We looked at USD when we were out there on vacation this summer. Not surprisingly absolutely beautiful campus. Just did our own walking tour so we really didn’t get a real flavor for student life. If D21 is still interested we will have to take another trip when school is in session. (I know the sacrifices we make for our kids…lol)
@Aguadecoco Ha…my D21 took it yesterday for the first time and thought the math and grammar weren’t bad but the reading was hard. She had the dreaded extra section.
S21 took SAT yesterday too. He thought reading was difficult, the rest easy, and he got the 5th section. I think I read somewhere that they might use some answers from it? His was a much easier reading section and he was hoping they’d switch it for his other reading, lol. We were hoping for a one and done!
@homerdog S18 is a sophomore Richmond and LOVES it. He’s probably double majoring in mathematical Econ and Leadership. He finally took our advice to go in and talk with professors and was shocked at how they actually wanted to help him! While the b-school is prominent, there are lots of kids majoring in everything. Faculty and admin have been amazing.
Thanks @havenoidea ! That’s great news that your S went to talk to his profs and that they’ve been helpful. Advocating for yourself is a HUGE. I may have questions for you about the leadership school. It’s so unique!
So thanks to the Fiske thread, I pulled out our 2018 copy. We don’t need the 2020, right? It should be roughly the same, at least for descriptions, overlaps, etc.? (I would never use it for stats.)
@homerdog fyi, Fiske says Gonzaga’s students are about half Catholic.
@homerdog no, my S wanted to get out of state and we were good with that preference. Both great schools though…Ohio seems to have a lot of smaller, great schools. Denison is known to be a little “richer”/preppier. Smaller, campus I would describe as quaint. Wooster is another great one, known here to be a step or two academically up from the others. Re: Booksmart, I loved it and thought it was funny; it does portray high school behaviors, I thought the overall message was sweet and positive and that the “behaviors” weren’t glorified. But you may want to pre-watch it before recommending it to a teen. I like high school movies, but many people my age aren’t interested in seeing that any more! (But for those of us with kids in this college app/choice stage, there’s a lot of relevant humor and that one scene is so funny and worth it!) And finally, if your D is anti-Catholic schools, IMO don’t let that rule out Jesuit schools. Lots of experience here with Jesuit schools and have found that the religious presence is much lower, accepting and universal, and more philosophical (service to others, “whole person”) than overtly religious. My D attends one (LMU) and had moved away from the Catholic faith of her upbringing before attending, but she enjoys the Jesuit philosophy and does not experience any religious pressure or strong religious culture at the school.
@TS0104 Wooster more academic than Denison? That’s the word on the OH street? S applied to Kenyon and we both thought the academics seemed stellar. Never considered Wooster. None of us can get past the name. I know. Dumb reason.
I also have the perception Wooster is more academic than Denison…the required senior Independent Study project (full year, counts as a class each semester) is no joke. (I think some Denison departments/majors require a senior thesis but not all). And yes, Wooster’s name is unappealing!
I have a friend who’s [smart!] daughter is a junior at Wooster…if you ever want to chat with her, just lmk.
@homerdog that is no cut on Denison, BTW, or Kenyon. All great and very well regarded. I just mean that in our HS, we maybe get just a couple of the top of the classes over the years going to Wooster. Then Kenyon, Denison, in that order, are a bit more common for those still in the top 5-10%, then Miami there are always several, in order of increasing numbers. Miami bus. school is known as good, and the school in general. Of course I’m sure there are other factors like finances and parent alumni and even name recognition when it comes to the enrollment we see around here for this group.
I completely understand the “Wooster” name issue, and the inexplicable dislike of Ohio. My S had a strange ban on Mass…which is another state with a LOT of great options! Like Holy Cross which I felt was a great choice for him. Oh well. Plenty of choices. Denison, Kenyon and Miami have lovely campuses (OU as well for that matter)…never been to Wooster. They aren’t quite like the brick-filled stately campuses we saw in the mid Atlantic/NC (and it’s very hard to compete with Richmond campus IMO), but tree filled, traditional, very nice looking, all of them.
I’m happy to know that Wooster is considered to be a fine school academically, as its acceptance rate is a little higher than Denison’s and much higher than Kenyon’s. It seems to have a slightly more forgiving range of test scores. I feel it’s the closest thing I’ve found to a nearly sure thing for D21 that would be an academic match and not too high or too low of a challenge… that rare thing…an almost-safety for acceptance purposes, that wouldn’t BE academically a safety.
I actually like the name, think it’s distinctive (since it’s pronounced the same as Worchester, doesn’t rhyme with Rooster!) and think the COW acromym is charming. The Scottish thing is a plus (D and I fell in love with Scotland last summer). @TS0104, Wooster’s campus also looks pretty, but in your opinion, does the acreage/layout feel small or cramped? That was one of the criticisms my D21 has had about some of the smaller (under/at 2000-student) campuses we’ve seen.
From the photos, Denison’s campus/surrounding town look picture-perfect to me, and its setting just outside of Coumbus (for internships/cultural events) seems great. I’ve read that Columbus has an up-and-coming young-adult culture starting to happen. Do you think that’s true?
Anyway, we’re already scheduled to tour both schools during D’s short spring break and really looking forward to it.
BTW, My D also said she had a 5th section on the SAT! (She didn’t mention it until I asked.) Hers was in math, and she said IT was so easy she was mad that it’s wasn’t part of the scored math. She said most of the questions relied more on a sense of logic rather than anything requiring quantitative calculations. Maybe SAT is trying to introduce something akin to the old analogies section that instead involves numbers (rather than word analogies) but doesn’t really use the kind of formulas that are taught formally in algebra and widely memorized. Maybe trying to asses out-of-the-box thinking? IDK, but somehow, the way she described the questions reminded me of those analogies (which I used to love, BTW 
).
Ah, @TS0104, now I see that you’ve never visited Wooster. Can anyone else comment on the feel of the physical campus/ vibe of the students? The photos look lovely, but the buildings somewhat close together. Does it seem very small? (For comparison’s sake, we visited Muhlenburg and the footprint of the campus was tiny and a bit cramped and D said it felt just TOO small to consider, though she wants a LAC).
I was thinking about Wooster for S21, but from everything I’ve read it’s waaaay too liberal. I even asked the question on this site of a current student (her ‘ask me anything’ thread) and her answer confirmed what I had been reading…
@eb23282 Interesting, and I’ve never heard that, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true or valid. My insight into Wooster is solely based on who goes there from our small high school!
@inthegarden I can definitely comment on Columbus, we live there. I did spot it in a recent national article “10 cities that are up and coming” or “ten cities with growing appeal to millenials” or something like that, and I would say that’s true. My suburb is definitely hot with that group. We have pro hockey and soccer and of course OSU sports, concerts (as in big venues/national touring bands), hip boutique areas, museums, great restaurants. Large brewery scene. A very nice shopping/restaurant/apartment suburb/area called Easton on the side of town nearest to Granville. One of the country’s top children’s hospitals if that is anyone’s possible internship area, plus a mix of bigger companies (banks, insurance, Limited Brands) and smaller startups (anyone heard of Jeni’s ice cream?)
We go to Granville (Denison’s town) every year to a Christmas tree farm, its a quintessential, yes picture-perfect looking quaint small town, beautiful church on a corner, one main brick street with restaurants and shops, surrounding older homes with beautiful porches. Especially at Christmas with all the lit trees in the median and lit wreaths in all of the surrounding Victorian homes it truly looks like a scene out of a movie. I suppose it is a nice mix of small (Denison), with nearby-45 min drive- large (Columbus).
@inthegarden, we have visited Wooster and several other LACs of similar student body size. I would not describe it as cramped at all. The campus has a lot of trees, so it’s not wide open sky, but I didn’t feel cramped or claustrophobic. The town layout is pretty much a grid, so it’s more straight lines and right angles — not meandering pathways and randomly places buildings.
@inthegarden I think one reason for Wooster’s more forgiving range of test scores is that they are not test optional.
We visited and liked the campus and the vibe…didn’t seem to cramped to us, but my S21 isn’t a kid likely to be especially worried about that (as long as it’s not completely tiny), do your daughter’s read on it may be different. The only campuses he had as reference to compare to were Denison (the day before) and a quick-walk-through at Kenyon (no tour there as we weren’t considering it for S21 and were just doing a 30 minute walk on our own to scope the location/campus out a bit for D23). If anything, Kenyon felt the smallest of those 3 in terms of campus (that may not be reality and may just be a result of not doing an actual tour and therefore not seeing everything). Will be curious to see what you think of Denison and Wooster when you visit. Both are staying on S21’s list, and we’ve targeted Beloit, Clark, and Wheaton - MA - for tours in March. It sounds as if your daughter is probably shooting for more selective schools than my S21 overall (I’m perceiving Denison to be a reach for him).
@TS0104 I have been to Columbus many times for D21 softball tournaments and I can tell you we love to go there. As you stated lots of great areas with cool restaurants and bars. Of course OSU with all that a major university has to offer. ML hockey, Minor League baseball and easy drive to Cleveland or Cincinnati for even more culture, sports and entertainment.
My only criticism of Columbus is the traffic and seeming unending road construction. It can be really brutal if you get stuck in it at the wrong time.
As to the Kenyon, Dennison Wooster debate I have always understood them to be very similar great LAC but that in fact they are academically ranked in general as listed above. I have never understood Wooster ( a fine LAC) to be considered better than Dennison and certainly not Kenyon.
@homerdog I may have mentioned this before but if your daughter is in search of academically challenging LAC there are a lot in PA. My alma Mater Lafayette College is a great school. I could never get in there now…Franklin & Marshall, Bucknell, Dickinson, Haverford, Swarthmore etc.
Well NO NMF here. Sadly D’s score is her worse one yet. SI 214. Reading and writing got her after she put countless hours studying.
After a good cry for both of us. We are looking at the positives. Our local state university has a fantastic engineering school with kids getting jobs at Intel in Austin to Lockheed Martin in Denver (both cities D is interested in living). And her best friend and boyfriend will go there.
So onward and upward.
@BingeWatcher I’m so sorry but, yes, of course chin up! Your D will do well regardless. Won’t her SAT score and grades help with other merit scholarships when she’s looking at all options?
I’m so sorry. It sounds like you both have the right attitude. Agree with homerdog, her other accomplishments speak so highly!