Are the Portland (CT) quarries still open to the public?
Bates! My daughter excelled in their Japanese program. It is great! They had interesting classes in Japanese culture and history too.
Here is more info on Physics and Astronomy: Physics & Astronomy | Bates College
There are numerous places for both indoor and outdoor rock climbing in the area.
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I believe they are in the summer. We took the kids zip lining there when they were in middle school.
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My S25 is a serious competitive climber as well. It’s actually the most important factor for him in his college search. Otherwise, he sounds very different from your son, (he’s interested in finance or maybe some kind of business engineering course) but I have started a list of schools with good climbing programs. A few that might meet your requirements are:
St Olaf
Carleton
Claremont Colleges
Bowdoin
Colby
Davidson
U of Richmond
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I’ll second Middlebury for Japanese. It’s also a member of the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium, along with some of the other schools you’re considering.
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Yes they are! They’re called Brownstone Park, which is privately owned and is packed all summer.
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I know more about climbing than I do about most of the colleges mentioned, so I’ll speak from that perspective. In my experience, most competitive climbers get tired of plastic (indoor climbing) and start to want to challenge themselves (non-competitively) on granite and limestone around college. But I could see a competitive climbing team being fun in college too. Anyhow . . . .
Have you considered the Claremont colleges? I’m sure there are some local crags near Claremont, but there is amazing climbing less than 2 hours away at Tahquitz and Joshua Tree. It’s also possible to make weekend climbing trips to Yosemite, Bishop, and the Eastern Sierra, which literally offer some of the best climbing in the world, as well as Red Rocks in Vegas.
Colorado College has a lot of great climbing options nearby.
I’ve heard that (but not personally experienced) the climbing near Whitman is legit. And it’s got fantastic weekend options.
For east coast climbing, I’d want be close to the Gunks, which includes Vassar and Marist.
As a side note, I wish a billionaire Oregonian (Phil Knight?) would found a liberal arts college in Bend. It’d be a fantastic place to go to college, particularly for the outdoors-inclined.
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Note that if the student wants to study abroad, a college where required upper level physics courses are offered only once every two years may be problematic, since studying abroad may cause the student to miss one or more of those courses when offered and therefore need to take extra semesters in order to catch the next offering in order to complete the physics requirements.
If he is lucky, the abroad university may have a matching course for the one that he misses, but that cannot be counted on (curricular organization may not be the same, or the course may not be open to visiting students).
Colleges with strong Japanese programs may offer six semesters of Japanese language courses, along with courses in linguistics, culture and literature/readings. Upper-level courses of all types may be taught entirely in Japanese.
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I can’t speak to the other schools, but I have personal knowledge of Lawrence, Beloit and St. Olaf, and agree with these 3 completely.
Lawrence is very strong in physics, producing lots of future PhDs. Also terrific in Geology.
Beloit has the Thompson Observatory Prize in astronomy and astrophysics: Thompson Observatory Prize in Astronomy and Astrophysics • Commencement • Beloit College
St. Olaf has a super happy and collaborative student body. Also you can cross enroll at Carleton.
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Utah is a good safety with both astronomy (as a physics emphasis) and Japanese as both a major and minor. It has WUE so is about the same price as instate UCs (and much cheaper than CU Boulder).
D18 very much enjoyed the rock climbing, both in the gym and in the Wasatch. Skiing is amazing too.
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Yes D and her friends drove from SLC to Smith Rock for climbing several times. But their go-to-place for weekends away was Joe’s Valley.
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We’re a climbing family, and raised climbing kids… so here was our search process:
Not sure about Japanese, but Whitman checks other boxes including a climbing gym ON campus and world class weekend outdoor options. Also skiing within an hour. My D23 son (just accepted and will be attending Middlebury next year) is also an avid rock climber/skier and Whitman was to be his 2nd choice behind Middlebury. U of Utah was to be his third choice. We looked at Colorado College and hoped to love it, but he and all of us were really turned off by Colorado Springs unfortunately. The Claremont colleges, as mentioned, have some of the best climbing in the world within 2 hours - but those areas will require weekend camping trips for him from school which may limit how often he visits. There is a gym right near campus. We also toured Vassar because of proximity to the Gunks (world class climbing - and enough for a lifetime). He LOVED the campus but not the city it was located in.
Check out Western Washington University. LOTS of rain :). GREAT skiing nearby. World class climbing across the border in Squamish. Gym(s) in town. Huge outdoor scene.
Middlebury isn’t a great place for a climber, but my son figures it’ll be sufficient for four years and the nearby skiing (20 minutes) will make up for the lack of climbing. There are lots of outdoor climbing options within 2 hours but weather can be a challenge. There is a small bouldering wall on campus and a modern gym 45 minutes away.
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Haha, we’re from Bend and I couldn’t agree more!
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Congrats to your son on his acceptance to Middlebury! I looked around for some info on their climbing wall and came across this Instagram page for Middlebury climbers. Seems like an active and happy bunch!
https://instagram.com/middclimbing
I’ll definitely add University of Utah to the research list. I’ve not looked into it at all but I like the idea of it being a WUE school and a little different from Boulder.
I’m getting so many great ideas from you all!
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For our early lists, I mainly concentrated on (for lack of a better word) less selective schools that were a good fit in terms of major, outside interests and location. S23 ended up surprising us and is currently 1/85 in class rank with great ECs and leadership. Guess what. Those schools were such a good match that they stayed on his list. While he could have applied to highly selective schools, all of his top three choices ended up being from the original list. And the good thing about that is he’s received honors acceptances and a lot of merit at all three. Definitely look for the hidden gems (especially if he isn’t the “copy-paste” type) and also don’t discount large state schools (D23 is currently picking between two large state schools even though I love small LACs). At least look at a few so that he can compare them to the smaller LACs you have on your list.
Since you seem to be starting very early, one of the things that my son had to do in college counseling that was very helpful was to really learn how to dig into a college website. Before the kids even had an idea where they wanted to look, they had them looking up things like requirements, curriculum, housing, clubs, majors, class size, academic support, etc. on various websites. They also taught them how to look up the common data set and what everything meant. S23 learned so much from exploring different websites. Each school he looked at had a few things he did or didn’t like, which he could then add to an "in a perfect world " list. Or if he just didn’t like a location he could search something like “schools like X in the Midwest”. Say what you will about Covid, but it really upped the school website game and now you can get a pretty good feel for a school before you even visit.
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OSU’s Cascades campus is in Bend.
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I’d suggest you and your son take a look at Williams. Excellent math and sciences across the board, notably physics, astronomy/astrophysics.
Four levels of Japanese. Multiple study abroad in Japan programs, including Winter Study (January term) travel in Japan.
About 43% double major.
Because of Williams’ rural location in the Berkshire mountains, outdoorsy activities are an integral part of the culture. I’m not too familiar with rock climbing opportunities, but they do offer a climbing wall on campus plus activities organized by the widely supported Outing Club.
Plenty of snow.
Williams is highly selective, but they like applicants who are academically accomplished, are involved in studio art or music and, most importantly, would consider the campus’s insular mountain village environment a plus.
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At Wesleyan, where my D majored in Physics & Astronomy, waives/oscillations, thermal and statistical, quantum I, electricity & magnetism and advanced lab are required for the major. I assume that not everything is offered every semester, but with their relatively high graduation rate, it seems reasonably safe to assume that getting these requirements out of the way is probably not an issue. And close to half of all Wes students double major, so even with that additional complicating factor, getting what you need when you need it so as to graduate on time doesn’t seem to be a problem. I agree that studying abroad could complicate things.
One other thing. At least at the smaller colleges, advising is personal and active. Your advisor knows you and keeps track of your progress because they want you to graduate on time. They are good at knowing when to take given courses to keep you on track. Even with a double major, both of which were lab heavy, and being a 4-year varsity athlete, there was never any mention of a concern of not graduating on time.
PHYSICS MAJOR REQUIREMENTS
| #### Course Code | #### Course Title |
|---|---|
| Gateway courses : The necessary foundation for the physics major. | |
| PHYS113 | General Physics I |
| PHYS116 and PHYS124 | General Physics II and General Physics Laboratory II |
| MATH221 or MATH223 | Vectors and Matrices or Linear Algebra |
| MATH222 | Multivariable Calculus |
| Core Courses: Four required courses which must be taken graded (A-F) | |
| PHYS213 | Waves and Oscillations |
| PHYS214 (prerequisite MATH221 or MATH223. Math requirement can be taken concurrently) | Quantum Mechanics I |
| PHYS324 (prerequisite PHYS124 and MATH222) | Electricity and Magnetism |
| PHYS316 | Thermal and Statistical Physics |
| Electives: Four credits from the following list of lecture courses.* One of the four needs to be a 300-level physics course. | |
| PHYS207 | Introduction to Biophysics |
| PHYS215 (half credit) | Special Relativity |
| PHYS217 | Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos |
| PHYS219 (half credit) | Introduction to Contemporary Physics |
| PHYS313 | Classical Dynamics |
| PHYS315 | Quantum Mechanics II |
| PHYS358 (Pre-requisite PHYS315) | Condensed Matter Physics |
| Laboratory Courses :** Two laboratory courses | |
| PHYS342 (half credit) | Experimental Optics |
| PHYS345 (half credit) | Electronics Lab |
| PHYS340 (half credit) | Computational Physics |
| PHYS423/PHYS424 (1 credit) | Research Seminar, Undergraduate |
| * It is possible for elective credits to be substituted by upper-level lecture courses in other departments. This must be done in consultation with the physics major advisor, and the selections must constitute a coherent, coordinated program of study. Preapproved tracks that satisfy the elective lecture course requirement are available. |
** One of the laboratory courses must be an advanced experimental lab, currently either PHYS342 orPHYS345.|
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Do you have an opinion on Moss Island? This area seems to be known for the variety of its climbs, from easy to expert (e.g., Lynn Hill) level:
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