New College is a very small, very niche school. I would NOT recommend it to a student who hadn’t visited and who wasn’t looking for that particular type of school.
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It’s worth noting that this is by no means unique to UVM and will continue to be the trend going forward with the exception of the wealthiest and most selective colleges. Ithaca recently announced that it’s cutting roughly 25% of its faculty, for instance.
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What is New College’s niche?
With 650 students…what isn’t niche?
My guess is highly intellectual/self directed/pot smoking.
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New College - very (very) small, no greek life, no sports, no engineering (does have a 3+2 with UF), limited majors (has to be with few than 1000 students).
My kids went to 3 different high schools, and New College is smaller than all of them. Not one friend from their Florida high school even mentioned New College as a possibility, and I think their friends picked a good assortment of Florida schools, including private, community colleges, and the usually suspects of UF, UCF, and FSU.
I think she should apply for New College of Florida but imagine it may be too unstructured for someone who is risk averse and not super confident. I have read about a drug culture but I think alcohol cultures are more dangerous.
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Dean College for a safety if the money works, is one that I am a bit enamored with. My kid is looking at musical theater schools, many of which are not academic reaches for a way above average student so I am not good at liberal arts. The only problem for MHC is that it is nowhere near an airport. Most of his are midwest schools though. Another area near an airport to look is schools in and around Philly.
Excellent point. And a crying shame. But I still wouldn’t go to UVM if I wanted to major in the humanities.
New College’s niche is that it is the designated honors college among Florida publics.
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You wouldn’t recommend it, but it was offered in response to the OP’s comment that he is requiring his daughter to apply to one state school in each of the state’s where one of her parents has residence.
So what would public college you recommend in Florida for a high achieving student (NCF HS GPA = 3.9)who is seeking a small liberal arts college, who gravitates toward women’s colleges (NCF enrollment = 60+% women), and who is seeking a campus that is liberal and LGBTQ+ friendly? New College checks all those boxes. Tell me the Florida public that meets those criteria. As with many colleges, enrollment was artificially depressed by Covid. In a recent year, enrollment was 850 and the administration is pushing to get it to 1200.
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I’d recommend the honors college of FIU, which is on a separate, smaller campus if my children were looking for a smaller school. I also recommended Rollins, which is private but which allows Bright Futures and the resident grant to be used, plus other instate scholarship, its own merit and FA.
My kids both wanted smaller schools but ended up at schools that were bigger (one of their compromises, and they made many). Both wished, by the time they were juniors, that their schools were bigger as they would have liked more course choices, more clubs, more friends. 3000 students seems big to a 17 year old, but 3000 might seem very very small to a college junior. At a school like FIU, if the students gets tired of the honors college and how small it is, it’s very easy to take classes at the main campus.
New College is just very different than what most imagine a college to be. Maybe it’s just perfect for some, but I’d want them to see the school without accepting blind (as it is likely this student will have to do). My daughter wanted small, but a few minutes on Presbyterian College (size 1200) had us all realizing it was just too small. Size of the physics department? FIVE professors. Math wasn’t much bigger. A weekend at Smith? Loved the engineering program but it was too liberal for her and she felt the students weren’t happy. Some things can be judged by a catalog (along with the actual course offerings in the last 2-3 semesters) but some things can’t be.
New College may want 1200 students, but I don’t think they’ve had that many, covid or no covid. First year retention rate at about 80%. 4 year grad rate under 60%. Not terrible for a big public school (especially with engineering or a lot of internships or co-ops) but not in line with other LAC schools.
OP asked for suggestions. You gave yours, I gave my opinion.
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Look into Wilkes (Honors College for FAU) and Eckerd (takes BF, more in line with the vibe your child is looking for than Rollins).
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I appreciate all the feedback, positive and negative! She may very well have to make a decision sight unseen so all opinions are valued and we will do our due diligence to consider all the input and info.
I think that some clarification is warranted with regard to the viability of New College of Florida, which was dismissed as a “niche college” in one post apparently because of its small enrollment. Yet, Scripps College with an even smaller enrollment was not so disparaged when it was suggested earlier in this thread. Nor has an even smaller college like Olin College of Engineering when it’s been suggested in other threads.
So why the different treatment for New College? I don’t know, but I would guess that it’s because both Scripps and Olin are part of consortiums with other neighboring colleges, somewhat mitigating their small size.
This is where more information is needed to clarify the situation at New College of Florida. Although it has an enrollment which has fluctuated between 650-850 over the past 5 years, it is located in the University District of Sarasota and is in a 4-college consortium, all of which are located within minutes of each other and which allow cross registration. The combined enrollment of the 4 colleges is more than 15,000 students, which is 2-3 times the enrollment of either the Claremont Colleges or the 3 colleges in the consortium in Wellesley, MA. With regard to the concerns about enrolling sight unseen - which would be true about any college for this student - it is housed on a beautiful 100+ acre waterfront campus in a residential neighborhood of a very nice small city.
New College’s stated mission is to provide a liberal arts college “honors” program for the state’s gifted students. It got some national attention when it was the college of choice for Emma Gonzalez, one of the leaders among the Parkland students after the shootings at their high school and an LGBTQ+ student herself. As was the case with some of her fellow student leaders whose college options expanded and saw them enrolling at schools like Harvard, Columbia, Penn State, and Syracuse, Emma probably had her pick of a number of prestigious colleges, but she chose New College as the best fit for her. For a high achieving student like the OP who is seeking a liberal arts education and wants to include a public college in Florida on her list, I think the New College deserves strong consideration.
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New College also appears well ranked as feeder of PhD programs in the CT Dataverse. I am not familiar with the school to be clear. Just seems worth looking into it.
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You have your opinion. I would not put New College in the same category as other public LAC style colleges like William and Mary, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, or with any of the honors colleges that are part of big universities like UF or FIU or UCF. The honors college students are pretty pampered at those schools, especially UCF.
I prefer bigger schools. My kids preferred smaller. None of us preferred schools smaller than their high schools.
OP also didn’t say her daughter has to apply to a Florida public, just a Florida school. Because this student can use the GI bill and the Florida resident benefits like BF and resident grant, she may do better financially at a private school like Eckard or Rollins. Her stats would get her more than $25k in merit at Florida Tech, $7k in Bright Futures, ~$4 in a resident grant, and most of the rest in Yellow Ribbon money. Just an example., as I don’t think she’s interested in engineering.
My kids went to 3 different high schools. One thing that was very important to them, and to me, was they be able to spend all 4 college years at one school. They didn’t want to transfer. They didn’t want to take a risk in picking a school that looked good but might not work out financially or academically. I got the impression that is important to the OP’s family too, since they have moved a lot. To me, a school like New College might be perfect, but it is a risk as it isn’t a traditional LAC or even a traditional state school. It looks like 20% don’t return after freshman year, and 40% don’t graduate in 4 years. My kids didn’t have the luxury of stretching out undergrad to more than 4 years. Their scholarships were basically 8 consecutive semesters; one daughter ran out of BF money in her final semester because she exceeded the 120 credit limit. An extra semester would have cost her $25k as all her financial aid was gone, from the school and from the state.
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The OP did say that he wanted his daughter to apply to a Florida PUBLIC school. This is his comment to which I was responding:
“I want to require one application each to Virginia and Florida public schools.”
I wouldn’t have suggested New College or any Florida college otherwise.
There is no doubt that New College is unconventional and that some students get there and decide that it’s not for them. But that’s precisely it’s appeal and those who do graduate are very successful. New College provides challenging courses for self-directed learners. It’s not the place for those who are not self-directed. With a close advising system, it provides the intellectual freedom for students to decide what they want to learn and how they want to learn it.
New College is one of the “colleges that change lives”. ( New College of Florida – Colleges That Change Lives ) There is a reason for that. It has produced 92 Fulbright winners, making it one of the top colleges in the country for Fulbright winners per capita. The whole point of New College’s academic approach is that it provides students the flexibility to pursue their own areas of academic interest. Not only is the student:faculty ratio 10:1 and the average class size only 14, many in seminar style, but students meet individually with faculty to develop tutorials, independent study, and research projects both on and off campus. There are very few places where students can do this to the extent that they do here. And the fact is that it is the only college to offer a dedicated liberal arts undergraduate program in the state of Florida, which is what this student wants.
New College is a unique and special place and has been recognized as such by numerous publications, such as Princeton Review, Forbes, and Fiske Guide where I first heard about it years ago. I would compare it as a public version Reed College, which has even lower 4 year graduation rates but which provides an undeniably superb college experience. I’m sorry that you don’t get it when it comes to New College and I have no idea why you’re so negative about the college as to pursue such an extended debate about it. This student doesn’t even want to go to college in the South, so further discussion of this is a waste of everyone’s time and really amounts to hijacking the thread. The information is out there for the OP to consider, so let’s leave it at that.
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I think that NCF as a public Reed is an apt descriptor. Op can take it from there.
Out of of Deep South: would the NC research triangle and mountains work (unc Asheville and App State, for instance)?
William&Mary sounds like a no brainer in terms of what she wants and since you have VA residency, one down 
9 more to go ;).
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Skidmore, Connecticut College, Brandeis, Clark, Muhlenberg
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