<p>I am writing this email to warn potential freshmen about the campus tour at F&M. I would like to start that campus tours are staged to show the "best" attributes of a campus. This is true at all schools but at F&M there is an absolutly vast difference between what is shown on the tour and what is the reality of the school. Im going to point out a few prime examples. First and foremost are the dorms and the common rooms. The tour will take you through the 1st floor schnader common room called "The Doll House". This room has a big screen tv, potted plants, leather furniture, and more. But when you walk upstairs in schnader and inside any other dorms for the matter you wont find any tvs, the couches are old and ripped and really disgusting looking, and you most definitely wont fine fake plants. This difference between the tour and "reality" is huge and even comical. When I showed this to my dad he just laughed and couldnt believe it. All of the dorm buildings are disgusting. I know of two dorms that had to be evacuated because of mold last year, one of them is Weiss which is the "new dorm" on campus. </p>
<p>A second example is the campus library. This library has been renovated a few years ago. When you go inside it looks beautiful, but like most renovations which occur at F&M, it was limited to the ground floor, especially the main foyer. So be sure to go upstairs and see the old disgusting conditions, and as a sidenote its always burning hot upstairs all year around and studnets at F&M dont go there to study they go there to socialize and talk and chat on the phone. So go elsewhere if you need a place to study especially during finals when people actually go to the library.</p>
<p>My third and final example is a continuation of this theme of only completing partial renovations. Hackman science building is a prime example of this. At first glance the halls of Hackman look great and new but go inside the chemistry labs (3rd and 4th floor) and you will find a vastly different story. It seems the construction company forgot to renovate the chemistry labs. So these labs are rather old and students have to share hoods during labs which is a huge pain. Also F&M likes to tote its research between professors and students so I encourage you to really look into one of the "research labs" located next to professor offices. The lab spaces are soo small and cramped. I guess thats the difference between a small liberal arts school and a larger research university. </p>
<p>So let me conclude by saying this. After going on the F&M tour go wander off and create your own tour. If buildings are locked just hang around and a student will either enter or leave the building. This is especially true for the dorms. Go look in dorm buildings and see the co ed hall bathrooms yes thats right co ed hall bathrooms which students have for all four years at this illustrious institution. Also advice for the students, dont settle for anything. If you think hall bathrooms are bad or the dorms are bad but you figure you can work through it thast not a good attitude to have. It will make your time there miserable. I hope I've been able to shed some light on the truth of Franklin & Marshall College.</p>
<p>As dad to a Jr there, I agree about the dorms. She has moved off-campus this year and is happier. Last year's dorm was a 1st floor cinder block hole (can't recall name) like I had 30 years ago!</p>
<p>That said, what are you comparing F&M to? Specifically, I'd like <em>your</em> thoughts to similar LACs, since I have a HS Sr looking at F&M, Gettysburg, Dickinson, Denison, etc.</p>
<p>I would like to hear about schools that you think compete for the same apps (not Dartmouth or NYU, to offer some extreme alternatives).</p>
<p>Palidad: I will say that the dorms on the tour at Denison were worse than the freshman dorm my son ended up in...which is actually very nice. We never toured F&M so I can't compare.</p>
<p>We toured Denison last Spring and saw some new dorms under construction, so it appears there is a belief that, to keep the students from pressing to live off-campus in town, they need to be investing in dorms (as well as that great new Science Center).</p>
<p>At the end of the day, as long as the rooms don't end up lice-infested (happens at plenty of schools, I would bet) or moldy (per Doughman324 at F&M), a room is a room.</p>
<p>Hey Doughman324! Come back here and respond!!! 8^)</p>
<p>palidad:
Yeah, Denison is committed to everyone living on campus. Personally I think that has more to do with the fact that Granville is such a fancy little town - and maybe to keep the peace they know they can't let loose the students on the town! Ha! I don't know -- it just looks that way to me. </p>
<p>Personally, the thought of eating cafeteria food for 4 years is just appalling to me. Hopefully son will be able to move into those new apartments when he is a junior. Right now it is mostly seniors living in them.</p>
<p>One of our doctors is from F&M and apparently they graduate a lot of pre-meds. He just RAVES about his time at F&M, and is mad at his kids who chose to go to larger schools. We would have visited F&M except that my son wouldn't go see anymore schools after about 8 or 9.</p>
<p>Hi, I am a freshman here at F&M and I would just like to point out that the bathrooms aren't co-ed anymore. I believe they changed that this year. Not all the dorm rooms are bad. F&M is a tough school, but they have excellent acceptance rates when it comes to graduate school. Also, even though Lancaster is fairly quite, the college clubs and various groups plan many activities, so I don't find it boring at all. If you go exploring Lancaster, I'm sure you will find things to do.</p>
<p>Thank you for your response. I would like to respond to each point in turn.
First, the bathrooms last year started out single sex for the first month and a half but then they changed over to co-ed. So dont think you're safe yet. They will probably change to co-ed. Even if the bathrooms arent co ed there is only one bathroom on each floor so that means the guys or girls either have to go upstairs or downstairs to use the bathroom which may not seem bad but its an annoyance at 8 in the morning or whenever.
Your comment about the dorm rooms not being bad made me chuckle. First, are there any suites or dorms with private bathrooms at fandm? The answer is none, all the bathrooms are hall bathrooms. Number two, do some research adn find out how many dorms were evacuated last year because of mold or flooding from the sprinkler system. Three last year a pipe burst in my dorm room and my room flooded. The pipe burst because it was cold in january so i tried to turn on the heating system. Also all the rooms flooded in my hall b/c their pipes burst too but my room was most affected. How many of the dorms at fandm are cinder block walls? How many common rooms have televisions in them or even sofas that arent ripped? How many dorms have individual thermostats for you to actually set the temperature of your room as compared to just high, medium, low? Last year in the spring the school didnt even turn the AC back on in the dorms. So dont tell me the dorms arent bad. As you work through these questions you will realize just how bad you have it at fandm. Trust me there are schools with much better dorms.
You talk about the excellent acceptence rate at graduate schools. Do me a favor and actually look up what graduate schools people go to. Tell me how many people go to harvard a year or any top university for that matter.
How many people actually show up to activities that are planned? Its no fun going to an activity with only five people showing up. Also how many activities are truly planned? Im at another school and I find myself constantly doing activities my planner is filled up. It was never like that at F&M. I look forward to your response.</p>
<p>Palidad,
Im sorry it has taken me so long to respond but i've been extremely busy with school work and activities. The only school i've looked into that you listed is gettysburg. Gettysburg had a beautiful campus if i recall. But i did not apply there because they require 4 semesters of a language and I most defintely did not want to do that. I also looked at Lafayette College in easton which was also a beautiful campus but it was very hilly. Also the school was more political sciences oriented versus the basic sciences. Also when i was looking at schools I thought i wanted a small liberal arts school for many reasons but once I attended F&M i realized that wasnt for me. So i transferred to a top medium sized university and i've never been happier. To me the cons of a liberal arts college far outweight the pros. Ill try to be better about responding. I hope i was able to help you in someways.</p>
<p>I can assure you, there ARE suites with private bathrooms and I have at least 10 friends who live in suites (and these aren't off-campus). I visited a friend on the basement of Schnader and she has a HUGE private bathroom in her single dorm. All of the common rooms have new furniture with nice sofas and practically all of them have a television as well. Maybe you need to come back to F&M and see some of the changes. We have a new "House System" that they are starting this year (most of us don't fully understand it yet). Get your facts straight.</p>
<p>I knew of the one suite in the basement of schnader that has a private bathroom. Do any other suites have them? Does the new upperclassmen dorm building, weiss have any private bathrooms? Did they put in new furniture and tvs in the common rooms of all of the buildings or just some of them on some of the floors, as is their style? Also i know about the housing system i served on one of the comittees of it last year because i wanted to try to improve the housing system. Its a good idea in theory but f&m does not have the facilities or proper faculty to make it work. they also dont have the money to do it because right now all of the money is being put into the new science building which they dont even have full funding for yet. So i know all about this housing system. I probably know more than you do and its going to be a disaster. F&M will be a good school in ten years but right now its in transition with a fairly new president and this housing system.</p>
<p>Interestig comment about the funding issues for the Science Center. I suspect that issue cannot be gleaned from the school's web site, so I wonder how one would go about determining such skeletons in a school's closet...I will try the trusty Google and see what comes up...in the interim, how did you become aware of the underfunding? Probably from sitting on the housing committee, but does that mean that most students are unaware of this issue?</p>