Jewish Life on Campus - HELP!!

<p>Does anyone know if University of Maryland has an engineering program?</p>

<p>I just googled U of M engineering & got A. James Clark School of Engineering.</p>

<p>Mommy_Dearest: Strongly suggest that your child goes to the web sites of these schools and start doing some first-hand research.</p>

<p>Yes, if a female student, Mount Holyoke. They even have a female Rabbi on staff, and it has a very active Jewish population. This was/is a big consideration for my active (jewish) daughter, who is also liberal, and was looking for a mind-stretching academic atmosphere.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

<p>Whoops. Sorry, now I see, a male student.</p>

<p>I don't know if this has been mentioned, but Bucknell has a Rabbi on campus. I don't know how active the Hillel is, but it might be worth looking into. For the person looking for an Engineering program, Bucknell does have one.</p>

<p>When our eldest was looking at schools a couple of years ago, we sat down with the Hillel advisor at Haverford. At that time at least, she split her time 50-50 between campuses. She said there were maybe a dozen active members at Haverford. You just can't compare that with the activity level at Tufts. Check out TuftsLife.com on any given day and you will see activities for both Hillel and Chabad. In fact, Hillel claims to be the largest advertiser in the Tufts Daily. At Tufts, your child will not have to go out looking for Jewish life there; it's right on campus and plainly visible.</p>

<p>Michigan has the largest number of Jewish students of any school in the country. Keep in mind that there are 24000 students on campus and the percentage of Jews are less than other schools but they have a strong Jewish presence and activities. It is also has a highly respected engineering program.</p>

<p>yo, brandies ..... totally, and basiclly EVERY OTHER UNIVERSITY IN THE BOSTON REGION ... (anywhere in massachussetes basically, ull be very happy with jewish life on campus)</p>

<p>Dartmouth - fits the first few criteria, and as for Jewish life has a Hillel and Chabad, both of which hold regular Friday services as well as holiday services. Also, Dartmouth has a cafeteria called the Pavilion which offers food for students whose religious obligations, kosher prepared under the supervision of a rabbi in particular (but, for anyone interested, also offering Hala and Sakahara).</p>

<p>I just read about the Dartmouth Pavilion. What a great idea! Never heard of Sakahara before but now I know what it is.</p>

<p>I'll second the suggestion about Wesleyan (CT). It seems to fit all your criteria. The conservative congregation in town is a few blocks from campus and has both Fri night and Sat morning services. Wesleyan students help out teaching in the religious school as well.</p>

<p>Since others already mentioned Tufts, I just wanna add that they have an engineering school as well.</p>

<p>Duke is a great school for Jewish students. But it is still hard to get in Mattmom. The media will move on to its next target. My son didn't go thinking he would meet that many jewish students and it turns out that he has more jewish friends then in high school. There is even a jewish frat if you are interested.</p>

<p>Isn't Duke an officially Methodist-affiliated school?</p>

<p>Duke is associated with the Methodist church but there are many denominations represented in its student body.</p>

<p>According to Hillel.org, Duke has about 600 jewish undergrads, which constitutes under 10% of the undergraduate student body. The estimated % for the graduate school is smaller.</p>

<p>This places Duke at the very bottom in % jewish of the selective schools my daughter looked at several years ago.</p>

<p>Duke is in North Carolina. I once considered a job in North Carolina, and recall that there appeared to be fewer than 10,000 jewish residents in the entire state.</p>

<p>Some activities of the Ku Klux Clan in North Carolina, and elsewhere, are documented on this web site of the ADL:
<a href="http://www.adl.org/PresRele/DiRaB_41/2766_41.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.adl.org/PresRele/DiRaB_41/2766_41.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>FWIW, my sister-in-law, who is not jewish, grew up in North Carolina and says she witnessed a good deal of anti-semitic beliefs growing up.</p>

<p>Brandeis had anything that an observant Jewish student might want. When we visited Tufts we were told that the level of acvitvity varied from year to year according to the composition of the Jewish student community. Penn has a strong Jewish community. UC Berkeley has a large number of jewish students, an orthodox synagogue within walking distance and a Chabad, as well as a good engineering school. Rochester has an excellent engineering program with a strong Jewish student community and underground tunnels connecting most buildings so you can get around in wintertime.</p>

<p>Well Duke has quality, if not the most quantity</p>

<p>We recently checked into Tufts. They are averaging 100-180 students for Friday night, and 15-20 for an egalitarian Saturday minyan. Almost a third of the student body is Jewish.</p>

<p>It would not be a good place if you need an orthodox service, but they have a small contingent of shomer shabbat conservative Jews.</p>

<p>the number of Jews at a school tells you little about how the Jewish life is there for a religiously observant Jewish student. what makes a satisfactory Jewish community can vary considerably by student. it is essential to go and try to meet with students at the school and not merely rely on what is listed on either hillel.org or even the school's own hillel website (i swear some of those don't get updated nearly often enough! :) ) even when talking to hillel professionals - be careful to ask a lot of questions - they may be trying to market their school to what they hope will be a Jewishly involved student.</p>

<p>the process can be very frustrating at times - trying to find the right mix in the Jewish campus community AS WELL AS whatever other criteria may be on the student's list. but as someone who went through the process and survived, i offer the following to those of you now working through this -- if after all this you can find what your student is looking for in terms of community it is SO worth the aggrevation of the search. The transition to college can be more difficult than students are willing to realize -- having a community that he/she will feel comfortable with and support his/her beliefs will make that transition infinitely easier.</p>

<p>good luck!</p>