<p>Scott, your daughter’s travel concerns are real. The only thing that might soften the trip is that there is a campus wide list-serve, where students from Seattle and Portland look for riders to share the drive with them to Whitman. There are lots of students from both cities, so I’d bet by the second semester she’d have friends she could hitch a regular ride with, but it’s still a road trip.</p>
<p>My son was very serious about Macalster also, it’s a great school! I really liked the location. However, for my son it was the weather, the outdoor opportunities (he’s taking kayaking class in the fall, there are three fabulous rivers very close by) and the tight-knit community at Whitman that won the day. Both schools have great academics.</p>
<p>Aloha Scott, I looked at the CDC for the retention rate for last year (95%):<a href=“http://www.whitman.edu/whitman/download.cfm?DownloadFile=ECC16C5F-0E1A-356C-7423C42CFA5AE1A5[/url]”>http://www.whitman.edu/whitman/download.cfm?DownloadFile=ECC16C5F-0E1A-356C-7423C42CFA5AE1A5</a>. It varies a bit from year to year, of course. As for travel, I just booked plane tickets for my son’s freshman year move-in in august. Son will going early for a Scramble, flying directly into Walla Walla (after connecting in Seattle). W and I will join him a few days later, flying into Pasco (after connecting in SFO). The price of the Pasco ticket was no more than tickets to Seattle or Portland, and much more convenient. The ticket to Walla Walla was about $100 bucks more, but well worth it in my view. The take away point for us is that there are direct flights to walla walla from Seattle, and to Pasco from SFO. </p>
<p>Sounds like your D is looking at some great schools. S1 is at Carleton, which he loves, and if you have any questions, I’d be happy to try to answer them. S2 chose Whitman over L&C and Willamette after much soul-searching ( especially Willamette). Both of my boys visited Mac but decided not to apply for reasons unknown. Looked like a nice school to me!</p>
<p>Whitman is currently my no. 2 choice slightly behind Vassar, but these two schools have really separated from the pack for me, with Bates a couple notches down at third. </p>
<p>I know Whitman isn’t the most prestigious and isn’t always that highly ranked but I don’t care much about prestige and the Whitman education seems amazing in most every way. As someone interested in pre-med or economics, how are these programs at Whitman? Also, I see myself probably attending grad school, so how successful are Whitties in getting into top notch grad schools, particularly Stanford and UChicago? I read in ‘Colleges That Change Lives’ that Whitman students have an “in” at UChicago? Is that true?</p>
<p>“I read in ‘Colleges That Change Lives’ that Whitman students have an “in” at UChicago? Is that true?”</p>
<p>No, that’s ridiculous. If you’re applying to a liberal arts master’s program, it might help to be from a well known liberal arts college, but it’s not too competitive to get into such cash cow programs in the first place.</p>
<p>On the other hand, most PhD programs don’t care where you went to college; they care what you did there. However, the PhD acceptance rates at Chicago, Stanford, et al. are going to be below 5% most of the time. That means that only the best of the best are going to get in, which means that it helps a lot to have glowing recommendation letters from rock-star professors with Nobel Prizes.</p>
<p>Preston, you need more hard evidence than random opinions on the internet. I pulled out my copy of Colleges That Change Lives, and Loren Pope did indeed make that statement. You should contact the Whitman Economics Department and ask about grad school outcomes for students from their department. I think there is discussion about pre-med in this thread up stream a bit.</p>
<p>Peston, I know a girl who graduated two years ago from Whitman who is now entering her second year in a graduate program at Yale–just happened upon this thread and thought I would throw my .02 in. There are fewer liberal arts colleges in the west than the east, but I would say that, in addition to the Claremont Colleges, Whitman has one of the best academic reputations of them all. The students I know (quite a few) who attend Whitman love it, but they are mostly students who attend from the Portland metro area and either drive (carpool) or fly to Pasco.</p>
<p>SJTH, anecdotal evidence is good. I attended a Whitman event for prospective students in San Mateo several years ago. The format was a presentation by history professor David Schmitz, an inspiring speaker, who gave a compelling argument for pursuing a liberal arts education. Then Whitman alumni from the Bay Area formed a panel and answered questions from the high school students. The members of the panel were unbelievably accomplished; 2 with grad degrees from Harvard; one from Stanford; one recent graduate of Whitman who had just been hired by Google; and an African woman who had gone to grad school somewhere in the midwest (Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan? Sorry it was a while ago.) who was currently an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco and running a huge non-profit that helped educate girls in her home country. These people were successful, articulate, engaged and they all said Whitman’s education thoroughly prepared them for grad school.</p>
<p>Clearly Loren Pope was making reference to some special relationship that the Economics Dept at Whitman has or had with the Economics Graduate School at U of Chicago. It may or may not still exist, the world does change, but clearly going to Whitman is no impediment to getting into stellar grad programs.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses! Obviously getting into grad school is primarily dependent on how you perform in college, but I guess I was mainly wondering if top grad schools consider Whitman to be on par with the more prestigious, well-known LAC’s out East. I think Whitman is held in higher regard by admissions committees at grad schools than by prospective college students coming out of high school. For how good of a school it is, Whitman has a very high acceptance rate and I think students read too much into acceptance rates at times.</p>
<p>Preston, you’ve hit the nail on the head. If Whitman were on the east coast or in a major metropolitan hub I believe the rankings would be higher and therefore the acceptance rate lower, and visa versa. Look at the median test scores and GPAs of attending students, slackers don’t go there. However, if Whitman were on the east coast or in a major metropolitan area, it wouldn’t be the uniquely wonderful place it is. I knew a kid who went to Harvard and absolutely hated it, prestige won’t necessarily make your life fabulous.</p>
<p>Ah, sorry. The new year has gotten me real busy! I’ll talk a little more about the music scene!</p>
<p>I find that a good percentage of the school’s population is into indie music, but people get pretty diverse in their tastes. And Whitties are always so talented… so yes, of course there are bands on campus. Dabbles in Bloom ([Dabbles</a> in Bloom ~ “Limb of Novelty” - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ_gZP3V65Q]Dabbles”>Dabbles in Bloom ~ "Limb of Novelty" - YouTube)) was very loved last year. But alas, students graduate and move on so they aren’t around anymore. But there are tons of other incredibly talented musicians on campus.</p>
<p>We also get people from the Walla Walla community to play… like our professors, their children, or just local bands. Pretty cool. There are also PLENTY of bars and such where people play shows downtown. The art/music culture in Walla Walla has really blown up in the last few years.</p>
<p>Coffeehouse is always fun and well-attended. I’m always in awe. The bands consist of Physics majors and stuff, which is awesome. I’m not sure how frequent these are, but I feel like it might be more often than once a month.</p>
<p>We have Fridays at Four every week, where sometimes we have guests perform or we have student recitals and such. This is usually more classically music and such.</p>
<p>In addition to Schwa (co-ed acapella) and the Testostertones (male acapella), we also have the Sirens of Swank (female acapella). I just adore them all. They’re student-run and are so amazing and fun.</p>
<p>We have a chorale which consists of ~100 students, and a chamber with about 30 students (more competitive). I don’t know too much about the choral area of the Whitman life, so I’m probably missing something.</p>
<p>Oh, one last thing… we also have the KWCW which is our college radio. Students can apply to DJ their own stations. You can look that up!</p>