how is this college?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Trinity College (Connecticut)
21

<p>^Thanks for an honest response. Each college is required to report safety/crime statistics in its yearly CLERY report, and publish this information online. There is a high level of disciplinary referrals at Trinity for drinking and drug use. In fact, of the colleges that my son is looking at, Trinity is the most extreme. It makes Boston U. and even UC Santa Barbara – which has a reputation in California as a party school – look like girl scout camps in comparison.</p>

<p>My gut reaction to this is…yuk. I don’t really want to pay around $50,000 per year to have my son live in this kind of environment, and as a outdoorsy, mountain-climbing sort of person, it isn’t what he wants, either. I taught a semester at Stanford University a couple of years ago and met two undergraduates, then seniors, who had become alcoholics in college. It’s not what anyone expects, on the day that the fat envelope arrives, or on the day the family sends the son off to college, full of hopes and good wishes. But it can happen. And according to Stanford’s statistics, even that campus doesn’t come close to Trinity.</p>

22

<p>When talking to a current student (URM) last year about Trinity College he said that A LOT of the “preppy white kids” look down on the minorities.</p>

23

<p>

This isn’t true of the vast majority of the students from my experience. But I can see how people can make that assumption, especially if one does not take the time to get to know the people one is making assumptions about.</p>

24

<p>CalAlum,</p>

<p>I am the parent of a freshman female at Trinity who totally abstains from alcohol/substances and leads a very healthy lifestyle. I do not dispute the report you referred to, but can tell you that my daughter loves Trinity, both academically and socially, and we are very thrilled with her enthusiasm for the college. She has made several close friends who also abstain and finds plenty to do other than party at frats. She works hard academically, goes to Cinestudio, attends concerts and plays, hangs out in friends’ rooms, runs, attends games, goes to religious events, does community service, and gets off campus on occasion using the free bus pass provided by the school. </p>

<p>Trinity is in a city, so I am not sure about how your outdoorsy son would like it. I can offer that the freshman year beings with the (optional) Quest outdoor backpacking program of either 5 or 10 days and is a wonderful bonding experience. The President of the college attends it and endorses it as one of the best experiential education programs around. The school runs it itself with students and staff and does not outsource it. They explore the Appalachian trail. At least one of the staff is also a full time campus employee who runs the Outing Club. I know they have backpacking, hiking, rock climbing, fishing trips. Look around the website for more info. The guys name is Josh Cantor. My daughter went on one of the fall hikes and loved it. Connecticut is pretty scenic. even if Hartford is not!</p>

<p>Good luck with your decision.</p>

25

<p>I attended Trinity from 04-08. The majority of students are not at all involved with drugs. Over my four years I didn’t actually see anyone doing anything. It’s there, but it’s not in your face. I also did not see any evidence of anyone being looked down on. Another trend that is happening rather quickly, but which might not be reflected in the image of the school yet, is that the culture is quickly diversifying away from being purely preppy. Even while I was there it was noticeable how different the classes were.</p>

<p>There are a few things I recommend considering about Trinity besides just the short term ratings:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The professors are excellent, and they are 100% focused on teaching undergraduates. Professors choose Trinity because they want to teach. There are no other requirements distracting them from this goal. The professors I took the most courses with had PhDs from Stanford, Princeton, Harvard(x2), and UPenn.</p></li>
<li><p>The curriculum is very flexible. You are free to do as much as you want to do. I double majored in engineering and philosophy with an applied math minor. I was able to perform year-long research for honors in both engineering and philosophy. How many schools will let you do that? I would not consider myself a special case either - many of my peers in engineering double majored across a range of departments and still graduated in four years.</p></li>
<li><p>This school can prepare you for anything. Trinity is a small school, but the people I graduated with hold very competitive positions at GE, Goldman Sachs, United Technologies, and a range of other top financial and industrial firms. Just in the tiny engineering department in 2008, students who did not go to GE, GS, or UTC were accepted with fellowships to PhD programs at Yale, Cornell, Northwestern, Brown, UPenn, and other schools. Consistently about 70% of all Trinity graduates go on to earn graduate degrees. Trinity is a feeder school for any students who choose to use it as such.</p></li>
</ol>

26

<p>^Thank you.</p>

27

<p>Trinity is part of the old preppy network that included Williams, Amherst, Wes. etc. It didn’t fare as well in maintaining its spot as some of the other LAC’s, but that is why I said it has name recognition. It was at the top once, and is generally known in some circles. Of course, LAC’s don’t have the name recognition of Unis.</p>

<p>It offers an excellent education but has been plagued with reports of alcohol use.</p>

<p>That said, my S, at Williams, also saddled with that reputation, is a second semester junior who still can’t get through one beer and doesn’t drink anything else. He’s had no difficulties finding friends.</p>

<p>If your S is outdoorsy it might not be the best option.</p>

<p>I’m sorry he was deterred from CMC because I <em>do</em> think those kids are everywhere. It’s just a fact of life on most college campuses. The exception is very religious colleges and perhaps the women’s colleges have less drinking, though my D, who attended one, drinks more than my S, who obviously didn’t. She’s 23 now, and it’s never been a problem.</p>

<p>Good luck with your search. I am unclear about whether he was accepted or this is just a junior scoping out options. If he is very outdoorsy Colorado College is obvious choice, though of course there are others, like Williams.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

28

<p>^ My son is admitted to Trinity. Also admitted to Boston U., Willamette U., U.C. San Diego, U.C. Santa Barbara; waitlisted at Grinnell and at Emory University. He is focused on the schools where he’s been admitted.</p>

<p>One of his criteria when applying was a school where he could major or at least minor in Japanese. That cut down the list significantly. I’m also very sorry he struck CMC from his list when applying, because he could have studied Japanese at Pomona while taking International Studies at CMC. </p>

<p>He’s not religious; he’s a liberal atheist. Religious schools were never an option. He’d be happy going hiking every other weekend; I imagine he could make it happen almost anywhere.</p>

<p>He’s corresponded with two Trinity professors and will meet with them and some of their students to try to get a feel for the campus. We’re from Silicon Valley, where there’s not much of a “prep scene.” Most of the high-level executives at top technology companies here prefer to enroll their children in strong, highly diverse public schools. There is a lot of intermingling among students on these campuses. My son’s school has “open access” honors and AP classes, so he’s used to encountering brilliant students from a wide range of socioeconomic levels and ethnic backgrounds. The kind of bias I’ve read about on this site is not something he has encountered, frankly. I think he’d regard it as sort of juvenile.</p>

<p>I have my own bias toward the sciences and engineering, and so I’m perfectly ready to believe that the culture among the engineering students at Trinity is different. But they are a small group, I’ve discovered. Less than 9 percent of the student body.</p>

<p>We’ll see. In the end, he may choose Williamette, which threw an enormous merit scholarship at him and has a very strong program in Japanese and a close relationship with next-door Tokyo International University.</p>

29

<p>Is your son also interested in science and engineering, or mainly just Japanese?</p>

<p>There are certainly different academic cultures in different departments at Trinity. All majors have their excellent students, but the not-so-excellent students tend to congregate more in certain departments.</p>

<p>There is a relatively large private school presence on campus, but there are an equal number of public school students. There is also a smaller but significant international group.</p>

<p>Overall I found the campus to be very open and accepting. There isn’t a huge variety in the social activities, but between club and varsity sports, academic clubs, and the frats, pretty much everyone finds something. Those who don’t fit in with the somewhat limited (but open) social scene can be very unhappy. That is a rare though. The options are limited, but doors are open regardless of race or background to clubs, sports teams, and about half of the frats. Some of the frats and sororities try to be more exclusive, but it’s not targeted at any specific group. I chose to stay away from those for the most part. There is always at least one open door on Vernon or Allen where people are a lot more down to earth, so there’s no need to bother.</p>

<p>Other social options include the The Fred Pfeil Community Project, International House, EROS (GLBT club/house), PRAXIS (community service house), Hillel, etc. All of these are active, established, and respected on campus. They are well supported by the school, student government, and general student body. They also hold open events attended by everyone.</p>

<p>With the exception of the rare few who do not find something, it is very rare for anyone to leave campus on weekends. Students live and hang out on campus because of the community and activities offered. Almost everyone is involved in that community in some way.</p>

<p>Cliques form, but it’s not at all like high school. For example, the international students typically will all get together, know each other, and hang out. They are often seen together. But some of them will also play rugby with a cross section of the rest of the student body. The entire rugby team will then stick together on game day as best friends. I didn’t see much of any group looking down on another or being discriminatory. There are exceptions, of course, but it’s not systemic.</p>

<p>Oddly I’ve had to deal with a lot of cliquiness in the real world since graduation, but that’s another story. It’s been a shock.</p>

30

<br>

<br>

<p>TCEngnr08, can you elaborate on which departments? </p>

<br>

<br>

<p>CalAlum, can you point me towards these reports? Any idea if the vigorousness of the school in monitoring and disciplining incidents could be a factor?</p>

<p>My son’s other top option is Bard – I was concerned that might be too much of a hipster/stoner scene for him.</p>

31

<p>I don’t think it has anything to do with the departments themselves. It’s more the fact that anyone who doesn’t want to work as hard isn’t going to sign up for a differential equations or organic chemistry course. 50% of the student body majors in social sciences… so econ, political science, psychology, etc, are the default non-science majors.</p>

<p>I don’t have much first hand experience with any of those, but I didn’t get the impression that the quality of education was any lower in those areas. There were just more people skipping class in psych 101 and intro to the history of cinema than there were in calc 3. I suspect that you’d see the same thing at any school.</p>

<p>I can say that the students in engineering, math, physics, computer science, etc, were very good, with few exceptions. My philosophy advisor once asked me why engineers were always her best students. My guess is that it’s self selection. If you fall behind in the hard sciences, you don’t have a chance in upper level courses. If you think you might fall behind, you don’t sign up for a major with 27+ required credits. Other fields don’t build up as linearly.</p>

<p>Because of the very small number of people who actually major in physics or computer science, for example, you end up with a situation where there are more tenured faculty than declared majors. This creates some great opportunities for research, and it allows the faculty to teach upper level classes hand picked by the majors each year.</p>

<p>I don’t think this causes the other majors to be weak at all. I had a great experience academically as a philosophy major too. Overall I was impressed by the students at Trinity.</p>

32

<p>@WMassMom, Trinity’s report is here: <a href=“http://www.trincoll.edu/NR/rdonlyres/1839D9A6-0D70-470E-9018-3E6DD5C8C031/0/CampusSafety2008AnnualReport.pdf[/url]”>http://www.trincoll.edu/NR/rdonlyres/1839D9A6-0D70-470E-9018-3E6DD5C8C031/0/CampusSafety2008AnnualReport.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>We found each campus’s report by Googling the following terms:
Campus safety and crime statistics (that often worked the best)
or
CLERY annual report crime statistics</p>

<p>My son wants to major in English and minor in Japanese, or double major in those areas. But his next math course would be multivariable calculus, and math is his strongest subject, so in some irrational way, we keep hoping he’ll reconsider and think about math or physics. But in the end, he gets to choose.
:-)</p>

33

<p>^Thanks for the thoughtful response. My son was originally drawn to Trinity because of the Engineering program, but has since changed plans. He was accepted into the InterArts program and is very excited about it - I just hope that InterArts is really challenging and prepares him for a top graduate program.</p>

34

<p>CalAlum: Off topic, but <a href=“http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/fall09a.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/fall09a.pdf&lt;/a&gt; :)</p>

<p>I should mention that the humanities courses are not exactly easy either, they just don’t build as linearly as the sciences. One of my philosophy courses required a minimum of 50 pages of writing. In another, we read a different novel for each class (once a week). My friends at Yale were shocked :-/. Of course, it all depends on the individual professor in the end. There was a decent amount of variation.</p>

35

<p>WMassMom: Ah, best of luck to him. Some of my friends definitely enjoyed the arts at Trinity. If he takes advantage of it, I don’t doubt that it will be great experience. I was focused on other things, but my engineering lab partner enjoyed performing dance through college (while double majoring in math). A friend on the rugby team majored in theater and spent a semester acting in New York.</p>

<p>I have no idea if your son would be interested, but it should be possible to major in engineering and do the InterArts program. Engineers are already required to take at least 8 courses outside of math and science in order to graduate. That probably isn’t too useful if he’s interested more in the arts long term though.</p>

36

<p>Wonderful visit by daughter this week at Trinity. Would love to know more stats from recently admitted students etc.</p>

37

<p>My son and husband just finished visiting Trinity, and so these impressions are second-hand. I just finished speaking with them this afternoon. They thought the campus was beautiful, and the students were engaging and friendly. Despite Hartford’s horrible reputation on this board, neither of them found Hartford to be particularly frightening; in fact, Hartford has its charms. At least, that’s their conclusion!</p>

<p>The adcoms at Trinity were very upfront with everyone about the drinking/drug scene at Trinity. Apparently they characterized it this way, “Trinity has all the problems of society at large.” They claim to have seen some changes in the student population, which they described as becoming more bimodal: one section of the population, perhaps a slightly growing section, does not engage in drinking/drugs; another section of the population is drinking more heavily than ever. If a student is found passed out, or nearly passed out, a warning is issued the first time; a second incident brings counseling; a third incident brings expulsion (or so they said).</p>

<p>If my son were to attend, he’d be part of that small, but growing section that isn’t into drinking/drugs. I found it interesting that most of the individuals on this board assumed that he was a conservative Christian. He’s not. Just not into substance abuse.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the Japanese major/minor at Trinity has only two instructors, neither of whom are tenure-track faculty. After a close look and conversation with members of the department, it became apparent that the program there is just not broad and deep enough to really meet his needs. </p>

<p>I think Trinity should begin some serious recruiting among California public high schools, especially if they’d like to bring in more students like my son. The only reason he learned about the school was because, when he did a search on the College Board website for schools that offered Japanese and that “matched” his scores, Trinity was one of only around 60 schools in the country. None of us had heard of the school before (my apologies to any Bantams reading this). But it sounds as if Trinity has quite a lot to offer and is looking to recruit students beyond its historic prep-school applicant pool.</p>

38

<p>I agree with the Trinity administrator’s perceptions. </p>

<p>The wellness dorm is growing in popularity and is going to be housed in the historic renovated Long Walk building next year! Prime living space is being given to this group out of respect and recognition that these students are among the most responsible and respectful at the school. </p>

<p>The Fred, a community dedicated to providing social and intellectual events that are open to all and substance free, is also growing in stature. The Fred is in a lovely brand new campus building, all singles and quads. It is Trinity’s newest dorm. There is a large open space for gatherings on the first floor.</p>

<p>Trinity is serious about supporting these alternatives to the weekend drinking/party scene. I can vouch that you can be substance free and very happy at Trinity.</p>