<p>Anyone have any information about social life, the town, academics? thanks</p>
<p>I was wondering about the scholarships, they mention quite a few but no amounts. Any insight on this?</p>
<p>Academics: Academics are decent. Freshmen year you have to take the freshmen literature class and freshmen history class one semester and the freshmen religion class and freshmen philosophy class the other semester. These classes are mostly a joke depending on the professor because the majority of people don’t want to be in those classes and the professors know it. </p>
<p>A bunch of other core requirements - you have to take a Learning Community which takes up 3 of your 5 classes for the semester and if you don’t really like any of the LC topics, well, too bad, you’re screwed and have to take 3 classes that you dont really want to take. You also need two semesters of foreign language, one ‘natural scientific inquiry’, one ‘social scientific inquiry’ and one ‘statistical reasoning’.</p>
<p>The new science center that’s opening up in the fall is supposed to be really nice. </p>
<p>Professors have been pretty good so far. Most are pretty good, haven’t heard a lot of complaints about the teaching.</p>
<p>Location: right next to Brockton, which is pretty ****ty. It’s fairly easy to get into Boston - there’s a campus shuttle that will take you to the T-station so you can get into Boston. The surrounding area is pretty standard. You can pretty easily walk to places like Dunkins, CVS, Starbucks, and some other places like that.</p>
<p>Housing: Freshmen can live in the Sem, Boland, O’Hara, the Heights, Corr, or Villa. The Sem is all freshmen and is like a 10-15 minute walk to get to the main part of campus, which sucks in the middle of the winter. O’Hara has the *<strong><em>tiest rooms and no one wants to get stuck there and it has the *</em></strong>tiest location (well, except for maybe the Sem), a ton of sophomores are stuck there for next year and are pretty ripped about it. The basement of OHara is the worst its kinda disgusting down there. Boland is a good location, right near the center of campus, one of the more louder/party-type dorms this year. The Heights are a good location, suite style living. Freshmen can only live in Flynn (all girls) or in wellness housing in Bengalia. Corr and Villa are the newest dorms and have the biggest rooms, theyre most likely going to be force tripling a lot in those two because they overaccepted and the new dorm isnt going to be open for another year. This year theyve been the quieter dorms compared to the ****-shows that go on in OHara. For the housing lottery after freshmen year, you have to get merit points. There are specifically designated merit point events and for each event you go to you get a third of a point. Clubs and sports get one full point. You can get up to 15 and start with 10 and if you lose one it cant be earned back. Personally, I think the merit point based housing lottery is stupid and its just so they can get people to go to the kind of events that are merit point programs.</p>
<p>Social Life: Theres always stuff going on in the Courts (senior and junior housing) on weekends. The school claims theres always a lot of stuff going on throughout the weekends, but there really isnt. Most people I know sleep in, go to brunch, go back to bed and sleep some more/do some work, go to dinner, go back to bed/do some work, and then go out to party. When its nice out there are usually people hanging out outside just laying out in the sun doing whatever or playing Frisbee and stuff like that.</p>
<p>Is Bengalia a nice dorm?
I was also wondering if you weren’t a jock, would you fit in? I think I read 69% of incoming students one year did a varsity sport…my girls just weren’t into that area and one has asthma that acts up a lot if she is in certain environments.
Marist also has merit points but they include clubs, community service, grades, etc. I don’t like that very much either, but my daughters said it was “annoying, but not a deal breaker” and they have to live with it. Thanks for any info.</p>
<p>D is a sophmore there. She is busy all the time. Not having a car the first year was a little limiting but she shuttle is good to get to the stores, movies and train to boston. She lived in villa and corr the first year and loved both. She was in a forced triple for a few weeks but then got moved out. She does a ton of activities and clubs. She is not a jock at all. You get what you make of it. The first few weeks she went to everything she could even if she didn’t think she would be interested and ended up making a lot of cool friends. </p>
<p>Easton itself is a nice town. Small, quaint but it’s definately suburbia and very green and a little rural compared to boston. Boston is quite accessible. Next to it is Brockton which is a dump but the kids don’t go there and the campus is very safe and secluded. D does volunteer at a woman’s shelter one day a week in brockton and it’s fine. She loves the school. Feel free to PM me if you want more specific info.</p>
<p>My son received two levels of merit scholarship. $12K per year as a presidential scholarship. Then another $12K per year on offer of admission to the honors program.</p>
<p>This was the highest level of support offered at any school – excellent in my opinion.</p>
<p>Yes, that is very good. My son got about that amount, a few thousand less, in one award at his college and it was the highest he was offered. Did they have certain stats he had to reach, I didn’t see any firm numbers which is good sometimes, it means they go by who comes year to year but it also can be confusing. I wonder if you are offered more money if you get into the honors program later…some colleges say yes, some no.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Bengalia is one of the suite style dorms, so if you want that style of living than it’s great. I know a lot of people who really like suite style living because they get really close with everyone in their suite, but they said that if you’re in a suite than it’s harder to meet as many people in your dorm as you would in a regular corridor style dorm. Bengalia was where I wanted to be…at the housing lottery I ended up in one dorm but just got switched out to another dorm in Pilgrim Heights, so I’m happy. Another thing to note about housing at Stonehill is that their was an overenrollment and in order to make room for everyone, they’re putting up more modular homes in the Pilgrim Heights parking lot (there are also modular homes behind O’Hara)…I’m going to guess that a lot of freshmen are going to be tripled this year because there just isn’t enough room, but maybe not with the addition of the Pilgrim Heights Village.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, definitely. There are all different types of people at Stonehill and your girls would definitely be able to find “their people” there. Everyone is really friendly at Stonehill, it’s funny how long people will stand there holding the doors open and such. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, merit points at Stonehill also include clubs and community service and sports. I find it wicked annoying, but there isn’t really anything we can do about it.</p>
<p>I’m happy to answer any questions about Stonehill, though I will admit that I’m not always the best person to ask if you’re looking for “OMG STONEHILL IS THE BEST” answers because honestly I really hated it (less so in the second semester than the first) and was really unhappy… I chose not to transfer out because of one reason and I’m still kind of second guessing my decision not to put in transfer apps, but so be it. I’m happy to give my experiences and opinions, but everyone has different experiences. There are a lot of people that really, really love Stonehill but then there are also the people that hate it…but of course it’s that way at any school.</p>