<p>No kidding. I tried, at least half a dozen times, to spark an interest in Oberlin, Grinnell, and Carleton. I thought they would have been excellent match schools for my daughter, better than some of the matches on her list.</p>
<p>My only "quibble" with Grinnell is that the are the very definition of the term "sitting on their endowment". I'm surprised that they aren't more aggressive in capitalizing on their position as the per student endowment leader of LACs. Their endowment spending, on a percentage basis, is incredibly low -- well below the 4% to 5% that prudent financial managers target. They could double their endowment spending (an additional $20,000 per student per year) and stay within those guidelines. That would bring them to Williams level spending, which would buy a Taj Mahal undergrad experience in Iowa with every resource known to man. Or, they could go the other way and make it free for every student.</p>
<p>Actually, Animal House was filmed at the Univ. of Oregon in Eugene. A family member was involved in that 'classic'. :) </p>
<p>I've never been to Reed but one of my Ds visited Oberlin during her college search. She liked the school except for its location. It's in a VERY small town and the school itself IS pretty much the town. It had some things going for it in respect to what she wanted but she couldn't picture herself being happy there for four years. A longtime family friend attended years ago as a music major and loved it, with many fond memories remaining today.</p>
<p>"as I recall the bulk of the differences in "expenditures per student" between some of these places were in the non-academic areas -- the "sushi in the cafeteria" line-items to which I would probably add the salaries of much of the Williams College coaching staff." (HOW do I put it in in a box? Sorry!)</p>
<p>so, to be simplistic, another way to look at this is to go back to where most of us started -- we decide which criteria are most important to us -- class size, or dorms, or nobel laureats and look to those to determine the best fit for our child. I guess it's kind of like buying a house... cost is an important factor, but not the only one, or we'd all be living in the midwest!</p>