<p>All three were suggeted as academic "match" schools, but I'm not sure about the social fit. Would a NYC hipster girl find other like-minded students at any or all three schools? Or is one (or more) of the schools likely to be too conservative socially?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>NYC- mother of a senior here. Can’t answer that question even though D considered Dickinson and Muhlenberg at the end, but the sports team/ coach played a role in her decision. Dickinson might feel quite isolated for the NCY hipster.
Then again Muhlenberg is small, and contained, but closer to NYC. </p>
<p>Don’t waste your time on summer visits, definitely visit when students are there. </p>
<p>Gut feeling says you need a larger, more urban scene.</p>
<p>Both Muhlenberg and Dickinson have large numbers of students from New Jersey and NYC. Muhlenberg has more students from NJ than from PA. Muhlenberg has less racial diversity than Dickinson, and less international representation. Muhlenberg was founded under the auspices of the Lutheran Church but, somewhat oddly, has almost as much Jewish representation as Brandeis. There are a lot of Jewish students at Muhlenberg. Don’t know how that got started, but it’s interesting. </p>
<p>I’ve been in the dorms of both schools. I’d call it even, although one or two Muhlenberg dorms have a bit more “character.” One dorm is a converted 1920s hospital, so it is has 12-15 foot ceilings in the dorm rooms. Dickinson has a wider variety of housing, and upperclass housing has some juicy choices, including NYC loft style apartments that are excellent. </p>
<p>Muhlenberg has a better “arts and theatre” scene on campus. You can major in business & management at either school, which makes them very similar and different than many LACs.</p>
<p>Dickinson has only two eating places, a central dining hall and a snack bar (the food was okay–nothing to write home about) while Muhlenberg, if memory serves, has three or four on campus, which I thought was better than Dickinson’s fare. The central dining hall at Dickinson is in the campus center and felt like high school. Or jail. It’s a gigantic room with students coming in from opposite sides. Penn State’s food was much better.</p>
<p>Muhlenberg has a state of the art workout/gym facility, if that interests you. I mean first rate equipment and it looked new. Dickinson has something along those lines but I never saw it. We visited twice and they never showed it to us, so it can’t be anything to brag about. Muhlenberg’s workout facility was outstanding.</p>
<p>Dickinson is ranked a bit higher than Muhlenberg, and I got the distinct impression that they are aiming to climb the LAC rankings. Muhlenberg felt more like a suitcase school re weekends, perhaps because it is much closer to New Jersey/New York. Politically/culturally, they felt the same—moderate, centrist schools with equal numbers of conservative and liberal students, although during our last visit to Muhlenberg, looking at the dorm windows, Obama signs outnumbered McCain signs 10 to 1. I was going to say 10 to 0 because I literally didn’t see any McCain-Palin signs, but I figure there has to be at least one Republican student on campus. Interpret that however you want. Greek life is a bit bigger at Dickinson, but the frat/sorority scene is not dominating at either school. Both schools are more preppy than quirky, but do not go to extremes in that regard.</p>
<p>Both colleges offered my D decent financial aid packages but she turned them both down for Oberlin in Ohio. Oberlin is ranked higher than both (and higher than Lafayette and Bryn Mawr) is extremely liberal, and offered more aid because of a bigger endowment. Money talks. </p>
<p>For what it’s worth, had Oberlin not worked out, my D was leaning toward Dickinson over Muhlenberg or the other PA LACs. And I would classify my D as something of a hipster, if I correctly understand the meaning of the word.</p>
<p>Sorry, I don’t know anything about Wheaton, either the one in Massachusetts or the one in Illinois, except the one in Illinois is a (born-again) Christian college. I used to live a few miles from Wheaton College in Illinois.</p>