<p>Mount Holyoke is one of the most diverse colleges in the country. And contrary to what you may think, a women’s college is a GREAT setting for dating, especially those in a consortium (= the colleges may organize outings, parties, etc. accross the consortium and take the social lives of their students seriously, which actually make finding/meeting a date easier than in a typical “hook up college culture”.)
$5,000 is not what students are supposed to have but rather what they’re supposed to earn, typically through summer earnings and work study during the year. At no-loan colleges, it typically means the student has a choice between taking on the federal loans or work study or summer work or a combination thereof (such as $2,500 subsidized federal loans + $2,500 work study, which corresponds to about 8hours a week.)
Check the package from Capital; in particular, does it include PLUS loans or non federal loans? If not, next step is to check the course offerings (ie., are the courses important in the major offered at least once every year or once every other year?) If so, then it’s a great opportunity. Capital has 25% students with strong GPA and ACT 27+ or SAT M or CR 600+ so she will be in good company.
(It’s better to go for free than get in debt, but$5,500 in debt from a university that does offer the major and has the needed upper-level courses can be better - this can be important in math or foreign languages, where some upper-level classes aren’t offered everywhere due to insufficient numbers of students.)
Congratulations on the scholarship :)</p>