I just heard back from CWRU and I was accepted off of the waitlist with a decent merit scholarship. As a result, CWRU would be around $2000 cheaper for me to attend.
I’m looking to dual major in Computer Science and Mathematics and I do have graduate school aspirations.
If I can get any insight as to the life of the schools or which one you believe is better, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you!
Grinnell is a classic liberal arts college. Very high endowment/student. Small class sizes. It is not widely appreciated but those who know colleges know that a Grinnell education is top notch. CWRU is a larger, research university on the way up. CWRU is more engineering / science centric for certain. Grinnell is very quiet in an Iowa cornfield basically. CWRU is right outside Cleveland. You can get into a top graduate school from either college easily. What I would suggest you do (in the 3 days you have left to commit) is check out the math / science department at Grinnell. Call the head of the Math or CS department and discuss what you’d like to do. It is a small enough school that they will probably answer the phone. If it were me and I was comfortable with their Math / Science program I’d got to Grinnell in a heartbeat. Very smart student body, $1M/student endowment. This means the college has resources to focus on education. My D was admitted to CWRU and offered a $100K merit scholarship so it’s like we haven’t looked at the school
CWRU is actually within the city limits of Cleveland (perhaps not downtown but only 10-15 away) in University Circle. Just didn’t want anyone to have the impression that it is a suburban college. It is definitely urban.
@momofzag is correct. CWRU is very urban. In fact, unlike some urban campuses, the Case campus is in no way isolated from its surroundings – a major city street actually divides it roughly in half.
I don’t know about Grinnell, but Case is extremely strong in all technical and scientific majors. It also has a reputation for three things: 1) Very collaborative students; 2) relatively “nerdy” students; and 3) exceptionally heavy work loads.
If you have any real interest in sports, either as a fan or participant, the CWRU might not be the school for you. Spectator sports are of minimal interest to the students, while the fitness facilities are mostly old and, when I visited on a Saturday, apparently not used much. I saw next to zero athletic activity, on a Saturday afternoon in September .
For your major, CWRU is the better option. Plus its cheaper, so that makes it even better.
I looked heavily into both Grinnell and CWRU though I never actually applied to visited Grinnell. I personally would be attending CWRU right now if I could afford it, but I didn’t get enough aid to attend. I’m a little crunched for time and don’t have much to say about why other than it felt right to me. The students were SO NICE when I visited, and not all of them were your stereotypical nerds. Grinnell is an amazing school, don’t get me wrong, and may even be a little more prestigious than CWRU. But CWRU has got it going on and since its cheaper that’s where my vote is going.
Both are great schools with great CS departments - Grinnell’s is smaller but reputed to have excellent teachers. So it’s primarily urban vs rural setting. Also CWRU seems to have good pre-professional opportunities.
Where are you coming from and is it important how easy it is to get to and from the university? I have read so many posts about attempted visits to Grinnell only to be foiled (multiple times in some cases) by cancelled flights into Des Moines.
We did not look at Grinnell but loved a lot of things about CWRU - but the lack of sports (S is a big sports spectator) was one of the major reasons it didn’t end up being the choice. Also just comparing to Rochester which has a very similar student body, it did not seem as cohesive - likely due to the spreadout campus.
if you feel you will be occupied with activities on campus, then Grinnell is a good fit but if you need more - like access to a city, museums, restaurants, then CWRU is more appealing. Your’e going to be there at least four years, so it is an important factor to consider IMO.
Oh yes, and wanted to add that size is different - twice as many undergrads at CWRU and graduate students as well. S decided the small universities were not for him so that (and the rural location) took Grinnell off the list.