<p>Would love firsthand info. We recieved thier viewbooks today......can you embelish on what the viewbooks leave out?</p>
<p>Social climate? New London Mystic seaport? (Conn. College) </p>
<p>And how far on the outskirts of Baltimore is Loyola? It ranked #1 in top ten best college dorms. Great reason to attend a school right? lol.......just curious about the school because we are considering catholic colleges too.</p>
<p>Althought I don't know a lot about Loyola, we passed by it on the way to Johns Hopkins. It is fairly close, in a pretty part of the city, near one of the nicest residential neighborhoods.</p>
<p>My daughter and I visited Connecticut College (5 years ago!) Beautiful campus...my daughter, however, felt that it didn't seem diverse enough for her tastes. I do know a local girl who is very interested in drama who is very happy there.</p>
<p>It's hard to get a handle on Connecticut College. A nice looking campus. 60% female, 70% white.</p>
<p>Some points of differentiation were:
Very interesting multi-dimensional, cross department programs, which they call "Interdisciplinary Centers for Learning and Research".
An undergraduate degree in architecture.
Appealing study abroad program in which students and faculty travel as a team -- sort of an international annex.</p>
<p>Two unrelated events that stand out from our visit, one positive, one less so: Conn was the only school out of 14 visited that actually included the inside of the art department on the tour. Our tour guide told us that he had taken to spending his weekends in the Berkshires with a friend at Williams!</p>
<p>I don't have a child at Loyola, but am somewhat familiar with it.</p>
<p>Loyola is within the Baltimore city limits, in a neighborhood called Homewood. Easily the nicest, safest area of the city. The campus is large and pretty open, and is adjacent to a lot of open space in the form of Notre Dame College of Maryland (women only). It has a very good reputation in Maryland for having a solid liberal arts curriculum without a large amount of fluff. Well known in MD for business & MBA programs, and the economics dept is "up & coming."</p>
<p>S and H just returned from a tour of Loyola and Goucher. Our S is also interested in catholic colleges. They reported that Loyola is in a lovely section of the city and the campus is very green and attractive. One interesting thing is that most of the residences are across the main street from the academic and athletic facilities, and a footbridge is used to cross between them, known as the East and West sides. S says the freshman dorm he saw, a double, was "huge". The upper classmen have large suites for 4 to 6 people. Tour guide said the college has very strict policies about underage drinking/drugs on campus. Here are some tidbits of info they brought back: Two-thirds of the students are involved in community service, which is voluntary. Approx. 75% of the students are Roman catholic, 50% of whom actively participate in liturgy. Loyola is technically a university because they have grad programs, but those programs are all located at satellite campuses. The main location is a college because it only has undergrad programs. S and H both enjoyed the visit and felt positive about the college.</p>
<p>One of the nice pluses about Loyola is that Baltimore has a large number of colleges and universities. Loyola is a member of a group of these colleges (Goucher and Johns Hopkins are two of the others) that have a free bus that shuttles between the campuses, to a good sized mall, and into downtown Baltimore. Loyola students (and others in this group of colleges) are allowed to take some classes at the other schools if their school doesn't offer it. Baltimore seems like it would be a great place to go to school, with lots of internship and community service opportunities, many other college students, and D.C. an easy and quick train ride away.</p>
<p>Baltimore is indeed a great city with many options for transportation within and out of the city. S & H found it easy to get around by both car and public transportation. They attended a game at Camden Yards and had a great time (Red Sox fans seemed everywhere in Baltimore last weekend!). It is a lively city and adcoms pointed out the accessibility of great opportunities for internships and community service.</p>
<p>Calmom - S & H said Goucher is in a lovely area right outside the city. Freshmen can have cars, in addition to the Collegetown shuttle and regular buses. The campus is surprisingly large and very woodsy. They were unable to join the regular tour but spent time with the Adcom, who was very accommodating. They toured around on their own after, but said it was hard to get a feel for the campus since there were really no students around. They did meet two students doing research in the Bio lab, who were very friendly, but it would definitely require another visit to get a real feel for the place. In terms of academics, they felt the science programs seemed good given that it's a small liberal arts school. The Creative Writing program is supposedly strong. The college places a strong emphasis on internships and, as noted above, Baltimore is a good place to be for internships. A plus is that they give good merit scholarships. A minus would be the lopsided male-female ratio. Plans are to increase the number of undergrads from about 1200 to 1500 over the next few years. A new residence hall is nearly complete. Overall, they felt positive and definitely worth a second look. BTW, Carolyn has some nice pictures of Goucher on her website.</p>
<p>Here's all I know about Loyola: My son applied to Loyola but got a lousy scholarship (merit) offer from them. Of the two kids in his (Jesuit) high school who had comparable (or lower) grades but got better offers (also merit), both were athletes. My son is a musician and, according to their recruiter at his high school, they have a weak music program. So, maybe they either didn't value that as a EC or they didn't think his application was serious. I don't know. He appealed their decision and they held tight.</p>