Furman Class of 2025

By the way, as far as I know she never received an email. She did apply Early Action early on but I don’t remember how long ago.

One more thing. I just double checked my own email, and we never received an email cc’d to us. But that’s ok! It was such a great surprise to receive the box and wonder what it was all about!

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My son was accepted EA Thanksgiving day with a Bell scholarship. He got an email about a status change and so did we. But no letter in the mail since then or any swag.

Daughter applied EA test optional and received acceptance and Townes scholarship. Notified about a week ago.

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do you have any sense of how many Townes Scholarships they offer?

Here’s some info about Duke Endowment awards when the Townes Scholarship was set up in 2008. I’m not sure if the numbers are exactly the same now, but it gives some idea about how many are given out.

"The first 10 Townes Scholars will enroll at Furman in 2009–10, and 10 more will be added each year until there are a total of 40 scholars at the university …

Since the Hollingsworth Scholarships are for South Carolina residents, we thought it was important to create an equally prestigious scholarship program for out-of-state students," Shi said. “The Townes Scholars program will allow Furman to extend its geographic reach across the nation and build a stronger and more diverse student body.” …

Furman is one of four educational institutions to receive funding from The Duke Endowment of Charlotte, N.C."

I wonder if they give out more than 40 in order to have 40 enroll or if they give out 40 to accepted students and then only a percentage of those kids go to Furman.

I interpret that to mean they offer only ten per year so that there are forty on campus (10 in each class).

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At many schools, they offer more in order to get to the goal of how many they want on campus. Just curious if Furman does that too. Not everyone who is offered this scholarship will enroll. Furman’s yield is only around 20% so, if they offer ten, then might only get two takers.

I would say you are correct!

When do you guys think the next batch of decisions will come out?

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D21 emailed her rep this week. Said she would know “by 1/15”. She applied EA.

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I do know that someone we know who received a Bell Tower scholarship in 2019 was offered additional financial aid and learned about it after the initial acceptance letter that included the scholarship information.

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Does this indicate Furman is releasing all EA decisions by 1/15? For some reason my D thought by 2/15, but I’m not sure where she got that. Of course, we didn’t expect the “rolling admissions” that’s happening this year so I’m not sure if we just missed that or if that is something new.

Their website says 1/15 so I think we all find out by Friday.

Thank you! I didn’t see that on the website. She must have a typo on our doc.

Where does Furman fall on the list of college for your kids? How likely are they to enroll and who’s visited?

We haven’t visited. Furman checks some boxes for D. Warm weather, good size, Greek life, good academics. A bit worried about how conservative it is although we anecdotally know of liberal students there who have found a way to fit in.

I wish it was closer to Greenville. I wonder if the college has transportation there or if a lot of kids have cars. I watched a YouTube video of a visit and the campus is just off of a highway and not in a neighborhood, just set off all by itself. Gorgeous for sure and really spread out which is nice. I didn’t have a sense of the campus until I saw the video. There’s no town to walk to at all.

We visited last January. You are right in that there is no town to walk to. Our D21 really liked the bike path that goes through campus. It’s a 3-mile ride north to the village of Traveller’s Rest which has great restaurants, coffee places and a Farmer’s Market. Traveller’s Rest has a good variety of places … juice bars / craft breweries / farm to table restaurants / Vietnamese food, etc. The bike path also goes south to Greenville, which is about a 7-mile ride away from campus or probably 10-15 minutes by car. We stayed two nights in Greenville during our visit and really loved the downtown area. The school has good connections with the city for internship opportunities if your student is interested.

According to Niche, the students are pretty evenly split (1/3 Democrat, 1/3 Independent and 1/3 Republican). Several alumni or parents of students have said that students are open to listening to each other’s viewpoints and having respectful discussions with each other in class and out of class.

Our D21 is used to a diverse high school environment where over half the students come from families from a wide variety of Asian and Pacific Island backgrounds.

I hope you get to visit a few campuses this spring! It really helped our D21 - we were fortunate that her break was before Covid and we got to look at a few places.

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Thanks for the info! Furman’s website has photos of kids sitting in Greenville working at cafes with their computers open and that seems a bit ingenuous. I don’t think D will ever have a car on campus so, unless a lot of other kids have them, or there’s a shuttle, I’m not sure how often kids get into town.

Happy to chime in, as our D21 has Furman in her top two and we live in Greenville. Yes, Furman is not adjacent to downtown Greenville, but it really isn’t far. Many students have cars, so she won’t have an issue getting downtown if she is headed there with other students. The campus is gorgeous and so very well maintained. Take a look at the Swamp Rabbit Trail. It runs from downtown Greenville up past Furman to Travelers Rest, a fun little eclectic town with the cutest restaurants. Students can easily use the Swamp Rabbit to run/walk/bike to TR for brunch/lunch. And they can also bike (would be quite a walk/run) directly into downtown Gville on the SRT. Furman Shuttle info is here. Happy to answer any additional questions about Greenville and the Upstate. It’s an amazing place, and I hope you’ll get the opportunity to visit!

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