@ljberkow : Shouldn’t they be gearing up for another capital campaign. We should call it ImaginEmory lol.
@bernie12 How about EMdowment Tax Campaign?
@BiffBrown : That would be my argument, but just remember that statistically, main campus numbers are now much less sensitive to change because they were significantly higher from the get go. But for more people to even check both does indeed indicate more interest. What is also interesting is the growth in raw numbers I guess. Very impressive at either. Wonder what is bringing the increased interest. I know there may have been updates to the strategies of the admissions office to reach different high schools and stuff. There seems to be little sensitivity to the fluctuations in rankings.
@ljberkow : “We must raise so much money that it won’t matter if the endowment is taxed. It will feel like a mosquito bite”.
I personally wanna see ECAS and GBS aim higher in campaigns (as in aim to get a bigger allocation…but healthcare and the medical school and allied health professions are such easy targets for fundraisers).
Emory and Oxford are both great but serve different wants and needs. Oxford kids end up coming over to Emory after 2 years anyways and honestly the Admissions stats aren’t that different. I’ve met a lot of Oxford grads who are extremely smart, and emory kids definitely do not look down on kids from Oxford. Not to mention I’ve met kids from Oxford who got into both emory and Oxford but chose Oxford.
@bernie12 Contrary to what Trump believed, Coke has already announced that the increased after tax profits related to the decrease in corporate tax rate will go out in dividends to shareholders. Expect income in the endowment to grow “bigly”. Ha!
@BiffBrown
I got my info from this tread. If you think they are incorrect tell the OP to correct it.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21075227#Comment_21075227
To get back to the original purpose of this thread, I’m posting an Oxford video that was posted on the Oxford College website on December 15, 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQtaJxdl6dM&feature=youtu.be
My son was interested in Emory and loved the Atlanta campus. (honestly I hated it but he loved the city location).
Then we went to the Oxford campus to check it out (another friend a year ahead attended and had a great scholarship by attending Oxford campus).
It is easier for admissions
The tour was by a very enthusiastic student and I liked it. The tour was like “we make our own fun!”
Son nixed it immediately.
The Oxford campus is VERY insulated. It is rural and very small. If you like that environment it may suit you.
It is 45 min by car to just about anywhere. There is nothing around it–no restaurants, no shopping --pretty much nothing. It’s old but has character. Again, preference. I’d visit before signing up.
It has the feel size-wise of a big HS with historic buildings if that makes sense.
Oxford is not a “junior college”–you transfer to Emory main campus after two years. The student stats are high. Bright students with small classes. It seems that a lot of scholarships are offered through this route.
But I did get a definite impression after a tour in Atlanta that the 4 year Atlanta Emory students thought the Oxford students were inferior in some respects which really turned me off. I don’t know if that was an isolated experience.
Perhaps 4 year students look at students coming in as “freshmen” even if they are peers.
My impression is that a lot more scholarships are offered to those who are willing to go the Oxford route.
They are very different college experiences
VISIT first!
@gouf78 : Emory is an elite private university…you should know what types of attitudes a surprising amount of those students have. Some would pretty much look for anyone or place to scapegoat or call inferior for who knows what reason. Like many students, some received offers at several schools (including similar tiered) and some did not. For the latter group, they probably want someone to pick on because a lot of their school choice was about relative prestige. Oxford is a highly convenient target. These are also the fools that like to point at how “state schools are so much easier academically”(my question about this is always:“so you are at Emory or X elite and believe your academic experience should compare to that of someone at a state school with much less competitive admissions? You paid 60k a year to envy those students?” What is most noteable is no one dares to compare their experiences to other elites) or point out the inferiority of those who “couldn’t even get into X”. Students live in their own world. I remember, when I attended Emory, a student had the audacity to say: “Georgia Tech can’t be that rigorous, it is a public school!”. They probably revere Berkeley and thinks it is a private. You get some high scoring/performing but often sheltered students with strange ideas at this tier of schools I tell you. If you stick around at this tier (and higher) of schools, you are bound to hear of and witness some elitist non-sense with people throwing bricks from glasshouses. I really tried to stay away from those who gave me that vibe, but I must admit they existed at Emory probably as much as they do at its elite group of near peers.
As for what you heard from the Oxford tourguide (the “we make our own fun thing”), there is evidence that they are traditionally much better than main campus with regards to this (I think some students believe that simply being in Atlanta should instantly result in the campus being super vibrant all of the time. Uhmmm…hello, Emory is Division 3 so obviously students play a vital role in essentially making a social scene that fills in what many would perceive as a gap). The concept of reimaging and re conceptualizing “Dooley” and turning it into a quirky celebration originated from Oxford. Oxford also has more interesting (and plentiful) beginning of semester activities for freshmen and perhaps more traditions in general for undergraduates. This is something, in my opinion, I really wish students on main would learn. There seems to be too much “coloring in the lines” when it comes to EC choices and fun. A little creativity would go a long way to make the place even more lively. Instead a few people seem to like to wait for things to come to them or believe that things should simply pre-exist for them to partake in and want to complain when it doesn’t. I loved Emory and I and my friend groups would get creative, but it would be nice if much more did that and created something bigger from it. It would be a bit more interesting for everyone and perhaps invalidate the few Debby Downers it has.
@gouf78 Where did your son end up going to college?
Speaking as a junior on the Atlanta campus who spent 2 previous years on the Oxford campus, I can say that there are decent restaurants in the townships of Covington and Oxford, which are within easy driving distance of the Oxford campus. Of course, Atlanta, which is reachable by the free shuttle, has far more options.
Students often travel to Atlanta on the weekends via the free shuttle for eating, partying and doing things on the Emory College and Georgia Tech campuses.
I haven’t experienced any Atlanta campus students looking down on Oxford College students. I’m not sure where you got that impression.
Last spring, Oxford students posted their summer research internship plans for the summer of 2017 on a white board in the new science building and they were every bit as impressive as you might expect from a top 20 research university. Some of the more prestigious programs included Johns Hopkins Medical School SIP, MIT Broad Institute (home of the CRISP gene editing technology), MD Anderson Cancer Center (#1 ranked cancer hospital in the country), various NSF funded research opportunities, Mayo Clinic, etc. Many, many Oxford freshmen and sophomores secured prestitious summer research opportunities at outside institutions.
We had all applied as either Oxford freshmen or sophomores so these results show you that the Oxford College of Emory brand carries some weight.
It helped that we all had the benefit of small classes that allowed us to get to know professors who could then write on our behalves.
It’s much harder to get that face to face time on the Emory/Atlanta campus when the class sizes are so much larger. To give one example, Dr. Weinschenk, who teaches the most respected/most feared organic chemistry sections, really reaches out to students and is famous for knowing all his students by name (all 160 of them per semester). Though he holds 3-4 hours worth of office hours a week, those fill up very quickly and end up being run like lectures because so many students go to them. It’s very hard to get a question answered at those office hours. At Oxford, the science class sections are 25 students or less and the lecturer also runs the labs. You really get to know professors that way.
And the small number of students at Oxford mean that there are so many opportunities to be in student government, plays, musical ensembles, clubs, teaching assistantships and to lead if one so chooses.
@BiffBrown : If only you could have taken Soria 
@bernie12 I have no complaints about Weinschenk. His teaching is outstanding. He cares about his students. The team of teaching assistants, tutors, and lab assistants that he’s assembled do a great job of teaching orgo at a very high level. He teaches 2 80-student sections per semester and does a great job given that constraint…
Regarding Soria, he doesn’t teach anything other than freshman orgo any more, does he? Does he hold down enrollment in his sections?
A slide show with Oxford College highlights from calendar year 2017:
@BiffBrown : I am merely pointing to difficult accessibility in OH. A lot of the accessibility issues (mainly office hours) are created by the fact that he incentivizes it by hinting that he will take it (among other things) into account when applying the curve to the course. This brings many people there who crowd the scene and turn some office hours into re-lectures as opposed to true help or guided problem solving sessions. A significant people just sit there and spectate likely hoping for their faces to be seen (as he knows all the names). However, the crowd forces it into a format that is likely less effective than a normal sized OH and substantially less useful than individual appointments.
Soria is now teaching the new courses (150,202, and will likely be approved for 203. And yes, he caps enrollment lower so that he can use his methods effectively and because he has his hands in too many pots, a very high teaching load) and frosh, but will discontinue teaching frosh. His OH are much less visited partly because some are intimidated and partly because the forced team problem solving system (you are assigned groups for the additional problem sets for bonus points that do not correspond to his problem solving sessions equivalent to orgomentors) which is often sufficient to foster a decent amount of independence and success to some level. It is just very different, more hands on so students do not have to depend on him as much outside of class.
And yes, you need unusually strong and involved TAs to help for a course at Weinschenk or Soria’s level. It takes a special type of team for sure (namely people who really know the material and are willing to even do some extra things such as offer additional reviews and materials on top of the orgo mentor sessions mainly because they recognize how challenging it is to meet the demands of prepping yourself for exams that contain what are essentially upper level and graduate division problems and concepts).
The admissions office on Emory College v. Oxford College:
https://blog.emoryadmission.com/2017/08/honest-talk-about-oxford-college-2/
"Why should a student choose Oxford?
There are 3 main distinctions from the Emory College campus which may draw students:
The emphasis at Oxford is on rigorous liberal arts coursework in a close-knit setting. The very strong advising system and small class size are attractive features for many students.
A second reason for choosing Oxford is that it offers increased opportunities for leadership in activities that at larger schools are often led by upper-class students. Such activities include: honor council, newspaper, student government, resident assistant (RA), supplemental instructor (SI), etc.
Oxford is Emory University’s smallest division but also its most diverse. Only 32% of this year’s incoming class is from the Southeast. And 18% are international students."
“Oxford provides an opportunity for students to experience two unique opportunities in their college career; a small liberal arts setting and resources of a renowned research university. This combination is found nowhere else in American higher education. It allows students to have engaging classroom instruction in their formative years while also having the opportunity to do cutting-edge research and experience a much different campus pathway through their college career.”
“Oxford is not rural, but what is considered a community in metropolitan Atlanta. The Covington/Conyers area provides many amenities including theaters, restaurants, bowling alleys, and an annual concert series. Also, students are only 45 minutes from the Atlanta campus and the heart of Atlanta and 45 minutes from Athens, GA, a great college town, too!”
Why one student in his own words chose Oxford College over other options:
"My choices came down to Wake Forest, Holy Cross, New York University, and Emory’s Oxford College. Even after visiting these campuses, my decision wasn’t clear to me because I found these schools so different from one another.
When I got home, I thought about why I liked each school. I liked NYU for its big city location, Holy Cross for its community, Wake Forest for its academic rigor, and then I realized Emory had all of these things.
Emory’s Oxford College is a small liberal arts college that students attend for two years before moving to the larger Emory campus in Atlanta. Oxford had the small community, the liberal arts experience, and the academic rigor I was looking for, and Emory’s main campus had the big city. Emory had all the pieces to the puzzle."
https://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_magarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=30137
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