Dickinson vs. Wooster

College Search & Selection
1

Kiddo accepted to Dickinson, Wooster, and others all with great financial aid packages that make each a go. His favorites are Dickinson and Wooster. We have a good sense for the distinguishing features between the schools except that we are having a harder time distinguishing the merits of Dickinson vs. Wooster, or Dickinson over Wooster to be more precise. Have visited, toured, interviewed at all, Wooster twice.

My son intuitively loved both Dickinson and Wooster. History kid, wants a PhD. All but Dickinson are among the top 40 LAC’s for PhD productivity for whatever that is worth. However, Dickinson has the highest rankings of the schools in the national college rankings, for whatever that is worth.

Both schools intuitively feel like a fit to him. Both seem like a place he would love to wake up every day. Both seem to have good programs in his area of interest. Both seem to have good study abroad opportunities, but I need to take another look, maybe Dickinson is stronger there. Wooster’s senior capstone experience seems strong(er). Love the layout of each college, similar in the sense that everything seems so well integrated, efficiently located. I’m not sure if I have a real sense for how the student bodies differ, if they do??

I guess what I am struggling to get my head around is what distinguishes Dickinson as significantly better than Wooster as the U.S. News college ranking indicate? There is a lot I don’t know I am sure. To me the schools seem approximately equal??? Dickinson is ranked 41st by US News with an overall score of 73/100. Wooster is ranked 62nd with an overall score of 64/100. However, in 2016 the Princeton Review gave Dickinson an academic rating of 90 and Wooster 92. Their quality of life rating for Dickinson is a low 77 and for Wooster 90… all numbers that don’t really mean a whole lot to me other than to make me wonder.

He liked all the colleges he visited, but only at one did he purchase a shirt and jacket and that was Dickinson. And at only one did he make it his phone’s wallpaper and that was Wooster. I guess he needs to go back to those two.

Is Dickinson a significantly better college than Wooster? Love thoughts on how the two compare. Feel kind of foolish even asking, I know they are both great schools, but you want the best for your kid ya know, I’m just trying to help him figure it out. Big decision for him to make.

Appreciate your thoughts!

2

I don’t know which is ‘better’, but to help make a decision perhaps consider-
Location/distance from home. Which is closer or easier to get to and from?
Courses- take a look at the course catalog and see if there are differences there or particular classes that would make a difference to him.

3

They have the option of doing a senior thesis at Dickinson. My kid did one, and it was an amazing, stressful, formative experience. Her thesis was nominated as one of the top 60 undergrad theses in her area of study that year. She came out of it with a pretty good idea of what grad school would be like. She decided not to apply to grad schools, but she really got a lot out of the thesis experience. So I wouldn’t assume Wioster’s capstone project is better.

Can he go to accepted student days at each?

4

This seems fair, making the challenge of choosing more personal and interesting than might ordinarily be the case.

5

Having just updated a spreadsheet of the schools my D has applied to, the main differences I see is that test scores are at bit higher at Dickinson and teacher/student ratio is lower. I have heard that the career center and internship placement at Dickinson is very good.

My D has been admitted to both and will be visiting both during Spring break. For us, Wooster will be less expensive but not so much that it’s out of the running.

Both good options - congratulations!

6

Two great schools, with lots of overlap. My kid visited both Dickinson and Wooster as a prospective athlete, and liked a lot about each school. Dickinson probably had the edge because of the history of the school – Benjamin Rush, the post-colonial era town, plus the gorgeous athletic and arts facilities. Wooster also appealed to him, the marching band and bagpipe music is pretty cool, though the senior capstone wasn’t necessarily a draw for him. I loved the 2 blocks of wonderful food and the gorgeous St Paul hotel in Wooster. I was also impressed by Wooster’s new President – the former Dean at Williams – I interpreted her hire as a sign the school is on the move. We know several students at both schools, and they have had great experiences.

I agree with you that it does not make sense to parse the differences between US News or other rankings and try to conclude that the difference between 40 and 60 is meaningful. What matters more is how a school feels to that student, the strength of areas of interest, and the opportunity for particular programs of interest to the student, such as music, arts etc. Perhaps study the Common Data Set for each school, to look at class sizes, socio-economic diversity, etc. If those are the two strongest options, can he go back to visit, set up meetings with faculty in his area of interest etc?

7

fwiw, Dickinson puts a lot of emphasis on both study abroad and trying to bring the world back to Carlisle.

But, I agree with the others: revisit weekends. It made the difference for our lot.

8

OP, what’s your son like and what does he like to do for fun? That might bring you more opinions. I would also look at the distribution requirements at each school and see which one he likes the best. One school may be more flexible than the other (if that matters to him). How does he feel about Greek life?Is one’s school’s system more appealing? Does he prefer the dorms at one school over the other? The food? Those are the things I would look at if both are pretty equal otherwise. As someone said, factor in the travel distance if that’s important to him. Finally, I think Wooster attracts more kids from the midwest and Dickinson from the east coast. Does he have a preference?

9

I always felt like Dickinson had a slightly more pragmatic slant than the average LAC. In a good way – all of my D’s friends had real paid employment within a few months of graduating or were headed to grad school with only one exception I can think of – a kid who wanted to work in an industry that was notorious for requiring young people to work at unpaid internships for a while to break in.

My kid was a Midwesterner at Dickinson and had no interest in Greek life. She lived it there. But Wooster is a fine school, too.

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@intparent what industry do you usually have to do internships in order to break in? Film or media, by any chance? Thanks. Also did your D find Dickinson to be geographically diverse?

11

Publishing. I don’t think she felt out of place as a Midwesterner. There are a fair number of international students there, too.

12

I don’t know much about Wooster so I can’t offer advice about it, but D nearly chose Dickinson. Great school. I think the reason it ranks higher is because of post-grad earnings. We loved Carlisle too. Study abroad is good.

13

Agree with all the others. A difference of 20 points in a flawed ranking system, while it might cause you to take a moment to investigate the reasons for that ranking difference to see if they matter to you, should not be the tipping point. Check the quantifiable stuff that matters to you and your kid and see if that tips the balance, but it sounds as if it will come down to a gut check on which one feels right to your kid. Sounds as if either would be great, and it may just boil down to the choice your kid embraces, whichever one that is. (FWIW we were great fans of Wooster when we visited, but never got around to checking out Dickinson, so can’t offer a comparison.)

14

Both great schools with “kind” cultures. Fwiw, Dickinson has that amazing collection of early American documents, which can be interesting to a history major focused on that era.

While I know how stressful this can feel, remember that you really can’t make a bad decision if these are your options.

The revisit days might make one simply feel more right.

15

My experience is that the USN&WR liberal arts college rankings tend to correlate with a much simpler measure: endowment $$ per student. Based on the 2016 NACUBO endowment tables:

  • Dickinson has a $381 million endowment for about 2,350 students, or about $162,000 per student;
  • Wooster has a $263 million endowment for about 2,050 students, or about $128,000 per student.

So Dickinson is somewhat wealthier, which is consistent with the difference in USN&WR ranking. Dickinson is also somewhat more selective, with a lower acceptance rate and higher yield. College Board reports ACT scores of 27-30 at Dickinson, vs. 24-30 at Wooster. So the top students at both schools are probably comparable, but Wooster has to dig deeper into its applicant pool in order to fill its class. There are probably a significant number of students at Wooster that would not have made the cut at Dickinson.

If everything else is truly equal, then I would probably recommend Dickinson. However, Wooster could still be the better choice, if there are specific features about it that particularly appeal to your kid.

16

@Corbett, that’s not the full ACT range, just “middle 50” right? But good points.

17

Yes, 25% are lower than the first number, 25% are higher than the second number, 50% are in between. SATs show the same general pattern.

18

There is no doubt that a senior thesis/capstone can be one of the most important and rewarding parts of the undergraduate experience. However, I personally prefer making it optional (as at Dickinson), rather than mandatory (as at Wooster). The best senior projects tend to have a lot of faculty involvement and interaction, and it’s just harder to do that when every faculty member has to deal with multiple seniors – some of whom are highly motivated and enthusiastic, and some of whom have no real idea of what they want to do but need to do something in order to graduate. I would let the latter group off the hook, thereby giving the faculty more opportunity to work with the former group.

There are relatively few schools that make the senior project mandatory. Others that come to mind, besides Wooster, are Reed and Princeton. I have met graduates of these schools that disagree with me.

19

Regarding the ACT/SAT score comparison between Wooster and Dickinson, don’t forget that Dickinson is test-optional, while the College of Wooster is not. Collegedata reports the mid 50%tile ACT scores as 27-30 for Dickinson, and 25-30 for Wooster. Since Dickinson is test-optional, I assume the actual scores of enrolled students is somewhat lower than 27-30, making the test score difference much less meaningful between the two colleges. My sense is that endowment size is contributing more to the US News ranking difference than test scores.

These two schools are top choices among the schools my D has been accepted to so far – both great schools! She is leaning toward Wooster at this point, as it is stronger in her potential major than Dickinson. Some differences we have observed:

-Dickinson graduates more majors in international business, int’l studies, and political science. Wooster students’ majors seem to be more balanced across a range of liberal arts majors. Woo also appears to have a disproportionate number of graduates in PhD programs.

-Demographics: Dickinson draws more from the Mid-Atlantic states; Wooster from the midwest. From two visits to each school, my D has found the “vibe” at Wooster to be more to her liking – hard-working kids who don’t take themselves too seriously. She also liked the diversity of Wooster.

As others have said, great to have these two schools as choices! My D will definitely be doing overnights at each before making a decision.

20

Good point, I did forget that. If all students reported scores, Dickinson’s numbers would probably drop, although we can only speculate about the magnitude of the potential difference. And the difference would probably be mostly at the lower end, because people with lower scores are less likely to submit them.

USN&WR applies an arbitrary 15% discount to the scores at test-optional schools, so this factor does affect Dickinson’s ranking. But there is no way to know how accurate their adjustment is.