College Selection?

[MarcusBrody]

I have a couple of thoughts:
1. I would not be at all hesitant to apply to top tier private universities/colleges. They've got a lot of money and depending on your family income, they can end up cheaper than even state schools after aid. No guarantees, so you should try to avoid your daughter getting her heart set on one of them if it wouldn't be possible for her to go if she doesn't get a good aid package, as it can be a bit hard to predict.

2. Relatedly, I wouldn't be scared to take on debt getting a business degree at a top 25 program. The return on investment is very good. Lower tier but equally expensive schools are where the issue is (and majors with a lower RoI). If she happens to get into Stanford/Berkeley to study business, though, take on the debt. It's a rational financial decision.

3. Her GPA won't make getting into that level of school easy given the current scramble, so it's helpful if she has a hook. I'd look at elite schools with not so great athletics program and see if she is interested in any of those. How about Carnegie Mellon? Great school. Good tech-focused business program. Pittsburgh is actually a pretty cool town. I doubt their XC/track team is amazing. Or Caltech. I don't know where it's undergrad business program falls, but I suspect it's extremely good.

4. Relatedly, for someone who is good at STEM stuff but wants to do business, she might want to take a look at places with data science/data analytics programs. They provide some good skills that will differentiate students from the hordes of management grads.*

5. Elite schools will have nation wide cache, so I wouldn't worry much about where the school is vs. where I wanted to end up. Regional schools might give you an equally excellent education, but I'd be more inclined to factor in whether I'd like to live in that area for at least a few years post-college as their networks are going to be more localized.


*Disclaimer: I'm a data science professor.

[billyk]

SDSU has a nice campus, pretty affordable, and the business administration program is ranked in the top 10% of the country (according to google). It’s known as something of a party school, but that’s what business people do, right?

It’s a Division 1 school, so she probably won’t be able to make the track team. Not sure if that’s a deal breaker. At some point pretty much all of us have to face the fact that we’re not going to be able to compete at the next level.

[Core Shot]

Same boat next year.

College is finishing school for most. Unless you apply the degree.

OP. Listen to her. She wants small school. Community. Beyond that it’ll be fine.

As for MBA. It’s only good for corporate big city life.

[Jax]

...maybe DU, it's a good business school?

My alma mater. Good acceptance rate, but more expensive than Stanford.

CC sucks!

[MyNameIsAugustWest]

Some thoughts...based on my own observations in college decades ago and then watching my 3 daughters much more recently.

Girls are different than boys [thanks Captain Obvious]. Athletics-wise. I saw this in my days and more recently with my girls. If girls are not bound by athletic scholarships, it's rare that they stay with college athletics past freshman year. By then they've made a circle of friends outside of athletics and would rather have the full college experience rather than be tied to a training regimen year-round.

Agree with the comment on applying even if you/she doesn't think she can get in. Especially if she is at all interested in coming east. All colleges are looking to flesh out their demographics and while Colorado may not seem exotic in California, it certainly is back here.

There is such a thing as too small. Daughter #1 fell in love with SUNY-Geneseo when she was in HS. After 2 years, she transferred because it was too small. Daughter #2 went to LeMoyne. It's a small school (with a great business rep, btw) but it's on the outskirts of Syracuse. Don't laugh, if you can stand the snow, Syracuse can be a great town. She loved it. Daughter #3 started at Northeastern (heart of Boston). Too big. She ended up in Keene, NH and loved it.

Some other EC schools to consider that are same tier as Middlebury:
Bates
Colby (not Colby-Sawyer)
Tufts
Connecticut College

Good luck to her!

[Peruvian]

My alma mater. Good acceptance rate, but more expensive than Stanford.

CC sucks!

My daughter graduates from with a business degree from DU this spring. Her biggest gripe is the affluence and privilege of the student body. Of course, they are the ones who are paying full boat so she can go at an affordable rate. Besides, most private schools are heavy on the white, upper middle class, weathy suburb demographic so it's not easy to get around that.

[sharcsplean]

as a parent who just went through this and has one more to go...
We looked at out of country schools - Canada, Scotland, and Netherlands = way cheaper than a private, great programs, easier application process, and some are even 3 year programs as well (5 years with a masters).
Keep an open mind.

[skaredshtles]

as a parent who just went through this and has one more to go...
We looked at out of country schools - Canada, Scotland, and Netherlands = way cheaper than a private, great programs, easier application process, and some are even 3 year programs as well (5 years with a masters).
Keep an open mind.

I should totally convince my 3rd to go to school in Scotland. That would work out really great for ME.

[fatnslow]

I have a couple of thoughts:
1. I would not be at all hesitant to apply to top tier private universities/colleges. They've got a lot of money and depending on your family income, they can end up cheaper than even state schools after aid. No guarantees, so you should try to avoid your daughter getting her heart set on one of them if it wouldn't be possible for her to go if she doesn't get a good aid package, as it can be a bit hard to predict.

2. Relatedly, I wouldn't be scared to take on debt getting a business degree at a top 25 program. The return on investment is very good. Lower tier but equally expensive schools are where the issue is (and majors with a lower RoI). If she happens to get into Stanford/Berkeley to study business, though, take on the debt. It's a rational financial decision.

3. Her GPA won't make getting into that level of school easy given the current scramble, so it's helpful if she has a hook. I'd look at elite schools with not so great athletics program and see if she is interested in any of those. How about Carnegie Mellon? Great school. Good tech-focused business program. Pittsburgh is actually a pretty cool town. I doubt their XC/track team is amazing. Or Caltech. I don't know where it's undergrad business program falls, but I suspect it's extremely good.

4. Relatedly, for someone who is good at STEM stuff but wants to do business, she might want to take a look at places with data science/data analytics programs. They provide some good skills that will differentiate students from the hordes of management grads.*

5. Elite schools will have nation wide cache, so I wouldn't worry much about where the school is vs. where I wanted to end up. Regional schools might give you an equally excellent education, but I'd be more inclined to factor in whether I'd like to live in that area for at least a few years post-college as their networks are going to be more localized.


*Disclaimer: I'm a data science professor.

If I was smart and could write more than a 5 word sentence this is what I would have written. Currently have 1 recent grad, one college senior , one starting next year and 6 nephews/nieces in various state of college life so I feel like I've seen the whole range from scholarship athlete to the 1% not getting into her top choices so I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the landscape.

[BmillsSkier]

Some thoughts...based on my own observations in college decades ago and then watching my 3 daughters much more recently.

Girls are different than boys [thanks Captain Obvious]. Athletics-wise. I saw this in my days and more recently with my girls. If girls are not bound by athletic scholarships, it's rare that they stay with college athletics past freshman year. By then they've made a circle of friends outside of athletics and would rather have the full college experience rather than be tied to a training regimen year-round.

Agree with the comment on applying even if you/she doesn't think she can get in. Especially if she is at all interested in coming east. All colleges are looking to flesh out their demographics and while Colorado may not seem exotic in California, it certainly is back here.

There is such a thing as too small. Daughter #1 fell in love with SUNY-Geneseo when she was in HS. After 2 years, she transferred because it was too small. Daughter #2 went to LeMoyne. It's a small school (with a great business rep, btw) but it's on the outskirts of Syracuse. Don't laugh, if you can stand the snow, Syracuse can be a great town. She loved it. Daughter #3 started at Northeastern (heart of Boston). Too big. She ended up in Keene, NH and loved it.

Some other EC schools to consider that are same tier as Middlebury:
Bates
Colby (not Colby-Sawyer)
Tufts
Connecticut College

Good luck to her!

Ha! One of my sisters sailed for and is a Connecticut College alum, and her husband is a Bates alum. They were lucky to have their educations paid for in full by parents.

If you want a good (and beautiful) DIII private school, with a price tag higher than most universities, by all means check out Conn Coll.

[Note for Benny Profane: my sister graduated with John Bogle's granddaughter and we sat behind him at commencement while she prattled on about privilege in her valedictorian speech. He seemed less than amused]

OP: someone you know from our old hometown's dad was (and I believe still is) head of admissions at CC and/or in another senior admin role. PM me if you want the name if you're interested in looking into CC more, would be worth reaching out to see what kind of assistance they offer (which I hear can be quite a lot given their endowment).

[TNKen]

Disappointed that the University of Tennessee is not on the list.

Forget about D1 (small), D2, D3, NAIA athletics. Worthless waste of time. Did that with two of my kids playing volleyball. She needs to focus on academics. Many of these schools take tons of kids into athletic programs with no or a small partial scholarship to build numbers. Had a friend in a D2 private that was required to carry 27 kids on a volleyball roster that typically 8-10 play.

[riser4]

as a parent who just went through this and has one more to go...
We looked at out of country schools - Canada, Scotland, and Netherlands = way cheaper than a private, great programs, easier application process, and some are even 3 year programs as well (5 years with a masters).
Keep an open mind.

CanaDUH! My daughter chose that route. But she's a dual US/CAN Cit, so she got the lower rate. She also plans to stay in Canada. Thing#2 looked at some CAN schools, and then decided no way, went to UVM. [I learned after the fact that] His passing interest in U of Guelph was purely so he could paint the cannon with some inflammatory war of 1812 references.

That and this joke:

British settler #1: what should we name this town?
Settler #2: [Throws up]
Settler #1: OK, Guelph it is.

Thing #3 is adamant he wants to go to school someplace warm. Which rules out Canada. He's a Jr so we are about to go through the whole thing.

[dan_pdx]

Look at Williams College, they're a D3 school, but they spend a lot on athletics. We competed against them, and they had a bunch of kids on their track and XC teams that were probably on the cusp of competing for D1 schools. Small private school, rub shoulders with New England prep school kids (not saying that's necessarily a good thing, but could help if she's interested in a business career), heavy focus on athletics, and with those times she would have an inside track at being accepted. NESCAC isn't supposed to award scholarship funds on the basis of athletic performance, but based on their performance we always wondered if Williams skirted that rule.

It's good for kids from the West to get a taste of the East Coast in college so they know to come back West once they graduate ;-)

[huckbucket]

3. Her GPA won't make getting into that level of school easy given the current scramble, so it's helpful if she has a hook. I'd look at elite schools with not so great athletics program and see if she is interested in any of those. How about Carnegie Mellon? Great school. Good tech-focused business program. Pittsburgh is actually a pretty cool town. I doubt their XC/track team is amazing. Or Caltech. I don't know where it's undergrad business program falls, but I suspect it's extremely good.


*Disclaimer: I'm a data science professor.

Have good friends whose kid got into MIT this way. No way it was gonna happen academically.

[I've seen black diamonds!]

5. Elite schools will have nation wide cache, so I wouldn't worry much about where the school is vs. where I wanted to end up. Regional schools might give you an equally excellent education, but I'd be more inclined to factor in whether I'd like to live in that area for at least a few years post-college as their networks are going to be more localized.

This is a big one. Especially for a business major, I think. A CU degree will set you up extremely well in CO. A Boston College degree does the same in Mass. But move across the country and those degrees, while still valuable, won't carry the same clout.

[Danno]

Look at Williams College, they're a D3 school, but they spend a lot on athletics. We competed against them, and they had a bunch of kids on their track and XC teams that were probably on the cusp of competing for D1 schools. Small private school, rub shoulders with New England prep school kids (not saying that's necessarily a good thing, but could help if she's interested in a business career), heavy focus on athletics, and with those times she would have an inside track at being accepted. NESCAC isn't supposed to award scholarship funds on the basis of athletic performance, but based on their performance we always wondered if Williams skirted that rule.

It's good for kids from the West to get a taste of the East Coast in college so they know to come back West once they graduate ;-)

Williams is probably close to Stanford in terms of difficult to get into, it's way up there.

[canyonrider]

TT- are you saying she only wants to run in college if she can get a scholarship? Or is she still interested in running without a scholarship if other objectives (academics, location, etc.) are met?

If she wants to run I wouldn't write off D1 running opportunities (scholarship or non-scholarship) simply based on her current PRs, assuming they are at altitude and given that she hasn't run her junior track season yet. Once you hit a certain level a good college coach is not going to nitpick a few seconds in a kid's mile PR or XC times, but will recruit the athletes who show long-term potential to develop and succeed under an increased training load.

And even if she ultimately comes up short on running for XC powerhouses that are on her list (Stanford, CU, Oregon, and NAU) there are a ton of other great D1 XC programs out there at very strong academic schools. As others have mentioned, running might be able to give her an admissions pull at places where her grades and other accomplishments might otherwise have not been enough.

And running or not, +1 on visiting a bunch of places to help narrow down the list.

[54-46]

I should totally convince my 3rd to go to school in Scotland. That would work out really great for ME.

My buddy’s daughter went to St Andrew’s and had a good experience

[teledad]

Williams is probably close to Stanford in terms of difficult to get into, it's way up there.

It's not quite that bad (my son is at Williams, didn't even bother applying to Stanford). And a ~18:00 5k/5:0x mile could make her a recruit at Williams (with an admissions preference) but probably not even a walk-on at Stanford.

OP - I assume you're familiar with runcruit.com? Gives you some idea on the times needed at various schools. I'll agree with others - if she doesn't need a scholarship, those kind of times can be a hook for a top (academically) D3 school. Once she's there she can decide whether to keep competing or quit, there's nothing binding. I'd suggest looking at the NESCAC schools (several mentioned already) as well as Grinnell, Carleton, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Davidson, Colorado College, Claremont schools, Occidental. With her grades and a recruiting hook she's got a good shot at any of these, especially if she applies ED1. Definitely talk to coaches and work any connections her coach has.

Any interest in a women's college? Several great schools that can be relatively easier to get into (compared with co-ed schools with similar academics): Barnard, Wellesley, Smith, Mt Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Scripps. Not for everyone though.

In addition to UPS and Lewis & Clark, I'd look at Willamette, Reed, and Whitman. My daughter (currently a senior in HS) visited all 5 and liked Willamette the best.

[KenJongIll]

Disappointed that the University of Tennessee is not on the list.

Forget about D1 (small), D2, D3, NAIA athletics. Worthless waste of time. Did that with two of my kids playing volleyball. She needs to focus on academics. Many of these schools take tons of kids into athletic programs with no or a small partial scholarship to build numbers. Had a friend in a D2 private that was required to carry 27 kids on a volleyball roster that typically 8-10 play.

Agree. Look at smaller schools in the SE. I have a former boss who’s kid is running CC at Samford near Bham. Does Sewanee have a CC team? Etc…there’s a lot of good smaller schools in the SE, that might need some CC athletes.

Elon in NC is another…looks like they have a good CC team…granted I know nothing of CrossCountry

https://elonphoenix.com/sports/womens-cross-country

[MarcusBrody]

Any interest in a women's college? Several great schools that can be relatively easier to get into (compared with co-ed schools with similar academics): Barnard, Wellesley, Smith, Mt Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Scripps. Not for everyone though.

I taught at one of these schools for a while, so if she is interested and has questions, I'm happy to answer any questions. I'm obviously a middle aged dude, but my students had a pretty impressive propensity for over-sharing, so I think I have a pretty good read on things. They can be great, but as teledad says, they aren't for everyone.

Also, if she really does want to study business, I'm not aware of any of the women's colleges that have a business major. It was always seen as too applied and not liberal artsy enough (I'm sure it's true for some of the other liberal arts schools as well). Most of the business interested students studied economics.

[BmillsSkier]

Elon is a lovely school.

Davidson is another good rec.

Totally biased here but I’d look at Emory as well. Ranked in the Top 25 for National Universities (undergrad) Law, B-School, Med School, Nursing and Public Health.

Nationally portable degree (as discussed above) and it appears their cross country program is pretty successful based on a quick google:

https://www.emoryathletics.com/sports/wxc/index

[half-fast]

I hoped my daughter would have shown an interest in Colgate when she was looking at colleges. She ended up at Syracuse and LeMoyne. Colgate’s supposed to have a Wall St pipeline. Their recruiting standard is a 5:20 mile for women.

[Jeb McHardman]

I'd definitely recommend the Claremont Colleges if she's interested in both cross country and track and strong academics. I graduated from CMC in 2017 and ran my first two years in college--great group of kids and solid coaching. Both the women's and men's programs are consistently ranked in the top-10 nationally and are known for developing runners as much as recruiting well. There is more of a party scene at the colleges than people might expect, but it's pretty easy to avoid if you're not looking for it. The open enrollment among campuses is also a huge plus, in that you can take as many classes as you want at any of the five colleges, regardless of which school you're actually enrolled at.

[schindlerpiste]

With a 3.88, she is going to have a tough time getting into US schools. They are kind of like Chapel Hill in that most (except Berkley and UCLA) are fairly easy to get in if you are a Cali. resident, but very difficult if you live out of State). For OOS students, they usually like the student to do a year at a Cali Community college, and then transfer into a UC school. My son and daughter both had friends who graduated PCHS with over 4.0 and 30+ ACT who were rejected from UCLA, UCSD, UC Berkley and UC Davis. Maybe Loyola or Occidental which are both great business schools.