<p>So I just heard about this whole idea of multiple colleges merging so you can take classes across schools. I know Babson, Olin, and Wellesley have this type of collaboration. What do you think of them? And can you list any other schools that have such a program?</p>
<p>I’m aware of 3 major college consortiums:</p>
<p>The Western Massachusetts 5-college consortium (Amherst, Smith, Mt.Holyoke, Hampshire, UMass)</p>
<p>The Philadelphia-area Quaker college consortium (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, UPenn)</p>
<p>The Claremont Colleges (Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Scripps, Harvey Mudd)</p>
<p>No doubt many other colleges have cross-registration arrangements (JHU, Goucher, and others in the Baltimore area for example).</p>
<p>These arrangements can amount to less than meets the eye. Travel times, conflicting schedules (daily and semester), and preferential enrollment for matriculating students can make cross-registration challenging. I’d ask for statistics on how many students actually take advantage of the consortium each semester and talk to some students currently doing so before making it an important factor in my college choice.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.atlantahighered.org/Collaboration/CrossRegistration/ParticipatingInstitutions/tabid/611/Default.aspx]ARCHE[/url”>http://www.atlantahighered.org/Collaboration/CrossRegistration/ParticipatingInstitutions/tabid/611/Default.aspx]ARCHE[/url</a>]
Colleges in the Atlanta area offer cross registration although depending on the university it may be easier to take courses at one school than another. For instance, many Agnes Scott students cross register at Emory while Spellmen women are sometimes found at Morehouse and vice versa.</p>
<p>barnard and columbia</p>
<p>The Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges (LVAIC) includes Cedar Crest College, DeSales University, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, Moravian College and Muhlenberg College.</p>
<p>Here you go:
[Category:College</a> and university associations and consortia in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:College_and_university_associations_and_consortia_in_the_United_States]Category:College”>Category:College and university associations and consortia in the United States - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>There is a 13 member consortium in Worcester, MA.</p>
<p>A number of schools in the DC area have a consortium with cross registration:
[Home</a> Page - Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area](<a href=“http://www.consortium.org/consortium/index.cfm]Home”>http://www.consortium.org/consortium/index.cfm)
[Cross</a> Registration - Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area](<a href=“http://www.consortium.org/consortium/index.cfm/students/cross-registration/]Cross”>http://www.consortium.org/consortium/index.cfm/students/cross-registration/)</p>
<p>Not all of the consortia in the Wikipedia list are practical for cross registration. For example, the Oberlin Group is composed of 80 colleges scattered across many states from California to Maine to Washington to Florida.</p>
<p>Some cross registration agreements may not have formal consortium names. For example, MIT has cross registration with several nearby schools:
[Cross-registration:</a> MIT Office of the Registrar](<a href=“Registration & Academics | MIT Registrar”>Registration & Academics | MIT Registrar)</p>
<p>Note that MIT’s list of cross registration schools is not identical to Harvard’s list:
[Cross-Registration</a> § Harvard University Catalog and Cross Registration](<a href=“http://coursecatalog.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=CourseCatalog&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup104752]Cross-Registration”>http://coursecatalog.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=CourseCatalog&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup104752)</p>
<p>As a practical matter, there can be logistical issues when cross registering, such as differences in academic calendars (consider when final exams are scheduled, or when the residence hall move in and move out dates are in relation to the class schedule at the other school) and commuting to the other campus.</p>
<p>Barnard and Columbia appear to have identical academic calendars, and are adjacent to each other (mapping web site says 2 minute walk), but not all cross registration schools are this convenient.</p>
<p>Missed one on the Claremont list, Pitzer is also a Claremont college.</p>
<p>My kids looked at several schools in consortiums. I would say that Claremont “lives up” to the consortium billing the most of any of them. This is because of the physical proximity of the campuses (they are sort of fit like lego blocks together, 5 small colleges making up one larger consortium campus together). Each college has its own admissions and degree requirements, but students easily cross register and take classes on the other campuses. No shuttling required, all are right together. They share some common facilities, EC teams, bookstore, campus medical clinic, and sports teams. They also share a final exam calendar based on start time/day of classes. And can eat in each other’s dining halls. Pretty good synergy for five quite disparate colleges (my D attends one and says they are a bit like Hogwarts houses :)).</p>
<p>So intparent, which Claremont is Slytherin?</p>
<p>As another poster mentioned, most of these trades are better in theory than reality. Claremont is the most perfect situation with the most number of schools on the same school calendar and walking distance from each other. The negative with Claremont is that it’s almost required that you take classes at different schools depending on what’s offered at each. My daughter was interested in ceramics and one of the schools (Scripps I think) had just gotten a big donation to improve their facility and offerings with ceramics so the other schools dropped whatever they had and now Scripps is the only school offering anything with ceramics. My daughter wanted one school with most of what she wanted, not 5 schools. It loses some of the intimacy when you are spread out over 5 schools. </p>
<p>The Western Mass. consortium takes a real effort to do; each school has a different school calendar and you need a bus or car to get from one to the other - sometimes it takes at least 1/2 hour to get from one to the other. </p>
<p>Many schools in close proximity offer class exchanges, I know Cornell University and Ithaca College do but again, they are not walking distance from each other and they are on two different calendars. RISD has exchange with Brown I believe, etc.</p>
<p>Syracuse and SUNY ESF are probably just as connected as the Claremonts. Very good deal for an outdoorsy NYer who wants significant exposure to earth sciences.</p>