<p>Since the beginning, D and I have agreed that Guilford sounds like a good fit for her, and we will be visiting later in the academic year. Recently, however, upon reading the Guilford board on "Student Reviews," I was surprised that, even discounting the expected handfull inane rants, the posts were consistently and passionaltely negative.</p>
<p>The comments that I found troubling fell into three categories:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>split on campus between athletes and others, especially the ultra-hippies (who knew sports were big or that athletes formed their own separte group at Guilford - - I figured Guilford would be like Hampshire, where the only "varsity" sport is ultimate frisbee);</p></li>
<li><p>many of the undergrad are not traditional students, but adults commuters;</p></li>
<li><p>many of the students transfer or attempt to transfer (Guilford's freshman retention rate is just above 70%).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Please, tell me something to put my mind at ease. I soooo want to like this school - - but not to the extend of sticking my head in the sand; if these are real issues, I want to investigate further before and, of course, during our visit.</p>
<p>Losing 30% or so of freshman is a big red flag. I still might not put much weight on unfiltered student reviews. See if you can find their NSSE report. It gives real satisfaction ratings.</p>
<p>Take a look at some like schools and see what the freshman retention rate and the 6 year graduation rate are. Also find out how many non traditional students they have and the % they take among the population. More importantly, find out if they are integrated among the full time students or if they are pretty much kept in the night and weekend programs. Many schools have a division where they take non traditional students. When they are not integrated with the day students, I don't see the problem. When they are and if there are many of them, it makes me uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Guilford's freshman retention rate seems right in keeping with other Tier 3 LACs. That's almost exclusively a function of the financial wealth of the student body.</p>
<p>I case you haven't figured it out, the review site you mentioned is primarily a place for high schoolers to post fictional reviews based on what they've "heard" about colleges and/or actual students who are miserable at their college to vent.</p>
<p>Thanks, I know that Guilford's retention rate is aobut the same as a number of public unis, where I suspect finances are an issue. I did expect a higher rate at a private LAC, but becasue Guilford's tier status was not on my radar, I had not put the numbers in that context.</p>
<p>As for the "Student Reviews" site, I did a spot check with D1's college and several others w/ which I am quite familiar. Those reviews contained details suggesting that they had been written by actual students in attendance - - and none of those schools' boards had the quantity or quality of negative reviews that appeared on the Guilford board. I'm sure many of the actual students are miserable and venting - - but that doesn't mean that some of their complaints aren't legit. Clearly, I didn't take the complaints as gospel</p>
<p>I'm not taking the student complains as gospel; maybe the "problems" I cited aren't real or significant issues - - but I do think some investigatin is warranted.</p>
<p>Princeton Review says Guilford has "added to its continuing education population, meaning students here range from 17 to 60-plus years old." It also ranks GC 16th in the country for Reefer Madness, and its all-around student ranking of various Quality of Life measures is a 74 on a 60-99 scale (so you can think of that as like a "C" on a test). I used to live five miles up the road from Guilford and go there from time to time. It's a pretty place, but the typical profile of the third-tier LACs is probably accurate. They have a pretty competitive small-college football and basketball program (remember NBA All-Star World B. Free?), so that crowd would contrast pretty sharply with the granola crowd.</p>
<p>The "reefer madness" - - no surprise; all the hippies school made the list (which, I guess is the same as the low frosh retention, par for the course among tier 3 schools). And while Guilford is at the bottom of the reefer list, it's #3 for lousy food - - also a source of complaint on "Student Reviews."</p>
<p>But I repeat - - who knew about the sports!</p>
<p>Getting back to freshman retention: I understand a low retention/graduation rate due to finances - - but those applying to transfer out are seeking greener pastures or more satisfaction "bang" for their buck, not dropping out for financial reasons, right?</p>
<p>Freshman retention rate is the number of students returning to start their sophmore year 12 months after arriving as a freshman, divided by the number who started as freshmen. It includes everyone who has left for any reason.</p>
Hippy or no-hippy, it's a school in the south, by God, and that means sports! :) UNC-A also has a bit of a hippy reputation and it's the same thing -- they still have a serious sports program. Warren Wilson College doesn't, but WW is way past a "typical" hippie school.</p>
<p>^^^ I was waiting for he-who-knows-much-about-NC-schools to weigh in, but I was hoping for answers to the other questions, not just a reminder of the importance of sports in the south.</p>
<p>I am not a student there, I visited with my DS earlier this year. I chose to visit because we are Quakers and I wanted my son to consider a Quaker school - but he hated it because he is majorly into sports and Guilford is emphatically not sports oriented (he also hated Hampshire). Our tour guide was a sports nut, who worked in the athletic department and she seemed to be in tight with many different people (for what that is worth.) The things I liked about Guilford were the small class sizes, the President's open door policy, high faculty involvement with students and great student support (tutoring, writing). The cafeteria is small but is very supportive of special food needs - they had a gluten free section because one student needed it. For a school its size, it has a strong study abroad program and has a high rate of students going onto graduate school. Traditionally, Quaker schools are excellent in terms of education. Quakers are not into "converting" people, but the guide did reference that the school is run according to the Quaker principles of SPICES (Simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, stewardship.)</p>
<p>LOL. Wish I could help more but, strangely, Guilford was one of the few schools in NC that my son did not look at at all. Hard to say why, I think it was too close to his Grandmother who lives just down the road a few miles -- I think he might have been concerned about unscheduled visits. </p>
<p>The Grandmother in question, a retired teacher, thinks quite highly of Guilford. Yes, it's somewhat counter-cultural, and IMHO as the school gets smaller it probably becomes more important to find a good social fit. The athlete thing I wouldn't worry about, to tell you the truth -- whatever "split" exists is probably far less important than one or two high-profile incidents indicate. And in the incidents that I'm aware of, the campus clearly supported the non-athlete side of the argument. </p>
<p>The 70% retention rate doesn't strike me as unusual for Guilford's peer institutions -- visit collegeresults.org and search for similar colleges and check out comparative retention and graduation rates. </p>
<p>I hope you reserve judgement until after you visit, and I especially hope your D does an overnight. That will give her time to really assess how strong her "feel" for the campus is. Good luck!</p>
<p>PS -- No to the UNC question! UNC-A are the Bulldogs and UNC-W are the Seahawks!</p>
<p>Just for fun....UNC Greensboro are the Spartans, UNC Pembroke are the Braves, UNC Charlotte are the Forty-Niners</p>
<p>My h.s. senior niece is being recruited for her sport by Guilford(among others) . They have been for a visit and thought the campus impressive. They were especially impressed when they drove in the parking lot and there was a space with niece's name on it,lol. Niece is not the hippie type at all. I'll be interested to get the full review when I see her next week at the family Christmas gathering. </p>
<p>My grandmother's family were Quakers. She and her twin sister attended Guilford. Grandma got homesick and quit but her twin graduated in 1918. I have her diploma on the wall at our house.</p>
<p>Back in 2002, DS and I visited and he did an overnight. With the combination of small size and very eclectic students, DS wondered out loud if there would be anyone he would have anything in common with. He never applied.</p>
<p>Packmom, I have never been to Guilford nor High Point. I did meet a non-traditional student who attends High Point. She told me that one visits they also have your name in a parking lot space. LOL, is this turning into "a southern thing"?</p>
<p>Friend's daughter had a parking lot space with her name when visiting a MN LAC so not just a southern thing.</p>
<p>We visited Guilford on a college tour in 2007; my memories are a little sketchy because none of us found it a fit for D, but my memory is that the nontraditional students are largely a separate population. (Could they affect the freshman retention rate if they are not consistently pursuing their degree?) I do remember that our tour guide was a softball player, but the sports facilities weren't particularly impressive so I think it would be a stretch to call it a sports school. (Our midwestern HS football stadium was larger than theirs.) The tour guide made a big point to contrast it with Elon, if you are familiar with it, saying she can't believe that some people look at both because they are so different.</p>
<p>Is your son more the quirky student or preppy? That can be an issue. My son is more athletic but found that he was not comfortable at those schools with a lot of Greeks. He also did not want an overwhelming quirk population. Bard, Oberlin, Hampshire were out for that reason, and a number of southern schools were out because of the heavy Greek scene. </p>
<p>It seems to me every school has incidents with their athletic teams and Greeks. If you look at their campus incidents blotter, it is pretty apparent. Even schools that are tech school that do not have that reputation. </p>
<p>My advice is to bundle those school with the selectivity and size and offerings that Guilford has and check out those stats. If they are typical, they you just found that the unhappy kids have found bulletin boards to sound off. If the numbers are up there, it can be an issue at a school. Also check the non traditional students policies and numbers. That can affect the atmosphere at a school. The other thing to check is the number/% of kids who are living on campus in dorms. That, too, affects the atmosphere of a school. In a large school, it isn't as important if you have a large number of kids on campus even if many commute or live in apartments off campus, but if the school housing tends to be apartments, spread out in the community with lots of off campus kids and commuters, it does affect the atmosphere of the school.</p>
<p>D is quirky, black and athletic, so finding the right "fit" is likely to be tricky, as it was for your S. At D's hs there is little overlap between the quirky students and the black students, so I loooking for a college with ample numbers of both. D also wants warm weather (my preferably is NC, where I have family) and I'm not a fan of Greek life. Like I said, I feel your pain.</p>
<p>As for the "incidents," I have no idea what they were (hence my post #17), nor have I suggeted that whatever occurred is more likely to occur at Guilford or more of a problem at Guilford. An earlier post referred to high-profile incidents, I was just wondering what happened (since whatevere it was, was not high-profile enough to have been a blip on my radar).</p>
<p>Re Warren Wilson and sports, it's true that the college doesn't offer athletic scholarships. But its mountain bike team has finished in the top 3 in the national collegiate championships for 6 straight years.</p>