Dickinson vs. Kenyon vs. Oberlin vs. Saint Lawrence

College Search & Selection
1

I have my college decision down to Dickinson, Kenyon, Oberlin, and Saint Lawrence. Originally I was looking mostly at the NESCAC schools (Middlebury is my favorite) but I did not receive any financial aid and my parents are unwilling to pay full price for college or let me take out loans, so I am left with the schools that have offered me merit aid. St. Lawrence has offered full tuition, while the other three have given me a little over $20,000 per year.
I am looking to major in environmental studies, maybe with a minor/double major in philosophy. My most important priority is intellectual engagement - I want to find peers who are very good students and really care about what they are studying. Small classroom environment - 5-10 student classes are ideal - is also really important to me and is the reason I applied to almost all liberal arts schools. I am also a serious cross country/track runner (all of these schools are recruiting me), and want to be somewhere where I will be challenged on that front as well. Ideally, I would be in a rural, isolated setting, as I really like the outdoors (definitely want to do outdoors club), and especially like opportunities to run trails. Sustainability as a campus policy is also important to me, and I would appreciate a diversity of perspectives present on campus. I am unsure if I want to continue onto graduate school, but I definitely enjoy academia.

I would really appreciate any comments or advice.

2

Kenyon is a great school but only offers a concentration in Environmental Studies, not a major.

The other 3 schools are very strong in Environmental Studies and will meet your criteria for engaged students and small classes, although classes as small as 5-10 students are likely only during your last year or two at any of these schools. That’s really tiny. I like Dickinson’s administrative commitment to sustainability. Given your preference for a rural, outdoorsy setting and your full tuition offer from St. Lawrence, I’d lean toward that choice for you.

3

Only Kenyon and St. Lawrence meet this criteria.

Kenyon definitely meets this criteria. Perhaps St. Lawrence does too, but I am uninformed about this. My father is a Kenyon alum, plus I live less than an hour from there and visit frequently. I know it better than any other college.

If money is a significant concern (how can it not be?), then I would go with St. Lawrence. But if your family can afford Kenyon without notable debt, then it could be nearly perfect for you. If you don’t already know, Kenyon has a fantastic, state-of-the-art, athletic center.

4

I think the only appreciable difference following an environmental track into graduate studies might be Oberlin. Kenyon is a traditionally excellent school for the humanities, and especially so for writing-intensive majors. But, as per above, Kenyon only has the environmental concentration, not a major.

You may want to follow the money and go to St. Lawrence. If you and your family can comfortably afford more with the partial scholarship, I’d recommend Oberlin.

5

For environmental science, Oberlin and St. Lawrence are really heads and tails above the other options, and St. Lawrence seems to fit most of your other criteria.

6

My main concern with St. Lawrence is finding the same level of intellectual engagement among students as I would at Kenyon and Oberlin. Can you speak at all to that?

7

Have you spoken about your recruitment for cross-country to Oberlin, to see if there would be any way of increasing your aid there if you commit? Or if Oberlin somehow might be willing to increase their aid, given you received a substantial offer from another school (St. Lawrence)?

8

Division 3 colleges cannot give money for athletics, and they are very strict about not allowing athletics influence financial aid. We already appealed to Oberlin and they increased their merit aid offer from $18000 to $22000.

9

Well, at least that is something – it demonstrates Oberlin would like you to attend. It really comes down to what you and your family can afford comfortably. It’s not great to graduate with much student loan debt, with a potential career in environmental studies, and not even certain about graduate school. If you can do Oberlin without struggling financially, I’d go there. Otherwise, I would take St. Lawrence’s offer.

10

If your family can afford Oberlin WITHOUT loans, it’s a good option. Otherwise, go to St. Lawrence. You’ll find plenty of “intellectual stimulation” there.

11

Is there a student body that appealed to you amongst your choices? One concern of mine would be your statement wanting a diversity of perspectives on campus. Oberlin struck me as having a certain sameness among its student body. I think you would find a wider range across the political spectrum at either Dickinson or St. Lawrence. Kenyon, too, but due to Kenyon’s limited academic offerings in your field of interest…

12

I tend to like St. Lawrence, even for a student with other great options, and even if finances are not a consideration. The campus is beautiful and the location borders on the exotic. For you in particular, the setting seems terrific.

However, SLU is significantly easier to get into than the other three, not a negative by itself, but one of the factors that may relate to how intellectual your peers might be. If not for this last significant caveat, your decision would be easier.

The other schools are, of course – even beyond being more selective – good in many ways as well. I wrote a few lines on Kenyon and Oberlin on another thread in this forum, “Accepted to 15 Colleges …”; I can’t remember exactly what I wrote, but maybe it has some slight relevance to your decision.

Good luck.

13

This thread caught my eye as a parent of a Junior who has visited each of these schools, some multiple times, and met with the coach in his sport at each school.

Oberlin has a distinct feel which I think kids either love or not. My view would be that, if a student didn’t jump at Oberlin, as a community and culture, and say “this is it, this is home,” then I’m not sure it would be a good fit. One of my kids liked it a lot, the other, not at all. How was your experience with the team at Oberlin? Did you feel comfortable with the guys and with the rest of the school? My own prospective athlete didn’t feel that Oberlin was a a community which supported sports the way he wanted in a D3 school – he doesn’t expect to be, or want to be, front and center, but he doesn’t want to be irrelevant either.

Kenyon certainly has the rural thing going, and good commitment to sustainability, buying local for the dining hall etc. The community sees itself as intellectual, and there is good energy about sports, what with the swimming national championships etc. I would spend some time with the Catalog, and perhaps email some profs/academic advisors, to investigate the options in environmental studies – can you design your own major, is there an emphasis within another major which you could develop to meet your needs?

As a community and culture, Dickinson is the most upfront about sustainability (organic farm for dining hall, and other examples I cannot recall off the top of my head), and the new Science building was gorgeous. Seems like a strong place to do environmental studies. We also found the student body to be more diverse, across the spectrum, than we expected. Though ranked lower than Oberlin and Kenyon, Dickinson struck us as much stronger, more vibrant academically than we expected.

St L is in a beautiful, remote setting, certainly meets your preferences for setting. If you were contemplating Midd, then you are presumably fine with winters that last well into what would otherwise be considered spring . . . I would look at the class size issue, if you can, I think it was St L where I was surprised that there were intro science lectures of 60-70 students since so many of these schools tout that even their intro classes are capped at smaller sizes, but we had been to a bunch of schools on that trip so maybe I am confusing it with another. But it is a beautiful school, seemed like neat kids, across a range of spectrum. They are using merit money to bring in talented students to add "oomph’ to the student body, so our impression is there are many smart, hard-working kids there.

If it were me, I think I would narrow it to half pay at Kenyon and full merit at St L. I’m not sure that Dickinson offers so much more than St L that it would be worth an extra $20-30 k a year, though Dickinson is a favorite of ours. Oberlin is just too unique and environment, so if a student didn’t love it, I would keep it off the list. The key question at Kenyon is getting specific info about their offerings in environmental studies, flexibility in designing a major etc.

Great choices, congrats on your options.

14

Kenyon’s [environmental science](Environmental Studies | Kenyon College) offerings are woefully incomplete. It seems they’re just another school where they decided to throw together some courses already found in various departments and claim it as an environmental studies degree.

Also @midwesternmom the 2014-2015 [St. Lawrence University common data set](Common Data Set (CDS) | St. Lawrence University) supports your claim that there are classes with over 50 people in them. HOWEVER, there are only four of these a year, so presumably two a semester. In all probability these are classes which by necessity are lecture heavy such as a math class or chem course (I’m speculating here). It seems that the odds a student will have more than 2/40ish classes he takes be larger than 50 students is incredibly small.

15

There’s a big “vibe” difference:
Oberlin is very liberal; St Lawrence is quite preppy. Dickinson and Kenyon are moderate.
For intellectual vibrancy, I’d pick Oberlin and Kenyon.

16

My vote goes to St. Lawrence. The only downside anyone has mentioned up to this point is that SL is lower ranked than the other schools, and to that I say so what? It’s still a top-notch school and it seems to fit you the best socially. The rural campus suits your desires and you seem to like the student body. Throw affordability on top of that, and it looks like you’ve got a winner.

17

The fact that Kenyon doesn’t have a geology department, in addition to only having a environmental concentration, would make it too limiting to even design your own environmental studies/science major, IMHO.

18

On St L class size, or class size anywhere, I definitely agree OP check Common Data Set for each of those schools on class size to assess if there is a significant difference among the final 4 schools. I wouldn’t expect there is, I would think most of them have a handful of large lectures for intro sciences etc. and then smaller beyond that.

I agree, with academics, setting and affordability, St L seems a strong “yes.”

Congrats to the OP for having such great choices!

19

Thanks for all the input! Its really great to have so many perspectives on these schools. On the large intro classes: From talking with students, I’ve gathered that these are generally lecture, which I certainly don’t want. I’m hoping to skip as many as I can via APs - I’ve taken 7 tests so far and will take 4 more next month. From the info on collegeboard’s website, I should be able to get credit for a just about all of my scores so far at all four schools, with just slightly more credit at SLU. Does anyone know if that will allow me to go right to the upper level courses at these schools, or simply fulfill degree requirements? I’ve heard about instances when AP credit doesn’t necessarily allow students to just skip the intro classes. Also, SLU seems to have larger classes based on the 12:1 student faculty ratio (as opposed to 10:1 and 9:1 for the other schools). On the other hand, I’ve found that schools with really small ratios still often have some 50+ student intro classes. I’d say more of a concern is the opportunity to have smaller upper level classes, as I think the smaller, the better.
On researching Kenyon’s environmental program: I’ve reached out to the head of the department with some questions, and am awaiting a reply. When I visited, I spoke to her briefly, and she suggested that an environmental studies major is in the works. However, there is no guarantee, and there is still the issue of limited dedicated faculty.
As for Oberlin: I wasn’t immediately drawn to the school vibe, but that may be because it is so different from my high school.

20

@themasteroftrees
You probably know most of this, but here are some random facts:

  • Kenyon and St. Lawrence are almost identical in physical size, each being about 1,000 acres. More than twice the size of Oberlin and almost six times the size of Dickinson.
  • Oberlin has, by far, the most students (2,900), while Kenyon has, by far, the fewest (under 1,700)
  • Oberlin also has the largest endowment ($808 million), almost twice the runner up (Dickinson at $415 million).

Personally, I think your choice is between Kenyon and St. Lawrence.
Both are rural. St. Lawrence is more affordable, and has your major.
Personally, I love Kenyon but in your shoes I might choose St. Lawrence.