<p>My daughter is looking at both Elon and Furman. It seems many people on the Elon threads looked at Furman as well. Can anyone give me an idea why they picked Elon over Furman or the differences in the feel between the 2? thanks.</p>
<p>Furman is really “Southern”.</p>
<p>what do you think “southern” is?</p>
<p>I wrote that when I didn’t have much time sorry,</p>
<p>now ill respond…</p>
<p>when i visited furman, i felt misplaced. The campus is beautiful, but almost to pristine. (not that elons isn’t but there is def a difference). You should visit both. Also Furman felt like it was extremely weathly republican religious kids. I might get crap for calling them religious republicans because the University is trying really hard to change its image. But I do have justification for saying that.</p>
<p>In their cafiteria it says “god give us our daily bread” in huge letters. There is (if I’m not mistaken) a mural of a biblical scene in their student center. The church is in the center of campus and is very big. If your not christian then I would be very caucious about applying. Okay now republican, I had a meeting with the political science director at Furman, who was very nice, but has anti obama stuff all over his office and had books on all this GOP stuff but nothing on the DNC. I mean sure it’s okay to have opinions but as a poli sci director you should atleast give the other side some credit. </p>
<p>Oh and btw the furman campus is just like a gated community, it’s not walkable from downtown greenville (Not even close really, but greenville was REALLY REALLY nice). Its kinda hidden behind trees. It really felt more like a golf course or country club.</p>
<p>Elon obviously has some of the same flaws as furman, but it feels a lot differnt once you are there talking to the people.</p>
<p>And Furman is slightly better acedmically over all. </p>
<p>My advice: visit both campuses, if you are from the north, I bet you like Elon more, if you are from the south then who knows?</p>
<p>Either way both schools are nice, obviously I give the edge to Elon</p>
<p>pakjan6, which Furman did you visit? I’ve been going there for 10 years and have never noticed “god give us our daily bread” in the cafeteria and there is defintely not a bibical mural in the student center. As far as the Church, its not a church, its a chapel and well most if not all schools have a chapel on campus and by the way they have services for just about every denomination in that chapel. In general FU might be conservative but theres also a very large group of liberals.</p>
<p>go look in the cafiteria it defintly says that</p>
<p>No offense to Furman but this is what I had two people who visited there tell me when they came back. “Everybody eating lunch in the cafeteria look like they aren’t having fun and look like they hate life.” I’ve also gotten the vibe from people that it is a very conservative school or at lot like a private catholic high school (friends word’s not mine).However I know someone there who is a freshmen who loves it also. Basically visit to know for yourself.</p>
<p>Furman used to be affiliated with the Southern Baptist Church, hence the prominent on campus chapel. Those ties were severed years ago.</p>
<p>virginiafan13, that might have to do when they visited. Its a tough school and if you visit during finals you will see some long faces which comes from the stress and all-nighters.</p>
<p>They visited during April so I doubt that. However I think anybody who is considering applying should visit for themselves. Things look different for every person.</p>
<p>“Furman used to be affiliated with the Southern Baptist Church, hence the prominent on campus chapel. Those ties were severed years ago.”</p>
<p>This statement is correct. However, even though they are taking steps to make their campus more religiously diverse, it simply is not.</p>
<p>The kid who I talked to who goes there said he studies all day, (he said something like 12 hours/day) and goes to church on sundays.</p>
<p>It is a excellent school, just it is very religious and very conservative.</p>
<p>Something is kinda strange about the campus, I just can’t put my finger on it. Living there seems almost like being in “Stepford Wives”, or “The trueman show”. If you know what I mean.</p>
<p>pakjan6,LOL, I have neighbors whose family members have attended Furman for three generations. The youngest graduated six years ago. She was in a sorority and her boyfriend was in a fraternity. The parties I heard about had nothing to do with church!
While it may be a conservative/somewhat religious sch., I didn’t get the feeling that my neighbor and her friends were studying 12 hours /day. Greek life was a big part of her time there.</p>
<p>That being said she did call it " living in the Furman bubble" meaning that being there didn’t seem like being in the real world.</p>
<p>just my impression</p>
<p>My son and I visited both Elon and Furman the spring of his junior year. Elon became his first choice and he decided not to apply to Furman. We are from Massachusetts and Furman did seem very “southern”. Our guide wore linen pants and a bow tie w/the SC state logo on it. He also spoke about traditions that sounded very southern - like orientation events where new freshman pair up as “dates” by playing a game where all the girls leave a shoe in a pile and then the matching shoe by their dorm room door and the guys pick a shoe from the pile and then search for their “date” by finding the matching shoe and a similar event done with boy’s neck ties. My son thought it sounded like very old fashioned, southern traditions and he didn’t feel like he’d fit in. He is a freshman at Elon and feels very at home there.</p>
<p>Oh how quickly impressions can be made and misimpressions can occur!</p>
<p>Both Elon and Furman have historical church ties - most private colleges do. For Elon, it’s the Church of Christ (the Phoenix were known as the Fighting Christians until the 90’s); for Furman, it was the Southern Baptist denomination, from which Furman separated in the early 90’s. The chapel at Furman, which is non-denominational, was built after the separation from the Baptists.</p>
<p>Average income of families with students at Elon is higher than at Furman, so I would challenge the country club allegation; geographic distribution is slightly higher mid-Atlantic/Northern at Elon, but not as much as this thread would make you think. Furman has a substantially higher endowment - like 4 times larger. </p>
<p>Greek life and partying (and all associated problems) are comparable at both schools.</p>
<p>Academic rigor and reputation is greater at Furman, but Elon improves each year (won Phi Beta Kappa status just this year). A college counselor I know said that Elon tends to attract “do-ers,” while Furman attracts “thinkers.” That’s apt, as long as you accept it’s not absolute. Foreign study programs are great at both schools, better advertised at Elon. Furman operates all its own foreign study, whereas Elon uses programs sponsored by others too.</p>
<p>Furman is 45 minutes from Asheville, NC (beautiful mountain town) and the Appalachian trail. Greenville (six miles down the road) has the loveliest, funky, cool restaurants and bar scene, as well as a downtown park that’s safe and beautiful with a suspended bridge over a river with waterfalls. Malls are on the outskirts of town. Elon is next to Burlington, part of the tri-cities area including Greensboro and Winston-Salem - lots of chainstore restaurants and shopping, most of it new and clean and very convenient, and with UNC and Duke not far away, lots of concert opportunities too. Mountains are 2 hours away. </p>
<p>As for the conservative reputation issue at Furman - that reputation is true, but is lingering beyond its reality, thanks to the grapevine. There are wide-ranging points of view in the student body and in the faculty - same is true for Elon, though it doesn’t have the same reputational thing going on. A recent student body President at Furman was a wonderful black female who served in Hillary Clinton’s campaign, for example. </p>
<p>Best advice ever is to visit both campuses, soak up the atmosphere, talk to as many students as you can find - not just the tour guides - either school is a real winner, sure to give you a terrific education and a lifetime of friendships.</p>
<p>Average income of families with students at Elon is higher than at Furman…</p>
<p>really?</p>
<p>^^ shelbymom, that is a very good and fair overview. My D was recently accepted at both colleges and she has spent a lot of time on each campus. She likes both but for different reasons. She feels the academics are stronger at Furman but that Elon may provide a better overall college experience. I think both colleges will appeal to the right student.</p>
<p>Good job Shelbymom. couldnt have said it better myself :)</p>
<p>Shelbymom, thanks for a succinct and well-written post. I see you are new to CC, so welcome, and I hope you will share much more info about Elon, being an alum and current parent. I am most interested to keep learning more about academics and campus life. D has been accepted, so we are beginning the process of weighing several schools’ pros and cons. Elon remains her top choice.</p>
<pre><code> Good luck with your D’s application as well; I’m confident it will work out.
</code></pre>
<p>Yup, it’s logical if you think about it. Elon’s endowment is so much smaller than Furman’s, that it cannot hand out the kind of scholarship money that Furman can. Of course that’s balanced by cost differentials, but not completely.</p>
<p>Elon holds a really fun scavenger hunt each year, called Phoenix Phind. Last year, the team that won did so because one girl had her Mom fly in a betamax video on the family jet. . . .</p>
<p>On the flip side, Furman did a cool thing this year called Furman United, in which trustees and other leaders made special contributions to the school to fund scholarships for students whose parents lost their jobs in the recession, so that student would have to leave the school.</p>