@listener76 – chiming in a little late here. I have a DS in his third year at Grinnell. We are from the East Coast and still get the Cornell/Grinnell confusion. It never goes away! I wanted to add that my DS is in the Grinnell Singers group as it sounds like your DS is a singer. They perform at various events and also take a week long tour during Spring Break. This year they toured the Mid West and last year they were in CO and NM. The auditions take place towards the end of freshman orientation.
You can’t go wrong eating at the Prarie Canary but might need a reservation. Our favorite dinner spot is Relish but my DS told me that the owners may be closing up…not sure. It is in a lovely Victorian home near the edge of campus. Good luck with the decision. (I have a DD17 who is still deciding on a school for next year. She was accepted at Grinnell but is probably heading elsewhere due to a better opportunity.)
I should clarify…D17 has a better opportunity in her major (not meant to be a knock against Grinnell) per my previous post.
Ha! I got that, Thinmints! It’s funny how different colleges are good for different majors. I’m sure S would love to hear more about the music, since that seems to be a deciding factor (after the math dept checks out). Is your D a major (and does one have to be a major to find a spot in the choirs)?
Lunch suggestions sound good- we are heading out. Good luck to your senior- i hope she finds a place that feels like a good fit!
@listener76 - Just put an “@” ahead of the avatar name, and it will highlight it blue. A drop down box will even try to help you finish the name. It will also send a notice to the person whose name you referenced, that you made a comment about them. It shows up on your home page, under “Notifications.”
Also, if you check off that you click at your orange “Preferences” button, and see how you’ve chosen to be notified of any activity such as shown below, and you can check off if you want an email notice or just a pop up notice on your home page. Personally, I only get email notices if someone sends me a private message, the rest I just chose Pop Up and check my home page every few days (or, recently, every day, as we are all coming down to final decisions!)
Notifications:
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Also, @listener76 - We LOVED Prairie Canary, too! (@thinmints and @porcupine98 are friends I met on CC, last year!)
For something more casual, we liked the local tavern, Lonnskis, and the Mexican place in town, La Casa De Pancho. It’s not as good as my fav hole in the wall places in my home city of Los Angeles, but pretty darn good for Iowa! AND try to make time to head to the east side of town to hit the Dari Barn, a local fav. It is not downtown, with the other restaurants, and we finally took time to search it out, over Family Weekend, last year. Address: 1810 6th Ave, Grinnell, IA 50112.
Hope you and @boerboer have wonderful visits to Grinnell with your kids!
@morningside95 - thanks for the tutorial! My job doesn’t involve sitting at a computer- and I will confess I lean on my kids to accomplish or teach tech things to me! I will use my time driving back to gain profinciency! (Thanks for the lunch suggestions also). (And thanks for the kind words and supportive actions!)
Great, @listener76. That is weird that just using the “@” sign, even with quotes, made everything I typed, directly after it, turn blue!
Oh and I also met @Otterma thru CC, and we’ve become great supportive friends, over the past year, along with @porcupine98, and a few others! Mostly online, in a group private message chain (you can PM more than one person at a time). But also in-person, as we met up at Lonnskis Pub & Deli, both on move-in weekend and over Family Weekend. I am a 4 hour car-drive away, but they are experts in getting their students to and from campus, via Des Moines Airport! There is also a Grinnell Parents informational email group you can join, to ask for help from the wider Grinnellian community.
Oh, I see. I missed the second " mark on the @ sign.
@listener76 - just reread your earlier post and see that you are also considering W&M. We are in state (VA) so it is a very popular choice here. My S14 was torn between W&M and Grinnell. There were probably a lot of factors in his decision but two big ones for Grinnell were 1) smaller feel/smaller classes and 2) lack of required core curriculum giving much more flexibility. He is now a double Music and Comp Sci major. I would say though that the Music Dept is very small. (I don’t think that you need to be a Music major to perform with the Grinnell Singers.)
If I can answer questions about either W&M or Grinnell, let me know. (My D17 is also turning down W&M/Monroe Scholarship. :-/
Well, @ThinMint , what a small world! Am I correct in thinking you have a 14 year old at WM? If so, that’s interesting and I’d like to know more about that - sounds like my clients (I’m a psychologist). Yes, I’d like to follow up with WM questions - going to do the tour thing right now…
Sorry, @ThinMint , I had a chance to reread more carefully- son is at Grinnell and D is looking elsewhere. S wondered if he ran into your D at Monroe days a couple of weeks ago. He did get to connect with a couple friends from grade schools ol who were at the event (none of whom are going to attend WM) so it was fun. VA had great college options!
We had a great first day! What my son and I both noticed and really enjoyed was the utter lack of pretense of administration, faculty and students. A welcome change from many of the more local east coast schools we visited.
School has the arboretum type feel that we got at Haverford, Swarthmore and Davidson.
Son has received a Grinnell Presidential Scholarship award…so his mom and I were hoping this would be a great visit. So far, so good.
We had dinner tonight at he Mexican restaurant on Main Street. Excellent food.
@listener76 – ha ha…you must have thought that I was raising a “Doogie Houser” type. The S14 – the 14 refers tot he high school class (class of 2014)!
We were not able to attend the Monroe event…we were in London that weekend. What did your son think of it?
@boerboer It sounds as if you’ve discovered part of the magic of the Midwest! Lack of pretense is one of things we love about Grinnell. Smart, not showy.
Congratulations to your S on the Presidential Scholarship, @boerboer! Glad you enjoyed La Casa De Pancho! Keep us posted on your S17’s decision!
How did the visit go for you and your S, @listener76 ?
@boerboer, it certainly sounds like you have a good handle on what Grinnell is about. Your 4/22, 7:09pm post was spot on for every bullet point. We have a daughter who is a freshman and loves it there. It’s certainly not the right school for many people, but for the people who are a good fit, it really can be a magical place.
Yes, Grinnell has a lot of money and it seems as if they put it to good use. There have been opportunities for some class field trips as well as larger trips (that you have to apply for) that are fully paid for. They paid for the hotel when my daughter went to Chicago with Model UN. Yes, I know we are already paying a lot for the college, but not all colleges spend on externals like Grinnell does. At a lot of schools, you go on the tour or read in the brochure about all of the activities that they have and you just think it’s a list of things that no one really goes to. I know my daughter has attended so many different events. She loves the concert series that they have. Lot of good indies bands come there. And I know she likes a lot of the theme parties that they have (I think there was an 80s party and a talking heads themed party). On Sunday night, she went to a fashion show put on by the international students. I know she enjoyed that too. She’s got her group that she’s friends with, but she’s also not afraid to go to any event if she wants to go, even if she doesn’t know anyone well who is going.
We live in NY, so the contrast to the more “friendly” midwest may stand out more to us, but every time we have been there, everyone has been so accommodating and nice. I’ve been walking through with boxes and have had professors ask if I needed assistance. Same goes for alumni that we’ve met at events and even the same goes for parents of students. We have a nice little group from this website that stays in touch and gets together that family weekend for a drink.
Also, a lot of people hear that the school is in the middle of nowhere Iowa and think it’s a “hick” school. I think it’s completely the opposite. While it is located in the middle of nowhere and it’s a PITA to get to, the student body is quite cosmopolitan. With almost 20% international, there’s a lot of diversity right there. Plus, it seems like most of the domestic students are coming in from large cities. Nearby cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago and St. Louis are well represented, but there are a lot of kids from both coasts well.
The town is small, but it’s quaint. Seems like it will keep the kids busy enough for 4 years and certainly has anything parents need for coming in a couple of times a year. There are some nice B&Bs to stay at right near campus. Also, there’s a real nice boutique hotel opening in downtown this summer. I’m looking forward to seeing how that works out.
I just wanted to say I am enjoying reading your posts, though admit they are making me a bit sad. My HS senior was admitted to several of the colleges you are mentioning and I was really hoping he’d go to the admitted student days at Grinnell & St. Olaf . Both offered him generous scholarships and we even bought the plane tickets and made all the plans but two days before we were set to leave he said in his heart he knew he didn’t want to go that far away. So he will attend William & Mary.
Thank you to everyone for your help on this thread. Over the weekend, Grinnell went from 3rd to a tie with St Olaf for first (@11colleges, i’m the one who’s sad, as we would have dearly lived for him to go to William and Mary- closer to home). He said he really likes the Grinnell commitment to wide ranging liberal arts with a very bright group of kids- great conversation with the math professors, current students happy to help him find teachers- but the vocal program representatives were nowhere to be found. The kids he met assured him “there’s a great music culture here” but it remained the only campus (out of 9) who did not make it possible for him to sing with the choir or meet with the professor. He asked if we could extend our trip another day and run up to St Olaf to sit in a couple of non-math classes and try to assess the differences overall. Deadlines coming up so the ride back to Ky should be interesting. We are reconfiguring the spreadsheets to include Grinnells generous travel funding- and I will be visiting the Piper Center tomorrow to get a better handle on what the opportunities are there. BTW- next year all Grinnellians get free music lessons…
One last question- S is a Buntrock scholar at St Olaf, but did not get named for a similar group at Grinnell. His Monroe status at WM would have meant having some extra opportunity. Does it make a difference at either St Olaf or at Grinnell to be part of ann"honor subgroup" (he doesn’t need this at all, we’re just trying to figure out the differences between schools .
Grinnell doesn’t have a separate honors subgroup. They have things like a Deans List and Phi Beta Kappa – honors that you earn while in college, but the traditional benefits of an honors program are just everyday life at Grinnell. Their large endowment means that all students have the opportunity to pursue independent study, funded research, and ridiculously personalized advising.
My son has been very happy with the music program. It’s disappointing that your son couldn’t meet up with the vocal music prof. Perhaps he could email the professor in charge of vocal music. The department website has contact information for faculty members as well as their area of expertise. My son emailed members of the music, math, and CS departments last spring as questions arose that he couldn’t find answers to in other places. They were always very friendly and helpful in their replies. Some correspondence even lasted through the summer.