<p>My son is deciding between these two schools.
He likes:
Great outdoor location.
Small size.
Not so religious.
Near large city.
Phi betta cappa chapter.
Easygoing students.</p>
<p>I’ll give it another try. Anyone have experience with either one of these schools? It would be a help.</p>
<p>If your son’s SAT scores are excellent and if he can take personal responsibility for his own education, New College of Florida is a great choice.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn’t heard of it before. We’d be out of state so $ would be an issue. We’ve heard Eckerd offers good merit aid.</p>
<p>New College is a part of the state university system of Florida so it’s much cheaper than Eckard. It also has a really good financial aid program for students with good SAT scores.</p>
<p>Thanks for the idea but it looks like their out of state tuition puts it at a similar cost to Eckerd but with less merit aid. Know anything about Eckerd?</p>
<p>I actually took the LSAT at Eckerd. It’s in a pretty good location, on the inter coastal waterway, and only a mile or so from the beach if I remember correctly. Its probably 10-15mins from downtown St. Pete. Is there anything specific you’d like to know?</p>
<p>We’ve heard it’s reputation is that of an up and coming school and that it places a lot of empahsis on developing student’s potential. That’s catnip to a parent but does it sound correct?</p>
<p>I can’t really comment on them putting “empahsis on developing student’s potential”, as I really don’t know. It doesn’t really have much of a reputation at all in my opinion. I lived a few miles away and I’ve never really heard anyone say it was a bad school but no one really considered it exceptional either.</p>
<p>Is there anything else you’d like to know? If you have any questions about the area I could probably help out, I just don’t have a lot of experience with the school.</p>
<p>thanks for your input.</p>
<p>NCF has a good deal of private aid available in addition to its status as part of the state university system like UF and FSU. The Four Winds Foundation (a residue of NFC’s former status as a private college) gives scholarships to highly qualified students </p>
<p>My daughter applied to and was very quickly accepted by Eckard. It would be a good choice for students with less than really outstanding SAT I scores. It was a low safety school for her. My daughter attained 800 to the the upper 700s in writing and reading SAT scores, but not quite 700 on math.</p>
<p>DD2 currently attends L&C and loves it. Portland is a great city, very clean, and the school has a thriving outdoor activities committee. The school also has buses that go downtown daily.</p>
<p>How about the community at L&C? He is excited about the proximity to the city, but I’m concerned that there is no activity on campus.</p>
<p>My son graduated from L & C in '08. He never complained that there was nothing to do on campus. They have music, plays, sports, a very active outdoor club. Son enjoyed gaming and didn’t have any trouble finding others to play. He enjoyed the mix of being able to do things on campus as well as things in town. He liked Portland so much he is still there!</p>
<p>Thanks for your views. It certainly sounds like the best of locations. I would love to end up in Portalnd myself. Any words of wisdom or things your child would have done differently?</p>
<p>“If your son’s SAT scores are excellent and if he can take personal responsibility for his own education, New College of Florida is a great choice.”</p>
<p>You forgot to add “if your son has political leanings that are left of Stalin”.</p>
<p>New college isn’t a liberal campus, it is very much a radically liberal campus. Keep this in mind if you consider going there.</p>
<p>Tomslawsky:</p>
<p>Undoubtedly many NCF students are left-wing. They aren’t all, however.</p>
<p>Unlike Stalin, however, most students and faculty at NCF aren’t totalitarians. A conservative Christian NCF student is most likely to encounter a “like, whatever” attitude than even active hostility.</p>
<p>There is a vibrant Christian club there (and even a few Republicans, though they rarely admit it).</p>
<p>BTW, NCF students tend to scoff at what passes as “education” at other state university system of Florida universities.</p>
<p>The right-wing Intercollegiate Institute’s “Choosing the Right College” pegs NCF correctly. ICI doesn’t agree with all the implications of NCF’s educational philosophies, but it says they are applied to good effect in a unique atmosphere of academic rigor.</p>
<p>Isn’t excellence in education a virtue to which conservatives would subscribe?</p>
<p>The reference should be to Intercollegiate Studies Institute, “ISI” at [CollegeGuide.org</a> - New College of Florida](<a href=“http://www.collegeguide.org/itemdetail.aspx?item=98198761-0584-4b2d-b23a-b1813c0ab120]CollegeGuide.org”>http://www.collegeguide.org/itemdetail.aspx?item=98198761-0584-4b2d-b23a-b1813c0ab120).</p>
<p>“BTW, NCF students tend to scoff at what passes as “education” at other state university system of Florida universities.”</p>
<p>That criticism can go both ways, considering New College doesn’t even believe in grading it’s students. </p>
<p>I guess the New College Business and engineering departments are better than those at UF and USF? O, New college doesn’t have these departments. I think scoffing at the lack of education of other State colleges would be myopic and arrogant at best. More than likely, it is a result just of the ignorance of youth.</p>
<p>Again, the reason New College students are successful after graduating in my opinion is because they would have been successful no matter where they went, or even if the student body in the aggregate had never even gone to college at all. These students are bright, no doubt. They all scored high on the SAT, so as a whole, they will tend to score well on the GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, etc. This leads to a high placement into grad/professional school, the same as any college with a high median SAT score. High placement into grad/prof. schools is much more a function of high test scores than it is of the quality of education one receives. </p>
<p>I never said New College was a bad school, after all the SAT’s of the student body are the highest in the state, edging out Miami and U-Florida (although the top 20% score of each school is statistically about the same). I believe that the intellectual prowess of a student body, at the undergraduate level is more important than the accomplishments of the profs. This is one of my beefs with USNEWS rankings, and why I think UF is very much underrated.</p>
<p>My only point is that if one is considering New College, it would be a huge mistake not to consider that WELL above 90% of the student body is extremely liberal.</p>