<p>Princeton - we don't need no stinkin' one-liners.</p>
<p>My point was it can't be done :p</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins?</p>
<p>Aussie-
Yes, I feel you gave a good description of Lynchburg from a staff prospective. While I agree with you that Lynchburg is great for the "average" high school student, I have to disagree with your statement that it is not for high achieving students. Look at the Sommerville scholar this year... she has a spot waiting for her at a Harvard medical research center. Look at the percentage of seniors going to grad school, that has increased. To say Lynchburg isn't for high achieving students is completely degrading to myself, a student, other students, and the entire school as a whole.</p>
<p>Sookunfyooz3d,
You are right! The Sommerville scholar is wonderful, as are many Lynchburg College grads who have great job offers and prestigious advanced degrees in their futures. LC does a great job of opening up wonderful opportunities for its graduates, who have worked hard to earn them. This is why I like the LC community so much. My comments were not intended to criticize LC at all. Quite the opposite!
Instead, my comment about LC being a great school for "average" students is really intended for the CC audience, who are parents and high school students considering their college choices. Many CC people are interested in HYP or the like, and LC is clearly not the right place for high achieving students with SAT scores of 1450+. I think that the average SAT score of entering freshmen at LC is about 1050, slightly above the national average for SAT scores. A small number of entering freshman at LC have SAT scores in the 1300s. Nevertheless, there are other people on CC who are clearly looking for good colleges below the HYP level. These are the people who need to know that LC is a great college! Students with SAT scores in the 1100 to 1300 range are the ones who shine at LC.</p>
<p>Princeton = clubby tradition & academic excellence with a preppy twist?</p>
<p>pennypac,</p>
<p>Are you saying people should pick schools where they feel they do not "fit" just to challenge themselves? </p>
<p>I agree that being able to function within all sorts of situations and with all sorts of people is a laudable goal-- but, for example, if you are an intellectual isn't it acceptable to seek a school with a "critical mass" of other intellectuals? If you are an artist, wouldn't it be normal to seek a school with a vibrant arts scene?</p>
<p>I'll give it a try for the college I know best in the style of doddsdad:</p>
<p>Mount Holyoke: We are too busy learning how we can make a difference in the world to worry much about not having any guys around. Those who want parties know where to find them ( not here). We enjoy our bucolic, neogothic, picturesque campus, challenging courses and the friendly, supportive company of diverse "uncommon women."</p>
<p>Sorry for misunderstanding you Aussie. Totally forgot exactly what audience there was on this forum!</p>
<p><brown university="" is="" my="" alma="" mater.="" a="" friend="" (who="" the="" h="" of="" brown="" pal)="" described="" it="" as="" "5000="" extroverts,"="" and="" though="" that="" just="" phrase="" says="" lot.=""></brown></p>
<p>My daughter graduated from Brown last May. A shy kid throughout highschool, she nevertheless fell in love with Brown from her first visit. I had misgivings about the "fit" because I had heard descriptions just like the above from SBMom. Neverthless, it was my D's first choice, and after a deferral in the fall, she was accepted RD. I can say without fear of exaggeration that she was ecstatic about the school throughout her 4 years there, and was as socially happy as she could have been. What I learned from this is :1. schools like Brown have a wide range of types of kids---they are not all leaders, extroverts, et.
2. Trust your kids' gut feelings about a school</p>
<p>Sucharita et al: Princeton = kaching, in all the negative morphings of those syllables.</p>
<p>SBmom,</p>
<p>Yes, it is acceptable, and it would be normal. But I'm reminded of the existence of fairytales and deep, troubling mythologies. They have taken on the appearance of acceptable stories for children or, at worst, aberations or explanations of a primitive mind, when, really, they are neither. How much do you really want to learn? What is a college? Is it a trade school, or is it something else? If it's a trade school, that's fine, but then lets call it a trade school and treat it as such. If college is something else, then let's try to determine what that is, and act accordingly. This, it seems to me, is the crux of the matter.</p>
<p>Originaloog,
LOL! I like the RPI "facts." (or would it be data?)</p>
<p>Doddsdad, that would actually be a data set.</p>
<p>Actually, I like Doddsdad's approach because it focuses on how the students see themselves, not just the school or how the outside world sees the school.</p>
<p>So, I'll borrow his approach (and expand on one college) in a tongue-in-cheek manner:</p>
<p>Earlham: We're serious about learning, politics, and changing the world. We're tommorrow's social workers, teachers and low-income-clinic doctors. Our idea of fun is gathering around a bonfire in the back woods on campus, perhaps with a jug of wine and a bit of pot. But, we respect each other as individuals, so if you don't want to indulge, we'll respect your right to do so.</p>
<p>Dickinson: We're bright and talented, too bad we didn't get into Colgate. We're tommorrow's lawyers and business managers. We understand the power of networking. Our idea of fun is to network around a keg of beer, with lots of laughter and flirting. If you don't want to indulge, we'll respect your choice but find you kind of weird.</p>
<p>Goucher: We're creative folks. We'll probably all end up as middle managers but we'll paint, dance, and do community theater on the side.
Our idea of fun is to dress up as pirates and play hide and go seek on campus at night.</p>
<p>Lewis & Clark: We're proud of our hippie and goth roots, but we're not as weird as the kids at Reed. Who knows what we'll do in the future? Our idea of fun is to go into Portland and hit the thrift shops for some cool clothes or hang out in the ravine smoking pot with friends.</p>
<p>Kenyon: We're creative preppies. We're tommorrow's authors, talk show hosts, and psychologists. Our idea of fun is to cross paths with a friend on middle path and get invited to a party that night. </p>
<p>USC: No matter what anyone says, we're the best students at the best school in Los Angeles. We're tommorrow's public relations reps, Steven Spielbergs, and business entrepreneurs. Did I mention we're in Los Angeles? Our idea of fun is to go to a football game and marvel at all the alumni spirit. </p>
<p>UCSD: We're serious about getting into a good grad school. We're tommorrow's bioresearchers and doctors. Our idea of fun is an internship in a biotechnology firm, but we also like to study and surf.</p>
<p>I do too, doddsdad and carolyn... well, I'll give it a shot :)</p>
<p>Wellesley: We're here, above all, to work, learn, and take the first step towards achieving our ambitious career goals; if you're not serious about your studies, you will not fit in. </p>
<p>Smith: Yes, our academics are very important and engaging to us, but there's more to life than just studying; we're as enthusiastic about learning outside the classroom and having fun as we are about our studies. We're strong, unabashedly liberal women and proud of it.</p>
<p>Williams: Balance is the key to a happy life: we love our academics, for sure, but we have plenty of other stuff going on as well. We juggle busy social lives, myriad extracurricular interests, and intense academics, but don't like to show it. </p>
<p>Swarthmore: Armchair philosophy, anyone? We may not do a million things at once, but we are passionate and intense about what we do do. We're serious students, make no mistake, but we're also a tight- knit, supportive community.</p>
<p>Yale: We're smart, engaged kids who value a good time as much as our ambitious goals for the future. We bleed Eli blue.</p>
<p>Harvard: We're serious students with all the resources (and overwhelming-ness) of Cambridge, Boston, and the oldest university in the US at our feet. We like our school and everything, but we're stressed and at times feel like we're in a fishbowl. </p>
<p>Amherst and Tufts I just didn't get a remote feel for their personalities, and therefore am not applying.</p>
<p>Harvard: We have $21 billion in the bank so we've decided to raise the tuition by 7% while we bonus our in-house fund managers $120,000,000 for the year.
PS. you need a transcript? That'll be $1.00.</p>
<p>LOL LOL LOL LOL!!!!! Thanks for my guffaw PSedrish</p>
<p>Columbia -- We're intense. We take on more than required whether it's courses or activities, and we're torn between what we should be doing at the library, could be doing on campus, and want to be doing in the city. Our idea of fun is to debate whether or not you could ever prove the existence of God, while we wait for the subway to take us to a club we hope we can get into and probably can't afford once we're there. We love our campus, where they keep putting up and taking down tents for every ethnic festival you could think of, but we do wish the playing fields weren't a 20 minute subway ride away. The only students we consider weird are the ones who actually sleep. Midterms tomorrow? Wait, I just got free tickets to Avenue Q! Our classes really teach us critical thinking, which is why we are so good at criticizing the university administration. We feel as if we are going to school in the center of the universe and, if we succeed here, we will succeed anywhere.</p>
<p>I like that one.</p>
<p>Caltech (I'm a senior here) one sentence: Incredibly hard-working, collaborative, quirky folks with a bit of a martyr complex. </p>
<p>Longer: Complaining about Caltech is certainly in vogue, and has been since I got here. That said, I think that very few of the people who end up graduating from here would have had it any other way. We came here because we wanted to be challenged, and by God we were. We're proud of the fact that everyone here has had to take differential equations and quantum mechanics, whether they are a physicist, biologist or economist. People get very focused on their classes, and sometimes lose sight of the rest of the world - they rarely get off campus. Some people can count the number of times they've gone off campus, at all, during a term on their fingers. People love their houses, and identify strongly with the people around them, forming divisions of about 70-80 people. People also emerge much more humble and collaborative than they came.</p>