Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 23:32     Subject: Finding safeties
Anonymous wrote:To be clear, DS isn’t focused on warm weather schools and likes places like Kenyon and Oberlin. Sorry if my post was misleading. But he is concerned that Appleton (Lawrence) and St. Olaf (MN) are far away and colder. Maybe they aren’t colder. I don’t really know. I don’t have much experience in those places. But they are further from the DC area than the schools in OH. The point is he is not focused on the south and is not looking at schools there. He would just like to add some additional options. He hasn’t even ruled out Lawrence and St. Olaf.


Minnesota and St Olaf are indeed colder than the DC region.

But honestly, in college, what’s it matter? It’s weather. You live with it. You’ll be so focused on other things, like dating and friends and class work and jobs that whether its 15 and snowing (St Olaf) or 45 and cloudy (DC) is really the last thing on your mind.

I chose a Wisconsin school over a Claremont college and occasionally regretted it when in my imagination my alternative choice would have resulted in me sipping smoothies lazily on the quad instead of hauling my backpack across the windswept tundra. But, I couldn’t have afforded the smoothies anyway, and I would have just been hauling my backpack across a sunny quad instead of a snowy one.
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 22:16     Subject: Finding safeties
St Olaf is a fantastic school. Kids mostly stay indoors in the winter. Also consider Grinnell, Emory, Pitt, Ithaca, and Tulane.
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 22:08     Subject: Finding safeties
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the feedback! He actually really likes William and Mary so is open to midsize schools and will apply to UVA and UMD as well.


He'll get into W&M because he's a guy, and he'll get into UMD because it's an easy admit. But he won't get into UVA.


He is a legacy.
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 21:32     Subject: Finding safeties
Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the feedback! He actually really likes William and Mary so is open to midsize schools and will apply to UVA and UMD as well.


He'll get into W&M because he's a guy, and he'll get into UMD because it's an easy admit. But he won't get into UVA.
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 21:24     Subject: Finding safeties
Thanks for the feedback! He actually really likes William and Mary so is open to midsize schools and will apply to UVA and UMD as well.
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 20:32     Subject: Finding safeties
Maybe take a look at slightly bigger schools near a walkable town but not as big as UMD? Towson, Mary Washington, maybe even u Delaware or University of Vermont? It could be he doesn’t want as small as he thinks. Would be good to figure this out early.
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 17:30     Subject: Finding safeties
St. Marys in MD looks private but is public- same with Miami of Ohio. Both have high acceptance rates + good career services
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 17:15     Subject: Finding safeties
SMCM?
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 17:01     Subject: Finding safeties
Have the kid apply to a CTCL school. They're mostly liberal arts colleges, and if he gets rejected from all the top school he can just go to one of them and you can say he's "special."
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 16:56     Subject: Re:Finding safeties
Ursinus, Arcadia, Moravian
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 16:18     Subject: Finding safeties
Second the suggestion for St. Joe's. Not a SLAC, but smaller than UMD would be Towson and UMBC. Juniata in PA.

Good luck, OP. And your kid sounds fine! I can't stand the mean people on here. S/he does not need the $&%^ Marines! just a few safeties not too big or far away!
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 16:11     Subject: Finding safeties
Anonymous wrote:Sounds like this kid needs to toughen up. Maybe the Marines?


If you don’t have any actual suggestions of liberal arts colleges…
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 16:09     Subject: Finding safeties
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We are in MD and he is going to apply to UMD but isn’t sure that a large school is a good fit.


I've been haunting college discussion boards for longer than I care to admit and the most painful LAC threads are:
1. Are there any urban LACs?
2. Are there any warm weather LACs?

They're painful not because there are NO answers - Macalester is urban ,Eckerd is warm - but because the question betrays a fundamental naievete about the LAC game. Basically, if you aren't prepared for cold weather in the boondocks, you shouldn't be playing it. You may find onsies twinsies that aren't cold and rural, but you'll never put together an optional portfolio of schools to apply to and be happy with it.

So, brace for St. Olaf or go for even lower ranked schools down South. That's your son's choice. Or, make the easy call and apply to Towson to get the safety out of the way and move into other decisions.


Urban or urbanish -- Macalester, Rhodes, Hartford, Trinity, all of the Claremont Colleges, Beloit, Augustana (IL)



Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 15:48     Subject: Re:Finding safeties
How about Union College in Schenectady NY?
Anonymous
Post 08/01/2021 15:43     Subject: Finding safeties
Anonymous wrote:Look at CTCL schools. Lol


just stop - a number on this thread are CTCL schools