Hi!
I’m currently trying to decide between NYU, St. Olaf, and UW Madison for college next year. I’ve been accepted to Madison so far, but I haven’t heard from the other two yet. If you’ve gone to any of these schools, please feel free to share about your experience (positives and negatives). I’m also worried about the alcohol/drug usage on all campuses because that’s not something that I want to be involved in. I am also considering a double major in Biology and Theater. Thank you guys!
Any thoughts about big versus small? UW is literally a factor of 10 larger than St. Olaf. Regarding substance use, St. Olaf is ostensibly a dry campus, though the word I often hear used to describe it is “damp”, i.e., alcohol certainly can be found if sought and plenty of kids drink. That being said, I’ll bet that there’s less substance use at St. Olaf than at either of your other two options. They also have a gorgeous new science building, and their Bio department is strong. I don’t actually have any first hand knowledge to impart, but St. Olaf seems like a terrific school and is on my son’s short list.
You couldn’t possibly have identified three more different schools. What’s the thinking behind these choices? I’m not seeing the selection criteria. The differences are most likely to be the differences that you’d see between a huge state U, a medium urban private and a small college town LAC? Or did you just randomly chose these three as examples of their type to get a discussion going on the pros and cons of each ‘type’ of environment? If so, you can do a search here for extensive threads on LACs vs Unis or State U vs Private for all that information
I agree with N’s Mom. 3 incredibly dissimilar institutions.
If you are trying to avoid a party atmosphere, St. Olaf with a bullet. UWMadison consistently is considered the biggest party school in the US. But, boy, are those 3 different.
Can you and your family afford NYU? One of the most expensive schools in the country.
Good luck!
I chose these 3 schools to get opinions of the 3 different environments so that I could see which would fit me best based on the comments. For St. Olaf, I like the theater and biology programs that they offer, along with a great study abroad program. I loved the UW Madison campus and all of the internship opportunities that they offer. And for NYU, I like the location, theater program, study abroad program, and internship opportunities. I’m just looking for pros and cons of each school, excluding cost. Thanks for all of your responses!
With NYU - did you apply to Tisch? Or CAS? Just curious.
NYU is a large urban university. There is no campus - NYU is a collection of buildings in lower Manhattan. Students who go to NYU go there partially because of that; traditional campus life doesn’t matter to them and they want to go because they want to experience all that New York has to offer. New York is really their campus. Obviously the theater program at NYU would be excellent - BUT it’s a big, big pond with lots of talented and competitive theater students. Same with getting involved at the community level - even community theater in New York is more competitive. However, there will be lots and lots of theater activities for you to engage in on the viewing side. Also, New York is a great city to be in for internships; I was a graduate student at Columbia and lots of Columbia students do internships during the academic year at large companies that most students can only intern with over the summers. However, a con to New York is that it’s very expensive, and doing things out in the city with friends can quickly break the budget. The two Midwestern schools are likely to have much cheaper surroundings.
Madison is a great college city - I’ve never been but I’ve heard nothing but good things. It’s a relatively smallish-medium city as cities go, but great for college students. UW and NYU are comparable in size - NYU has around 25,000 undergrads and UW has about 29,000. But UW is going to be more of your traditional, stereotypical “college experience” - a defined campus, a green, large sports team, big Greek system (well, in terms of size. Only about 10% of UW students are Greek, but that’s about 2,900 students).
St. Olaf is a small college in a small college town about 45 minutes south of Minneapolis. It shares the town with Carleton, another small college, but that means at any given time there are like 5,000 college students in Northfield (the 3,000 at St. Olaf and the 2,000 at Carleton). Being at a small LAC means you’ll have the small classes and seminars with professors all four years and much more personal attention. It also potentially means being a big fish in a small pond in the theater scene. But there might be limited student organizations for that; if you go to a place like NYU or UW there might be like 5-7 different theater groups whereas a smaller place like St. Olaf may only have one or two. St. Olaf is a leader in study abroad - two thirds of St. Olaf students study abroad before graduating.
Thank you so much! That was really informative. I applied to CAS for NYU.
Why are you choosing a school when you’ve only been admitted to one so far? Wait and see what comes in.
When I think of Madison I think of extremely cold winters. Are you okay with that? If you want to avoid drinking, NYU might fit the bill since being in NYC there are a million other things to do. NYC is expensive, but there are so many free and low cost ways to entertain yourself from going to museums and free concerts, etc. Just walking around NYC is a favorite pasttime for many. If you want a traditional college experience, you won’t find it at NYU. St. Olaf, from what I have researched seems very wholesome. I would imagine you would also have less diversity, but more personal attention. As for Wisconsin, Madison is a wonderful city and at the school you will find midwesterners and lots of people from both coasts. NYU in my opinion will have a less wholesome vibe, will be very diverse in terms of people coming from everywhere. If you want warm and cozy, skip NYU. I was just writing as thoughts popped into my head. Hope you get in all 3 places and hope you get to visit them. You’lll know once you see each school. If you visit Madison, go in the winter.