Just curious, thought these 2 schools might be too small. I’m tired of all the cliques in high school and since these schools are only double the size of my high school at most, I feel like this will be hs PT 2 if I go to either of these schools. Are these schools too small to have a college experience revolved around meeting tons of new people and many options for social life and many cliques and groups of people? I like the party scene so not an issue, just afraid social life will be so limited with such few students. Also, which school would you recommend?
These are very similar schools, in my opinion. There will be cliques & both are fairly rural.
Are you considering any other colleges & universities ?
What do you plan to study ?
I’m also considering UConn, UMD, Delaware, and Penn State(in state). Not sure what size of a school I want though so I also applied to Colgate and Bucknell (maybe too small though). I’m planning on majoring in geography.
I’m going to copy what @Publisher said about the overall similarity between Colgate and Bucknell. Both have lots of rah-rah school spirit, robust party reputations, the reputation for having a bit of a pre-professional vibe compared to most LACs. And they are quite rural.
Two differences are:
- Colgate is a bit more selective.
- Bucknell offers an undergrad Business degree and related majors, while Colgate does not.
Due to their diminutive size and rural location, both will look and feel quite a bit different from the state schools you mentioned.
But they will have that same type of school spirit. My overall opinion of B and C is that they offer the advantages of LACs – small classes, good access to profs, fairly intellectual atmosphere (even if they do have more pre-professionalism than most other elite LACs…) – combined with some of the party atmosphere and sports hysteria of the big D1 universities.
A community of 2500 young adults from all over the country is not the same as a typical community of 2500 local high school kids. Almost every student at a school like Colgate or Bucknell is there because they want to be there and because an admission committee thought they’d make a positive contribution to campus life. You’ll never get to know more than a small fraction of your classmates very well.
Yeah, you’ll probably make a group of, oh, ten friends with whom you’ll spend a good deal of time. You’ll probably also make some acquaintance friendships through your classes – team assignments really help with that. But you’re not going to know everyone on campus.
Forbes included Colgate’s town as one of America’s friendliest:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/morganbrennan/2012/12/19/americas-friendliest-towns/#5927028b61cb
This might be a distinguishing feature on behalf of Colgate. Note that Colgate, particularly, can be a tough admit though.
In terms of size, neither Colgate nor Bucknell would appear to be overly small to me. They’re kind of large, actually, in comparison to some of their academic peers.
@tk21769 Your post above offers an excellent insight & perspective.
These schools shouldn’t be too small if Colgate has over 2,800 students & Bucknell has over 3,500 students. Both are close to 50/50 male/female ratio.
Not sure if this is correct, but Colgate may not have fraternities & sororities (according to US News) while Bucknell is heavily fraternity & sorority oriented.
Colgate says 1/3 students are involved in greek life (I thought it had greek life, so went to check whether I was confusing it with something else!). http://www.colgate.edu/campus-life/fraternities-and-sororities
What did you think of these two places when you visited? that will definitely help you decide
Based on just a handful of students: The students whom I know that have attended Bucknell all came from wealthy families, while the students at Colgate all became wealthy in the New York City area after leaving college.
My sense, walking around both campuses, is that both draw from relatively well off pools but that Colgate has more metro NY representation (including LI) whereas Bucknell is a more mid Atlantic school. Personally, I think you will graduate without having known many of the students who were there when you were. But both are somewhat isolated communities of a certain size with D1 sports, frats, etc. If you want bigger, you may want to focus on a different type of school. That’s a personal choice.