<p>sstGO27…it’s too bad that some of the comments here from students/alumni make carleton sound elitist. That is not the impression I want for my Alma Mater. It sucks. In my opinion you’re right, there is only a good fit for you. I’ve seen students at Carleton and elsewhere make a decision based on rank, and I’ve seen that this can often lead to college experiences that are a disaster…where people end up transfering out after a year or worse. I get pretty frustrated with friends and especially family that point to rank as something important.</p>
<p>As for elitism, sure some Carls are elitist. You’d probably find that anywhere though. I mean Carleton is expensive, and people get in because thier parents can pay the entire tuition. I can’t say I’m from a really rich background…no prep school, middle class, and grandson of Irish immigrants with no education. The rich prep school kids where an adjustment and new experience for me…can’t say they lessened my experience any…and they weren’t everybody. They had unique perspectives that I learned from and just laughed off.</p>
<p>Thanks so much, jack63! Your explanation was much more clearly explained than the reports I had read which simply said “a lot of people here are elitist” or something to that effect. Also, thanks for the perspective on choosing college based on rank. I wish more people shared this attitude.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Is this SAY character even a Carleton student/alum?</p></li>
<li><p>I respect the school and could even see why someone might prefer it to Carleton, no hate here, but enough with the ridiculous Brandeis ■■■■■■■■. Is it widely considered acceptable on College Confidential to rush to defend your fave school in any and all threads mentioning it regardless of the forum? Not my style.</p></li>
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<p>No I did not attend Carleton. I spent a year at Penn and graduated from Northwestern. I only looked at this site because I have a family member asking my advice. GO27 I clearly stated that no one should pick any school based on exact ranking and I never said that Brandeis was anything other than a very good top 35 school. But you high schoolers are fooling yourselves if you don’t think that some schools are better than others. The student bodies of elite schools are very different from the good schools because of the overall quality of the students. You are also fooling yourself if you think that lots of students turn down ivy schools to attend schools like the ones on your list(even Carleton). I went to a very large high school and went to good colleges and met no one at Penn or NW that turned down HPYS. There are many reasons to attend slightly lesser schools such as better FA, location, or playing varsity sports but overall most high school students attend the best schools(within a range of 5-10 schools) to which they are admitted. Go look at your own high schools and try to find the students admitted to the top 10 or 15 that choose to attend much lower ranked schools. Now B77 says that I choose the USNWR Rankings because it favors Carleton. This is nonsense. The USNWR rankings are the most influential because they stand up to scrutiny and are accepted by most educated people to be relatively accurate. As I stated before one can argue about the rankings by 5 or even 10 places but do you really want to claim that Penn is 61st , Cornell 71st, and Duke 80th. GO27 you should certainly go where ever you feel most comfortable regardless of ranking but that would be based on your personal choice not the overall quality of the schools on your list. Based on quality Carleton and Brandeis are head and shoulders above the other schools</p>
<p>Trying to bring this back to the OP’s questions after some battling posts between our welcome visiting alums from Northwestern (SAY) and Brandeis (B77):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Without rehashing, I’ll second the detailed, excellent points about Carleton made by dietcokewithlime</p></li>
<li><p>I’ll add that I view the administration as extremely accessible by comparison to virtually any university. Compared to other LACs? Probably more visible than most, at least as responsive.</p></li>
<li><p>General advice, SSTGO27: The three schools outside of Carleton you’re considering are unusual in that they are all pretty niche and, for the most part, niche in different ways. As you say, for the right person, potentially a great niche, a great fit. Brandeis is under-recognized, in my opinion, for its excellent academics. But even by standards of the economic downturn today, it has been very publicly hurting financially in a disproportionate way. Hampshire I know only in context of its membership in the group of 5 and very (very) liberal reputation. I’m guessing you didn’t support McCain in the last election. New College is an unusual place I had read a bit about because of its unique qualities. Make sure you’re comfortable with its very small size and working relationship with USF. I know the school’s posted unusually low 6 year graduation rates - I’d suggest you confirm this and, if accurate, try to find out why - often a red flag.</p></li>
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<p>Good luck. Kudos for the creative considerations. Nobody will ever accuse you of coming up with another boring college list.</p>
<p>I think 1190’s post has it right and I apologize if my posts were seen as combative. But I’ve been through all this including getting a professional degree from an elite school. Where you attend law school for example does matter. If you plan to attend top grad schools where you go to college does matter. Very few if any of my classmates came from schools like those other three on GO27’s list. The same thing goes for hiring as the opportunities for grads from the top 15 schools is vastly different from schools below the top 30. Virtually every partner at top firms come from the top schools. This may not be fair and I’m sure there are some fine lawyers that didn’t attend top schools but that’s the way it is.</p>
<p>I agree with 1190 that Brandeis is under-recognized by USNWR. But in the real world of academic recognition, in grad school placement and the ultimate success of its alumni, it is at no deficit. Carleton College may be highly ranked by USNWR among small liberal arts colleges, but this Minnesota college, while I’m sure a great school, is hardly a household name. That’s what I call “niche.” As for Brandeis’ financial issues, they are not materially different than those of other major universities in this economy. However, given the University’s renown and that of its world-famous Rose art museum which was the subject of some of the school’s financial proposals, its financial situation has garnered disproportionate attention. In fact it is maintaining financial aid and launching innovative academic proposals–demonstrating its commitment to students. Guys, these repeated attempts to belittle other institutions based on subjective rankings rather than speak to the qualities of your own are transparent. These posts are not “tactful” they’re arrogant.</p>
<p>Thanks, SAY. I also thought (apparently incorrectly) that I had pretty tactfully segued back to the original post and away from hijacked listings of Brandeis’ virtues on a Carleton thread. Did I mistakenly understand the OPs 7 questions about Carleton on a Carleton site to be specific to “this Minnesota college” (why do I have a feeling B77 is not from the midwest)? </p>
<p>And I suppose I should defend myself for accusing Brandeis of being “under-recognized for its excellent academics” (sorry, B77, I made no comment about US News rankings) and “very publicly hurting financially.” This latter point was obviously not well received by the interloper. If he would like me to clarify further, I would be happy to provide innumerable links to the campus newspaper, its blogs, leading national newspapers, and leading journals of higher education - all of which have much more to say on this matter than I have. </p>
<p>The OP had wisely also posted his questions on the Brandeis site to gain the perspective of those there in the know. B77, appropriately in this case, also provided a detailed and similar response there. Visiting us, it seems clear he has decided to branch out. In the future, if he ventures this far from home, I’d suggest he be more open to differing points of view. And, by the way, “Minnesota nice” knows its limits. Since words like “belittle” and “arrogant” mean the same thing here in the midwest they do in Waltham, you may want to be a wee bit more selective in their use.</p>
<p>I would like to point out that the posts which have discussed “rankings” or belittled other colleges have not been written by any students, alumni, or parents of Carleton. That’s not the Carleton way.</p>
<h2>met no one at Penn or NW that turned down HPYS.</h2>
<p>That’s probably because Penn and NW are roughly the same type of institutions (and same size) as HPYS. I would choose HYPS too if given the options. Apart from being more prestigious, HYP offer a traditional/classical liberal-arts undergrad education. (The fact that Penn even offers business degree for undergraduates is a big big negative for me.) </p>
<p>I think you would find more people turning down HYPS at schools that are of a different type (size) but offers just as good an education.</p>
<p>I never said or meant to imply that HPYS are the only great schools or that one can’t get a fabulous education in at least 20-30 other University/LAC. My point was that in real life almost all students end up choosing the best college for themselves among a group of closely matched(5-15 positions) schools. Now there are exceptions based on FA, D-1 sports, or specialty considerations for a small number of students. But if you go and talk to recent graduates at local high schools you will very rarely find one choosing a school ranked 50-60th if they were admitted to any top 20 school. I had a number of siblings and friends and I know of no one who made such a decision. Now to be fair a big part of the reason is that the payor(parents) usually want to get the most perceived value for their expensive investment.</p>
<p>Although I haven’t yet been a student there, I just can’t see Carleton as being elitist when it has so little name recognition among the public at large.</p>
<p>Person: “So, where are you going to college next year?”
Me: “Carleton.”</p>
<p>Scenario A (about 10% of the time)–
Person: “Oh, cool!”</p>
<p>Scenario B (a good 90% of the time)–
Person: --blank stare–
Me: “It’s in Minnesota.”
Person: “Oh, [insert comment about the cold weather].”</p>
<p>I get the impression that a lot of Carleton students could attend some of the bigger-name schools if they chose. Instead, they choose Carleton, because they know how awesome it is and they don’t mind if their friends and family members haven’t heard of it. I think that’s cool. :)</p>
<p>mflevity, I get the same reactions when I am asked where my son is going to school. But I think that the same thing would happen if he was attending any other top LAC, such as Amherst, Williams, or Swarthmore. Most people only know the school they attended and a handful of others unless they’re academics or have a kid who has gone through or is preparing to go through the admissions process–and not always this last group.</p>
<p>For people in academia, Carleton is known and admired; for others, not so much. But Carleton shares this situation with other top LACs.</p>
<p>I’ve found that anyone who’s put more than an ounce of effort into researching colleges is very much aware of Carleton. Those less interested in the broad landscape of higher education in America and more regionally-oriented (in mind and place) will often only know primarily the Iviest-Ivys and their local State U’s. … I had dinner with three economics professors this week at Centre College (in Kentucky!). When they asked where my daughters went to school, not only were they all very well informed about Carleton, but about the College of Wooster as well.</p>
<p>I’d like to say several things as a final post, before this becomes too much about things unrelated to life at Carleton:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>To 1190 - just FYI - New College used to lend their campus to USF (who wanted a Sarasota campus) during times of financial difficulty. It has been many years since then and New is now a completely separate entity, officially Florida’s Honors College (compare to St. Mary’s in Maryland). Also, the school is so tiny because they actually cap the student body at 800. Just thought that was interesting. The best I can say to explain away their low graduation rate is that schools like Hampshire and New that have alternative academic programs are not compatible with everyone; even top-notch students may have trouble navigating the system. Therefore, many people find that they can’t handle it and they drop out to go to more traditional schools (like the others on my list). Also, these schools are not necessarily niche in different ways. They are pretty much a similar niche, but nobody would guess that because it’s a mix of LACs, universities, public, private, alternative program, traditional program, etc. However, I did ridiculously extensive research in finalizing my college list, and you may be surprised to know how similar the six aforementioned schools (and two at which I was waitlisted - Swat and Vassar) are. Of course they all have tremendous differences that make them unique as well!</p></li>
<li><p>To SAY - I can’t speak for your grad program; however, I have a specific graduate program in mind and have contacted schools to ask if some colleges look better than others when applying to professional school. The responses I’ve gotten have been along the lines of “It matters much more HOW you did than WHERE you went.” Of course, they said, they consider schools when comparing two applicants with equal records. In that case, I’ve been told by one institution, Brandeis=Carleton=Oberlin=Swarthmore-Vassar, New=Hampshire, and Clark isn’t far behind. Another institution said that they have students who graduated from all of those schools, and they actually seem to like Hampshire students a lot for some reason! In conclusion, many extremely competitive professional programs educate people coming from schools all over the USNWR rankings!</p></li>
<li><p>To fireflyscout - I noticed that too. This certainly leaves a good impression of Carleton.</p></li>
<li><p>mflevity and limner - I get the same reaction about all of my schools :)</p></li>
<li><p>Everyone - I didn’t mean for this to be a whole thing about USNWR/prestige/whatever! Sorry if some unintentional tension has been created between Carleton and Brandeis - they are both wonderful schools that are completely equal in my eyes!</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, thanks to all who answered my questions. I really appreciate it and have an even clearer and more positive view of Carleton than I did before! I haven’t made a decision yet, but I know all the answers I’m getting here and on the Brandeis, New, and Hampshire boards are going to help me a lot! </p></li>
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<p>(By the way, I’m female, for those of you who were saying “him” in past posts!)</p>
<p>sstGO27, good luck with your decision. You’re approaching it very thoughtfully, so I think whatever you decide will be right.</p>
<p>I, personally, think Carleton is the antithesis of elite in many ways. The students seem to be open, unpretentious, and nonjudgmental. Obviously, that’s a generalization and merely an observation, so take it for what it’s worth. And good luck wherever you go!</p>