I know it’s not spring break any more but we just completed 3 more (hoping these are our last 3) - Carleton, St. Olaf, and Macalester. D20 has been thinking about applying ED to her top school (Reed) and we wanted her to really make sure that she is totally on board with that decision. She’s catching a bus in St Paul tomorrow for camp and normally flies out to the Twin Cities on her own from CA but I figured we could come out early together and make the rounds of the MN LACs.
The tl;dr for D20 is that she likes them all and will apply to all 3 if ED doesn’t work out but none has passed Reed as her top choice. Of the 3 I think she liked Carleton and Mac slightly better than St Olaf (and I like Carleton slightly better than Mac for her, although it will be the toughest to get into so my preference might not matter anyway).
Longer version:
Carleton: We had a tour group with 3 tour leaders, 3 guys, one from South Carolina, one from Chicago, and one from Tunisia. We liked that format as you got more of a flavor of the student body than with just a single tour guide. D20 liked the campus. One thing that stood out was the variety of housing options for upper classmen (theme houses). The school is on the trimester system. School gets out Year. You can just take that time off or go on a short ‘externship’ (internship with a Carleton grad) or a short study abroad program, often at the end of a fall class. Walkable to the small downtown area of Northfield (same town as St. Olaf… cute town about 45 min from the Twin Cities). You can catch a bus to the twin cities or to St Olaf. Traditions - freshman frisbee (everyone throws a frisbee with their name on it at the same time. Closest to something or other gets (lunch with the dean? something ike that). Everyone else grabs one frisbee and then has to return to its owner within a week - way to meet new people. Broomball (they flood the quad over the winter and it’s a sport like hockey without skates). Vague distribution requirements. Senior “comps” which is like a thesis although it depends on the department. Double major possible. New performing arts building was really nice with LEED certification and unfinished industrial look. They are also completing a new science building that we didnt’ go inside. Student center was an old gym. Seemed like a lot of activities going on on campus. Everyone lives either on campus or just off of campus all 4 years.
St. Olaf: One thing D20 liked less was that it seemed that the course requirements were more specific than at some of the other schools. Otherwise it was lovely campus and strong in math and music. We had a private tour guide who was an econ major from Minnesota. They have a beautiful new science and math building with a rooftop garden and an atrium with a fantastic view of the surrounding area. Their cafeteria food is ranked #7 in the nation. At both schools freshman dorms were okay but not amazing. Both schools have some triples. D20 had an interview at St Olaf and asked about housing for trans kids. So far they don’t have a specific floor for gender nonbinary or gender equity but D20 said it sounded like they are getting more and more interest in that and might end up adding that (because otherwise, St Olaf floors are all single-sex unlike most other schools). Campus is further out of town and up on a hill. Everyone lives either on campus or just off of campus. Campus is officially dry even after you are 21. There was a cool space for bands and dances and it seemed like there were a lot of things to do for fun… there are 3000 students as opposed to 2000 at Mac and Carleton. The school is powered by ‘big Ole’ - a large windmill - and a solar grid.
Macalester: Mac is in the middle of a cute neighborhood in St Paul, with easy bus connections to the downtown areas. There are a few fun shops nearby that students would enjoy and then mostly upper middle income houses. The campus is compact… smaller than the other 2 although of course you have much more city life to pick from so there’s a tradeoff. For our tour they split the parents off from the kids and we had a different tour leader than they did. I liked the format of the information session - they chose 5 recent graduates and talked about their path through Mac (major, activities, internships, study-abroad programs, and what they are doing now). My only small issue… and I knew this going in… is that math/CS are slightly less popular at Mac than at the other 2 schools (although math is still a fairly popular major). This was reflected in a) the lack of any of those in the info session focus students, b) the lack of any of those in the tour guides, and c) none of the other kids on tour that day were interested even in chem or bio let alone math or comp sci. There’s still plenty going on in those departments so it’s not a big deal, it’s just that compared to the other 2 schools those majors seem to get less emphasis. Also there was a lot of emphasis on internships and career placement which is really awesome, but at Carleton (and Reed) there was even more emphasis on how many students go on to graduate school which seems to be where D20’s current interest lies. But here I am giving the ‘why I think my kid should pick Carleton over Mac’ speech when really, they are both great and the chance of her getting into both of those but not getting into Reed is really low. So back to more general things… Mac has a beautiful new art and performing arts building with a fantastic theater space. The science building is also quite nice… it’s got an open atrium sort of area in the center and then the different departments are each on a different floor or part of a floor. The dorms were not impressive, but I wasn’t impressed by the dorms at the other 2 schools either (of the 3 I liked St Olaf the best… it had the best lounge area, and then Carleton had the most options for upper classmen for theme housing). At Mac it sounds like a good chunk of students move off campus after 2 years.
All 3 schools emphasized their ‘study away’ programs (I still want to say ‘study abroad’ but I guess ‘study away’ includes programs in the US as well). St. Olaf is on a 4-1-4 calendar, which means 4 classes in the fall semester, then a January term where you take one class either on campus or do a short study abroad program, and then 4 classes in the spring. Mac is on a regular semester calendar. All 3 schools have a number of buildings that are connected by tunnels or indoor walkways so people can get around without going outdoors as much in the middle of the MN winters. We asked some of the tour guides who weren’t from MN how they adjusted to the winters here and none seemed too traumatized by them ;-). BTW I think all 3 schools have somewhere between 8-12% international students. There was an interesting factoid… I think it was from the admissions guy at Mac… he was talking about where their students were from and I guess there’s a rumor locally that the school is biased against Minnesota kids because the numbers are so low. He said, no, we do admit plenty of MN kids but the type of MN kids who get into Mac also get into schools on the coasts and take the opportunity to get out of state for a while.
Okay, I’m rambling ;-).