<p>Has anyone visited both schools? What do you feel the differences are?</p>
<p>Beloit is signifcantly smaller than Macalester, is it not?</p>
<p>A huge difference is their locations. Beloit is very isolated by comparison. Mac students benefit in significant ways from the Twin Cities location, not only culturally but with regard to the impact on academic enhancement provided by the vast array of opportunities and connections the cities offer.</p>
<p>Mac and its students felt much more urban to me; the students were more carefully dressed and activist-y and they seemed to really be focused on and passionate about whatever they were doing, whether they were in class or just talking at lunch. The students at Beloit were just plain nicer, less in-your-face activist (though I did visit on Day of Silence and saw many students doing it and plenty of signs about it), and the students I talked to seemed less absolutely clear about what their futures held yet more content and relaxed about that. Students at both schools seemed happy, nice, and interesting.</p>
<p>Mac’s campus also seemed a lot more centered; there was a main academic square around a green quad and everything. Beloit’s was more difficult to navigate and seemed asymmetrical.</p>
<p>DD2 and I visited both. The schools are similar enough that Beloit makes a great safety for Macalester. It really makes a lot of sense to apply to both.
Mac has the nicer campus and, by far, the nicer city. DD attended classes at both schools and felt that Mac would be more challenging, but students were friendly to her on both visits. In the end, she never completed her app to Beloit (no clear-cut reason ever stated, although she had already been accepted EA to a safety she liked better and I never pushed her because of my concerns about Beloit’s financial status last winter when they reported laying off 40 staff members); she will attend Mac.</p>
<p>I agree with the posts above. My son visited both schools. He liked both campuses, but thought the Beloit students were a bit friendlier/more easy going than the Mac students. The Mac students seemed edgier to him (but still nice). After attending classes and looking at the programs, he thought he would be challenged more by Mac and able to build a double major more to his liking. He also liked the idea of internships within the Twin Cities area. He will attend Mac. He received a generous scholarship from Beloit which made it a hard school to turn down, but Mac was generous with the FA and made it possible for him to attend. They’re both fine schools and we would have been happy if he had decided to attend Beloit.</p>