<p>Another Kalamazoo parent here. We just live an hour’s drive from K College and S has only been home on school breaks between quarters and maybe two other times when he had something he needed to do here. </p>
<p>K College is a very liberal pocket of students in a fairly conservative part of the state. </p>
<p>The school year goes until mid-June, but so far this has been a totally positive experience for us.</p>
<p>One way I got a sense of student bodies was to look at the percentage of Greeks in the student population. Depauw is very, very Greek in a very, very small town. If you don’t see that frat/sorority life as a plus, then I would look elsewhere. Depauw is about an hour from my house and Greencastle is a tiny town so not much to do. Kenyon is also heavily Greek and in a tiny town. Kenyon seems to have a better academic reputation.</p>
<p>I’d be wary of using a “Greek” variable to make decisions, especially among small LACs like these. I am familiar with several LACs where the Greek houses really function more like dorm options/social service clubs and parties, etc. are typically open to all students and very unlikely to dominate or divide the social scene. I think Kenyon is like that, for sure–so don’t eliminate small schools based on that alone.</p>
<p>At Kenyon, as at other schools with fraternities, the fraternities pick the pledges (applicants) they want and reject the rest. Fraternities are not clubs that anyone can join. This is neither good nor bad, but students who don’t want that kind of divided social scene might want to look at colleges that don’t have fraternities.</p>