Should I transfer out of Grinnell?

[burrito15]

Hi,

I am a current international student at Grinnell College and I have been thinking of transferring to another Liberal Arts college for a variety of reasons. I will try to elaborate below.

1. Weak alumni network (or hard to access alumni network) / less committed alumni network: I see our alumni network as subpar compared to other top LACs, especially in New England. Our alumni are definitely not as successful financially speaking and many go into either academia or service. While I do not object either of those fields, as someone who is paying the full amount I have have certain expectations (financially speaking), and would like to know if other LACs can provide better opportunities for me. I sometimes feel that Grinnell places emphasis on things that may not necessarily matter to me and place less of an emphasis on career development, particularly in the corporate world. Can someone please attest (or disprove) this? And is this any different from schools in New England. (this is further elaborated below). We also have one of the lowest give back rates (Does this reflect on how much our alumni’s care about the school?); I’m wondering if it is because many people come to Grinnell on the basis of aid as opposed to coming here for what it is? (92% of people are on aid) (not trying to be pretentious). Grinnell is very rarely anyone’s dream school and many people don’t come here because of an affinity towards the school, thus resulting in a lack of pride/sense of loyalty.

Our technology system is difficult to use and it is hard to reach out to our alumni network. Again, how easy is it to access alumni networks in other top LACs?

2. Future success, particularly in business or the corporate world & over emphasis on research, graduate schools and academia in general + no strong internships: Similar to the point above, I feel as though Grinnell is great when it comes to graduate school admissions and research, but when looking at employment and future careers I cannot help but feel that we are inferior in this department compared to some of our peers. Unfortunately, the latter is more important to me. (that is not to say I do not care about Graduate school, I simply feel that it isn’t my priority now and that is all people talk about.) Furthermore, I must say that it is difficult to find an internship in business (not necessarily finance or banking). Many internships relate to academia and service, which I do not appeal to me as much. Additionally, I am disappointed in the amount of interactions between us and our alumns, particularly when searching for internships. Other LAC’s in New England seem to be better in this regard; is that enough reason to justify a transfer. TLDR: Emphasis on academia over real world.

3. Lack of vision within the student body: I feel bad for saying this, but I cannot help but think that the students in Grinnell lack vision or fail to see the ‘big picture’ (I will elaborate). Coming in as an international student from a relatively rich circle, I sometimes feel that the students here do not dream or think big (now I can’t exactly define what thinking ‘big’ is but let me try to explain). I feel as though most people here are complacent with just getting any job and are not thinking about changing the world. Now I would assume that a large part of this is because most people here come from lower income families and thus grew up very differently from myself (this is not an assumption, there is data supporting this). From a young age I was sent to an expensive school (I attended the same school all my life) and was able to travel all around the world, eat exotic food etc. and like I said grew up with people who had similar privileges. I do not blame the people here but at the same time I do not have the luxury to just get a normal ‘job’ so to say (my trajectory GREATLY differs from many people here). Another thing is that there is also a level of entitlement here and intolerance for people who do not do things ‘their way’. When I hear people argue about things that I would deem to be superficial (no offense) such as gender pronouns and then marching in the streets, crying about issues like this, I become disheartened. I just feel that as college students in a top LAC, we should engage in more sophisticated discussions, be more open to different ideas and talk about changing the world instead of just complain about everything wrong with it and then proceed to march. I guess I just had an expectation of a “prestigious LAC” to be filled with great minds, and a certain level of sophistication and class. (Now I do consider myself liberal, but sometimes the way people argue here can be somewhat classless and just weird; like people who cry over misinterpreting one’s gender pronouns, which isn’t even a concept in many TWCs)

I also feel as though this place is too “academic”. We engage in these intellectual discussions (which I appreciate), but sometimes I also think that people here are too rigid in that they can only thrive in a place which fosters intellectual discussions and are frankly oblivious to many real world issues. Perhaps the term is that people here are “book smart” but not “street smart”. Coming from a third world country, this really alarms me. But this may just be a cultural difference between a developing country and America.

Would I face this problem in other LACs such as Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin and Middlebury?

4. Lack of preppiness and elitism (minor point): Now I understand that Grinnell is quirky and hipster as opposed to elitist and preppy. And you might be saying well why did you apply here then? As an international student who couldn’t visit, it was very hard to discern these schools and I was actually attracted to Grinnell’s attention to social justice. I assumed Top LAC’s were going to be somewhat elitist (and as you can see, this elitism or the lack thereof does cause some problems for me). Additionally, I had a very rough time (academically) in high school and did not dare to apply to other top LACs (regrettably so).

Reasons why I don’t want to transfer:

1. Close friends and great professors: Despite everything I had said, I also am really appreciative of how caring the professors are and my friends. Just having a close friend group composed of many international & domestic students as well as being on the swim team, really makes me like this place. I am, in a way, trying to come up with reasons to stay. However, I also understand that I live in a different reality from the majority of people here and that Grinnell may not be the best place for me and my career.

2. Large endowment and more opportunities: While we don’t advertise it (frustratingly), we have groups like the PCI who invest a over $100K given to from the college and is open to all students. I think clubs like this are great and definitely make Grinnell stand out from it’s peers.

3. In my sophomore year

Am I overthinking this? Or are the points I make valid. How does Grinnell compare to other top LACs such as Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin and Middlebury in terms of prestige, alumni, and future success?

[intparent]

I don’t think you will be happy at any LAC. I think you picked the wrong kind of school.

[nostalgicwisdom]

I’m a recent graduate of one of the schools you mentioned, and I was admitted to most of the others (all but Middlebury). I’d say most of the concerns you described would be true to those colleges as well, and there won’t really be a large shift in experience. The only LAC I’d suggest thinking about is Claremont McKenna College, which has the pre-professional emphasis among students who attend and a strong reputation for business/finance/banking.

I feel like a university would be a better fit. There are some which can give you close relationships and considerable opportunities, but they are highly selective. That said, transferring into any of the LACs you mentioned would be just as difficult, and they especially don’t want to take transfers from schools they consider similar to them. Look into Dartmouth, Brown, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Northwestern, Duke, and UPenn. You will lose some things in going to some of them over Grinnell, but you’ll have to weigh your own priorities.

[prodesse]

There’s always grad school! Enjoy your undergraduate years at Grinnell, then get your MBA among the would-be financiers, who surely will be more driven toward economic success than you can possibly imagine.

[DadTwoGirls]

What is your GPA so far at Grinnell?

[merc81]

You’d be correct in assuming that, by socio-cultural factors, NESCACs, in particular, would be “preppier” than Grinnell, at least when considered by the proportion of their students who originate from traditional prep/boarding, or similar, schools. This factor may actually be greatest at more moderately selective colleges from within the group (to the extent that this exists at all), such as Middlebury or Trinity. Worth noting, however, would be that, on a defacto basis, some NESCACs such as Williams cannot be realistically said to accept transfers at all.

From the totality of your post, I’d say that Penn, Duke and Washington University would be examples of schools that would be natural fits for you.

[burrito15]

Thank you for your feedback everyone.

Just to clarify, I particularly like what the LACs have to offer; small classes with discussion (really matters to me), tight-knit community, a non-cutthroat environment so to speak and having wonderful professors that support you (for instance, I have an academic advisor who I work closely with to pick classes and plan out my time here). Perhaps my post is misleading in that I come across as someone who doesn’t enjoy my time here; that is far from the truth. I very much appreciate everything my time in Grinnell – this place really does place an emphasis on my personal education and has offers good opportunities. It’s just when I look at the goals of some my friends, I do think that they do not dream very far, are too focused on academia and do not understand a lot about how the ‘real world’ works and come across as ‘book smart’. Although this view of mine may come from the fact that I come from a developing country and hung out with friends much richer than my friends now.

Nonetheless, I really appreciate some of your suggestions for other colleges and universities and will look into them.

@nostalgicwisdom You mention that most of the concerns I described would be true to those colleges as well; could you please elaborate on this? I am especially interested in the problems I mentioned about internship opportunities and alumni connections. Do these problems really persist in other top LACs? Using Williams as an example, their alumni network seem to be much stronger than Grinnell’s and is more geared towards the corporate world. I think that it would be much easier to find better internships through the alumni network in Williams, which is extremely important for me. Can someone please attest to this?

I would also like to clarify that I also do not favor a school that has a heavy emphasis on business, instead I just wished Grinnell was more balanced in that sense because there definitely a majority of alumns going to research and academia as opposed to business; but would this hinder my experience? I understand where your suggestion of CMC comes from, but there are other factors in CMC that detracted me from applying to the school.

Another question I would like to ask to everyone is what are the advantages of a preppier school? I definitely know that I am preppier than most people here and perhaps may prefer a preppier environment but is that really enough of a reason to transfer? Or are there other advantages of going to a preppier school just because there are more people who come from a higher socio-economic class? Is this important and would this really change the experience of a college?

I guess another concern of mine is how does Grinnell compare to other top LACs such as Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin and Middlebury? Would going to any of these institutions put me at an advantage? Or are they more or less the same in terms of prestige and opportunities? (I know prestige shouldn’t be the biggest deal – I come from a place where no one knows the liberal arts) But at the same time there is the reality of rankings (as arbitrary and pointless they may seem) which is definitely more emphasized in Asia (understandably so), which could help when I try to find a job in companies that do not know much about colleges. I guess I just want to know if Grinnell would be considered within the same caliber as them or if the differences between these institutions are minor.

Also, my GPA right now is a 3.5, (and my major (history) GPA is a 4.0) but is probably going to go down a little bit after this semester. It’s nothing spectacular but I have been involved with a lot of things on campus such as varsity swimming and other clubs like our investment group.

[merc81]

If you were to search “Top Feeders – MBA Programs,” you would land on LACs such as Amherst, Hamilton, Middlebury, Bates, Pomona and CMC. These colleges may indeed most represent the cultural factors currently of interest to you. However, you would really need to consider whether you might, with a move in this direction, be pursuing an illusory aspect of education (particularly since the “future-MBA students” represent only a fraction of the atmospheres of these schools) that may ultimately have no relevance in terms of your future success.

[suzyQ7]

Are you full pay?

[intlmom]

Are you sure that you aren’t viewing the place through a distorted lens? You make a number of assertions in the above - e.g. that “most people here come from lower income families” - which aren’t actually true (what is true is that a lower-than-LAC-average come from the top 1%, but that’s a very different thing), and you seem to equate lack of “preppiness” with lack of sophistication/world experience. What if you tried to set aside your (likely unconscious) reactions in that connection, and tried to really see the people beneath? I know that my daughter, who is currently a Grinnell student, doesn’t look like a stereotypical “wealthy” kid (anything but!), but she’s got a wealth of experience (travel in 70+ countries) and big plans to change the world … And other students, from the other end of the financial spectrum, have probably encountered life-altering experiences that you can’t even imagine - and that are important to try to understand if you really want to “change the world”.

None of that is visible on the surface. It takes some digging to find out that there is actually a lot going on with the current students, much more than is appreciable at first glance. And there is quite a bit of merit to the comment made by Kumail Nanjiani '01 in his commencement address last year, when he stressed that it is important to “populate your life with people different from you” - you might learn more than you think.

[burrito15]

@merc81 Yes, there is this illusory aspect of education that you mention and I am definitely aware of it, hence why I started this thread; I want to know if my points were valid or plainly just this feeling of “the grass is greener on the other side” phenomena. I definitely agree that going to the schools you mention may have no relevance in terms of my success and that a large part of my success lies in the choices I make with my time at Grinnell; However, I am trying to figure out if there is more of an institutional effort to bring in more business-related opportunities such as bringing in businessmen or entrepreneurs vs. professors in schools where the student body seem slightly more business or corporate oriented.

And to address @suzyQ7’s question, I am paying full which is probably another factor that has really got me thinking about this. As paying for any LAC would pretty much cost the same, I would definitely like to ensure that the place I’m in can allow me to fully develop and go into the direction I want.

Thank you @intlmom for your insights. I think you bring up a good point in that I maybe equating a lack of “preppiness” with lack of sophistication/world experience. And I completely agree with the idea of populating your life with people different from myself – I think it definitely challenges your views on the world and your character. In fact, my gf here comes from a completely different background from myself (financially and culturally), and while we do not see eye-to-eye in many things, I have learnt a lot about her and myself and I have enjoyed every moment with her. That in itself is priceless.

However, I must say that there is a certain level of expectation from a number of people, including myself, for me to be successful (financially speaking) just because of my background. With that in mind, would it be advantageous for me to be in a school where more people come from a similar socio-economic background to mine? Would that lead to more opportunities? or is that a flawed assumption? Also, like I’ve mentioned before, there seems to be a focus on phd production, which is a great thing but not necessarily what I’m looking for. I much prefer earning a job in top companies… and connections can definitely help in that regard. Now I am not looking for some big name Uni like anI still value a liberal-arts education very much, but I feel that Grinnell is lacking in Job placement when compared to other LAC such as Colgate or Williams; many of their alumns end up in top firms while ours don’t.

I also happen to gravitate towards friends here that are preppier too, and face a similar issue with Grinnell. They often would say that the school is great but sometimes the people here “lack drive” or “do not think big”.

I guess my questions are: Is there more of an institutional effort to provide job opportunities (not necessarily finance, or pure business but definitely in the corporate realm) as opposed to grad school in other LACs? Why is it that alumni in other LACs tend to be more financially successful? Is it largely because they have a larger proportion of their students coming from higher Socio-economic backgrounds? Or is it due to them having more Job opportunities from the institution? And finally is Grinnell in the same caliber the other top LACs? Like would a Williams degree carry more weight than a Grinnell degree, especially for Job opportunities? And if not, can you list some examples in the ways these colleges are superior to Grinnell.

I know alot of this may be confusing and even frustrating but these are my thoughts and I really want to hear what other people have to say.

[burrito15]

Also on that note, would you say that the CLS in Grinnell is as good as most of our peers? And also can anyone elaborate key differences that distinguishes Grinnell from other LACs in the East Coast.

[Midwestmomofboys]

Grinnell is a school with the resources to support students in their endeavors. But, to make that happen, the students need to communicate with the appropriate folks on campus what their goals are. Have you met with the Career Services office to strategize about your internship and job search? There is a Director for Business and Finance careers, https://www.grinnell.edu/users/lawrence1. Warren Buffet recently retired from the Grinnell Board of Trustees so if I had to guess, I’d think there are probably some deep opportunities for students willing to connect with Career Services. It sounds like your concerns are more about perceptions – yours and your family – than about what Grinnell has to offer.

[merc81]

@burrito15 :

Have you considered the Harvard Business School certificate option?

http://blogs.wgbh.org/on-campus/2015/5/5/harvard-business-school-expands-online-initiative-liberal-arts-colleges/

Grinnell students appear to have favored access to this program along with those from Northeastern colleges such as Amherst, Hamilton and Williams. As an opportunity to interact with students from these schools, while acquiring a fraction of a business degree, the program would seem to be ideally suited toward some of the interests and goals you have expressed.