@wisteria100 I feel that with most top LACs I feel that ‘wealth’ somewhat, but Bowdoin had a different sense to it. With Bowdoin, the dorms and dining are some of the best in the country which, for me, makes it feel like a more ‘luxurious’ college, and it may have been just my tour, but the rest of the people in my group were clearly affluent. Now, I come from a middle class suburban/rural area, so looking at some of elite LACs is gonna come as a culture shock regardless demographically and socially, but Bowdoin felt simply more elite and didn’t feel like as much of a college. Bucknell, however, is obviously very preppy, yet felt more like an actual college. Dorms were alright, nothing fancy, and I’ve heard the food is fine as well. Also, our tour as well as everyone at the info session was way more diverse, and felt more like people I’d see at my hometown as opposed to Bowdoin. Just my experience.
"Is there anyone out there who doesn't know that Notre Dame is Catholic?"
I know I’m chiming in late, but I just wanted to answer the question above in the affirmative. Not sure how I made it to age 45 without knowing a lot of schools were Catholic, but I did.
@collegemomjam we visited Emory last spring. What were you curious about?
@Rudiger1 - Interesting. My take was different. I felt that there was more of a sense of social entitlement and exclusion at the fraternity-heavy colleges. To me, Bowdoin and its peers, all of whom take top students of all financial levels and provide generous aid for them to attend, feel much LESS exclusive and entitled. And they are more comfortable for nerdy intellectual students, and sweeter and more inclusive all around, IMO. That a college is well-endowed and offers amazing facilities/resources/dining, does not mean that its students are wealthier. In fact, its endowment means it may be able to support more students who could not afford college without their generous aid.
Bowdoin felt extremely luxurious to us. The food is known to be “the best”, freshman dorms are HUGE.
“That a college is well-endowed and offers amazing facilities/resources/dining, does not mean that its students are wealthier”
The fact that > 55% of a tiny student body are full pay (70k !) does mean that the majority of students are wealthier.
@SuzyQ7- that is not a differentiator between the colleges rudiger is comparing:
From the chart someone provided in post 32 of the thread How Do Middle Class Parents Afford Georgetown:
The median income at Bowdoin is $195,900. The median income at Bucknell is slightly more at $204,200.
Bowdoin meets full demonstrated need. According to its website, and to US News (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2017-09-21/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need), Bucknell does not meet full demonstrated need.
Bowdoin is need blind. Bucknell is not.
Both are great schools, but Bowdoin is not more financially exclusive, as demonstrated by all of the data above.
Bowdoin has decided to spend a lot of money on amazing food and dorms instead of using that on more FA. Perhaps they needed to do that in order to make full pay students happier with their investment, or other reasons. See Martin Gladwells piece on Bowdoin vs Vassar. Anyway, I agree with rudiger, Bowdoin felt more luxurious than any other college.
@suzyQ7 Do you have stats on Bowdoin spending more on food per student than other peer colleges? We’ve visited plenty of colleges with far wider food options that Bowdoin’s two cafeterias. Some people conflate Bowdoin’s rep for the quality of food with spending more. What I’ve seen is they make a trade-off between breadth vs. selection. I’ve been there and barely found anything I wanted to eat because they focused on a handful of dishes I didn’t care for, whereas other schools would have cafeterias with far more range of selections. As someone with a pretty narrow and boring palate, I wouldn’t even put Bowdoin in the top half of the rankings for the 25+ schools we have toured and dined at. (That said, Vassar would be at the very bottom of that list.)
As for the dorms, it’s a really nice perk for the students that they’ve had a long tradition of common rooms in their dorms, but beyond that admittedly great feature there’s nothing exceptional about them. I’ve toured plenty of schools with far newer dorms with more amenities in them. If there dorms are so great, why is Bowdoin instituting policies to force more students to live in the dorms instead of opting for unaffiliated off-campus housing? Talk to the students tripled up in rooms in quints desired for 4 about the luxury of the dorms…
If Bowdoin is admitting need blind and paying full need – something few schools do – what exactly is the basis for the claim they aren’t prioritizing aid?
Everyone is entitled to their perceptions, often seeing what they want to see or expect to see. And certainly like almost all it’s LAC peers, Bowdoin has it’s share of students who come from affluent families (and it’s share who don’t). But I haven’t seen any evidence its exceptionally pronounced there or a conspicuous part of the culture.
@Rudiger1 , you have hit on something people don’t talk about a lot, and that is how the other people touring with you impact the feel.
We had one tour in particular that I suspect added heavily to its being removed from the list, even though DS found the guide the most relatable.
The Malcolm Gladwell article is available as a podcast in the Revisionist History series and is titled Food Fight. I recommend it as well as the other 2 on education in the series. And if you are traveling to schools, it’s a great way to pass the time!
@Cheeringsection I was trying to get a feel for what student life is like. I hear there is not a lot of school spirit and that there is a social “apathy” on campus. Students are serious about their studies, but maybe too much? Lots of pre-med students?
I read a lot of reviews written by some students that regretted their decision to go there. But I’m not sure that’s accurate…usually it’s the kids that are unhappy that go out of their way to write reviews, so it may not be a fair representation.
Also wondering what your sense was of the academic rigor?
Thanks!
I do not want to derail the thread into a discussion about food, but Vassar recently switched its food service and now has much, much better food. Its reputation as having worse food than its peers is now outdated.
The Gladewell podcast is fun to listen to, but is silly and flawed at the same time. Bowdoin is not only need blind and meets full need, but it has a no loan policy making it one of the most generous colleges in the nation with regard to financial aid.
http://community.bowdoin.edu/news/2016/07/bowdoin-responds-to-malcolm-gladwells-food-fight-podcast/
See Bowdoin’s response to Gladwell. We visited last week so students were not in session, but we felt like the kids we did meet - out tour guide, the kids who greeted us in the admissions office, and the student who S19 interviewed with were actually pretty down to earth. Seemed bright and confident but not cocky or elitist. We loved it.
And the dorms were clean but certainly not fancy. S19 liked the common room idea. We have not seen that anywhere else.
Back in the day, the students from Nearby CIA (culinary institute) did “internships” at the Vassar dining hall (known as the AC/DC). Made for interesting and yummy food options and themed events.
This may have been posted before but it was fascinating to me: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/bowdoin-college
The reality is there is a decent amount of wealth at many of the LACs. That said, the kids I know at Bowdoin from my kids’ high schools are solidly middle class. We all need to remember that when we do these tours we all have different experiences and view them through different lenses. I think we have all had a school that we thought was going to be great but five minutes in our kids says “I’m outta here”. 
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please move on from discussing Bowdoin.
@collegemomjam as far as student life at Emory, I suggest you read the Princeton Review info from which they were just rated #1 for Quality of Life. Otherwise, not sure how to get an accurate answer since it will always be specific to the person answering the question. Our tour guide seemed quite happy there.
I am sure there were pre-med students given their STEM strength, but I did not get any specific info on our tour about an impact on campus life.
My sense was that academic rigor was high but not overwhelming. We also toured Emory at Oxford and it seemed to me that some applicants were matched there instead of Emory as a sort of adjustment period (size of high school, rigor, language skills, etc) before going to the larger campus. Our tour guide there said he choose Emory at Oxford since he came from a small high school and hoped to keep his grades high enough to gain early entry to the Business school at Emory. I think both campuses are rigorous but there is more personal attention available at Emory at Oxford.
And, in the spirit of this thread, Emory moved up but Emory at Oxford moved down. It was just too small for DD20.
When we visited Emory this summer, 7 of the ten kids in our tour group wanted to major in premed (3 said neuroscience), the tour guide (otherwise fine) made a crack about Economics majors being those who could not get into the business school, and the campus seemed a bit disjointed though very pretty (though some of that may have been construction affecting walking routes). I think for a focused student it is fine, but our son wants a physically-tighter campus feel and did not like Emory. He seems to be turned off by campuses that have too many roads separating buildings on campuses, and prefers those with the majority of buildings on walkable quads—but on the other hand does not want the smaller LAC experience.
Just to the OP for this response… a nervous tour guide is no reason to disqualify a college. We were at Bowdoin about a month ago… it was a fabulous visit… it is my one daughter’s second choice.
Anyway, that same daughter really wanted to attend Duke at first. Then Duke had a local event near us, and my daughter - after the event - said something like “Dad they really don’t care at all about any of the kids.” And that is what I felt during the presentation, that they know they will fill all spots, and every student is just a number. She immediately took Duke off her list.
On the same trip as Bowdoin, we visited Middlebury. She was unsure about it because she had heard there is very little to do in the business section near the school ( and there really was )… but she now has Middlebury as her first choice.
Abs Dad, while on the tour, our tour guide said it is a heads up college, and a few minuets later classes got out, and we saw a slew of students walk by each other and no one was saying hi to one another. We both noticed it and mentioned to each other it was like a Saturday night live skit. I kept my post to the basics, she did not feel welcomed there and felt she would not be comfortable there, so she did not apply. If not feeling comfortable at a college isn’t a reason to disqualify it, what would be?
Can’t believe this thread is still going strong, thanks to everyone who has read and contributed. OP