Can someone describe the campus vibe/personality of the selective LACs on the east and west coast? I’m particularly interested in Pomona, Swarthmore, and Amherst. Which ones are the most intellectual/geeky? Do some have overbearing drinking/drug cultures?
I have been to all the NESCACS except for Trinity plus Colgate, Bucknell , Washington & Lee, Holy Cross, Dickinson and Lafayette. St. Lawrence as well, but it is not consider overly selective.
Of the NESCACs, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury and Hamilton present a very upbeat and balanced culture and student body. Bates and Bowdoin are not rural schools and if you have been to Brown, they are like that. Jocks, hipsters and preppy kids pretty evenly represented. Middlebury and Colby a little more preppy but still a nice friendly, happy vibe. Hamilton the same more or less. Colgate is very much like Middlebury but larger.
Amherst and Williams were impressive but much more uptight and a little pretentious. Swarthmore the same but even more so and my wife commented that the students looked sad. I thought the Swarthmore campus was run down and the food was terrible. When I say run down this is relative of course. The area around Swarthmore is sort of boring.
The difference in selectivity in these schools is quite minor, despite what you read. Kids routinely get in some but not others.
Washington & Lee is another kettle of fish, it is the provincial south. We were there a month after the confederate flags were removed from campus. However, the school is first rate and the campus vibe is energetic.
The others were also nice, with Dickinson winning the Martha Stewart award for perfect taste in a college campus. Bucknell is like a slightly less selective Colgate. They are rivals in the Patriot League
Holy Cross is very friendly and according to the students true to its reputation as very rigorous. Serious vibe but not snooty.
As you can see my son picked Bates. He said it felt the most honest and he thought the interviewer really cared about figuring out if there was a fit. If he had picked Colgate or Middlebury I would have been equally as happy.
Holy Cross-great school spirit.
Allow me to be blunt: You really cannot know the “campus vibe” of SLACs without visiting them for yourself. One person’s idyllic is another’s bland. “Sad” or “depressed” to one person is “driven” and “dedicated” to another.
I’ve never heard anybody describe Swarthmore as “run down” before. We found it both pristine and cold, but many people consider it one of the most beautiful campuses they’ve ever seen. We thought Haverford was much prettier and more welcoming; others find it too small and too insular.
Dickinson was unremarkable in every way and, as someone who was really looking forward to visiting, I was disappointed. Great school for the right kid, but you can’t know if it’s a good fit without visiting.
And the same goes for the rest of them IMHO.
Top LACs have more in common then differentiating them and none of them are major party schools - you wouldn’t survive academically if you were consistently hung over or stoned. Our impression - using broad stereotypes here - is that Amherst is more preppy (like many New England LACs), Swarthmore more self-consciously intellectual (often compared to U Chicago vibe-wise), and Pomona is very California (laid back surface but serious undertow there). Most students, if they were lucky enough to get into all three, would find ‘their’ crowd at any of them. Some top schools have unique characteristics or features - they are urban (like Macalester, Vassar, Reed, and Barnard). Or they are very small town (like Middlebury, Grinnell, Colby), or somehow specialized (Harvey Mudd, the women’s LACs). Or they have ‘reputations’ usually overstated - Reed is ‘alternative and hipster.’ Oberlin is ‘granola and music.’
Which one has the best department(s) in your areas of interest? What’s the cost difference? How far/close to home do you want to be? How weather sensitive are you?
And if you really want to avoid the party scene, check out sub-free housing which most schools offer. You can still party, but the party doesn’t happen in your dorm room or on your floor, which many prefer. And you’ll be surrounded by like-minded students.
The student body at Swarthmore has a reputation for being very liberal.
If possible I’d strongly suggest visiting each school as LACs really do have their own “vibes”.
Yes. This is an interesting topic, and I’m very interested in hearing various perspectives. I’m struck by the fact that Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury and Hamilton were listed by @BatesParent2019 as “very upbeat and balanced” when we’ve so far not sought them out (thus cannot speak for ourselves) because others have characterized them as somewhat preppy and mainstream and we have other satisfactory options in play. (Though Bates remains on the list of “possibles.”) Second hand info only, just saying your mileage may vary.
Firsthand impression of Swarthmore, both this year and some 35 years ago, was that it was very very intense. Some people love it, but you have to really want that level of intensity.
Holy Cross and Colgate have Division 1 sports programs with HC fielding 27-28- varsity sports most of which compete against the Ivies.
I described Colby, Middlebury and Hamilton as being more preppy than Bates and Bowdoin but still not in a dominant or obnoxious sort of way from the 1980’s. The same would be the same for Colgate.
My time at these schools entailed two visits each, interviews at all except for Middlebury which doesn’t do them and overnight visits.
Bates and Bowdoin are very close to each other and neither are rural, which is probably why the student body is more diverse. I think the comparison to Brown is valid.
This year’s Bates class drew from all 50 states, 43 countries and is 37% non-white. The admit rate dropped to 21% overall and 17% in regular decision. Just from the demographics you can see the class is diverse.
Perhaps I am immune to preppiness but nothing struck me at any of these schools that would cause any student to feel out of place.
Washington & Lee, yes, for sure.
It is obvious in this process that if a student is not interested in a school, they will exaggerate any little issue. My son described St. Lawrence as over the top because of the unbelievably nice student center, superb athletic facilities and the ultra fancy bookstore. He just wasn’t interested.
I think the lesson to be taken from this conversation is that “vibes” are easily overstated. There will always be exceptions and even if you’re very liberal at W&L or very conservative at Wesleyan, you’ll still find people with which you have something in common. Don’t overly rely on stereotypes.
I agree with @urbanslaughter. Also it’s interesting to find the online student newspaper and read it to get some insight into what’s going on. There may be more than one. For example, Pomona has The Student Life, http://tsl.pomona.edu/. But there are also competing alternative on-line papers especially in the case of Pomona and the Claremont Consortium. Even then I think people who care the most about specific issues are promoting their point of view in the student paper but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a group with an alternate viewpoint in the student body.
Spend a lot of time at each that you are considering seriously, and sit in on an upper level class if possible. Eat a couple of meals in the cafeteria. Also, consider some of the not-so-quite-as-selective LACs that are academically rigorous. I’m thinking of Kenyon, Sewanee, Union and Denison, all 4 of which had vibrant, balanced student bodies IMO.
Google tells me that, statistically, Amherst, Vassar, Grinnell, Smith and Pomona are the most economically diverse of the top LACs. Kenyon, Colgate, Colby, Claremont McKenna and Bates are among the least economically diverse.
In racial diversity, the most diverse of top LACs are Wellesley, Amherst and Swarthmore. The least racially diverse are Washington and Lee, Sewanee, Kenyon, Colgate, Hamilton, Colby and and Bates.
Not sure what either of those things means to you, if anything. It’s perfectly ok if they are not significant in your decisionmaking.
My D visited Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Tufts, Wesleyan, Haverford, Pomona and Claremont McKenna last year in her search. All of them had their charms, and not one of the felt as preppy as, say, Dartmouth.
Swarthmore was not at all run down (seriously, who said that, that campus is beautiful). It felt very intense. Not sure that all the students were enjoying their time there. She thought she might like it, but was wary of the potential “wallowing in misery” vibe.
Williams was very sporty (in a good way), but felt very, very isolated. She couldn’t see herself there for 4 years.
Middlebury was also isolated, but not as much as Williams (but even colder). The campus is beautiful but strangely stark and grey. The vibe was an odd combination of international and preppy. The town was a little bit bigger than Williams. She liked it.
Pomona was the essence of successful California, which is good and not so good at times (we are Californians). It felt like people constantly felt the need to downplay how hard they worked, even though they worked very hard. That really is a California thing. She liked it.
Claremont McKenna was very pre-business-school and “leadership” oriented, as opposed to intellectual. It didn’t have frats but it felt kind of like a big frat (if that makes sense). She didn’t like it.
Tufts feels more urban and more compact than any of the others and is a bit larger. She liked it.
Wesleyan was hard to read. It was freakishly cold that day, it was out of session, and we didn’t get much of a feel for it, good or bad.
Her favorite was Amherst, and that is where she is going next year. It wasn’t perfect, no place is, but it felt very friendly, and the students seemed high-achieving without being miserable about it (like Swarthmore) or having to put on a 24/7 show pretending that they weren’t working at all (like Pomona). The surrounding towns are very appealing with the other 4 colleges there.
You need to visit as many of them as possible and read other sources to get your own feelings about these places. Every single one of the posters on this site is biased (including me). We have our favorites (usually where we or our kids go) and we have ones that we irrationally dislike, and our information simply isn’t very reliable or complete.
@ThankYouforHelp, I don’t know what you mean (Middlebury) when you say each one of us is biased (Middlebury) based on where we go (Middlebury) or where our kids go (Middlebury) and I’m really offended (Middlebury) by your suggestion (Middlebury) that I might have (Middlebury) some sort of subliminal agenda (Middlebury).
Holy Cross is need-blind for admissions and unlike most selective LAC’s, HC is located in mid-size city(1 hour from Boston). Williams, Colgate,Colby are very rural.
Genuine question par72. Do you really have 3999 posts all hyping Holy Cross? Because that’s a lot of posts.
The time of year you visit can have a lot do with the impression you get of the campus. I think Middlebury is a classic example- gorgeous buildings that are a bit unique in that they are greystone for the most part (no brick on campus except for admissions office). On a grey winter day with snow on the ground it can look stark no doubt. There is literally no contrast between the buildings and the environment But dang on an autumn day with leaves turning and a bluebird sky- or a spring/summer day with green grass and flowers- holy moly it’s gorgeous!
I’m not sure of the exact meaning of @urbanslaughter’s post – maybe I’m missing something – but since reading it I’ve had a strong desire to study foreign languages.
I have long wondered about that, too. It seems to me that par72 needs to hype Holy Cross if he wants it to stay relevant- given that so few posters ask about it in the first place.
And so, and that point aside, when you look at his content I do wonder as to what he/she is really adding of substance to the forum with those 3999 posts. They are typically short and simple, as represented by the following usual assertions:
- HC is near Boston (an hour plus away from there- got it);
- plays Ivy League schools (what school doesn't that wants to do so and, more importantly, so what?);
- has a great alumni network (without substantiating what that means e.g. with outcomes);
- has great school spirit (ditto); and
-has great financial aid (when it’s not particularly remarkable according to Kiplinger’s) and is need blind for admissions (as in post 14 above- when whatever admissions decision is made is, in turn, not supported by 100% financial aid being met).
Over to par72!
I drove past Holy Cross on the interstate the other day. It looked fine.