Define “exclusive” for the context. Does it simply mean what is commonly called “selective,” that is, the number of accepted students as a percentage of the number of applications?
Those schools are both selective and exclusive, due to the fact that they have strict standards that they expect their students to maintain on campus.
Wyoming Catholic College also doesn’t take federal funding. Like Hillsdale, which my sister is loving. I’m a TAC grad myself, respect and admire the school, but am keeping my options open for my own kids. No matter what, if my children want me to assist with their college education, it will be a Catholic school we both agree on, or local, where they don’t have to deal with dorm life.
If by “selective,” one means a school that 1) draws its student body principally from the far right side of the bell curve and 2) winds up rejecting many applicants, Thomas Aquinas College and Christendom are both moderately selective.
Average SAT at TAC is about 1900, which is pretty good. TAC accepts 75% of its applicants, which ordinarily suggests that it isn't all that selective, but I suspect that the folks applying are more in tune with that for which the school is looking, and you don't have large numbers of folks applying to TAC hoping against hope to get in, as is the case with many highly-selective schools.
Christendom suggests that the minimum SAT for which they're looking is about 1650. I don't find an average SAT for those admitted, but if I had to guess, I'd guess around 1800, which, again, is better than average.
I don't know very much more about TAC, but we have some experience with Christendom. Since we live in the Washington/Baltimore region and since we homeschooled through th grade and now my sons go to Catholic high school in the Archdiocese of Washington, we've been exposed to Christendom's recruiting for many years, and we've known a number of folks who've gone of to college at Christendom. As well, my son, currently a senior in high school, actually spent some time in their summer Latin immersion program one year (and had a complete blast).
Our impression of the students who have gone to Christendom is that they've generally been bright, perhaps top 10% of their class, but not brilliant. My son's impression of the school directly is that it's a great place if you're either a philosophy or a Classics geek (he's a Classics geek) and just want to have fun for four years. He didn't come away with the impression that the school is a particularly high-powered research institution, even in its relatively narrow range of focuses.
My son is not applying there.
We also are influenced by the opinions of a family we know, the father who is a tenured professor of philosophy at a reputable Catholic university. The opinion there is that Christendom really doesn't have the intellectual horsepower to challenge the best academic students. They have a pretty large family, the two oldest are in college and the third is my son's age and looking at schools. Christendom didn't make the cut for application for any of the first three. All three are National Merit Finalists or Semi-Finalists (the current senior won't know whether she made Finalist until the spring).
It's a good school for good students, but in terms of academics, doesn't compete with places like Notre Dame, Georgetown, Boston College, or even Catholic University.
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