<p>I’m near the end of my junior year, and I really want to apply to one of these schools ED next year (I’m really impatient, and I think it will improve my chances of getting in)</p>
<p>Any advice on which one to choose?</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure I want to major either in english or international relations. I got a super good vibe from Bucknell, and an almost-as-good vibe from Colgate. I know Colgate is techncally ranked slightly higher, but I don’t think it will make that much of a difference. </p>
<p>Nice informative piece about the International Relations Major at Bucknell</p>
<p>I think with Dr. Bravman coming from Stanford and taking over duties as president July 1 at Bucknell will only further Bucknell’s continued success as one of the top liberal arts schools in the country. There are a lot of things in place to make the university an even better place to study as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>I saw that you also posted on the Colgate thread. My S graduated from Colgate last year and my D2 attends Bucknell now, so I know a lot about both schools.</p>
<p>Both are great academic institutions with beautiful campuses, accessible faculty and many opportunities to study abroad.</p>
<p>To address a few things you said on the Colgate thread–
-Lewisburg is a bigger more interesting town. It also has a lot more shopping close by. The closest thing to any real shopping is an hour away in Hamilton. But Lewisburg is still a small town.
-The weather is milder in Lewisburg. Less snow. But it is still the northeast.
-Bucknell has more students. But the students are similar at both schools.</p>
<p>Try to spend a night on each campus. Good luck!</p>
<p>I run an executive search firm, working on positions paying $100K to $500K, so I’m the one who evaluates people 20+ years after college.</p>
<p>My experience is that there is no difference between the caliber of people graduating from Bucknell or Colgate. They’re both fantastic schools (I’d plan on applying to both, and about 10 other schools to give yourself the best chances of getting into a good college and getting enough financial aid in today’s world).</p>
<p>Don’t try to choose a school based on the caliber of their international relations dept. or their English department. Chances are that you’ll change majors more than once, anyway.</p>
<p>Find the school that fits you best personally. That means locale, size, student body, etc., in addition to academics. </p>
<p>Spend a Friday through Sunday at both schools. Check out some classes and check out the weekend life.</p>
<p>Mags - assume you’re still looking at B andC. My D and I spent time at both, and you received great tips so far. That said, applying to 12 schools is too much - costs money, takes time, and to be fair you need to visit all. It you apply realistically, you will get in several, and there’s no way you are going to be intersted in those you rank 9 through 12. Six to eight is plenty. If you have the grades and boards, great, if not, and don’t have some circumstance or athletic talent, these can be tough to get in. Last year Colgate did not even go to its wait list, acccording the head of admissions. If you visit overnight, we found we did better during the week, when students were more in academic mode than weekend mode. Also, I’d avoid the programmed days when the schools are marketing heavily to a lot of HS seniors. They are best observed under normal circumstances. In the end, which one feels more like you, and makes you feel most comfortable is probably the best place for you. Both are great, and my D is actully attending one of them next month. Then again, there are a couple of hundred really good schools in this country. Find your fit, and enjoy the ride.</p>
Ask any Bucknell student about the “Bucknell bubble”. The kids rarely leave campus and the town and gown relationship is very, very poor. As for shopping, there is very little (outside of a handful of small shops downtown) in Lewisburg outside of the Super Walmart without having to drive 25 minutes to Selinsgrove (where there is a small mall and a Target) or Pennsdale, which you’ll rarely want to do. It’s less “remote” than Colgate, but I would say that the difference is negligible and may even favor Colgate due to the aforementioned bubble. </p>
<p>I’d also like to add that, while both are great schools, both are known for their “privileged” students and I can personally attest that Bucknell’s students, on the whole, definitely live up to the reputation. If you’re not upper class, white, from the Northeast (many here call Bucknell the “University of New Jersey (or Connecticut) at Lewisburg”), and the kind of person that’s interested in Greek Life, I would give both of these schools a second look before applying ED. </p>
<p>Also, if you care about these things, Bucknell has a very poor free speech record. Their policies drove an alum, Evan Coyne Maloney, to produce [url=<a href=“http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-82591935498240424#]documentaries[/url”>http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-82591935498240424#]documentaries[/url</a>] about these issues and the problems continue today. I don’t mean to seem overly negative, because Bucknell really is an outstanding school for both engineering and the liberal arts, but I feel like a short, controlled campus visit that only lasts a few hours gives students a very different feel of both Lewisburg and Bucknell than what life is actually like once you’re on campus.</p>
<p>^^kind of harsh. i’m a bucknell student and while yeah, there are a group of students who fit the “privileged” mold (as with most schools) the vast majority do not. i do understand how people who haven’t lived in the campus environment may perceive the student body (even those of us who are not wealthy carry longchamp bags), but i’m starting my junior year in a month, and i’ve found such a diverse random group of friends (yeah, some of them are rich and from NJ, but some are posse scholars, and most are just regular people from various backgrounds)</p>
<p>i don’t think the lack of things to do around the school is a reflection of snobby students who don’t want to go to walmart- there’s just SO much happening on campus in terms of academic and extracurricular activities, there’s hardly ever time to go shopping downtown (ALTHOUGH: i will always make time for a 10 minute walk to the freez) and, they just built a beautiful barnes and noble downtown that will be our bookstore. i’ve done a lot of community service in hufnagle park, a few blocks from campus where the town of lewisburg runs an ice festival, easter egg hunt, halloween activities, etc.
check out ACE (activities and campus events) for an idea of what goes on on weekends. BU After Dark, Chrysalis, concerts, open mic nights, comedians, etc. you don’t really need a lively downtown at bucknell.</p>
<p>as for poor free speech, i’ve never encountered anything like it, but i do see that the “brainwashing 101” documentary is 4 years old.</p>
<p>I’m also glad Governor Rendell found money in the budget to help build your new bookstore (he even came out and helped open the place!), while our school district is suffering as its state subsidy grows even smaller (oh, and the only property taxes the University pays are those on the new bookstore–everything else is conveniently exempt). So, when you say “they”, you really mean the taxpayers of your adopted home.</p>
<p>Look, Bucknell is a great school with a lot of great, intelligent students. But it’s not without its problems and its issues, just like any other school (especially its peers, Colgate, Lehigh, etc), and I think kids who may not fit the mold of the typical Bucknellian should take a second look at how they would fit in before applying ED.</p>
<p>HYPS has been targeted by FIRE; as has Columbia, Brown, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Duke, Berkeley, Caltech, USC, UCLA, University of Chicago, University of Michigan … and many many others.</p>
<p>most universities are non-profit organizations. theyre required to pay NO taxes. that bucknell is paying taxes here and making additional annual contributions in lieu of taxes (as is the norm from harvard on down) is an absurd basis upon which to bash a school. i mean, is it ‘convenient’ that churches dont pay taxes, either? how about the spca? the elementary school parent student association? how about that conniving little league? or that silly fire company occupying valuable taxable real estate?</p>
<p>and the redevelopment grant was not about handing bucknell money. it was about building something to revitalize the entire downtown economy, which will in turn increase local tax revenues. the state spends around $600 million annually on such projects. could that money be better spent on basic education? perhaps. the economic benefits of these kinds of programs are actually pretty heavily debated (its a huge question when it comes to the public financing of sports arenas, for example). then again, the economic impacts of marginal changes in basic education funding are pretty heavily debated, too.</p>
<p>…are bucknell students on average fairly wealthy? sure. but so are colgate students (and to suggest lewisburg and the surrounding area doesnt have more to offer than cute but absolutely tiny hamilton, ny is nuts…) and cornell students and students at pretty much every other selective college in the country. but as someone who needed substantial aid to attend bucknell, i didnt feel out of place in the slightest. frankly, there was substantially more socioeconomic and racial diversity among groups of friends there than was found at my typical central pennsylvania high school. </p>
<p>on the ‘fire’ issue, much of it traces back to charles mitchell, who led the conservatives club to its peak in the mid-2000s. he twice worked for and has otherwise contributed to ‘fire’ for years. thats not to say he doesnt have a point. just providing some context…</p>
<p>There are a lot of problems with Cornell. No school is perfect, I agree! I just think we should be honest about those problems and I’ve highlighted issues I’ve seen with Cornell on the Cornell boards, along with many other posters. It’s about making informed decisions. If, in the end, Bucknell or Colgate or any other school ends up being a student’s top choice…that’s great. But they deserve all of the information. In Bucknell’s favor on the free speech front…they invited Ayaan Hirsi Ali to come speak on campus (the ultimate in free speech gestures–Ms. Ali has a fatwa out against her and the University took on a significant security risk by hosting her and she’s very politically controversial) and Brian Mitchell (who seemed to be the driving force behind a lot of the issues with BUCC and other organizations) is finally gone, although I don’t know much about the new President. There are a lot of Pros in Bucknell’s column, I’m not denying that.</p>
I’m not “bashing” Bucknell at all. I don’t deny that the University helps drive our economy or that they have a positive impact on the community (HS students have the opportunity to take classes at BU and programs like Bucknell Buddies are invaluable). But, compared to a lot of their peers, they could be doing a lot more. [Many</a> colleges](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/yourtown/cambridge/articles/2010/04/10/more_cities_look_to_universities_to_share_costs_amid_recession/?page=1]Many”>http://www.boston.com/yourtown/cambridge/articles/2010/04/10/more_cities_look_to_universities_to_share_costs_amid_recession/?page=1) make large contributions to their host city/town in lieu of taxes, some meeting the full bill they were to pay if they were to have to pay property taxes; it’s part of being good citizen of the community you’re in. To your point about the economic impact of spending money on “economic redevelopment” versus public education…it doesn’t matter. It’s the Commonwealth’s responsibility to give a fair subsidy to individual school districts and Lewisburg’s is being cut at a time when a) we desperately need a new high school building (a lot more than we needed to replace Page After Page with a Barnes and Noble that features 10x more Bucknell memorabilia, textbooks, and over-priced Starbucks crap than books for the general public) and b) the Commonwealth/PSEA are making us put aside hundreds of thousands for future increased pension contributions. Pennsylvanians pay taxes to support basic services like public education (which I agree needs to be reformed, but that’s not the point here), not to give Bucknell money for “revitalization” projects that simply entail moving an already perfectly adequate bookstore that serves almost exclusively the University community to a location many Bucknell students agree is inconvenient for them and force out another bookstore that offered nearly as many choices for the general public as the new bookstore.</p>