Private nonprofit nondoctoral colleges, like St. Olaf and Bryn Mawr, “show the highest persistence rates among women, blacks, and Latinos/Latinas in STEM fields within five years of first baccalaureate enrollment when compared to similar students at other types of institutions. Almost eight of 10 women who obtain STEM bachelor’s degrees from private nonprofit nondoctoral institutions graduate within four years, a rate that exceeds all other groups of students at all other types of institutions. The data show highly positive assessments of interactions with faculty at private nonprofit nondoctoral institutions among historically underrepresented groups. And graduates from these institutions express levels of satisfaction with their undergraduate educations second only to bachelor’s degree recipients from private doctoral institutions.” The full report is here: ERIC - ED597910 - Strengthening the STEM Pipeline Part II: The Contributions of Small and Mid-Sized Independent Colleges in Preparing Underrepresented Students in STEM, Council of Independent Colleges, 2019-Jun

My oldest kid was interested in sciences and arts. I advocated for a liberal arts degree at a smaller college because it’s just easier overall to engage in varied interests and explore different academic areas. She is now a physics major, headed into her senior year, and thriving. The faculty has been awesome and she has had some incredible research opportunities with them. She has a number of friends in STEM who also are involved in the college theater.

In any event - it sounds like she has some great options! Good luck to her!

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Sounds like a great St. Olaf fit to me!

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Thank you so much for this input adogwillbesad. Great points!

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Are you able to make Day for Admitted Students at William and Mary? That’s where both of mine landed, and they’ve been very happy. I wouldn’t really call it sporty or preppy. Just smart, nice kids in a really lovely environment. I’d give it a visit.

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Not an official admitted students day for W&M, unfortunately, but we might try to swing an (expensive cross country) campus visit. Bryn Mawr is offering to reimburse $500 for a visit there! Sweet! (It will of course cost a lot more than $500 unfortunately, but still a very nice offer)

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Btw your comment on Honors program. They are not needed.

Some schools use them to differentiate but the regular curriculum is likely just as good or creative at the LACs that don’t have.

Honors programs give the college a way to sell a large college as smaller. So these LACs don’t need one.

As I recall, your student loved the vibe and food of St Olaf - and you want to save $$ - so do you really need to draw out the process. ?

Just take St Olaf, and it’s $80-125k in savings, for the win !!!

In your case specifically, it seems like the result is known so the rest is unnecessarily extending.

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Me personally? Nope, I would love to have it done and decided! And if I were treating it as my decision alone it would have been done back in December.

She on the other hand is really wrestling with the decision, and I want to help her as best I can by getting as much info as possible. I can give her my opinion, but it is just one data point. She needs to decide this herself.

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Ok. I thought it was done. But that was just talking to you :slight_smile:

Hey honey. Go to St Olaf. I’ll come visit and eat their yummy food. And give you a car when you graduate with the savings !!

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Me too. :joy:

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My S22 is a physics major at William and Mary. Feel free to message me if you have any questions. I second @lkbtnc’s advice to try to make it to admitted students day in April if that is at all possible. My son has been having an amazing experience. For a smaller university, they have a surprisingly large and robust physics department. I am sure you have seen that William and Mary was recently recategorized as an R1 research institute. You really have the best of both worlds in terms of blending a liberal arts college experience with that of a research university. Undergrad research is a priority. They actually won’t hire profs who don’t want undergrads working in their labs, and unlike larger schools there is no competition with grad students to land a research position. William and Mary is not at all sporty or preppy. It’s more nerdy/quirky/intellectual. Congrats to your daughter on the great options. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Edited to add: I’m not sure about the physics department specifically, but more than 50 percent of STEM degrees at William and Mary are awarded to women. There are also student organizations to support women in STEM

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How important is theater to her? All are wonderful options, so sometimes it’s the extra-curriculars that sway them. Both my kids ended up picking their favorites based on fit with their extra-curriculars. I’ve heard amazing things about St. Olaf’s music program and performing arts in general, so thought it might be an outlier in theater of the finalists. Not my kids’ interest so don’t have any firsthand insight. Good luck on patience through her finalizing the decision - sometimes a tough part of the process!

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Congratulations to your D!!! She has so many great options! I remember your thread when you were starting to develop ideas of where to apply, so it’s great to see what resonated and which schools are under final consideration.

I don’t have much to contribute to the thread…she only has terrific options to choose from. But I’ll share my $0.02 in case they’re helpful.

In reading this, I mentally eliminated UNC. There are certainly creative, artsy, and intellectual students there, but it’s not the general vibe I get from the student body as a whole. And although only 20% of the student body participates in Greek life, it sounds like it has about 4200 Greek participants more than she wants.

I hate to sound like I’m dumping on UNC, but I think for a lot of people who are not CC-types (meaning those who would be on CC or are overly familiar with the USNWR rankings, even if they disagree with them), UNC isn’t super prestigious. So for someone to say they went to UNC vs. Penn State vs. Ohio State vs. U. of Illinois…they’re all very respected schools, but the vast majority of lay folk don’t know that the OOS acceptance rate at UNC is far smaller than that of those other schools. Frankly, I think that William & Mary would have more prestige for non-CC types, and for those of a certain age, Bryn Mawr (the whole Seven Sisters grouping).

Anyway, just thought I’d share in case the perspective is useful.

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If you have any questions about UNC (OOS, bio/chem) please ask.

Congrats to your daughter on her wonderful acceptances!

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My daughter attended Bryn Mawr and loved it. The campus is gorgeous, the consortium with Haverford is a plus (Swarthmore and UPenn are included also, but the different calendars and the increased distance keeps most students from taking advantage of those two). Philly is close with convenient commuter rail services.

The students seem nerdy and quirky which was fine with my kid. The dorms are older, but almost every student gets a single room after freshman year. The rooms are of all sizes and configurations and the yearly room selection is crazy due to friend groups wanting to be near each other. They offer stress counselors during the process lol. My daughter had no complaints about the food.

The traditions of lantern night and May Day are very special. Developing relationships with professors is a real thing. One wrote my daughter the most amazing recommendation letter. It quite literally made me cry.

With Haverford and Villanova quite nearby, dating didn’t seem to be a problem for those interested.

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Note that for medical school, AP/IB credits should not be assumed to reduce the number of pre-med courses required that are not in your major. Where medical schools allow AP/IB credit to substitute for a pre-med course, they tend to expect an additional upper level course In that subject area (i.e. if you use AP credit for a semester of general chemistry, you are expected to add an upper level chemistry course that is not organic or biochemistry).

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Given the size of St Olaf and the fact that she really liked it, I would imagine that UNC is probably too big.

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I have not heard this about W&M. I’ve heard that brainy (and sometimes a bit quirky) kids like this school over UVA, which is definitely preppy and rich. (Also, if you can afford those tuitions, I’d hazard a guess you have some money.)

As for UNC, be aware that premed is TOUGH, grade inflation is real, and advising (thus far) has not been amazing. That said, my kid loves it there. She’s learned to figure out the courses she needs and how to get them throughout her freshman year and is constantly asking people she meets in her major (that are older) for tips. UNC has prestige for sure, and if she got in oos, she likely has the academic goods to be successful. It’s big, but she’d find her place. (About 20% are in sororities, but there are plenty of other social options.) Mine loves UNC for a lot of reasons, but she loves the quintessential college town, really interesting classes/professors, vibrant social scene, and beautiful campus.

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Another vote for St. Olaf…zero Greek life, intellectual artsy vibe, academic rigor, great science facilities, and the price is the icing on the cake. There is a strong community of caring students and definitely not a rich kid/preppy vibe. Campus is gorgeous and the town of Northfield (which is also home to Carleton) is cute and accessible. My son loves the Nature Lands (350 of space for recreating and learning) adjacent to campus. You didn’t mention this as a need or want, but the study abroad is really strong.

The weather may not be a fit unless she thinks “good weather” means 4 seasons with a cold winter. That said, the fall is beautiful and campus shines after a fresh snow.

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