<p>Yup. I was entirely serious because I was laughing to myself that this thread was one place on CC where a school could reach many Jewish students.</p>
<p>Daughter attends U of Chicago which has a beautiful Hillel house as well as a Chabad house. She feels that Hillel is a little too oriented towards the orthodox population, but a small but vocal reform population is beginning to assert its position and is being listened to. Don't know too much else about it.</p>
<p>Monydad and Mythmom: This whole Vanderbilt thing is hilarious....There is nobody i know applying to colleges this year who doesn't know about this so-called Jewish affirmative action....At what point does it become a dis-advantage??? Almost every Jewish kid we know is applying this year; some that do not even come close to the stats...Too bad for the students (Jewish or not) who actually have researched the school and visited......(Vandy apparently doesn't care about demonstrated interest).....</p>
<p>It's not Pennsylvania-- but it's right next door in Ohio.</p>
<p>Oberlin College has many cooperative dining houses where students plan meals, shop, cook, dine and clean up together in rotating shifts. This saves parents on the boarding costs. One of the many coops is Kosher Co-op. There's also a vegetarian co-op but that's another house. </p>
<p>It's a larger LAC with around 2700 students and competitive admissions statistics, so not for the faint of heart there. Oberlin College and Conservatory are two separate academic systems (the music conservatory is nationally positioned, akin to Eastman or Julliard). The students share the entire campus and social opportunities. Cleveland is a half hour away, although most students stay on campus for weekends. </p>
<p>There's a vibrant Hillel, a resident rabbi who is a Talmud scholar and exceptionally open-minded about including more liberal movements. That sets the tone for the entire organization, so traditionally observant students do find a home within this rural/suburban setting. Services rotate with leadership from each movement. My D used to say, "I'm hitting services tonight; it's Reform week..." but she was equally excited to attend gender-equity Orthodox services a different week. Shabbat dinners are followed by Israeli dancing late into the night. Yes, it rocks. </p>
<p>For upperclassmen, there's Hebrew House for residential living as an option a few blocks from campus. Fraternities and sororities are disallowed all over the campus, so don't come if that's very important to you. The college itself is the social scene. </p>
<p>Last we looked there was a second round called ED-II which Oberlin uses to catch up with the many people who didn't hear about them until late in the search process. </p>
<p>You'd mentioned business and economics, but Oberlin will only have the economics, not a business major. Oberlin's Jewish population is north of 30%,although obviously not every student participates in organized Jewish activity by any means. It invested heavily in its science departments in recent years, so they now stack up well against their other liberal arts departments. Ishmael Beah is its most recent famous grad. </p>
<p>Another school to consider is Brandeis U, which is a small university in Waltham, a suburb of Boston. Brandeis has the most vibrant menu of different kinds of Jewish observance, all happening simultaneously, with 50% or slightly more Jewish population every year. It was founded by Jewish leaders in 1945 in response to quotas against Jewish applicants at several of the Ivies, so there'd be a high-octane alternative. Now it's there and doing very well with high marks for student satisfaction. Their professors publish a lot so maintain national recognition, but most of the attention there is to undergrads not the graduate students who are a small proportion of this university.</p>
<p>Abric1, I am in the same boat. My daughter was very active in a youth group in high school, but seems to be completely unwilling to go Hillel at U-M. I wanted to go to the Shabbat dinner on parents weekend and she refused. Her new friends are all very diverse, which is great, but not one kid of "our persuasion". I am concerned that the Jewish kids tend to do the sorority/fraternity thing, and she has no interest in that either, so all that affiliation as she was growing up sort of goes by the wayside. With my younger daughter we are looking at some smaller schools and are trying to make sure there is a sizable Jewish presence, but I wonder if it matters at this point. They go their own way.</p>
<p>Fredmar, a lot of kids take leave of Jewish connection during college. If you've planted the seed and given them the background, a lot of people use their college years to get "dis-organized." Sometimes they turn up again ready to register their children for Sunday School, regardless of who they married, but that's l0 years from now. I'm only giving you the long-range perspective of how things are going re: the Jewish community, not your particular precious daughter. </p>
<p>You can really only continue to celebrate her as your Jewish daughter, be proud of her, send her holiday care packages. When she's signing up for courses, you might suggest she explore her Jewish intellectual life by taking a college level course in Jewish literature or history. If she says no, THEN you can guilt her and say she's being closed-minded, and I'm only half kidding. Some kids are simply tired of socializing but become rejuvenated (ha-ha) with intellectual input unavailable to them back home. If your h.s. youth group advisor is still on the scene, perhaps ask her to email your D and ask how it's all going. It's not easy on you, but the story's not over til the cantor sings.</p>
<p>This is a great thread for those of us who need this information!</p>
<p>As far as my son goes, he's been to Oberlin to visit some friends and he just wasn't comfortable there--maybe too aartsy or crunchy for him or some such.</p>
<p>As far as kosher food goes, eating vegetarian is good by him so so most food plans are ok--he would enjoy an occaisional meal of real food at a Hillel or Chabad, though.</p>
<p>Does any one have any comments about Union?</p>
<p>Union apparently has a "Kosher Kitchen" which offers Shabbat dinner and kosher for Pesach meals for the entire duration of Pesach. I don't know how often the Kitchen is open other than those times.</p>
<p>I know several relatively observant Jews who have been quite happy at Union.</p>
<p>For reference from the Hillel.org website. For the OP - Northeastern and less selective than NYU:</p>
<p>11-25% : Adelphi, American, Bard, Binghamton, BU, Clark, CUNY, Fairleigh Dickinson, GW, Hampshire, Hofstra, Lafayette, Lehigh, SUNY-Purchase, RISD, Rutgers, Skidmore, Stony Brook, SUNY- New Paltz, SUNY - Oswego, Syracuse, Towson, Union, University of Hartford, U Maryland, U Mass</p>
<p>26-50% Goucher, Lesley, Muhlenberg, Sarah Lawrence, SUNY- Oneonta, SUNY- Albany</p>
<p>Nobody has mentioned Clark yet - it's in the CTCL (Colleges that Change Lives) consortium. We were impressed with it on our visit. boysx3, I think it has a business major, too.</p>
<p>I'll "fourth" the suggestion of Muhlenberg College. Wonderful school, active Hillel, inclusive. For a small school it's very well-rounded. Involved and caring faculty.</p>
<p>Again, I know a ton of Jews at Muhl who are happy there. We sent like 8 kids there for this year and I think all are Jewish.</p>
<p>I'll fifth Muhlenberg. Of their almost 2400 students, 600 are Jewish and 2/3 of them are active in Hillel.</p>
<p>Sadly, I have a similar predicament with my D2, as do Abric & Fredmar. She's still a high school student, but after going to a couple of BBYO meetings, she decided that she didn't want participate in BBYO any more ( or NFTY, either). However, I'm trying not to make too big an issue of it, otherwise I fear that it will backfire. Our dilemma is in that in the relatively near future she'll be starting an active college search and I really would like her to focus on schools that, at least, have an active Jewish student community (including a Hillel) if she (currently) insists that she won't participate in it.</p>
<p>Tell her you don't have to "believe in Judaism" you just have to want to have fun. It's hard when they decide to make religion their point of rebellion. I'm a rabbi's spouse and none of our 3 wanted much to do with services or youth group by their final year of h.s. They associate it all with home. THEN they got to college and sought things out there, but to look at them as h.s. seniors you'd think they'd decided to part ways forever with Judaism. Not so.</p>
<p>But we really had to back off and stop requiring them to things we;d done their entire lifetimes, such as services every week. Well, I know that's heavy-duty but it had been our family pattern. So we decided to settle for "every other week" which sometimes degenerated into once per month. </p>
<p>For a long while, S-2 was dating a lovely nonJewish girl who liked our temple atmosphere, so we'd invite her to Fri night dinner, then ask HER at the table if she wanted to come for services. She always did, so son followed her there. That was really sneaky of me, but her mom approved the arrangement so I don't think it was unethical. Actually she is quite curious on her own now about the religion. </p>
<p>Lots of h.s. kids just get sick and tired of the h.s. Jewish social scene, no matter how good it is, IMHO. </p>
<p>If you have a good relationship with your temple and rabbi, I'll suggest something to bring to him/her that worked fabulously at our temple during Thanksgiving break. My H asked 3 freshmen to come and discuss their Hillel experiences at 3 different kinds of colleges. It replaced his sermon that night. The turnout was fairly good among h.s. seniors because the topic was college and some of them knew some of the speakers that night. Ideal would be to find someone to host all the kids for dinner or afterwards (college and h.s.). When they hear from others, it obviously resonates better than hearing it from adults. The rabbi of course knows who's having a positive experience to relate. We found the speakers very honest and sensitive, giving tghe good and the bad, but mostly emphasizing that the hillel helped them adjust to campus life. </p>
<p>What if...next time she really wants a favor from you, say, "Fine I'll do you that favor..but in return, I really want you to be openminded about the Hillel thing as we make up a college list. When we visit a campus, I want you to stop in there, too, just for information-gathering purposes. </p>
<p>Sometimes I think we don't ask enough of our kids on things that matter a lot to us,
meanwhile we're knocking ourselves out left and right on every other thing for them. Sometimes it's fair to just call in a favor. </p>
<p>I don't have any easy answers and am concerned I might sound sanctimonious. I think<br>
some kids are motivated to go to hillel because it's fun and maybe they're tired of being lonely, rather than that they have strong religious beliefs about Judaism, although each one is different. </p>
<p>If she truly liked or likes her rabbi or cantor, you can always try to invite out for a 2 or 3-way meal and let them inquire of her, just because they care about her, how she's approaching her college search. I've never seen anyone turn down an invitation to a free meal. Just a thought there.</p>
<p>At the very beginning of the process, I visited the Hillel website and made a list of schools that had a minimum of 15% Jewish population. I then asked my D to narrow her focus from that first list. </p>
<p>(I'm not sure if my D will actually make it to Hillel functions on campus. But at least if there is a Jewish presence on campus there will be a better shot of her keeping touch with a Jewish community.)</p>
<p>As it turns out, her final list includes schools on the high end of Jewish percentages: NYU, Brandeis, Barnard, Mulhenberg, American, GW, Binghamton and Brown. I did not push the Jewish factor and she chose each of these schools because of academics or location. But her choices were all off that preliminary list. She was happy to have a smaller list to choose from than if she had to start the search process on her own from a huge list of colleges.</p>
<p>^^^awesome approach, taking advantage of the great number of choices we have in this entire process, especially from the beginning.</p>
<p>Another LAC making efforts to increase their Jewish population is Hillsdale in Michigan. For students interested in a strong core curriculum with a bit of focus on Great Books (although not a Great Books school) this could be an interesting option. The Jewish population is small, there is no Hillel - yet. I expect that he'll want to start a Hillel chapter. Hillsdale is currently in a first place tie on my son's list. Economics, history and political science programs are very strong</p>
<p>momoftwins, that is interesting. Can you share how you found out out about interest in increasing their Jewish population? I read about Vanderbilt and Texas Christian University wanting to increase their Jewish population, but I read about that many years ago.</p>
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The Jewish population is small, there is no Hillel - yet. I expect that he'll want to start a Hillel chapter.
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<p>Check out the "Small but Mighty" category on the Hillel website for such circumstances.</p>