This student has visited all three of these campuses…which in my opinion is far more important than any data from their common data sets. The student needs to live there, enjoy the campus, have opportunities to do what they want to do for the four years.
I have been to Kenyon and Amherst, and know graduates of all three of these colleges and all were very smart young people who have done very well since college graduation.
I have been to both Kenyon and Amherst and I think both are really lovely college campuses.
I haven’t been to Carleton, so won’t give you an opinion there…but I think your best sources are people who have attended or at least visited Carleton. You can’t get a feel for a school by reading their common data set and comparing it to other common data sets. In my opinion.
I grew up in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes, I loved playing in the snow, taking walks in the woods after a fresh snow, and so on. And to me the idea of a snowy winter is a plus not a minus.
So when we visited Carleton, it was a nice warm (actually, too warm for me!) fall day. But, we saw the Bald Spot and looked out at the Arboretum. The Bald Spot is a big sunken rectangle of open field in the middle of campus, and in the winter they flood it and turn it into an ice rink. And then there is a tradition of playing broomball, which is an insane hockey-like sport except you wear regular shoes and not skates (they now require helmets, which are available on site, which is a very good idea). The Arboretum is very large (800 acres), right next to campus, and has trails that go through wetlands, various types of forest, some prairie, and so on:
So all that was incredibly appealing to me. And I suppose it actually matters that my S24 liked it too . . . .
But I can easily imagine all this going over like a lead balloon for a kid who does not love winter like I do. I mean, it is all still nice in the warm times too, but it is going to get cold and snowy and then what? Love it? Hate it? These are important, personal questions.
I didn’t say you could. As we were ‘ranking schools based on ‘rep’ and other things, I was just noting.
I said several times and in the last message said -
“Anyway, all good stuff and as long as OP’s kid has a wonderful experience at wherever they choose, what else matters?”
Just like my kids, I knew the higher rep school - who they were - even if they chose otherwise. It’s good at least to have that understanding of the schools. But my original note that got this entire fit vs rank going was - Amherst isn’t just higher ranked but in the parthenon of schools is just really special. And the data bears that out.
Op, of course, will have their opinion and nothing else matters.
Having attended a very famous college, my feeling is, eh, they are still just colleges. It probably helps keep me grounded that my spouse went to her flagship university (for free, she was a faculty kid) and if anything has had a more successful career track. But I am happy with my career too, and in fact I got a lot out of college. And yet it was still just a college.
I would describe Carleton students as super friendly, hard-working, unpretentious, genuine, intelligent, funny, and curious. I have less direct experience with students from the other two schools.
Fwiw, Princeton Review compiled a list from their student surveys of schools with the friendliest students.
One thing I’ve always liked about Carleton is its appreciation for humor and the way it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
There’s an interesting quote regarding humor and playfulness on their About page from the previous president that to me goes beyond the usual bland self-promotion on college sites and really does capture an aspect of the school’s culture missing from all the rankings and metrics.
Sometimes the kids from the west have a hard time with the NE vibe. Not always obviously, there are loads of Californians in NE LACs, but the Midwest may be less of a culture shock.
I actually warned my S24 about how crazy nice the people in Minnesota would be. Like, the Midwest is nice in general, and then Minnesotans make a state religion out of it.
So seriously, those were like the nicest rental car garage attendants I have ever met, and then it just continued on from there.
I can’t speak for all Californians, but interestingly I did have Californian relatives, who would come for extended visits to our (not Minnesota) Upper Midwest state. And they invariably commented on how nice the people were. Not that California is not nice (at least outside the big cities–for whatever reason LA in particular has never struck me as particularly friendly). But I think they had heard how people in “the East” were not nice, and did not realize that you could get to the 2/3rds mark and people were still very nice.
Yes, my PNW kids lived in Boston for a year and said it felt like landing on Mars. Regional differences are a thing and may be what the OP’s son is referring to when he talks about not getting the vibe.
I only know one Carleton student (brother of D24’s good friend and a recruited athlete there) and this would also describe him. It could actually describe that whole family come to think of it.
Totally disagree. As someone who grew up in California and went to undergrad in New England and two different grad schools in the Midwest, it is far more common for West-Coast kids to feel at home on the East Coast than in the Midwest. There’s not really a great reason for this, but coastal folks are more likely to dismiss “flyover country” in favor of the opposite coast (note: I’m using but not endorsing the term “flyover country” to reflect how coastal people tend to view the middle). New England and the Midwest are both wonderful regions, and I loved living in both areas, but a kid from California will likely feel more culture shock in the Midwest than in the Northeast, and will be more likely to find people who feel familiar in New England (at my New England university, California was the third most represented state, behind New York and Mass.). This is definitely not a suggestion that people just stick with their comfort zones – it’s worth it to expose yourself to new places and people, and these are all wonderful schools. But West Coast students will probably experience more culture shock in the Midwest.
Another random thought: I suspect that the student “culture” of Carleton, and probably Kenyon?, is more stable right now than Amherst.
My impression is that Amherst is in the midst of a multi-year massive effort (going back at least 15 years) to transform their student body by diversifying it in every sense of the word. And they are putting their money where their mouth is. Along with this, I think that they are transforming their student culture. (Amherst is not the only college engaged in this, of course, just one of the best funded.)
I suspect, but don’t know, that this has implications for student body unity and collective identity. A few years ago, Amherst ranked high in the Princeton Review for “little interaction between different races/classes” or some such thing. They no longer rank on that list, I believe, but that was indicative of growing pains for a changing campus, I think.
I can imagine students either being excited, or nonplussed, by being part of that transformation, as compared to the stability of Carleton.
If this CollegeFactual data is correct, California has the largest representation of students at Carleton (second to Minnesota, presumably, which does not appear on the graph):
Kenyon College represents itself well in the Kenyon In Numbers information page.
In my view, increasing undergraduate enrollment at Kenyon College from about 1,607 to 1,877 (slightly over a 16% increase) in just a few years is a positive move as Kenyon College is quite isolated.
Another positive is that Kenyon has cracked down on excessive use of alcohol by its students.
As someone who grew up in the east but moved to the west 28 years ago and married a PNWer and had and raised my kids here, I couldn’t agree more. It’s a different culture on the east coast, noticeable to my entire family. Some might be eager to seek that out, others not so much. I would choose Carleton. ITA I agree the midwest is different too, it just comes down to which vibe resonates I suppose
I’ve had 2 nieces from Northern CA attend Amherst and their younger brother is currently a second year at Carleton (after not getting into Amherst). All 3 are very different kids. The girls loved their 4 years at Amherst. On the other hand, my nephew at Carleton has struggled to find his crowd and is looking to transfer out. He has no desire to stay in the midwest after college and finds that many of his fellow students have provincial attitudes towards the coasts. I know this is just one student’s perspective but he’d choose Amherst in a heartbeat over Carleton.
Carleton and Amherst have exactly the same freshmen retention rates, both at 95%. That’s a strong indicator that students are very happy at both these schools. Kenyon has a somewhat lower freshman retention rate at 89%, but that’s still very good. All these schools have students from around the nation.
This rings very true. My own very New England, very white NESCAC college of fifty years ago went through a similar transformation. In fact, it took the combined forces of coeducation, and the increase in the student body size that followed, to really move the center of gravity away from the dominant WASP culture. Amherst has always been circumspect about its own growth rate, even cutting back on the number of males in order to accommodate more women when it became co-ed in 1975. I suspect it would like not to get much bigger than the 1,900 it is now.
Sorry to hear that; I sincerely hope your nephew finds his crowd soon. The consistent feedback I’ve heard from students of any geographic origin that I’ve personally spoken with is that Carleton offers an extremely warm and welcoming community, generally far exceeding the already high expectations students have at entry. Interestingly, one of the most vocal of my child’s friends transferred there from Amherst. Such reports may be anecdotal, but I’m convinced fit is an individual matter.
