<p>D has narrowed her list to U of Portland, Linfield College and Saint Mary's of CA.</p>
<p>Lifield is offering the most $</p>
<p>SMC is the closest to home.</p>
<p>UP has been on her list since sophomore year and she loves it.</p>
<p>She is struggling with her final choice. She wants Bio and a creative writing minor or double major and perhaps business thrown in there somewhere. </p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Going off on a tangent here. I seem to recall that soccer was her sport?
Does she want to play club soccer (UP has it, SMC doesn’t). Or maybe she could make the Div. III team at Linfield? These would be tipping points at our house.</p>
<p>Or, are there other quality of life pluses at any of them? They all look like great schools, maybe she could look for some other qualities that might make one stand out. Ease in getting off campus? Cafeteria compatibility? Opportunities for on/
off campus jobs?</p>
<p>Good luck. </p>
<p>(Dang it, now UP looks like an interesting school to investigate further. Maybe D should just use your girls’ lists. )</p>
<p>Thanks Karen, aren’t you the observant one! I will pass the news on. </p>
<p>UP definately has the best opportunity for off campus work/internships that are handy to campus.</p>
<p>The Linfield coach did contact her but it was addressed to “Linfield accepted student” or something which indicated he was contacting anyone who spoke of soccer int their ap :). She likes their overall sportiness there but could really get behind D1 soccer and basketball at SM and UP.</p>
<p>The club thing may make the difference though. Her quandry seems to be in ranking what is important to her. You give her five criteria and she gives each a 20% weight.</p>
<p>We loved UP! It felt like home for both girls the minute we stepped on campus but D has since learned that Linfield can feel like home too and SMC is close to home so what’s a girl to do.</p>
<p>Good luck to your D next year and I will be thrilled to help her out in any way.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Linfield or SMC, but a close friend of mine goes to UP and she absolutely loves it.</p>
<p>I don’t think she can go wrong with any of the choices. Is the financial difference a consideration at all? Because that might help narrow it down.</p>
<p>history… My distant relative whose son went to UP, the son transferred back home (girl friend was the excuse) and my friend’s D who went there after a year in a local CC now wants to transfer again (I don’t know where). She may have been bummed by the dark winter; but she also is complaining about the classes being not interesting and she is in creative writing. I think it is her, not the school as this girl has had some focus issues before. But it bothers me a bit that the school didn’t hang on to 2 kids who really wanted to go there in the beginning. YMMV, of course and your D’s sound LOTS more mature than either of this kids. But might be worth probing a bit if you have plans to go to admitted students days there…</p>
<p>Oh, I just thought of another resource. Since those are all small LAC’s, they should have a ‘family page’ on the website. I was able to contact the family liasion, and she put me in touch with a parent, and my S in touch with a student, so we could ask questions. It was extremely helpful. Maybe they could put your D in contact with someone in the creative writing department and Bio. department.</p>
<p>Also, did she fill out the ‘prospective athelete’ questionairre online at Linfield? I would think that would get her a more personal response. (a letter would be even better than the online form, but the clock is ticking…)</p>
<p>What are the cost differentials? How affordable is her first choice for the family?</p>
<p>I would go for U of P
Portland is cool despite the rain- they have merit aid I believe ( I would also show them the offer from Linfield)</p>
<p>Don’t know anything about Saint Mary’s but have visited UP and Linfield numerous times and know grads form both (more from Linfield). Both are “sporty” for small west Coast colleges. Obviously Linfield isn’t a Catholic college, but does have some students who are more observant in their religious life than say Lewis and Clark. One recent Linfield grad we know was working with a chem prof the summer after his freshman year. Very nurturing environment. Both may have a large number of kids going home each weekend. Since it sounds like you are from CA, can she get on facebook and talk to kids at both schools and see what the average weekend is?
When we toured Linfield we got a dud of a tour guide. Freshman. When asked what weekends were like she said “Pretty quiet. I usually go to church and do my laundry and study.” Had we had an upperclassman in the Greek system I suspect the answer would have been much different! This was by far the friendliest campus we visited. Kids came up to D after her class visit and offered to take her to see places on campus or answer questions. Everyone looked up and at least smiled and nodded a greeting when walking across campus.</p>
<p>Oh, forgot to mention:
UP vs Linfield - small walkable affordable town vs. big hip city a bus ride away but nothing for students within walking distance.
UP has a wonderful view of the river, and I think some new dorms. Linfield also has great new dorms (though I’m still fond of the grand old ones despite hall baths and creaky steam heat.) Their library is new and nice but at the far end of what was the construction zone - is that finished?</p>
<p>UP - lots of required philosophy/religion based classes, in case you weren’t aware.</p>
<p>Hi–you might think my S would weigh in more strongly as he was accepted at both but he really never looked deeply into UP but did Linfield–so when I asked him he said, Linnfield. I think he did not want to stay in Portland and wanted a smaller feeling–thus WU. I do know from a good friend that UP is a very good education. Another very close friend --boys have known each other since they were 2–has chosen Linfield over Gonzaga. So! I am no help at all, I fear. She cannot go wrong with either. I think one question would be whether she will utilize the city if she goes to UP. I have been impressed with McMinnville on a Sat. afternoon and how busy the shops are with students. UP will be isolating unless she takes a bus and the Max…or I am so sorry you have to figure this out! a tough one!</p>
<p>My message to all the college grads I recruit is “listen to your gut, trust your gut, go with your gut.” If one school just somehow feels better and you can afford them all, let her trust her instincts.</p>
<p>She’s not going to have a bad time at either school, but I’m biased in favor of Linfield, being an alumnus and all :). ( c/o 2007)</p>
<p>Mcminnville is a small enough town that they realize that students are a part of the economy and cater to them with various discounts for students and also employment (think waitress/barista-type positions),. If there’s something going on in Portland, like a concert, it’s pretty easy to either catch a ride (about a third of the student body comes from within an hour of the school) or even ride a bus with a few transfers. </p>
<p>As for the school, bio and business are two of the three biggest departments at Linfield. I liked my bio professors, and am now facebook friends with a few (after I graduated, of course…) The bio program is modular in terms of the courses you take, so students can tailor it to their particular interests. Mine were animal physiology and conservation biology, but some of my classmates thought mushrooms were neat. Studying them, that is… but I digress. Creative writing is smaller, but has several long-term faculty. One of my roommates was in the program and liked it.</p>
<p>Linfield is as religious as you want it to be. There’s an active FCA organization (just got a facebook invite to their formal, even though I graduated two years ago and live 2000 miles away) as well as clubs for specific denominations. The only thing I can remember that was overtly religious is with our performances for the concert choir: They were always at the Mcminnville baptist church and our stops on tour during spring break were also baptist churches.</p>
<p>The women’s team at linfield usually finishes in the bottom of the middle of the pack in the conference, with the class usually being WU or UPS from what I remember. If your daughter plays at a traveling-team level in CA, she has a good chance of making the team and getting playing time her first year.</p>
<p>As for the campus experience, I disagree that it is pretty quiet. Maybe before noon on Saturday and Sunday mornings, but there’s usually something going on, from student concerts to sporting events to greek life to off-campus events sponsored by the school.</p>
<p>Dragonmom: I’m sorry you got a dud for a tour guide. It WOULD have been much more fun if you had had an upperclassman from the greek system (like I was when I worked at admissions). I gave FUN tours. I played a game called “Indiana Jones” in with the rolling shelves in the library for the tours that I thought would enjoy it. </p>
<p>I did pretty much everything at Linfield while I was there (sports, greek life, music, theater, science, etc.), and if I didn’t, I’m pretty sure I know someone who did/does. If you have any last-minute questions, go ahead and let me know. I think I’d be able to help.</p>
<p>Son of Opie that was such a great informative post. I will be sure she sees it. Thanks also to all who talked about UP being less walkable. A consideration since frosh are not allowed to have cars. </p>
<p>Son of Opie she really wants to get her hands into things and is worried that college will be more lecture and note taking. Can you comment on that in bio and the availability of internships in Mc Minnville?</p>
<p>Any of the science classes intended for people majoring in that science have a lab course that the student takes concurrently and attends one to three times a week that parallels the material being taught in lecture. We did our own PCR, western blots, gel electrophoresis, etc. We cultured our own bacteria in immunology and microbiology. We tended our own fruit flies or fungi or ferns in genetics. While you can’t escape lecture and note-taking, you at least get a chance to do some of what you’re learning about yourself. </p>
<p>As for internships, there are quite a few with nearby companies for business majors, typically in the summer before senior year, from what I remember from classmates (I was chem/bio with a music minor). If you’re one of the more promising students in the science classes, most of the faculty pursue their research in the summer, and have the budgets to hire a student or two to live on campus and work in their lab. I was offered a chance to do so at the end of my freshman year by the gen chem professor… however, I’d been away from home for five months at that point, the longest period ever at that point, and turned him down because I was homesick. But the opportunity was there.</p>
<p>Son of Opie, I didn’t mean to say that the campus was dead on the weekends, just that our tour guide didn’t know how to communicate what all was going on. (or maybe didn’t know what was going on…)
We actually had toured before, and got a great guide.
Very under-rated school.
Some of my friends’ kids who are recent grads are in med school at highly ranked schools and in grad school at UW and U of O.<br>
If merit money makes the difference, this is a contender.</p>
<p>No worries… I didn’t mean to sound defensive… I just don’t think tour guide is a good job for a first-semester freshman. At least not by themselves. Better to let them establish themself for a term or two. If you’re bored at college, you’re not doing it right… :)</p>
<p>Son of Opie–S’s #2nd choice was Linfield–and we know that it is an under KNOWN school, as it has so much to offer. Still, sadly, I must say that it was the worst tour that we went on–S did go back and spend a day on his own so that was not the final determining factor–but I mean to and did not let admissions know —</p>
<p>I believe you Oregon101. There are some people who are just not suited to give tours. At least the blogs on the admissions website have improved a little bit. I had a lot of fun writing about my college life while getting a little bit of work study money to basically tell stories.</p>