Daughter accepted at Kenyon and Dickenson, decision deadline looming. Thoughts?
One of my kids attended Dickinson, the other was accepted at Kenyon but picked someplace else (but her closest HS friend is now a senior at Kenyon). Both are fine schools. What are your specific questions?
Dickinson closer to home and offered a decent merit scholarship, Kenyon made a great impression, has a great repution in creative writing (something my daughter is passionate about) but no $. Struggling to decide, just looking for new angles to consider.
Let your daughter choose.
Are both affordable without compromising parental retirement or younger siblings’ college funding?
Yup
As hard as this might be…just let your kiddo figure it out. We had one kid who really went back and forth between choice one and choice two. We gave her a deadline of April 29…so we would have time to send in the deposit.
She really churned it around. We didn’t really offer any opinions at that point. We did our school opinion thing prior to applications being sent.
She made her decision on April 29…and happily matriculated at one of the schools where she happily attended for,four years…and received her degree.
Really…both are fine schools you pr daughter has. Either one will be fine!
If the price difference is not the issue, why not just let her choose which one she likes better?
If the price difference is the issue, what did you and she previously discuss about college pricing and funding?
Or is there some other reason for struggling with the decision?
My D looked at both. She liked the academics at Kenyon better and she liked Dickinson’s location better (Gambier was too small for her.)
If creative writing is your D’s passion and she finds the small town atmosphere appealing, Kenyon might be the better bet.
What other interests does your D have? Will she major in English?
The first question is, are both affordable?
Is one much more affordable than the other? I would say if so, choose the less expensive one if all other things are equal.
if not:
I would make a spreadsheet and include info like:
Net Cost
Number of Undergraduates
Faculty Student Ratio
%of students that live on campus
How big is the department for your major? If you are majoring in something that only has a couple of professors, that does not bode well.
Housing- do they offer all 4 years? freshman only?
Urban/rural/suburban
Is this a commuter school? (do students go home on weekends) Just because it is not a commuter/weekday school for you, doesn’t mean it isn’t for the students who live near by.
Surrounding area - what is the nearby town/amenities like?
Transportation - how would you get home
AP Credits - can you get credit for AP tests you have taken
Male/Female ratio
Greek life - what % of students are in greek life
Parking
Diversity
Safety
Sports
Jobs - what happens to seniors after they graduate
Internships - depending on your major, is it easy to get internships?
…and whatever makes sense for you
You might not care about, say, greek life. but if 50% of the kids are in greek life and you don’t want to be, that is something to know. Or you may want a big time sports scene or you might not want one. Grade them from 1-5 as they make sense to you.
Then look at each of them and see which makes sense for you
A tool to help is https://colleges.niche.com/compare/default.aspx?&tab=tab-rankings
And then after you use the data to see what it says…see if her gut agrees.
We have visited both, several times, and can share some thoughts. If she is drawn to Kenyon’s writing program, how much research has she done about availability of resources? We got the impression that it was very competitive to get onto the Kenyon Review, and that the upper level creative writing classes were competitive admissions – you had to write your way into the class. Not that your daughter wouldn’t be capable, but how does she feel about a competitive academic program like that, where people could be looking over their shoulder and it seems to be a real pecking order? Gambier is someplace that either seems like Shang-ra-la or a circle of hell, depending on the student. It really is all about that community of students, so you’ve got to really want to make that your home.
After visiting both a few times, my kid and we parents came to prefer Dickinson – larger student body by about 500 students, as best I recall, campus felt more active, busy - but that doesn’t mean its the better choice for another student. Both schools have greek life, about 30% involvement, non-residential though Kenyon clusters members of the same fraternity/sorority in the same section of the dorm. I may be forgetting, but I don’t think Dickinson provided that structure for its greek life students, I think they had to chose the same dorms to live close together, though I could be mis-remembering that.
If Dickinson means more flexibility in the budget for the unpaid summer internships etc., that can make a difference as a student builds their summer experiences.
You might check in with @Lindagaf whose daughter was deciding between Kenyon and Dickinson, chose Kenyon,and then got off the wait list during the summer and chose that third option.
Since both schools are affordable, this is not a hard choice. It’s an easy one, and it should be the student’s choice.
One of D’s deciding factors for Kenyon over Dickinson (not an easy choice at all, btw) was that she knew Kenyon has excellent profs who she felt were a better bet for being consistently interesting. She also thought that perhaps the Kenyon kids were a little more “hip” and more academically strong, which appealed to her. But again, not an easy choice.
If your daughter wants to stand out, she might have a better chance of doing that at Dickinson. My D did not want to stand out and felt should would be solidly in the middle at Kenyon. So that is worth considering too.