Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid got into all of those schools RD, which would he pick?

at the moment, he doesnt have a front runner. he'll spend a lot more time this summer doing research. we've visited each.

Broaden up the scope in your campus visit to include at least a couple of national universities. Johns Hopkins for one, which has some significant ED1/ED2 advantage. Our schools sent a few ED there every year. Northwestern also has a top philosophy department, ED advantage is real there.

Sounds like OP’s kid is (wisely) seeking to ED1 to a school that he likes, not just looking for a prestigious school he can get into. If the kid has visited and liked SLACs, then he’s correct in focusing his ED1 choices on those schools.

No. OP said he has not visited. Right now he just has some vague ideas about a bunch of prestigious schools. He needs to have some contrast in getting perspective about slacs. OP is asking for ED choices. Some PPs correctly pointed out Wasb do not have ED advantages.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid got into all of those schools RD, which would he pick?

at the moment, he doesnt have a front runner. he'll spend a lot more time this summer doing research. we've visited each.

Broaden up the scope in your campus visit to include at least a couple of national universities. Johns Hopkins for one, which has some significant ED1/ED2 advantage. Our schools sent a few ED there every year. Northwestern also has a top philosophy department, ED advantage is real there.

Sounds like OP’s kid is (wisely) seeking to ED1 to a school that he likes, not just looking for a prestigious school he can get into. If the kid has visited and liked SLACs, then he’s correct in focusing his ED1 choices on those schools.

Since these are all excellent schools where your kid can get a top-notch education in philosophy, I’ll come at this from a different direction: where does your kid want to be geographically? What kind of weather does he like? Did he find the remote location of Williams appealing? Assuming he’s from the east coast, has he really considered what it means to go to school across the country?

I’d zero in on those questions to see if more clear preferences emerge.

(Also, I have a kid at Wes who loves it. Happy to answer any questions as your kid mulls the ED2 decision.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a lightly subscribed major such as philosophy, you may want to consider the size of the philosophy communities at potential choices. As a rough indicator for this, these are the numbers of graduating first majors in philosophy in a recent year (e.g., https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Claremont+McKenna&s=all&id=112260#programs) for the schools you have named along with two others that have been suggested:

Hamilton: 11
Wesleyan: 10
Amherst: 8
Middlebury: 8
Pomona: 7
CMC: 6
Williams: 4
Bowdoin: 3

To add, here's the size of each college
Hamilton: 2053 (0.5%)
Wesleyan: 3000 (0.33%)
Amherst:1914 (0.4%)
Middlebury: 2800 (0.29%)
Pomona: 1732 (0.4%)
CMC: 1381 (0.4%)
Williams: 2101 (0.19%)
Bowdoin: 2044 (0.15%)

With these percentages, the order then appears like this:

Hamilton
CMC
Amherst
Pomona
Wesleyan
Middlebury
Williams
Bowdoin

I know 2 unhooked kids who got into Amherst ED this year. But all these LACs are very small and overrepresented with athletes in ED1. I'd definitely take a look at Brown.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:full pay
feeder private hs
3.8 most rigorous
male
humanities (philosophy) with EC/research to back up
1520
school leadership
unhooked

trying to narrow down ed1 .. like all right now.
williams, bowdoin, pomona, cmc.

feel good about Midd or Wes for ED2.

our naviance isn't very helpful because we have a lot of very hooked kids.

Pomona and Williams are not worth it for ed.

OP: beware of bad advice here, the ED acceptance rate for Williams is more than twice that of Pomona. Clearly ED is an advantage there.

Have your kid reach out to the Williams rep by email, and make sure he connects in person at a school visit or college fair. This person is the first reader of your kid’s college app — great if they can put a face with a name.

Anonymous wrote:williams, bowdoin, pomona do not provide any ED advantage. If WASP is your dream schools, just RD.

CMC, yes. Real ED advantage. If you are set on CMC, go ahead. Otherwise, no ED or find another ED school.

The ED admit rate for the class of ‘29: Williams 26%, Bowdoin 15% while historically, Pomona is 12% and CMC is about 25% (the last two haven’t released the data from this year’s admission’s cycle).

If any of those four are ok with him and he has no true preference, I’d Ed to the one with the highest Ed acceptance rate. Not sure which that is—cmc?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid got into all of those schools RD, which would he pick?

at the moment, he doesnt have a front runner. he'll spend a lot more time this summer doing research. we've visited each.

Broaden up the scope in your campus visit to include at least a couple of national universities. Johns Hopkins for one, which has some significant ED1/ED2 advantage. Our schools sent a few ED there every year. Northwestern also has a top philosophy department, ED advantage is real there.

For what reason? If the boy enjoys liberal arts colleges, no necessity to go to a research university, especially in a field like Philosophy. No one suggests LACs when people's lists are entirely Research universities.

OP said DC hasn't done campus visit yet, it's all very premature.
As long as it a good fit, I don't think one should care it's a lac or a research university.
Quite honest, I don't get it when folks say it's hard for one to love both Penn and Williams.

Huh. She said “visited each”.

I’d add Brown or Dartmouth before Northwestern or JHU.

Anonymous wrote:williams, bowdoin, pomona do not provide any ED advantage. If WASP is your dream schools, just RD.

CMC, yes. Real ED advantage. If you are set on CMC, go ahead. Otherwise, no ED or find another ED school.

Agree on CMC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not the best liberal arts college in the country: Amherst College. I'm not even sure CMC has a philosophy program-definitely not at the level of Amherst-where students get into top grad schools every year

Best laugh of the day. Thanks, PP.

In the world of philosophy, Amherst’s name is worth gold. I don’t think grad schools even know what “Pamona” or Claremont men’s college are. Great maybe if you want to teach at cal poly or something.

Are you kidding? A tenure track job at cal poly would be a great outcome for virtually any philosophy phd. The job prospects are abysmal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not the best liberal arts college in the country: Amherst College. I'm not even sure CMC has a philosophy program-definitely not at the level of Amherst-where students get into top grad schools every year

Best laugh of the day. Thanks, PP.

In the world of philosophy, Amherst’s name is worth gold. I don’t think grad schools even know what “Pamona” or Claremont men’s college are. Great maybe if you want to teach at cal poly or something.

Anonymous wrote:full pay
feeder private hs
3.8 most rigorous
male
humanities (philosophy) with EC/research to back up
1520
school leadership
unhooked

trying to narrow down ed1 .. like all right now.
williams, bowdoin, pomona, cmc.

feel good about Midd or Wes for ED2.

our naviance isn't very helpful because we have a lot of very hooked kids.

Pomona and Williams are not worth it for ed.

For Pomona and CMC, the clear advantage is the 5Cs. The consortium and the physical proximity of the colleges make it so easy to take classes at any one of the 5Cs, thereby substantially expanding the philosophy offerings your DS can tap into. Look at the combined course catalog: https://portal.claremontmckenna.edu/ICS/Portal_Homepage.jnz?portlet=External_Content

Our DC did a ton of research into philosophy depts and the Claremont Colleges really rose to the top based on the offerings. Headed to Pomona in the fall; applied RD unhooked.

Anonymous wrote:Why not the best liberal arts college in the country: Amherst College. I'm not even sure CMC has a philosophy program-definitely not at the level of Amherst-where students get into top grad schools every year

Best laugh of the day. Thanks, PP.