My kid has 2 labs in addition to her 4 lectures/seminars, and a couple of discussion sections too. Still 4 credits, still 4 classes, each one adding to her gpa the same. That’s just what it is with some classes.
@TheGFG, the simplistic measures we use:
- During campus visits, ask students of majors my son is interested in either a) how many hours on average they study per week or b) how many hours they study for each hour of class time. Athletes in particular seem to have very busy schedules and tend to have a good handle on these metrics.
- Look on the Niche web site (sorry if heresy to mention here) in the student poll section of the academics tab and look at answer to question “The workload is easy to manage” It is clearly an imperfect measure but you can glean some relative workload difference by manually comparing the charts of multiple schools.
1 course credit per course seems simple—until you realize that colleges that use the course credit model often have 0.5 course credit classes (often physical education or private music lessons or somesuch), making it not as hyper-simple as it looks at first glance.
I’d like to resurrect this thread for a bit because the discussion of consortia in the thread about the advantages of small LAC’s raised an interesting issue. As mentioned, Bryn Mawr is D’s reach school but it is in the same consortium as Haverford and Swarthmore, both of which made top 10 on a ranking list for “most rigorous colleges.” It’s hard to fathom how Bryn Mawr’s rigor would not be very similar to that of Haverford and Swarthmore or else the partnership would not work very well. Or is that a wrong conclusion? Indeed, based on the reports of tour guides and that independent online student ranking website, the kids don’t perceive a difference in rigor between BM and Haverford. (Those are the two that collaborate the most. It is unlikely D would need to take classes at Swarthmore or Penn, but cross-registration is permitted.) Doesn’t the Claremont consortium have schools of slightly different ranking levels? How does that work for them?
However, BM did not make that “most rigorous” list, is ranked lower on USNWR, and its acceptance rate is higher than that of the other schools in the consortium. In all fairness, though, half of the student population who could apply is eliminated right from the start. To complicate the analysis, one reason BM is on D’s list is that it is test optional, which could skew the rankings somewhat too. Knowing D’s weakness in math, we had been targeting mostly test optional schools. That said, D’s recent ACT score, though not stellar, does fall above BM’s 25% average ACT score. Should that serve as a sign she could probably handle the work at BM if accepted?
And now the reverse question: From day one D preferred Haverford to BM because it’s co-ed, after freshman year it’s easy to get a single, it has a much better team in her sport, and the track is located at Haverford. I didn’t think before that she’d be able to get in, but now I think it might be possible with a little help from the coach. Since she’d still be majoring over at Bryn Mawr anyway because all of the majors of interest are based there, I’m wondering how relevant Haverford’s rigor would be?
@TheGFG - How much math does your D’s major (or grad school interests) require? Sometimes students at these types of schools who are relatively weak at math can get by with a statistics class that is not calc-based, or with a semester or two of calculus.
Will she be taking any of the basic sciences required as part of the pre-med curriculum? If she needs to take classes such as gen chem or intro environmental science as pre-requisites for upper-level archaeology classes, can she choose to take them over the summer at an easier school or use AP credit?
frazzled, D will not need to take any math or hard science except to meet any distribution requirements. She will be focusing on social science and humanities. She is currently taking AP Bio, but I kind of doubt she’ll score higher than a 3. The one aspect of the archaeology curriculum that might be problematic is the geographic information systems (GIS) program. I don’t know how techy that system is.
to the OP: as a LAC (BMC actually) alum with a kid heading to a LAC to play sports next year, a few thoughts. I would focus on competitive vs. collaborative communities, rather than work load per se. Especially as an athlete, an environment which is about your own best work academically, rather than competing against your peers, would be a healthy choice. Both BMC and Hford culturally have been places where collaboration and support matters more than being better than the student next to you. My own view – as someone who lived at Hford and did most of my classes there – is that Hford and Bryn Mawr academics are on par. Hford is more difficult to be admitted to these days, but the academics between the two schools once you are on either campus are comparable. Some departments will be stronger on one campus or the other, and some are stronger by design (BMC’s art history and archaeology programs, for instance, or at least historically, Hford’s Philosophy dept) as the schools give each other some breathing room so they don’t each have to excel at everything.
At the same time – Haverford is famously difficult to predict about athletic recruit admissions. The NY Times ran a series several years ago where they had followed several Hford coaches, with consent, through a year of recruiting and admissions. There were some hard truths in there, about kids not getting in. Over on the Athletic recruit board, under Admissions, there are some very angry parents who were stung by recruiting Hford, kids chose Hford among several strong options, applied ED and were rejected, and the kid was then scrambling to find a suitable ED2 school after most teams/programs had filled out their rosters. Hford, more than many strong LACs, seems to have more unpredictability in the admissions of recruits. I would not rely on coach support at Hford to get a bump, as even the most highly qualified candidates, supported by their coach, have been rejected.
Dickinson, also on your list, is a neat school, gorgeous campus (the stone buildings reminded me of Hford), and seems to have much more straightforward recruiting process. Gorgeous athletic facilities, and merit money, up to $20k a year, based on stats. We were very impressed, a lot of good stuff happening at Dickinson. One consideration might be, however, that Dickinson has greek life and I believe sororities have higher participation than fraternities, so for a female student, that could be an uncomfortable environment if that is not what they are looking for. Then again, the Dickinson coach in my kid’s sport said he had created ways to discourage greek life for his players so that now, he has no kids on his team in greek life. It may be that in your daughter’s sport, the coach has taken a similar approach.
Good luck, an exciting time.
Yes, I saw the comments about Haverford’s athletic recruiting and was troubled by it. I had hoped after the negative publicity that changes would be made going forward. I wonder if things have changed.
Actually, Dickinson is my #1 choice for D for a lot of reasons (not thrilled with the Greek life aspect tho). My only concern is distance and public transportation options, since D is the sort of kid who may need to be closer to home.
Midwestmomofboys, what is your take on the workload at BMC? We were attracted by the nurturing feel, but that doesn’t necessarily diminish the intensity.
@TheGFG There were renewed complaints about Hford recuiring this season on the Athletic Recruit board, granted only a small set, but when you give up recruiting opportunities at other desirable schools, it would be tough to think, for my family at least, that there really wasn’t much certainty in the process when your student’s application is being supported.
Dickinson is 2 hours from Philly and Pittsburgh, and an hour or so from Harrisburg. I think that location actually “depresses” its perception on the east coast, because it lacks the accessibility that other east coast LACs have. BMC is a neat place, though not for everyone. Conn, which you had mentioned, is also intriguing. We visited with my prospective athlete, and found the campus lovely, and the students a blend of artsy and somewhat preppy. My kid didn’t warm to the coach or program, so it came off our list for that reason, but was intriguing to me. Has a strong Honor code, like Bryn Mawr and Haverford, no greek life. Of course, as a NESCAC school, no merit aid, only financial aid, to the extent that is a priority.
Good luck!
I liked Conn a lot too. All the kids on tour with D, however, were boarding school and prep school kids so I wondered about social fit for a middle class kid. The gender balance there is 38 M/ 62 F which is not ideal, but better than an all-girls school!
PS, could you pls link the Haverford discussion if it’s not too much trouble? I don’t see anything that looks like it on the athletic recruit board.
@TheGFG I went searching for the anti-Hford thread, and cannot find it. I recall it having “Beware” in the title, but it is not turning up. That is the thread where a parent went ballistic about feeling they had been led-on by Hford coach.
I may be remembering more recently that parents responded to a number of D3 recruiting threads with experience about Hford, so those are not turning up as a single thread. Of course, I may be mis-remembering about timing of complaints. Entirely possible, since I can’t remember, often, why I went upstairs, at home . . . . Bottom line, I would be cautious about Hford coach ability to get a kid in ED and really do diligence on the program and on admissions.
We had similar experience at Conn, in that many of the families seemed to be “slumming” it, in between visits to Yale etc. and were clearly a different economic bracket than we were . . … Spending time in the coffee shop in the library, the Art building, and the athletic facility, it did seem like a range of types of students though. The gender split does favor guys, like my kid, though.
Ok, the Beware thread is the same one I read, which I think was from last year. Thanks for looking.
The mention of consortia and equivalent rigor is an interesting one. My oldest is currently considering a couple schools in the Five Colleges Consortium, which is (alphabetically) Amherst College+Hampshire College+Mt Holyoke College+Smith College+the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From being on CC for a while now, it’s pretty clear that the rigor among those schools isn’t seen as anywhere near equivalent—but, like @TheGFG said in #63, it’s hard to imagine a consortium doing well if rigor among the participants isn’t effectively equivalent—and this is a pretty strong consortium, not just allowing cross-registration of courses, but even of major curricula.
It leads me to wonder if maybe differences in rigor across universities are a bit overhyped, if all of those five seem to work together that well.
I suspect that cross-registration in the 5 college consortium is a very self-selecting process. Not only is it intimidating from a social/intellectual/fear of failure point of view to take classes at another college, but it is also very time consuming due to travel. As I understand it, most of the students at UMass don’t even consider taking a class at the smaller colleges because classes in the same subject undoubtedly are taught at UMass anyway, so why bother? Meanwhile, the students at the smaller colleges mostly take consortium classes because the particular subject is not available due to the size limitations of their school.
I imagine that the students that do choose to cross-register are, on the whole, the most driven students, the ones who are most interested in a particular nuance of academia, the ones willing to overcome obstacles and take academic risks to do so - hence the subset of students best equipped to succeed no matter which college they come from.
There were students from the other colleges, UMass (I met that kid, he partnered with D the day I sat in) and Hampshire and one more I forget which, in my D’s Spanish 2 class. Spanish 2 is hardly unique to Amherst. Maybe they just liked the small class size? The schedule? Wanted a break?
6,000 students a year cross register. Since the combined student body of the 4 LACs is only 8k, I think UMass kids must account for a decent chunk of it.
Fair enough. I was relying on anecdotes, not statistics.
Both of my kids were accepted to Mount Holyoke. My sense is that due to logistics, students might take a couple of cross registration classes during their four years, but most don’t do a lot.
When we were on the Amherst tour, the guide said he didn’t know anyone who had taken a class at one of the other colleges, nor was he aware of anyone from the other colleges in his classes. He was pretty clearly brushing off the idea that an Amherst student would bother, or that a student from one of the other schools could compete in an Amherst class. Both not true, I am sure – he probably wasn’t the best ambassador for Amherst. At least we were not impressed.
That’s unfortunate that you got an awful guide like that intparent.
My D at Amherst knows students taking classes at UMass right now, but they tend to be specialized and upper level classes that are usually rarely are available at any liberal arts college. My understanding is that over 50 percent of the Amherst student body takes at least consortium class, and that the average student at Amherst takes 2 consortium classes by graduation.