@Corinthian I remember your report on NAU. It’s a great place! And yes, it is very popular with kids from California and Hawaii! We have a family friend from Reno, NV who attended NAU and played soccer. And one of my coworkers went to NAU, and she grew up in the San Diego area. Her mom and grandmother attended the school too! My D who now lives in Reno, says she’s run into a few people up there who attended NAU, so it seems to be popular all over the west!
Gaming the rankings only gets you so far- you also have to deliver the goods. And that means faculty, facilities, fellowships. The stuff that costs a lot. The marketing? Yes, it costs money, but ACTUALLY investing in your core products- education, research, innovation- that costs REAL money.
Another plug for Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame IN. The recent addition of 4 co-ed grad programs has made it even more attractive.
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Having just watched my 2 kids graduate last yr, I was fascinated by the whole internship process…especially how much an internship can do for a student if it’s close to campus & can be done during the school year. One of my kids did 2 year-long internships, making decent $, gaining valuable experience, and seamlessly shifting to full-time employment after graduating.
So I have a new appreciation for colleges in /near cities big enough to have a wide range of such internships, so one needn’t be an academic superstar to get one. It also helps if there isn’t a major academic powerhouse nearby whose students will snatch up the best internships.
Neither of my kids went to these colleges, but they strike me as schools in interesting cities where a serious student with average grades/test scores could get in, not be overwhelmed, and end up with decent internships (DURING the school year) & a job:
Virginia Commonwealth U. (Richmond is a financial hub & VCU is right in the thick of it; bigtime basketball program at the college ).
U of Nebraska-Omaha (Omaha is a lively city with big insurance & agricultural-related companies, and a growing tech profile; college has a Div. I hockey program).
U of Colorado at Colorado Springs (apparently one of the most livable cities in country; nearly a half-million residents; endless recreation opportunities; other colleges, the Olympic training center, & multiple military bases give city a young & outdoorsy vibe).
U of Missouri-Kansas City (underrated city, lots of businesses, pro football & baseball, etc.)
I’d be interested in hearing about similar colleges (in nice city, not difficult to get into, college not too big or overwhelming in any way, great place for serious but average student to get some momentum going without competition from elite schools nearby)
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. Excellent STEM. Tuition bargain. Located at the doorstep of the great outdoors. SUNY Plattsburgh; interesting small town. Very strong science departments. Very affordable. Montreal is a short drive away.
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Wesleyan College in Macon GA. Very small women’s LAC on a 200 acre campus. UMass-Lowell; great things have happened at UML in recent years. Very strong engineering. Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Not just engineering. Generous financial aid. Quick train ride to Boston.
I love this thread.
Top-rated schools produce stars and superstars at a high rate because they admit stars and superstars and spend a lot of money on them. That’s fine, but not so useful for those of us who aren’t the parents of superstars.
I love hearing about schools that change the lives of regular students. At my son’s school, Kalamazoo College, everyone writes a thesis. For history majors like my son, there are required classes all along that shepherd the students and teach them what they’ll need to know to write a 50 page research paper based on primary sources. The junior majors are required to take one of two alternative classes, where they write a medium-long paper, present their research, and get their senior thesis proposals set up and approved. Professors go over paper drafts, so that the students become familiar with the way writing works in the real world (with revisions, lots of revisions). It’s all, “You are going to do this big project, we’ll teach you how to do it, we’ll help you do it, and you’re all in this together.” Other majors have similar preparatory classes, but I don’t know as much about them.
At the top schools, probably a lot of students would already be prepared, as freshmen, to undertake this. But at other schools, they’re not. I appreciate a college that educates students, and teaches them to do big things they couldn’t do beforehand. A large percentage of Kalamazoo students end up in grad school, because Kalamazoo makes them ready for grad school.
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Here’s a school that doesn’t get a lot of love from CC,- Iowa State University. Big school with phenomenal Engineering and great merit. It has the largest Engineering Fair of all the schools in the U.S. This school has very affordable OOS tuition that is a bargain compared to other schools of it’s size. The town of Ames is very cute and friendly. The major airport in Des Moines is only a 35 minute drive from campus. This school costs the same as UCD( our instate school ( 31k). The difference is due to the cost of an apartment/ cost of living. My son loves this school!
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@LakeWashington I’d say a lot of the SUNY schools are underrated. Everyone I know who has attended one has said they got a wonderful education.
@svcamom Sounds like a great school!
SUNY Geneseo
@MDmom11 we had daughters of some friends of ours attend SUNY Geneseo and they had a wonderful time! They’re from NY and they loved the instate price! Definitely a bang for your buck if you live in NY!
Someone mentioned App State. It’s in Boone, NC which is an awesome location. We’ve vacationed (summer) there a few times and it is so close to great hiking, rafting, etc. Of course you have skiing in the winter. A truly beautiful place. The campus is very cool and you can walk to the downtown area. Don’t know much about the school.
@justinthomas started a thread on which I had planned to post, but it got closed and redirected to this thread since they have similar premises. I want to mention a school I think is a good hidden gem, but I don’t know that I would say it is “never” mentioned on College Confidential, as is this particular thread’s title… it just isn’t mentioned as often as it should be in the same breath as its peer schools.
Connecticut College.
It is in the NESCAC league, yet it is not always mentioned alongside fellow members Williams, Middlebury, Hamilton, Bates, etc. It should be. Besides competing in their sports league, it has all the benefits of a top liberal arts college: a tight community of smart students who enjoy small classes with a lot of access to professors.
The campus is incredibly beautiful, with matching stone buildings with a sweeping view of the Long Island Sound. There is an arboretum on campus.
Conn has a fantastic career preparation program, with a series of workshops culminating in a paid internship for any student who attends all the workshops.
My family was impressed by the dorms when they visited.
Conn’s campus community is close-knit and delightfully quirky. The mascot is the camel. One fun event is the Camelympics, in which dorms compete in a variety of activities, some of which are athletic but many of which are word games and other types of activities. Seinfeld fans take note: Conn students also celebrate Festivus in December!
Conn is strong across the liberal arts and sciences, but is among the strongest of the small northeastern colleges in a few niche areas like botany and dance.
The students seem to be an interesting mix of a lot of theatre/music/dance/art artsy types, liberals, (note: it used to be all female and still has more women in the ratio), varsity athletes, prep school kids, etc… In other words, most students will be able to find friends that match their interests and hobbies, while also getting to know others who are different from themselves. There are no fraternities or similarly exclusive groups.
One sign of how professors there define their role as helping students to grow: my kid does not even go to Connecticut College, but a professor at Conn recently reached out to my son based on an op-ed my son had written that the professor had seen, and he offered his support and guidance.
Conn is located between Boston and New York City in New London, Connecticut.
Oh, one last comment about Iowa State University, it was designed by Frederick Olmstead. He was the same designer who designed the Biltmore Estate and Central Park in New York City.
Truman State doesn’t get any love. Heard from Missourians/St. Louis people that it is a really underrated school that more kids should pay attention to.
Apparently it’s one of the few public universities with a LAC style focus and tuition is pretty reasonable, even for OOS students.
We pass Connecticut College on our way up to our daughter’s school (if we choose to take the ferry from LI). I always say the campus looks gorgeous!!!
^^^ Can a school ranked in the Top 50 LAC’s by US News be a hidden gem?
If so, I’ll follow that with Olin College of Engineering on Babson’s campus in Mass. We seriously looked at Olin, and would have applied had ED1 not worked out for us.
Olin is not for everyone. It’s REALLY small. Appreciating the size and need for collaboration and civility across a class of under 100 people, Olin admission is a literal gauntlet of application and “on-site” evaluation. They fly everyone who makes it through the first round (~200) to Boston for a weekend in January (mandatory…not attending means no acceptance). At such a small school, 60 kids for a weekend (3 weeks in a row) changes the place. The students literally are part of the admissions committee because they are so involved. From there, the cut to (a few years ago) 70-80 offers of enrolment.
The other major factor with Olin is a 50% discount for tuition (~$25k) for everyone, making the retail cost of attending around $40k. At that price, it’s an amazing opportunity for the right kids.
You can also take classes at Babson, Wellesley and Brandeis, which is a really nice option given the size of Olin.
The other school I know very little about that I think may be under-appreciated is Cooper Union.
@“Cardinal Fang” I remember reading about Kalamazoo College and thinking it was an amazing school!
Earlham, like Kalamazoo, is another that creates great outcomes for its students rather than admitting students who are destined for greatness.
Totally agree with @EyeVeee about Olin. Not for everyone but fabulous for the right kid. Unlike many mentioned here, it’s quite hard to get into. But for a kid who is a do-er, wow!