Colleges That Change Lives--opinions wanted

College Search & Selection
21

<p>

</p>

<p>Penn State - Altoona 4,000</p>

<p>U-Va - Wise 2,000</p>

<p>…</p>

22

<p>New College of Florida - 800</p>

23

<p>Potsdam SUNY, 3900</p>

24

<p>sorry ~ I type too fast or know too little :)</p>

25

<p>DD really isn’t dead set on small. it just so happens that all of the CTCL schools are small. She just doesn’t want OSU or PSU huge. I wonder if that small setting of 2,000 students or so gets to be a bit old after awhile. Does that ever happen?</p>

<p>She is interested in Wesleyan in CT and that’s it. We will look at Conn College soon. UCONN came off the list after visiting.</p>

26

<p>

</p>

<p>Some of these are small (and some are not too expensive):
[COPLAC</a> | Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges](<a href=“http://www.coplac.org/students/admissions.php]COPLAC”>http://www.coplac.org/students/admissions.php)</p>

27

<p>Thank you for your input!</p>

28

<p>If she is happy in the Northeast, I would tend to encourage schools in that area. If she wants warmer weather ~ Emory, Rice, or Davidson, Agnes Scott (women’s), maybe Rollins. Good luck</p>

29

<p>Many of the CTCL are very good schools, but you just have to do lots of research. One of the schools at the top of my list now, Rhodes College, is one of the CTCL! The great visit I had was a big part of that, however :)</p>

30

<p>Don’t know all of them, but among the CTCLs that are excellent schools are Allegheny, Beloit, Earlham, Kalamazoo, Rhodes, St. John’s, Wheaton and of course Reed.</p>

31

<p>The whole idea of CTCL is that there are schools out there that are not so well known that can be great matches for you student. The ones featured in that book, are not the only ones in that category, and one can find some true gems, well hidden, if one looks. Some great little schools with alumni support and giving a good education and reasonable costs.</p>

32

<p>@CPT that is the issue…IF ONELOOKS. Is the key! We have even looking and it isn’t always so easy, as I have figured out! If the schools only had a WE ARE AMAZING, WE ARE A TRUE GEM bumper on its back bumper but colleges don’t. They all say how good they are. Which is so frustrating. The Common Data Set isn’t the end all to be all when it comes to your child’s happiness/finding a great place that will educate her. It’s truly like finding a needle in a haystack</p>

33

<p>Yes, a small setting of 2,000 students does get old after a while. I went to a small LAC with 2300 students and although I absolutely loved it, you do get used to it. When your campus is tiny things can get old, and I would say by the beginning of senior year, I still loved my college but I was ready to move on. I don’t know if that’s different from being in a big school, though, or just my personality. I’m currently in graduate school towards tne end of my fifth year, with about one year to go to finish. And while I love my graduate institution, too, and have enjoyed being a graduate student - I’m ready to move on somewhere new!</p>

<p>I second considering Agnes Scott - it was my second choice in high school. Gorgeous campus, diverse student body, and surprisingly good resources for a campus that small. Also, the residence hall rooms are HUGE. Kalamazoo, Lawrence, St. Olaf and Ursinus are also good colleges.</p>

<p>Remember that some of these schools have lower acceptance rates because they are self-selecting - not many people know about them, so pretty much everyone who wants to go there is probably well-suited. Lawrence, for example, has an acceptance rate of 76%. But their middle 50% SAT score ranges are from about 580-710. Kalamazoo’s range is about 520-670. St. Olaf’s are similar to Lawrence’s. Juniata’s is similar to Kzoo’s. Just because the acceptance rate is a bit higher doesn’t mean the schools don’t get high-quality students.</p>

34

<p>OP, I sent you a pm but not sure if it went thru.</p>

<p>We used CTCL and Hidden Ivys as a start point. We added other schools besides these once he could better articulate why he liked schools from these books.</p>

<p>I did the initial search and looked at endowment, retention rate, grad rate, Rate My Professor, and other “soft” student sites for all schools. Son then narrowed based on location, number of profs in the majors he was interested in and other “fit” criteria. Acceptance rate only came into play after a solid list was developed to ensure he didn’t apply to too many “reach” schools.</p>

35

<p>Fiske Guide, Princeton Review’s Best 377 are great reference books.</p>

<p>My four all went their separate ways, UCONN, St Lawrence University, Alfred University & Wheaton College (MA). One large public university, two LACs and a regional university.</p>

36

<p>

</p>

<p>Sorry, spelling police here :wink: . Plural of “Ivy” is “Ivies.”</p>

<p>The Rule:
If the word has a consonant before the final ‘y’ then the plural ends with “ies.”
If the word has a vowel before the final ‘y’ then just add an “s.”</p>

37

<p>My sister goes to Reed College and loves it. There is a very liberal atmosphere that isn’t for everyone though. It’s semi competitive, but offers as challenging a curriculum as any Ivy. It’s a school for someone who really has a passion for learning. I know Reed used to be ranked top 10 but then stopped submitting data since it was against the whole ranking system. Also, Steve Jobs went there, so you know it must be cool.</p>

38

<p>US News ranks approximately 180 “national liberal arts colleges”. This represents a large subset of the ~270 schools in the Carnegie Foundation’s “Baccalaureate Colleges - Ats & Sciences” class. The CTCL “members” include 44 of these LACs.</p>

<p>None of the CTCLs happen to have a USNWR ranking higher than Whitman’s at #41 (although a good case could be made for ranking Reed far higher than the #74 it currently gets.) The other CTCLs go all the way down to nearly the bottom of the USNWR national LAC rankings (Guilford at #173).</p>

<p>Aside from a tilt toward the lower 80% of the rankings, there is no principled distinction to be made between the CTCL “members” and other LACs. Excluding the top 20% does have a few practical ramifications:

  1. These schools generally are less selective than the USNWR top ~40 LACs
  2. Other than St. Olaf, none of them claim to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need (although a few others come very close)
  3. Many of them offer many merit scholarships to entice strong students away from more selective or less expensive schools</p>

<p>The Kiplinger’s “best value” LAC list comprises a larger search space than the CTCL list for students and families seeking the best balance of quality and value. It includes CTCL members and many other LACs.
<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In my opinion, whether you are searching Kiplinger’s, USNWR, or the CTCL member list, you are looking at schools that (rankings notwithstanding) differ relatively little from one another in terms of curriculum, institution size, average class size, or cost. There is a huge difference in these terms between, say, Penn State (#37 national university) and UChicago (#5 national university). There is less difference, in the same terms, between Middlebury (#4 LAC) and Kenyon (#32), Whitman (#41/CTCL), Centre (#49/CTCL), or Rhodes (#54/CTCL).</p>

39

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I started this thread a year ago! boy time flies. Thank you for your input. She is a senior and didn’t apply to any of the CTCL schools. Have a great day!</p>