Dickinson trip report, August 2005

College Search & Selection
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<p>My S & I visited Dickinson in early August on a hot & overcast day. We attended the information session and took the tour. Here are some impressions FYI.</p>

<p>We drove through the downtown of Carlisle, a typical small Pennsylvania town. Standard small-town downtown with a college-bent of eclectic cafes and music shops mixed in with mainstreet America. I had never been to Dickinson, and had not imagined it to be the fairly flat and in-the middle-of-town campus that it is. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice & there was plenty of green space, but I hadn’t thought it was going to be a campus cut into blocks by town streets. I liked the college’s historic architecture made from local limestone…..definitely gives the place a historic feel. </p>

<p>We first checked in at the admissions office in a nice Victorian if I recall correctly. Then we walked over to a modern arts center’s auditorium. The info session was packed, with perhaps 20 kids & attendant parents, with representation mostly from the east coast with perhaps one Californian and a few others from the south & Midwest. Only a few things to report: </p>

<p>(1) heard quite a bit about Dickinson’s heritage, with founder Benjamin Rush, a key leader in revolutionary times & George Washington confidant; Rush’s vision was to have a college built on the US’s frontier (Carlisle was at the edge of civilization in the late 1700’s) unlike the existing, coastal institutions, with a global theme that persists today; I think Dickinson is the 15th oldest US college (Rush took on new significance to me after I listened to “1776” on a vacation drive immediately following our Dickinson visit);
(2) stress on international experiences…….Dickinson boasts that it has one of the highest, if not THE highest, percentage of its student do study abroad, 70%, with plenty of Dickinson’s own programs obviating the need to shop outside programs or worry about transferability of financial aid.
(3) Freshman seminars…….some interesting topics, the most popular being wine making where the prof stores the produced bottles the wine until graduation time 4 years later when the class re-convenes to drink their classwork (presumably they are legal then too.)
(4) Diversity……I had read in The Insider’s Guide (2005 version) that Dickinson’s minority population was 8%, pretty darn low in my book. That percentage is comparable to other mid-level LAC’s, but well-below many public institutions, more-selective private schools, and the real world. I asked a loaded question about this & received a decent answer, with a recognition that improving diversity was definitely an issue & recent progress was being made with the incoming class being 15% minority.</p>

<p>After the info session, we broke into groups of 4 or 5 prospective students with family tag-alongs, and took the tour. Again, not too much to report other than I thought the facilities were in very good shape, with nice living areas and the gym with pool, etc was great. There were no students on campus to meet other than the tour guides…..ours was fantastic & was quite articulate with plenty of info. As I mentioned above, I personally liked the historic feel of the place. One other notable thing…..we passed by the President’s house…..apparently he holds office hours where any student can stop in & that’s what he wants. Idea is to have students feel free to make suggestions about improvements. Student common areas & union all looked great.</p>

<p>Overall, I was more impressed than I thought I would be.</p>

<p>Here are some other CC thread links on Dickinson:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=24857%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=24857&lt;/a>
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=54893&highlight=dickinson%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=54893&highlight=dickinson&lt;/a>
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=54894&highlight=dickinson%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=54894&highlight=dickinson&lt;/a>
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=35618&highlight=dickinson%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=35618&highlight=dickinson&lt;/a>
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=39330&highlight=dickinson%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=39330&highlight=dickinson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Thanks a million...and on the point about the town road, that was my only concern. How much do the town roads break up the campus? Are the narrow or busy main roads? Did it get irritating because that is what irritates me about so many schools especially BU, having to walk across possibly the busiest road in that part of the city just to get to your classes.</p>

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<p>Cre8tive, My daughter felt the Dickinson campus was very broken up by roads. There is the central, historic part of campus on the equivalent of a city sized block. There are then classroom buildings across the street from that. The library and dorms are on another block, with a few buildings on another block. These are fairly main roads. The traffic on the roads is quite busy for what most would consider a "small town" --- in fact, our tour guide mentioned that some students and faculty members have been hit or nearly hit by cars while crossing certain parts of campus. Don't know how true that is, but it was enough to turn off my daughter who really wants a more traditional college campus with a main entrance and no thru-traffic. None of this is apparent in the pictures on Dickinson's website or literature.</p>

<p>Still, Dickinson is a solid school. Probably has one of the nicest undergraduate libraries I've seen. Not right for everyone, however, so a visit is definitely in order --- our impression, confirmed by input from others, is that the best fit for Dickinson would be somewhat preppy students who are very career focused students, especially those interested in medical school, law school, and business grad school. </p>

<p>In addition to the threads above, see this thread for a bit of the story of a student that was not happy at Dickinson due to fit issues:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=9983&highlight=dickinson%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=9983&highlight=dickinson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>One other thing we thought odd for a school that stresses "global education" as much as Dickinson: they actually have very few international students compared to other, similar LACs we've visited.</p>

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<p>I was expecting more of a pastoral setting with a campus on the outskirts of a small town, but while its not downtown, the campus is still IN town. carolyn described the road situation well.......a number of main roads cutting thru campus that seemed relatively busy, albeit my tour was near the end of the day so perhaps we were seeing rush hour. There were marked cross-walks with pedistrian Don't Want signals....had to obey them for the most part with our slow-moving group to assure safety. Still, though, there is plenty of green space & quad-like feel within the campus blocks.</p>

<p>Couple of other points I failed to mention above.....on the diversity issue...the adcom mentioned that Dickinson has established some minority feeder programs in major urban areas, like NYC, with the newest being in LA. On study abroad, Dickinson's in-house programs are largely located in locations less touristy, for instance they don't go to Paris, their France program is in southern France, presumably farther away from mainstream tourist influence.</p>

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<p>They are also starting a Multicltural Visitation Program this year, just recieved an email about it.</p>

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<p>hubbell's dad:</p>

<p>Just had to comment, as Carlisle is my home town and my ancient parents still reside there. Dickinson is bisected by High street-which is a main thoroughfare and the campus is in the middle of the charming town. I wanted Hubbell to apply and spend time with his grandparents(since we live in Texas, he doesn't see much of them), but it was too far north for him. It's an excellent school and the professors are first rate. Carlisle has been growing exponentially for years and the area from Carlisle to Harrisburg is really one metropolitan area. I live in San Antonio, and the distance from my house(in san Antonio) to downtown San antonio is about the same distance as Carlisle is from Hershey(25 miles)-many interesting areas are close by-amish country in Lancaster, gettysburg(15 miles)-a great school in a great area.</p>