<p>My son has narrowed his college choice to Denison and St. Olaf and has visited both schools. He is leaning towards majoring in Chemistry, Biochemistry or Biology. I would interested in any thoughts regarding the strength of their respective academic programs in these areas, as well as any similarities or differences in terms of their student body, campus life and college experience generally. If you are not familiar with both schools, your perspective on Denison would be helpful as well.</p>
<p>I think they’re very comparable in many regards. Where do you live? Access? </p>
<p>Climate is a major diff. Much more major winter in MN than Granville. St. O. might be a little better known because of the choir and music programs. No real issue in the end. Don’t know anything about the science programs. DU’s are very strong, lots of capital investment recently in both, as you’ve probably seen. </p>
<p>DU probably has a better all around D III athletic program. Again, no big deal. </p>
<p>Either/both will lead to great opportunities for stellar science students, I’m betting. No magic bullet to shoot at or for either one. </p>
<p>DU is clearly a school that aspires to have it’s quality recognized. A VERY distinct strategy to make major investment in recruiting high level students. </p>
<p>Don’t know if there’s any real insight to this. Ours did very well at DU, went there because of rep, nice location and campus, available program with good reputation, sports, wanted Greek, finished with high honors in 3 years. Now a year from completing doctorate. </p>
<p>Our major complaint, and it is somewhat chronic … we’d heard about the same prior to her attending … is that it can be a real pain getting the courses AND the sections. There are an inordinate number of adjunct profs, imo. But those are becoming chronic problems at all institutions bragging low student/faculty ratios. It’s the old story, no free lunch.</p>
<p>visionquest – sent you a PM. Our D is just graduating as a chem major. She had no trouble getting chem/math courses, and had one adjuncts in her major and none in her minor (math). Had one in Physics who she thought was exceptional. Otherwise, small classes, dedicated faculty in her department. More on the PM!</p>
<p>A number of kids from my kids’ school go to St. Olaf, and there are also a couple at Denison now. But I know more about St. Olaf, so that is what I will comment on.</p>
<p>St. Olaf is a very close, nurturing environment with a lot of tradition and school pride. Pretty big for an LAC. Close to the Twin Cities. No Greek life–which I would say might be the biggest cultural difference between the two schools. Every kid I know who is going or has gone to St. Olaf has been nice, friendly, and academically high achieving. They take their studies seriously. And kids do very well getting into med school or other graduate programs. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Sounds like it will be hard for him to make a bad choice. Don’t know St. O’s party rep, but Denison’s is well-deserved. That said, leadership work hard on it, intervene as needed and help to develop personal and collective responsibility. My D is a not a partier, much more nerdy, board game, Dr. Who type and she has been SO happy at Denison, having found a lovely group of friends. She has lived in quiet, sober housing, so that has helped with noise control. She has loved the individual attention of faculty and the sense that she is very well known and would have to work very, very hard to make a crack big enough to fall through without anyone noticing. She is a physics/english double major and has had a department chair on sabbatical stop her in the hall to discuss how she could co-schedule courses required in both majors when she hadn’t asked him about this puzzle and didn’t know he knew about it.</p>
<p>Her roomie came in as bio major, and I think is now bio and chem with a healthy dose of physics. She works very hard.</p>
<p>Lots of good faculty/student and independent research opportunities. </p>
<p>Best to your son.</p>
<p>Thanks to each of you for taking the time to respond to my original post. Your varied perspectives certainly provided the type of insight you won’t find in a guide book. Final decision has yet to be made, but my son definitely feels even more informed based on your input.</p>
<p>Zetesis, I appreciated the additional info you were able to provide with your PM (I would have responded directly, but apparently if you have not posted 15 times on CC you can’t use the PM feature). Your daughter obviously took full advantage of what Denison had to offer and clearly has a bright future … best of luck to her.</p>
<p>Current DU student here, so any specific questions about life here you have I’d be happy to address. I’m in humanities so I can’t speak from personal experience about the sciences, but I know the departments are extremely well-regarded and the facilities are excellent as well.</p>