Maybe quit relying on Niche. I so agree quirky is Hampshire and Bennington, maybe a few others. Not an institution like Tufts.
But yes, go visit and see. Most college kids are just college kids, nose down in their work, friends, and interests, maybe doing some local good.
I really thinks it depends on perspective. Someone from Portland OR would probably have a very different definition of quirky than someone from Fairfield CT. Anyway I would not describe the students at Tufts as quirky.
I attended a so-called “quirky” college: Reed. I was drawn to it for the quality of its education, not the social atmosphere. Reedies on the whole are quirky, but also very focused on learning and creating. Reed had been recommended to me by an uncle of mine who was a professor at Caltech. It’s arguable that Caltech is quirky, perhaps because it has one of the nerdiest student bodies who enjoy the opportunity to take freshman physics from Nobel Prize winning professors. A younger brother of mine attended Caltech. He’s a nerd-physicist. Then there were my other three sibs, who all attended UCLA. For the most part they were straight arrows but one was a nerd artist, and he’s had a fine career in the film industry with many many “credits” to his name. The UCLA group all got fine educations but without the academic demandingness or intensity that colleges like Caltech, MIT, and Reed have.
I sent my own kids to college to get an outstanding education, and they graduated from “quirky” UChicago (“where fun goes to die”) and RISD (with the best art-school basketball team in the world – “The Balls,” with their mascot “Scrotie”).
To answer the question at the head of this thread: Yes, it is worth it to attend a school with a strong academic focus and a core curriculum that in effect brands the graduates. It’s hard to argue against the value added to those who attend many of the schools that are commonly characterized as quirky.
The point I’m making is this: pick colleges that are demanding, interesting, and even quirky, and that draw many creative young people who will share 4 years of horrible experience (by which I mean they are going to have to think, put most of their waking hours into academic activity) but who will also receive great value added from that experience.
Visiting is key, Try to go when your kid can sit in on a class and eat in the cafeteria, not just go on a tour. Of those you listed, I’d really only put Reed in the “quirky” category. I’d say Carleton kids aren’t hung up on prestige, but wouldn’t go as far as quirky.
Agree.
To borrow from the name of a popular TV show, “quirky is the new black.” That is, I think it’s fashionable for students and colleges to use this word to describe themselves, but saying it doesn’t make it so. So, please take most self-chosen labels with a grain of salt, especially this one.
My earlier comment was intended to answer the OP’s question indirectly. Quirky doesn’t matter to the quality of the education. From my experience at Reed, quirky makes things more interesting. But in applying to colleges most students should focus on the educational program and experience, including the intellectual commitment and interests of fellow students.
To me, when I was looking for colleges for my kids, one of the most important considerations was data like THIS: https://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html. Most of my son’s applications went to colleges that are very high on these lists. We were looking above all for an intellectual fit. He found his at UChicago.
A few people getting their Tufts in a wringer here and it cracks me up. Why do people bristle at quirky? Quirky is absolutely fine, just as is nerdy or any other “y” adjectives. College should be a place that allows one to be themselves, especially after the hell that is high school. Quirky is not a prejorative term.
On persons quirk is another persons mainstream. S15, a quirky kid which I say proudly, practically ran away from our tour at Northwestern because he felt the kids were too quirky in a way that was different from his quirky.
I wouldn’t advise my kid to commit to a school with a very distinctive personality sight unseen, but wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand. I’m the parent of a not-so-quirky kid who found a community he likes at Reed. Agree with the person who said it can make things interesting…seems like a fair amount of what reads as “quirk” can also be read as students who are just really into whatever it is that they enjoy.
I guess you could say my voted for Bernie voting Arab speaking board game playing Naval Officer is quirky, but I prefer to think of him as interesting. He went to Tufts.
That said, back when he was in 8th grade he thought Caltech was the perfect school, if only you didn’t have to study science. (We were visiting with his mathy big brother.) Who is definitely quirky.
To me, and this is from some personal experience, Tufts is absolutely NOT quirky. I don’t want to say too much because a campus is full of individuals, but the general vibe is more conventional than alternative.
In fact, I prefer the word “alternative” because schools like Hampshire, Marlboro and Bennington, which have been mentioned, have some more “alternative” aspects to their curricula (independent and interdisciplinary work, for instance: check them out online for details). These in turn may draw students who might seem “quirky” to some, superficially, due to appearance or clothing, say, but who often are doing extraordinary work.
Bard hasn’t been mentioned but that is another one that gets defined as “quirky.”
Oberlin, Reed, Kenyon, Sarah Lawrence and other LAC’s with a creative student population get pegged that way as well. The list is pretty long. Clark seems diverse and interesting but never thought of “quirky.” Again, look a the curricula of these schools, which can be interesting and even offer cool majors.
Smaller schools do tend to have reputations as being this or that. Some kids obviously like larger schools for that reason.
There used to be a book entitled “Cool Colleges.” Maybe “quirky” is actually “cool”!
Interesting. I have a niece who recently graduated from Tufts. She’s a musician so somewhat artsy but otherwise pretty mainstream as kids go. I visited Kenyon and Oberlin this summer with my son and Kenyon didn’t strike me as being particularly quirky, certainly not any more so than its East Coast peers that we visited. Oberlin, on the other hand, was quirky if you define that as a bit geeky, artsy and lefty. My son defines himself as liberal but in a moderate way. He really liked both schools but described Oberlin (in a good way) as like being in a foreign country culturally.
To me it would be: “Does this quirkiness appeal to my kid?”
This is why you visit colleges.
@Temperantia Our impressions are the same as yours. Kenyon not quirky. Pretty mainstream. S19 just got back from an overnight and I was there for two days of parent meetings as well. Oberlin was another story. It’s the only school out of the ten schools we visited where S19 wanted to leave after the tour. I made him stay and we ate lunch in the cafeteria and went to a student panel. There were ten kids on that panel and S19 couldn’t relate to any of them. Not a match. Quirky can mean so many things but, in this case, the kids were very artsy, opinionated, and so self-justicy that it was a giant turnoff for him. I will say, though, that if that’s your kid, Oberlin would be crazy amazing choice.
My D was definitely quirky in high school, but I don’t know if she was “eccentric, idiosyncratic, unconventional, unorthodox, unusual, strange, bizarre, peculiar, odd, outlandish, zany.”
That’s the problem with “quirky” - there are too many flavors of quirky to fit neatly in one category. My daughter was alternative-music-emo-quirky - not granola-quirky or save-the-world-quirky or cosplay-quirky. When we were touring schools, she could never find her “people” at smaller LACs known for quirky because they were the wrong kind of quirky.
Her solution was a larger school with all kinds of people. She was able to find her tribe there amidst all the varieties of normal and quirky. And as an added bonus, when she got a little older and matured a little, there were other avenues and other opportunities for her beyond the alternative-music-emo qualities that initially drew her to that school.
I think a lot of this is perception and expectation and even who you happen to cross paths with the day you are on campus too. I would describe my senior as quirky/geeky but not super demonstrative politically (though he definitely leans left). I thought Oberlin might be too much for him based on what we’ve read about it but he loved it. It is of interest to him because he’s a musician so that helps. The students he came in contact with that day actually seemed pretty main stream. Smart and interesting but not super off the wall. And how they talked about their school felt more honest than many visits we had.
OP- is “quirky” similar to “crunchy granola” or “geeky”?? Hard to understand your definition.
Wouldn’t there be other kinds of quirky, in the realm of colleges? For example, BYU and Webb Institute are certainly unusual among colleges in the US.
Agree that visits are important. In looking at colleges with two kids, my feeling is that at the larger colleges almost everyone can find “their people.” However, some of the LACs had definite vibes and in those cases fit becomes very important And yes, “quirky” can mean many different things so again, visits can be key.
Or does quirky mean bend the rules types? Or just a nice breeding ground for individual growth (what most of us want for our kids.)
My standards are off, compared with OP’s, lol. I consider RISD or other art focused schools quirky, green hair and creativity pushing limits. Not a Kenyon, known for years for classics and writing. Not Tufts, with its strong IR and global programs. Not Carleton, another college full of empowered kids.
I loved Clark, where students ran the visitors office. Every one we ran across was friendly. The grads I know from there are individuals first, not adjectives.
Take a deeper look. And if what he really needs is *staid * then find those colleges.