Sure.
For starters, it’s in Plymouth, NH, about 2 hours (more or less) northwest of Boston. 25th percentile SAT scores are 440 math and 440 verbal. It has a student body of about 4,000 undergrads, maybe another 1000 grad. OOS tuition is about $21K, though they gave my daughter a $5000 scholarships… and the higher your GPA, the higher that can be.
It’s at the base of the White Mountains, in the town of Plymouth. But it definitely has a campus feel. They get kids from something like 30 different nations and 45 states; I suspect a good number of those come for athletics. The mix of instate/OOS is close to 50/50.
There’s a huge outdoorsy vibe. They run an annual Ski Day, when apparently everyone heads to the local mountain and enjoys it, instead of having classes. They have an outdoor center, where you can rent or borrow everything from snowshoes to camping equipment to I don’t even know what. While my daughter isn’t an outdoorsy kid (much more of a mall rat), the presence of both a hockey team to follow and an ice rink (she does skate) were appealing.
Their academic model has just changed to one of clusters; a number of majors make up each cluster. Kids from within each cluster work together on a number of projects. The one that was mentioned on Thursday was a small town not too far from the school that was facing a decline in tourism-- and that appears to be a main focus of the local economy. The town turned to Plymouth for help. So a number of clusters were involved; everything from Tourism and Sustainablity to Justice to Business.
The people were just phenomenal. My daughter’s admission counselor stayed to join us for dinner, as did the dean of admissions and the woman running the admissions event. While they talked Plymouth up, they also included my daughter in the conversation, talking about our plans to hit the nearby Tanger outlets after leaving and about how one of the men’s wife did some major damage to the Visa bill there. The kids we met love their school, and aren’t shy about letting others know.
It was interesting seeing a campus at night. While they’re a blue light campus, it seemed (at least at 7 pm) that there were a LOT of kids out and about on a chilly winter night. Our tour guide mentioned that they have an escort program, and that her mom was always nagging her to take advantage, but that she personally didn’t feel the need for it.
The other family on the tour-- a mom and daughter-- didn’t last long. Mom tripped on the staircase of the first building we entered, and hit her head badly. She was bleeding profusely and dazed at first-- it may have been a concussion. She needed medical help. I must say, I was impressed with how quickly they reacted and got help to her.They got kids off the staircase to give her some privacy, just asked them to reroute. It was probably less than 5 minutes before they had an ambulance there with paramedics. Obviously not a planned part of the tour, but impressive nonetheless.
To be honest, I had never heard of it until I started researching schools for my daughter. Now it will be a part of any discussion I have with a senior looking for that sort of enviornment.
Sounds like a great possibility for a C+/B student, especially one who likes the outdoors and couldn’t get into or afford UVermont. Finding good colleges for kids in the 2.6-3.1 range really isn’t easy so these reports and this thread is really useful. I hope it’ll stay open even after this application season ends.