<p>I love St. Olaf. One reason I love it is because I took music lessons there when I was in high school and my sister went there and sang in the St Olaf Choir, which was a fabulous experience. However, I was itching to get out of the Midwest at college time so I took another route. Sometimes I regret not going there, even though I loved my other choice.</p>
<p>My D looked at St. Olaf and while she did not end up choosing it, it was in her top three. It is a wonderful school. The learning environment, the people, the music, the study abroad programs are all great. The place has a strong sense of its own history, identity, and educational mission. It is really unique. Not for everybody, certainly. But I do think that in this competitive economic environment, life will get hard for the generic small liberal arts college unless it can carve out a unique identity for itself. </p>
<p>Of course the CTCL consortium is a marketing gimmick. Who cares? Colleges market themselves all the time. My D got tons of mail from places sheād never want to attend in a million years. These places included some ātop-tierā schools that kids and some parents on this board get very excited about.</p>
<p>To add to what NJSue has said, the CTCL schools didnāt form a consortium and then decide to market themselves as a collective group. An independent educator/writer came up with the criteria and chose colleges he thought would fitāthen wrote a book about them. The colleges are all VERY different. And there are others I think ought to be included that arenāt. But the decision isnāt up to them.</p>
<p>The most disingenuous marketing I have seen comes from ātop-tierā colleges that really donāt need to marketāthey are already getting tons of applications. Yet they keep mailing expensive glossy brochures to let kids think that they too may have a chance if only they applyāeven though the statistical odds, even with the right qualifications, are incredibly low. I am very suspicious of colleges that do not waive application fees after soliciting students via direct mail. I wonder what kind of revenue they bring in. For a school that gets bazillions of applications (NYU comes to mindālast year they were bragging about their record number of applicants on the homepage of their website), itās got to be a pretty healthy figure.</p>
<p>Nobody disagrees with you. Thereās rarely a single reason (other than money, maybe) to select one college over another. But of course graduation rates do matter, and lower than expected rates require closer examination. In UW-Madisonās case, for example, a relatively low graduation rate probably means that students have trouble getting a seat in all of their classes that they need. In contrast, Hampshire Collegeās 63% six year graduation rate probably means theyāre taking on a lot of kids for whom the school isnāt a good fit. Neither reason is a good one.</p>
<p>On another thread elsewhere, I posted an excerpt from the book āTransforming a Collegeā, about Elon Universityās makeover. The book itself is a bit dry, but did contain some interesting bits, including this quote:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This description doesnāt fit many (or most!) of the CTCLs, but its viewpointāthat there are different types of āfitā for different studentsāis very CTCL.</p>
<p>The more cynical might say that this is the school spying a marketing niche, and going after it with laser-like focus. Well, more power to the schoolāif there are students and families out there looking for a certain kind of fit, itās a great way to stand out from the crowd?gaggle?posse?ream? of brochures filling up a mailbox.</p>
<p>Yes, but then, UVa has the highest 4-year graduation rate of any public university in America ā¦ which still happens to be lower than the rates at 15 private LACs. 12 CTCLs have 4-yr graduation rates over 70%; only half as many public universities do. </p>
<p>UVA ā¦ 85%
Centre ā¦ 83.5% W&M ā¦ 82%
Gettysburg ā¦ 82%
Muhlenberg ā¦81.8%
St. Olaf ā¦ 81.2%
Whitman ā¦ 79.8%
Wheaton ā¦ 78.8%
Kalamazoo ā¦ 78.4%
Ursinus ā¦ 77.6%
Rhodes ā¦ 76.2% UNC-CH ā¦ 76%
St. Maryās College of MD (a public LAC) ā¦ 74%
Michigan ā¦72%
Allegheny ā¦ 71.9%
Wabash ā¦ 71.1% College of NJ, Ewing ā¦ 71%</p>
<h2>C. of Woosterā¦ 70.9%</h2>
<p>**UC Berkeley ā¦ 69%
UCLAā¦ 68%
**</p>
<p>Of the CTCLs listed in the Kiplinger top 100 LACs, Reed has the lowest 4 yr graduation rate (59.2%). Of all the Kiplinger top 100 LACs, the lowest 4 year graduation rate is 48.4% (College of Idaho). Of all the Kiplinger top 100 public colleges, the lowest 4 year graduation rate is 12% (Cal State Long Beach).</p>
<p>Getting back to the CTCL conversation, one area in which a number of them stand out is the number of Fulbright grants their students receive each year.</p>
<p>ppatil, If you google ABET, you can find all the accredited engineering programs by state. In California , most of them are going to be at the UCās and CSUās, or places like Caltech and Harvey Mudd. Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount are smaller,both private Catholic schools(I think).</p>
<p>Another nearby option for engineering would be the 3-2 program at Reed College, which would allow the student to finish up the engineering degree at Caltech.</p>
<p>I would also highly recommend taking a look at the book āCool Collegesā by Donald Asher, mentioned earlier in this thread. It explores a number of schools both on and off the CTCL list, all of which provide an interesting alternative to the more well known schools. Asher also provides useful insight on what to look for in an undergraduate school.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your inputā¦I will explore the 3-2 option but that may be a bit more expensive as it would take one more year to complete the undergrad. But Reed-CalTech combination is good, andI can get best of both worlkds, as I donāt think I have that high GPA to get in to Caltech for undergrad (even though it is good 4.2 weightd)</p>
<p>The Kiplinger website is interesting. Considering that the LAC category has the least amount of competition, Iām a little surprised that so many of the CTLCs are missing from the top 100. And of the ones that are there, it appears that the average student at most of them is graduating with more debt than students from the top LACs, the top privates, and many of the publics. Bait-and-switch on merit aid, maybe? Or maybe theyāre spending too much on merit aid to the detriment of those with financial need? Hard to say.</p>
<p>I looked at the links referenced in post #265. Quick, rough count, so please donāt quote me on exact numbers, I see 30 of the 40 CTCLs on the lists (Iām including Clark U., which shows up on the private Us list). So 10 are missing. That means 25 percent are missing. But that also means 75 percent are on the Kiplingerās lists, FWIW. </p>
<p>I didnāt check the relative debt amounts.</p>
<p>So Novaparent, whatās your point? There are only 20 -50 - 100 schools worth attending? None better than U-VA? Why the ax to grind? Your constant drive-bys in this thread are tiresome to say the least.</p>
<p>I found the CTCL book very helpful. I went to the local directional state school. I was the first from my family to attend college and we had no idea of other opportunities. 20 years later, when my d was starting the college process, I had little to go on. The counselor from her school pointed us towards CTCL and The Gatekeepers. These books provided a valuable point of view. This has proven helpful to many of us. This thread asks for experiences we or our kids have had at CTCL schools. Mt D had a great outcome at one of the CTCL schools. </p>
<p>Why rain on our parade? Weāre going for a feelgood thread here and youāre harshing the vibe.</p>
<p>I forget if I have mentioned this beforeāthis conversation has been going on for a while nowābut three CTCL schools gave my child substantial enough merit aid to make the cost of attending SIGNIFICANTLY less than our in-state flagship or that in the neighboring state, which offers reciprocal tuition. The fourth was about even with the state schools. </p>
<p>I know plenty of students attending ātop-tierā schools who are paying full tuition. And not all colleges are need-blind. It helps to have a lot of money.</p>
<p>āSome admissions officers and college advisers say richer parents are taking note of the climate, calculating that if they do not apply for aid, their children stand a better chance of getting in.ā</p>
<p>OK, guys, the time has come to admit the obvious: UVA is the best school in the history of mankind, by every conceivable measure. Our students tried but failed to get in and we parents are, one and all, disappointed. But thatās nothing compared to our kids who are nothing short of devastated. Wherever they end up going, or are already going, including a CTCL, itās a dreary consolation prize at best.</p>
<p>Among the Kiplinger top 100 ābest valueā LACs, I count 22 of the 41 CTCLs. As noted above, 1 of the CTCLs shows up with the Kiplinger top 100 ābest valueā private universities.</p>
<p>The average debt at graduation for those 22 CTCLs is $24,381. The average debt for the Kiplinger top 100 private universities is $25,556; for all of the top 100 private LACs it is $22,255; for the Kiplinger 100 ābest valueā public universities it is $20,709. So they are all within a few thousand dollars. What may be surprising to some people is that the average debt at graduation for these private colleges is only a few thousand dollars higher than it is for the public schools. </p>
<p>One could designate oneās own set of 20 or 40 āColleges That Change Livesā from only the Kiplinger top 100 LACs. Add to or subtract from Loren Popeās 41 if you value factors he did not especially consider.</p>
<p>Thanks for the right count, tk21769. Thatās what I get for trying to get in a post after the work day ended and before running home to make dinner.</p>
) See [3-2</a> Engineering Program](<a href=ā