<p>St. Olaf as well as Gustavus Adolphus, clearly reflect Minnesota's Lutheran heritage. Lake Forest's Presbyterian heritage is harder to discern although it's immediate surroundings clearly display the historic and continued prosperity of the community.</p>
<p>As a student from MN, many of my friends that are applying to St. Olaf apply because of the music program, it is really well known and respected in MN. So at least you art kids and music kids will get along fine :). As for the weather? Yeah, its cold. Dickens? I'm not sure. Just bring a thick coat, gloves, scarf and walk really fast. When it gets to be 35 degrees in the winter, you'll think its warm. Promise. People walk without coats when it gets high thirties.</p>
<p>We visited Lake Forest College with my high school junior son on a whim in November. We liked the school much more than we thought we would, although my son is concerned that the school is just too small for him--he thinks he wants a small school, but more in the 2000- or- so- students range.</p>
<p>The campus is stunning and immaculately kept. The students we met were bright, focused and very well spoken. We met a couple of professors as we were moseying through random buildings in an </p>
<p>effort to keep warm and they were welcoming, accomodating and very informative of the school's and their departments relatvie strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p>It seemed that the students and the classes made a great use of being so near Chicago--field trips to plays and financial institutions, a lot of downtown internships,etc. </p>
<p>It's a walk of about one-half mile passing fabulous houses to get from the campus to downtown Lake Forest, where there are a lot of cute shops and restaurants (tho pricey for a student's budget) and where there is the train station for taking the train to downtown. It's about a 45 minute train ride but the trains are nice and run on schedule.</p>
<p>My son thinks he may apply to Lake Forest as one of his safeties, especially because he could play soccer there. The athletic facilities are incredible!</p>
<p>The train ride is about an hour plus whatever time it takes to get to and from the station to your destination so usually at least an hour 15 minutes to be anywhere. I very nearly bought a house in LF and checked into it.</p>
<p>Lake</a> Forest College > About > Chicago > Transportation > Metra</p>
<p>"At St. Olaf, it takes 100. One to change it, 49 to talk about how they do it better than Carleton, and 50 who realize it's all a lie." quoted from a reply under the St. Mary's University of Minnesota post, answering tongue-in-cheek how many of various Minnesota colleges' students it takes to change a light bulb. So in comparison, how many Lake Forest College students does it take to change a light bulb?</p>
<p>I've also heard that St. Olaf's has an incredible music department. Their choir tours extensively and records as well, I think. Good to hear about Ohio Wesleyan and Denison changing their image. In the 70's they really were for the not so motivated, rich kids.</p>
<p>oberlin? kenyon? macalester?</p>
<p>collegeprp11, thanks for those suggestions but St. Olaf is already at the upper limit, although you do miss 100% of the shots you don't take.</p>