<p>Would anyone be willing to give me a quick run down on the stereotypes of these colleges? I would like to know more about them and what kind of people go there. </p>
<p>Illinois Wesleyan University
Knox College
Lake Forest College
Beloit College
Lawrence University
Kenyon College
Denison University
DePauw University
Rhodes College
Centre College
Kalamazoo College
Truman State University</p>
<p>Any help? Please?</p>
<p>Lake Forest College-Rich kid country club
Illinois Wes. U-Semi-hardcore Christians looking for a mid-sized school
Beloit-Okay first off it’s Beloit…
Lawrence-I’m pretty sure it’s known for it’s Liberals, of course the usual Wisconsinites who go there because they think they are amazing if they go to a private…even though it’s Lawrence.</p>
<p>When I think of Beloit College and Lawrence University, I think of the kids who would pick Brown as their favorite Ivy. Denison University, Rhodes College, Centre College, Truman State University and DePauw University are mostly preppy. The rest are pretty diverse, except in skin color. Yeah… either you’re a minority who wants an easy-admit or a white who doesn’t want to be around many minorities.</p>
<p>I’m a white person looking for top notch LACs in the midwest.</p>
<p>You’ve picked a good list for strong LACs. DD1 attends Denison and loves it. Liberal environment, picturesque town, lots of new buildings. DD2 was accepted at Knox and Kenyon. Kenyon has probably the best writing program, great facilities, the environment is like an English boarding school (though out in the middle of the corn fields). Knox is good for people who want to do their own thing (pretty high geek factor).</p>
<p>Knox-academic oriented geeks who like to go out for Chinese on Friday night
Beloit-academic oriented geeks who like to party</p>
<p>I don’t think of Truman State as the least bit preppy (post 4). Most of the students I know who attend Truman, and who are from Missouri, choose it over Univ. of MO because on average the students are less interested in the party scene and more inclined to take academics seriously. Please note I said “on average”; there are plenty of studious types on the Columbia campus as well.</p>
<p>There are more students from OOS and even internationals than one would expect for a school in the middle of Nowhere, MO. The Amtrak station is just up the road, and it is full of Chicago students around the holidays.</p>
<p>The town of Kirksville is…let’s say, unimpressive. The closest city of any size is 1 1/2 hours south (Columbia). It is further to St. Louis and KC.</p>
<p>However, I know a lot of students there, and most speak very highly of the school. They like the close interaction with their professors, and manage to find plenty to do. I know a few lawyers who got their undergrad. degree there and went on to good law schools, e.g. WUStl.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad’s comment about Knox reflects perfectly the students I know who have attended or are planning to. Independent-minded, smart, unconcerned with prestige and status.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about the town, but I have heard that “small” is an understatement.</p>
<p>There is a poster on CC who knows a lot about Rhodes. His daughter turned down Yale to accept a full-ride scholarship to Rhodes. PM curmudgeon, I think he will be happy to give you some details.</p>
<p>I have visited Knox, Kalamazoo, Lawrence and Beloit of these schools. My older son attends Kalamazoo and loves it. It is a “work hard, play hard” school from what I can tell, where the faculty expects a lot from the students. The facilities are good and the campus, sited on a hill, is very attractive. The library is gorgeous and the student center just finished a major remodeling project. The student body ranges from quirky to preppy, with a bulge of more “typical” kids in between. The city of Kalamazoo is big enough to provide some additional amenities (shopping, restaurants, transportation options) to the students. The school has a very profound focus on international experience, with 85% of students studying abroad for one or two quarters as juniors.</p>
<p>Lawrence is quite similar, except replace the international focus (although more than half of Lawrence’s students do study abroad at some point) with a music focus owing to the integrated conservatory that enrolls about a quarter of LU’s students. Lawrence has very good facilities also, especially its academic buildings, which are mostly very new, and a very pretty campus sited above the Fox River in Appleton. It is about to complete a beautiful new campus center (union). (We visited with my younger son very recently.) Appleton, like Kalamazoo, provides some reasonable off-campus amenities for the students, and like Kalamazoo it has a regional airport. The student body comes from a broader footprint nationally and internationally than the other three schools.</p>
<p>Beloit is a little more “crunchy granola” in its student body composition. Like the others it has a very pretty campus (also sited above a river, although without the vistas that Lawrence enjoys). Its facilities are a bit more worn, except it just opened a spectacular new science center that is probably the most impressive academic building at any of these schools. Its library is very attractive also. More so than Kalamazoo and Lawrence, all its dorms are located together. (When we visited recently with my younger son, he took one look at the dorm quad and grinned, saying that he could already imagine “major snowball fights.”) The city of Beloit doesn’t provide as much off-campus attraction to students, however, and it can be difficult to get to, as there is no train service (unlike Kalamazoo and Knox), and no local airport (although it’s only an hour or an hour and a half away from three airports – in Madison, Chicago and Milwaukee.</p>
<p>Knox struck us as having the most “ordinary” student body of “typical” midwestern kids, although I believe it actually has a better percentage of minority students than the other three. Its campus is a bit more spread out, and as it’s located on the flat terrain of western Illinois, it doesn’t quite have the visual appeal of the others, although it’s certainly attractive. Galesburg, like Beloit, is a smaller, older town that doesn’t provide as much to do off campus, but frequent trains to Chicago make it easy to get to (that’s a three hour ride, however). The academic buildings are mostly older. The rec facilities on campus are probably the best of the four schools, however, including a beautiful new workout facility for students.</p>
<p>These are four excellent LACs. By rankings they are all just a notch behind Carleton, Macalester and Grinnell among midwestern colleges, but the truth is that if you took any of those seven schools and transplanted them whole to Pennsylvania, New York or New Hampshire, many, many more people would be waxing poetic about them on CC.</p>