My daughter has researched many colleges and has now visited 22. She has a very good understanding of the positives of these colleges. She thinks it is important to learn about the less appealing aspects too. Who can enlighten us on some of the negatives of attending these colleges, (in no particular order)? I am thinking of things you can’t really understand from a website or a starry-eyed visit, maybe insight from current or former students.
Oberlin
William and Mary
Brown
Bates
Carleton
Swarthmore
Hamilton
Franklin and Marshall
Dickinson
Tufts
Kenyon
University of Rochester
Clark University
SUNY Geneseo
Skidmore
I don’t have much to add, but here’s a couple of items. They aren’t really school specific - - more geography.
We lived in Rochester for 20 years, and honestly, it’s a wonderful place to raise a family. However, the winters are very long and very rough. It’s not really the snow that’s the issue as upstate NY handles that well, but the unrelenting grayness. There are just very long periods without sunshine and with a sort of colorless, cloudy feel that does become draining. Hopefully you are from the upstate NY area and it won’t be an issue!
You probably won’t encounter this issue, but I’ll throw it out there all the same. Pennsylvania is very big on suspending your driving privileges for non driving infractions of the law. For example, you get caught with a fake id (not driving with it, not using it as a drivers license), that’s 90 days of having your driving suspended. So if your daughter plans to have a car and use it, she needs to be extra cautious about any underage drinking, fake ids, anything like that.
Thanks, that’s a start. Itmismworth considering these things if you have to live somewhere for four years.
Parent here I can comment on a few from personal experience.
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William & Mary - as out of state, very hard to get in and money is very limited to nonexistent. If I recall from the presentation they leave less than 30% of spots for out of state. Just do the math.
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Bates - rejected from there. If you apply you must interview, you must make sure the two essay supplements are perfect and unless you apply early decision your odds are slim. Also admissions for nonrecruited girls is the toughest place to be. If you view it as a likely to Brown or others you will be making a mistake.
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Brown - rejected from there the negative is simply a matter of very very low probability of acceptance.
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Swarthmore - like Brown.
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Hamilton - accepted there, negative is isolation and depending on where you live hard to get to. Also, the campus lacks energy. It is a very serious place and hard to get into.
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Dickinson - a lot more girls than boys. Very very nice place though. Much easier to get into than the above.
I made a point of stressing hard to get into for some because it is misleading to judge them by just acceptance rates. Applicants without a really good hook need to be 98th percentile students to have a reasonable chance.
Based on my family’s own personal opinions only. YMMV. I could tell you nice things about each of these schools as well but since you were looking for negatives…
Oberlin - Students tried a little too hard to be “different”. Campus was a bit run down compared to most other LACs we visited.
William and Mary - Too homogenous. Too many students from Virginia given state’s required instate percentage makes for a lack of diversity. Can suck to go to school in a tourist town.
Bates - Lewiston isn’t the greatest little city. Campus is on the small side.
Carleton - Very cold. Trimester system. (One of my personal favorites, though.)
Swarthmore - Student body takes themselves a little too seriously.
Hamilton - A little too preppy. Kind of in the middle of nowhere.
Franklin and Marshall - Too much of a greek scene.
Kenyon - Not much around.
Skidmore - Only school we visited (out of dozens) where students told us not to go there.
@doschicos Did the Skidmore students cite reasons not to go there? Concur on Oberlin/Swarthmore/Kenyon impressions and would add that Kenyon seemed a little precious to boot. Lovely though.
Thanks people, keep it up! This list is pretty close to where she is planning to apply. The only places she hasn’t yet visited are Oberlin, Kenyon and Bates, but she plans to interview and will visit when that happens. This list includes some good bets and matches, so she thinks it is pretty well rounded. Re boy-girl ratio at Dickinson and Greek life at F & M, yes, those are def some negatives. She likes them both though. Re W& M, good point about tourist town. And yes, would love to know why kids said not to attend.
My Brown grad is a fond alum. I was racking my brain to try to think of anything she has ever said that is a negative. I finally remembered. She wasn’t that thrilled about her first advisor or Meiklejohn (peer advisor). But she decided to take a Chemistry advisor when she was really doing Physics mostly so perhaps it was her own fault. So I guess advising can be a mixed bag. Or you need to be proactive and switch if the fit is not there. Anyway when she switched to math/cs major she loved her faculty and advisors and felt she had multiple mentors to turn to. She also became a Meiklejohn herself. It is easy to be a little lost and bewildered as a freshman because of the dizzying array of choices and the desire to take more than there is room for.
I do not know any inside scoop on the others.
@porcupine98 and @lindagaf - We didn’t have an in depth conversation with the Skidmore students saying this. It was more comments made in passing as they knew we were visiting as a prospective student/family. It struck me as strange because we hadn’t had that elsewhere and immature and unwelcoming as well. Why would students want to be so negative about their own school to strangers?
@Lindagaf - Has your daughter considered Middlebury, Bates, Bowdoin, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, Colorado College, Whitman? Those are some of my favorite LACs for various reasons.
Thanks for that info @doschicos. We actually had to do a self-tour at Skidmore, and it is a good bet for her. She liked the “grungy” kids she saw. She likes kids with a little edginess. Bates is on the above list. Other colleges you listed have been discounted for various reasons. I actually love the sound of Whitman, and so does she. However, it has a big problem, in that it is 4 hours from Seattle. I think that is a deal killer for her. I wish I could convince her otherwise.
Keep in mind that many people on this thread may be relying on first impressions or through the grapevine because most people know the most about the colleges they go to. The ones I am commenting happen to be schools I really enjoy and have visited (with the exception of Swarthmore, which I relied on some friends’ interpretations) so I have done some research on both sides
William and Mary (my current school): great school, but it does have its own set of pros and cons. Registration can be tough (which is the case at any smaller school) because of limited spots available, so you may not get your first choice. Banner can be buggy. Many undergrad research and professor interaction opportunities, but you have to be proactive, they will not always approach you. There is CW, Busch Gardens, and some smaller shops/diners, but it’s not a college town like let’s say Ann Arbor or Boston. Does not have engineering school for people interested in that. Freshman dorms can vary in terms of air conditioning availability and quality. Most of the school is not as old as its founding date (1693), so much of the campus is actually relatively new. Not for people that definitely want the city. Has the reputation of having more introverted/quirky people than other college campuses (could be a positive depending on the person). Academically rigorous reputation.
Carleton: Very cold, can be intimidating if from somewhere warm, lots of snow. Trimester system can be frustrating for those applying to certain jobs/internships that start at a certain time. In my hour long interview with an alum (really great interview btw) the only part she seemed to hesitate on was job connections or the career center which has “gotten better because they built a new career center.” Has the vibe of learning for learning sake or grad school rather than job connections necessarily. Definitely leans towards being liberal.
Swarthmore: Has the reputation of being preppy/snobby (again, take generalizations with a grain of salt)
Hamilton: Felt somewhat isolated in the winter, passed many bison/farmland on the way, felt very small, could get to know all of campus very easily, gym facilities also were not super huge, lack of core requirements could be intimidating for students who don’t know what to do (limits people to what they are comfortable with?)
Tufts: very hilly campus, the male tour guides were all wearing salmon pants (preppy impression?), similar quirky vibe as WM, not actually that close to Boston takes a drive, early dining hall closing times (?)
Anyhow, feel free to message me or reply with any more questions, I’d be happy to expand or talk about things some more. I put alot down for WM because it is the one I am the most familiar with, but I could come up with an even longer list of positives because I really enjoy the school. These are just the things I came up with on the top of my head.
General thoughts:
- Run the net price calculator on each school. If not affordable on need-based aid, student needs to aim for merit scholarships there. This may move the school into a more difficult admissions classification (e.g. "match" to "reach").
- Be careful about designating a school as a "safety" if it uses a lot of subjective criteria in admission, particularly "level of applicant's interest".
- For an actual safety school, she should consider whether being an academic outlier at the top end of the student academic range at a small school will be satisfying for her. Big schools may have many such outliers around, or honors programs and honors courses to help them find each other, but there may be too few at a smaller school.
- For all of the academic areas of her interest, she should compare course catalogs and schedules to see what is available at each school, and how often each course is offered.
Thanks, @shawnspencer and @ucbalumnus . Shawn, what does banner can be buggy mean? FYI, my D is introverted and quirky, she will fit right in! Good points all re trimester system at Carleton. She will get a very good feel for the school this summer when she goes there for a selective program for credit. Excellent point about schools that want demonstrated interest. I think her final application list will be very manageable, prob 12 schools, so easy to show interest because she definitely likes them all. I also am going to encourage her to find a big college she may be happy at, because I think the point about being an outlier is an excellent one.
- Long, cold winters: potentially every school on the list, esp. Carleton
- Rural isolation: Most of the LACs, esp. Hamilton
- Limited course and program offerings: all the LACs to some extent (depending on what you want)
- Limited need-base aid for OOS students: all the state schools
- Extremely competitive admission standards: Brown ... Swarthmore, Carleton, Tufts
- High sticker prices: all of them, but especially the private schools (and the public schools for OOS students)
- Doctrinaire lefty-liberal political correctness: Oberlin (and to some extent many of the others)
- Towel-snapping careerist frat-boy culture: F&M, maybe
- Sketchy surrounding neighborhoods: Clark
- Limited name recognition: Almost all of them, depending on where you live and your social/career circles
- Especially intense, demanding academics: Swarthmore, Carleton (but potentially many of the others, depending on courses and program)
- Loosey goosey "open curriculum" : Brown, Hamilton ... Rochester (could be a positive if that's what you want)
- Dominance by one or a couple of especially strong programs: Kenyon for English, Tufts for IR (again, could be positive if you want these majors)
- High concentrations (~50%) of very affluent full-pay students: All the expensive private schools (could be positive, negative, or indifferent depending on how comfortable you are around "rich kids").
- Limited/crappy D1 sports and so-called "school spirit": Virtually all of them, maybe excepting F&M (again, could be a positive if you don't WANT all that)
Interested to hear about doctrinaire lefty-liberal PC thing, which we got a whiff of on our visit to Oberlin. My kid is definitely lefty-liberal PC, so was not put off by what he saw there, but it being seeming the dominant vibe, bordering on doctrinaire, gave me pause. Not because I necessarily disagree with many of those perspectives, but because I think a diversity of opinion is a useful part of the college experience.
Ha, too funny:-). Thanks for the brutal wake-up call @tk21769 . Yes, your points are valid. Luckily, she likes lefty liberals. We live in NY state, so not too worried about winters, though they do suck. She doesn’t care a fig about sports, so a little concerned about F and M. And the neighborhood around Clark, while not dangerous, was just down-at-heel rather than sketchy. More concerned about the imbalance of women to men at several of these colleges., including Clark and Dickinson, though she liked both.
@Lindagaf
Just a suggestion when some posters refer to schools as being “remote” or not well known. Some are truly isolated or remote and some are not. It seems any school that is not walking distance to NY or Boston is remote, schools in Maine in Pennsylvania for example. Neither Dickinson or F&M are remote schools. Both are in active towns with complete services and activities. Bates is hardly remote as Lewiston has over 60,000 people and the greater Portland Maine area has close to 500,000. Portland which is 30 miles away is right off route 95 and Maine’s speed limit is 75 mph. Portland is easliy one of the best small cities in the US and its close enough to easily visit but not a distraction. Bates has buses for the students to get back and forth.
Hamilton is indeed isolated and the town has less than 2,000 residents and it is not close to a highway. Dickinson, F&M and Bates are close to major roads.
The other thing is name recognition. Sure your hair dresser might not be familiar with some of them but graduate schools and employers most certainly are. Take those comments with a grain of salt.
@Lindagaf Banner is the system students use to register for classes. This semester when registering for classes, it worked for the first few minutes and then crashed for like 20 minutes or so due to the number of students trying to register at once. It was frustrating experience for members of the freshman (incoming sophomore class) and they could do much to improve it by getting more sever space. Next year, I am a residence assistant and I am advising my freshmen to bring ethernet cords, because the wired connection was apparently less buggy.
Although I gotta say, two of my favorite classes I have taken and have had the most impact on me are two I am taking this semester because I did not get into my first choice classes during registration. It also happens to coincide with the two professors that happen to have taken our class out for lunch haha.
Rochester is not an open curriculum school. It has breadth requirements where all students must complete a major, minor, or cluster of three courses in each of science, social studies, and humanities.