Editor’s Note: This originally appeared as a post in our private Facebook group Paying for College 101. Retired admissions director Peter Pitts is a frequent group contributor, and we publish some of his posts as articles to benefit a wider audience.
I worked for a “mid-range” small private college (Monmouth College in Illinois) for 27 years. By “mid-range,” I mean “not high in the so-called rankings, but still a good college.” In fact, in my 42 years in college admissions, every college I worked for was mid-range. These colleges typically admit 70% or more of their applicants and admit a wide range of students. So, why would a top academic student (4.0+) attend a mid-range small college instead of a highly ranked, very selective college?
Lots of reasons!
- Peace of mind in the admission process. For hundreds of colleges, it is not really a question of “if” a high-achieving student will be admitted — there is a 99.99% chance they will. And they will know that they are admitted (and know about merit-based aid) early in the process.At many of the mid-range colleges, a student can apply in August, be admitted in September, apply for scholarships and financial aid between October and February, and have everything wrapped up by March. This streamlined process relieves their level of stress and enables them to spend more time and energy on their studies, their extracurricular activities, and “making memories with their friends” during their senior year.
- Opportunity. Faculty recognize exceptional talent, so they take these exceptional students under their wings and give them a multitude of extra opportunities early and often throughout their college years. Research, publishing, internships, and giving presentations at professional meetings are examples of opportunities that are “theirs for the taking” for these students. Students and faculty often co-author articles and co-present at conferences. Many times, the research that they conduct is original, not just helping faculty with their research.
- Scholarships. Selective, highly ranked, “popular” colleges usually do not offer much gift aid (scholarships) to students based on their incoming high school GPA and/or test scores. Frankly, they don’t have to! Students are begging to get in. These colleges have wait lists. They do not need to entice students with scholarship money.There are over 100 colleges (mostly small liberal arts colleges) that offer full-tuition scholarships (usually by competition). And those students who do not receive the full-tuition scholarships usually still receive substantial scholarships. This is especially good news to parents whose SAI is high. At hundreds of colleges, every student is awarded a large amount of gift aid, but it is usually on a sliding scale with the top academic students receiving the most.
- Satisfaction. Frankly, a student who is #1 at their high school might really enjoy going to a college where they are still #1. To quote Mel Brooks: “It’s good to be the King!” The extra attention these students receive, combined with all the extra opportunities, give these students a satisfying collegiate experience.
- Rigor. The faculty at small private colleges really push the exceptional students to function at an exceptional level. They give them extra responsibilities. They push them a little harder. They work 1-on-1 with these students to prepare them for graduate school, sometimes giving them graduate-level assignments long before graduation. These students develop close relationships with faculty that continue well into the years after graduation.
- Placement. At small private liberal arts colleges, the faculty KNOW the students. They know their strengths, they know their weaknesses. Professors know all the factors that make for detailed and powerful letters of recommendation for employment and graduate schools. They know which graduate schools would be the best fit for each student, and they do everything in their power to help make it happen for these students.Most small private colleges (even those that are not highly selective) have 90 to 99% placement rates within six months after graduation. After all, most graduate schools are much more concerned with what abilities and experiences that incoming students can bring than the name of their undergraduate college. Given the huge number of leadership, research, and internship opportunities that make up their resumes, it is hard to turn down exceptional students no matter where they attended as undergraduates. After all, many of the summer research opportunities and internships these students have completed were at highly ranked and competitive colleges or medical schools.A good example of this (from the Monmouth College website): “Individuals needing a doctor about a decade from now would be wise to keep the name Saxon Day in mind. Halfway through his Monmouth College career, the junior from Cupertino, Calif….headed to the world-renowned Mayo Clinic for a summer research program, which included presenting his research one-on-one with Nobel Prize-winning physician Peter Agre.”
- Fit. Students need to be where they are happiest and most comfortable. Students who are athletes, musicians, and/or thespians, for example, enjoy being somewhere where they can get playing time in their sport, be the first chair violinist, be in a dozen theatre productions, and more. They like the people. They like the professors. They feel “at home.” They just “fit.”
- Mental energy. Graduate school is tough. The real world of work is tough, too. Any corporation, law school, or medical school will contain a sprinkling of students from all different types of colleges: large universities, Ivy League colleges, small liberal arts colleges, and others. Burnout is real. I have a theory that students who come from small liberal arts colleges that are not highly selective do well in graduate school because they have already done graduate-level work, plus they have not burned themselves out as undergraduates. They still have some mental energy.One of Monmouth’s alumni (former President of the Chicago Bar Association) tells me that in his law school class, the top three students (he was #1) were all from small private mid-range colleges – not from big universities or the Ivy League. Recently, I received this message from another alumnus about his graduate school experience: “I did go to graduate school, and it was a breeze. Almost like Monmouth was a gentle warm-up for it. It didn’t burn me out before I got there.”
There are many great mid-range colleges out there. Just because your friends and relatives may not have heard of the college or recognize the college name on your sweatshirt, students shouldn’t limit their search to selective colleges. They need to broaden the range of colleges to consider. In the end, wherever they end up, they need to feel happy, supported, and comfortable.
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