<p>Thanks to too much time spent on CC, I seem to have acquired the reputation as someone who knows a lot about colleges. So people have begun to ask me for advice about where their children should apply. Three times now I've been asked for a "good school where my son or daughter won't have to work too hard." </p>
<p>The first two times I think I gently said that the nature of good schools is that you have to work hard to be admitted and also work hard once you're there. Knowing the people doing the asking, what they want is a school that is very well thought of by the general populace, but at which their unambitious child will be willing to do the amount of work required to graduate because the workload isn't all that strenuous. </p>
<p>So, what schools fit the bill? I can think of schools with good reputations and I can think of easy schools, but they aren't one and the same. Maybe Boston University? I don't know anything about the academics other than it's not as hard to get into as BC, but the word Boston in the name has cache and people around here seem to think it must be good if it's in Boston. (as it very well may be...)</p>
<p>Any ideas of good and easy schools in the NE?</p>
<p>Might they be better off just choosing a ‘good’ school and then choosing an easy major within that school? As an example, the University of Iowa is a good school that they would quite probably be accepted at. But once they get there, if they choose History as a major, they will find a major that requires massive amounts of reading and writing, and a faculty that is known to grade ‘hard’. Yet if they choose Poli Sci, the amount of writing and reading is reduced greatly, and the grading reputation is not nearly as tough.</p>
<p>What a question. It kind of makes me wonder if their kids attended a “good” but easy high school and how much it cost either in terms of tuition or housing costs. It sounds like it’s time for the parents to explain to their kids that actions have consequences. </p>
<p>Maybe they should look at good schools that have “easy” majors or allow students to take fewer than normal classes that would still be considered full-time but won’t have them graduating on time.</p>
<p>There are very few colleges anywhere that it’s not possible to skate through if that’s what you want to do. Princeton may be tough because of its mandatory senior thesis. MIT, Reed, St. John’s, Caltech. I’m pretty sure you can skate through the University of Chicago, although your choice of courses and majors would be very limited, and you would feel pretty isolated. I know you can skate through Yale, Harvard, or Stanford – lots of people do, mainly because they are working their buns off on things other than academics. (I recognize that isn’t your student, though.)</p>
<p>By the same token, there aren’t many colleges you can’t turn into someplace extremely rigorous, if that’s what you want.</p>
<p>In terms of the prestige/work tradeoff, I would look at well-regarded public universities and the larger privates (like BU, or NYU). Size means diversity of opportunities, and diversity means more keyholes to fit through and chutes to slide down without expending too much effort. And look at Tulane. A number of kids I know who have gone there fit your description. But recognize that skating through requires a certain canniness and planning ability – I don’t think there is anywhere you can just show up, not work, and expect to be OK.</p>
<p>We are parents of a Boston University grad. The school is well known for grad deflation. If the parents want their kids to graduate from college with a 4.0 GPA doing little to no work…BU is not the school for them. Also BU has core course requirements for all majors…and while there are many options, it is not always possible to find the easy course with the easy professor.</p>
<p>Honestly, if it were me, I would politely say that for the amount they will spend on a “good” school, they should wlexpect their kid to work.</p>
<p>Here is the easy response…tell them to look on the common data set for the stats. Find a good school where their kid is in the top 25% ile of all accepted students. A student in that position is likely to do well at that school.</p>
<p>A school like Brown or Amherst, with no distribution requirements, typically attracts students who challenge themselves: they don’t need external motivation and rules to make them work.</p>
<p>Seems to me that there are plenty of places that would be far less challenging/intellectual/competitive than places like, say, Swarthmore or Reed or MIT. The problem is finding “a school that is very well thought of by the general populace”, at least as defined by the parents. They might be able to look for a school with a national reputation in football or basketball and go with that. </p>
<p>Would a place like Elon appeal? I wish it was on the west coast rather than the east for D2, and it might just fit in this niche. Muhlenberg? The SUNY system? These are all schools that can offer great opportunities for a student looking for challenge, but they’re not going to demand the kind of workload that the parents fear.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the rationale for Brown. Is it because there are no distribution requirements and a generous pass fail policy? Then I’d go with Sarah Lawrence, Evergreen State and Hampshire as well. Maybe Goddard or Bennington?</p>
<p>Personally, I think the key is to find a school where the profs don’t assign as much, so there’s just less work not to do. That might be a cash strapped school where class size has outstripped the TA capacity to grade, or a school with a lot of part time students where the profs tailor the workload accordingly </p>
<p>Any of the CSUs would seem to fit that bill.</p>
<p>Good and easy. What a joke. I think I’d just laugh and tell them if they aren’t willing go work they won’t get anything out of whatever school they pay for. Those kids should just get a job at a fast food joint until they learn how there is no such thing as success without hard work. <em>sigh</em></p>