<p>My daughter is trying to decide between two small liberal arts colleges. She has visited both schools and loves each for different reasons. Both have gorgeous campuses, offer her major, and provided generous merit packages.</p>
<p>Heres her dilemma. She really connected to the kids at one schoolfeels that she would fit in really well, and likes the fact that the student body is evenly split between boys and girls (51% girls, 49% boys). The big drawback about the schoolit is in the middle of nowhere. Its in a lovely area, but very ruralno town to speak of and she would definitely have to move out of the area to get a job after graduation. </p>
<p>The other school is located right outside a major metropolitan city. There are a ton of opportunities to get internships with companies located in the area. The school participates in a student exchange program, allowing her to take classes at other prestigious universities in the city. She loves the location and feels she could live in the area once she graduates. This schools big drawbackpeople say the student body is quite quirky, filled with slightly weird, eccentric students giving it a unique atmosphere.
The ratio is about 70% girls to 30% boys </p>
<p>So does she choose a college where she will probably fit in with most of the kids, but will probably get bored with the area and will definitely have to move away once she graduates? Or does she go to a college in a fantastic location, where she could possibly find her dream job (or at least a great internship) but not really connect to the majority of the student body?</p>
<p>The likelihood that your D will end up permanently settling anywhere you can predict right now when she is 18 is close to zero. So I would take that off the table as something to even worry about. Then to the quirky question-- how quirky? In your face “I’ll never find my people here” quirky, or just “interesting and fun and different from me”? And did the “people say” comment end up being true when your D visited, or was it just something people say?</p>
<p>I went to a quirky school where allegedly (back in the 1970’s) everyone was a dope-head, flower child, or wierdo. It was (and apparently still is) a very open and non-judgmental place. But it had Preppies and Lacrosse players and Engineering nerds and pre-meds and political activists and religious evangelicals and all the other groups and sub-groups that you find on a college campus. It would have been a shame if I had missed out on such a terrific education if I’d been listening to what people say.</p>
<p>So try to get your D to focus on what she observed- if it made her uncomfortable- that’s one thing. If it was a “live and let live” kind of quirkiness- worth considering and keeping it on the table.</p>
<p>Sarah Lawrence? Hm. Maybe not. I didn’t think they have merit money. I might be able to be more helpful if I knew the schools, but this is just a decision your D has to make. It sounds like two good options.</p>
<p>Does the school in the middle of nowhere make an effort to bring in speakers, etc, and put on events to keep the kids entertained? My D’s would not have chosen a 70/30% ratio. She feels connected to the kids at one school, has she visited the other? If she doesn’t feel she can connect with them, it may not be the best fit.</p>
<p>Remember, even rural schools have some great connections for summer internships. I know Juniata (in PA) has connections for Physics majors to get internships in the PNW (WA state) during the summer.</p>
<p>As far as student exchange, dig deeper. Some of those programs are challenging logisitics to schedule classes is separate areas. This is especially true if the school is small since most small schools do not offer many sections/times for require classes. My son look into this in detail with the Haverford/Penn/Swat and decided to apply as a different major since his initial major really made the cross registering a headache.</p>
<p>If the only thing holding her back from the rural school is worries after graduation, I don’t think it is worth giving up a peer group she really connected. If the rural location also comes with feelings of suffocation because she won’t be able to take breaks off campus, well then it becomes a concern to me.</p>
<p>Did she experience the “quirky” or is it just rumor? </p>
<p>I really believe kids can easily mold and adjust, but if given a choice, “fit” really does help alleviate anxiety and the college adjustment.</p>
<p>Although it may seem like forever now, she will be in college for just 4 years. Hopefully the friends and connections will last a lifetime. Mine have. I know relatively few people from my alma mater who settled in the Philadelphia area after graduation. I don’t expect any of our kids to settle near where they went to school, either.</p>
<p>Does the rural school have good recruiting for internships and jobs? It can have that, even if it’s not right next to a big city.</p>
<p>For me, if the rural school has decent recruiting, I’d choose it for the fit. That can matter so much when it comes to getting the most out of college.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the comments. You all bring up valid points–especially about where you will live after graduation. However, I do think it is important to look at schools where you can get internships. If you are in a rural area, I think it is a lot harder.</p>
<p>Regarding the “quirky” student body–when we visited there, everyone seemed fairly normal. Our tour guide was a bit unusual, but in a bright, engaging sort of way. We knew about the 70/30 ratio, but that was okay too–not ideal – but my daughter gets along really well with other girls so she didn’t think it would be a big issue.</p>
<p>Her worries about the student body came after she was accepted. She started reading reviews of the school by current students. All were positive but majority mentioned the “quirky” classmates. One girl said that if you didn’t fit in while in high school, you will fit in here. My daughter joined the accepted students Facebook page and said that the kids sound kind of strange–they are into anime, neopets, pokemon, and fantasy games (song of ice and fire?). </p>
<p>I told her that just because a few kids were posting things that they were interested in–it didn’t mean that the entire student body had those same interests. But all of this worries her somewhat.</p>
<p>OP- thanks for clarifying. So–are there clubs and activities for things your D is interested in? Or wants to be interested in? I was active in volunteer type activities at my college that I would likely have participated in regardless of where I was… but also got interested in things that were more artsy/out of my comfort zone as well. </p>
<p>If your D is nervous because SOME kids have interests that she doesn’t share- well that’s just college. But that’s different from showing up at a place that doesn’t have any of the things she likes to do. So check out the student activities pages on the website, the student newspaper, etc. As long as there are things going on that sound fun and interesting, the mere presence of a few anime fans on campus shouldn’t really be part of her decision making.</p>
<p>I shared a suite one year with an Olympic caliber athlete. I had zero interest in athletics- and thought I hated all jocks- and did my best to avoid a college with a jock type culture. But she was fabulous! Brilliant and hard-working; up at 5 am to train before classes; interested in zillions of things in addition to her sport. And her teammates were fabulous too. So in addition to being pushed out of my somewhat limited frame of reference into a “quirkier” or artier type campus, I had my preconceptions about athletes shattered as well. How cool!</p>
<p>I admit I’d rather have the more even M/F ratio, but a more urban location, so I’d be torn too. I think there’s some self-selection in who ends up on facebook pages. The anime/pokemon/fantasy crowd is probably more likely to get together online. That said, both my kids who couldn’t be more different from each other, both like those fantasy games, she might too! I think Blossom has the right idea to check out the student activity pages and see what seems to be active.</p>
<p>This is a tough one. I think I would ask her to prioritize her list of things that are important and take it from there. Both of my kids need to feel as though they fit in with the student body and could connect to the students. That would be a priority for them, followed by location. Everyone is different. My daughter swore that she would not go to a school in the middle of nowhere, but when we visited her school she fell in love with the students and changed her mind. She really lives in the middle of nowhere and has no regrets. She loves the kids and has a great social life on campus. She is not in a city and she lives down the street from a typewriter store!</p>
<p>I know that would make my boys pause big time…has she visited this school? If she spends some time there she might find that the kids that are Facebooking are not the “majority” or are the ones that turn to the internet to make connections. Also, I recently visited my son2 at a rural college where “everyone” is into outdoor sports - skiing, hiking, camping, sailing, swimming, rockclimbing, biking you name it…and met one of S2’s freshman roommates who was chubby guy who did NOTHING much in the way of physical activity, but he still loved his college and was finishing his junior year and kids seem to love him so it can also be more about the kids than what their interests are. If she likes what the college has to offer and likes the rural location she might want to do a longish overnight and really get exposed to the students.</p>
<p>Internships have very little to do with where your college is located, but since it seems to be of importance to you - have you asked each school about their internship programs?</p>
<p>My younger daughter goes to a school in the middle of nowhere, near nothing, yet the college has more activities than my older daughter’s college which is very near a major metropolitan area. She loves the kids there (she’s a freshman), fits in so well with them, loves the professors, wouldn’t change schools for anything. Oh and because the school is in the middle of nowhere the profs are much closer and more available to the students than at most “better” located schools.</p>
<p>I think…you shouldn’t advise her. Since she knows what she believes to be the tradeoffs, your greatest risk is that you will be blamed in leading her toward a “wrong choice”. Since you can afford both, the academics are good at both, and she can theoretically be happy at each other, I’d say as little as possible at this point.</p>
<p>She might benefit from talking to someone else.</p>
<p>My S graduates from a school that proudly recruits weird & quirky but what that is falls all over the map. It is a small school, small town, excellent internships, travel abroad, every major has experiences throught out the US. You need to investigate. Have your daughter call or visit and get these questions answered. I have been amazed at all that has happened at this small campus in the middle of no where.</p>
<p>If internships are your concern, maybe there is an internship office or career center where you can check student placement. Usually, internships happen during the summer, so the kid goes to the internship location for the summer and then heads back to school for the fall.</p>
<p>From my experience with my three kids and all are different: 150% go with fit with student body. Rural LACs have so much going on it is tough to be bored. There is usually a great sense of community. But, no matter where they go to school, they are only happy if they have friends. Don’t pick a school based on where they might live after graduation. No idea to know where they’ll end up. Most schools offer some kind of access to internships or at least career counseling services. The skewed male / female ratio sounds off-putting to me, at least, as well.</p>
<p>My D, who goes to school in NYC and refused to look at isolated colleges, has visited her brother in a rural LAC and realizes now that she could have been very happy at a place like that as well, because so much of college life is about hanging out with friends!</p>
<p>I would’ve been miserable in college if this was my college campus. My D too. But your D is neither me nor my D. Wasn’t there controversial news last week about a Princeton mother claiming college is the best time to find your future spouse?</p>
<p>I would defiantly have her call the college and ask about internships. The 2 most rural schools our kids applied to have the largest internship opportunities out of all the schools they applied to. Both had on campus internship fairs and every student that wanted an internship got one. I also agree that it’s just way too early to know if she would stay in the area to work or not. What if she ends up with a job on that college campus?? Go for the best fit.</p>