USC vs Colgate

College Search & Selection
1

Hi guys, I’m really having trouble selecting between these two schools, and the deadline is approaching.

I am a international students from Beijing, and I’m now thinking about studying CS and Neuroscience in the next four years.

USC is well-known, and its academic strength in those two areas is relatively strong. Besides, USC has good wheather, and I am used to living in a big city. However, the party-school image for USC is so strong, and I’m concerned about the academic environment there. It’s such a big school, and I probably won’t get that much attention from professors.

I think Colgate might have a smarter(or more intellectual) student body, and I will love to be in a close-knit community for my college years. The location is a bit rural, but the campus is absolutely gorgeous. I’ve been playing ice hockey for 13 years, and that makes me like Colgate even more. But I’m afraid that it’s hard for me to fit in Colgate’s student body, since I’ve heard that most students there come from wealthy white families. In addition, Colgate won’t be able to support my career in CS that well.

I just want to hear people’s opinions about these two schools, and it will be super helpful if some one could tell me more about Colgate’s student body, and if it will be hard for me to fit in.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

2

One of your reservations is “Colgate won’t be able to support my career in CS that well”. What do you mean by this and what courses and/or programs elsewhere are more supportive of whatever your goals are?

I hope that you are examining and evaluating your current thoughts with Colgate faculty and/or are planning to do so before the 1 May final decision date is here. The same applies to your question about fitting in and this can be
discussed with current students you can reach through the Office of Admission.

Good luck with your college search!

3

The student bodies will be of very similar academic quality - i would not see Colgate’s as more intellectual. For CS and neuroscience I’d clearly favor USC. The campus and environs in LA will also likely feel more diverse.

4

When will you ever have the chance to live in a community as charming and a setting so beautiful as that of Colgate?

LA is for later, maybe much later, just like any other dense city where you might work. It’s anything but Hamilton, NY:

http://colgate.edu/about

Go 'gate!

5

I’ve talked to a current student there, and I think it made me feel even more complected about Colgate. I think both place will provide me excellent education, even though one is more pre-professional and one is more well-rounded.

My biggest concern for Colgate is about its social environment, a student there told me it’s indeed a difficult place socially, and it will be even harder for an international student. I was told that different communities really don’t have much interactions between each other, and that isn’t a social environment I appreciate.

USC looks like a safer choice, and Colgate is like taking a risk for me. However, I think that risk may yield incredible satisfaction.

6

According to this source, Colgate was among the first schools to initiate an independent computer science program:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4546120

7

If you go to Colgate, it will be like a 4-year immersion experience in the world of wealthy Northeastern white people. In order to fit in, you will have to learn to think and act like a wealthy Northeastern white person. This will probably be harder than fitting in at USC, which is a much larger and more diverse community. However, note the following points:

(1) Small, isolated schools like Colgate have strong senses of community (as you know). This means that you will be given the chance to fit in. Since the community is so small and isolated, they need everybody to participate.

(2) You already have an important skill that will surprise and impress wealthy Northeastern white people: you can play ice hockey. This is an immediate route to social credibility at a school like Colgate. No one will expect a Chinese student to know anything about hockey, so even if you are not a great player, people will still be impressed. Of course, if you are a good player, then they will be even more impressed.

(3) If you can learn to fit in comfortably with the culture of wealthy Northeastern white people, then you will have acquired a valuable business skill (one that is not often associated with Asians). This could ultimately have more impact on your career than having the opportunity to take additional upper-level computer science electives, especially if you want to work in New York, Boston, or DC.

8

About fitting in, isn’t that always up to personal and group dynamic everywhere you go? As mentioned above,
everyone is expected to participate actively in all aspects of campus life since this is a residential college where
facilities abound and where everyone is engaged with academics and extracurricular activities.

On that note, I hope you are familiar with one facility you will, no doubt, enjoy using as a member of a club or intramural team, and you will have a top ECAC Division 1 women’s team to support:

http://www.gocolgateraiders.com/sports/2016/10/7/class-of-1965-arena.aspx?id=880

Another point worth discussing is the student mix as well as that of the faculty. Colgate strives for a diverse student body and I hope no one is over-concerned about “wealthy Northern white people”. A look at the Class of 2020 profile shows a representative sampling of the student body with 21.7% “multicultural”:

http://colgate.edu/admission-financial-aid/first-year-class-profile

Don’t let reputation, whatever it may be regarding Colgate, interfere with its reality today.

Good luck with your college search!

9

From the US Gov NCES College Navigator site:

% white: 67% Colgate, 40% USC
% on financial aide: 47% Colgate, 60% USC
% international: 9% Colgate, 14% USC
% Pell Grants: 12% Colgate, 23% USC

Strive though it might, Colgate is clearly significantly less diverse than USC

10

@Tothenext wow, it has been an interesting year for international students asking about some of the most different schools you could imagine in the US. Bowdoin and USC. Wellesley and USC and now Colgate and USC.

Geographically, culturally, size, you name it - it’s hard to imagine two more different schools.

I really don’t know how to help you decide. USC have a lot more touchstones of familiarity to a Chinese raised student. LA has a large Chinese population, it is a big city. SC has a good number of Chinese and ethnically Chinese students.

Raw numbers alone should give you a sense of how the schools will be different.

Colgate’s total enrollment is 2800 students. Hamilton Villiage is actual a legit village of like 5000 population. I don’t know if there is a small, picturesque village of 5000 maybe 200 miles or so from Beijing. In beautiful lake country. Where it snows. And the leaves change. Where there are big state parks around. Lots of nature. But also things like Syracuse University an hour away (where you can get a taste of “big” US college experience if you want. Syracuse basketball and Lacrosse, for instance, are pretty intense. Cornell is also not too far - closer to an hour and a half, but reasonable for a day or weekend.) Syracuse is nearest “big” airport, I think. Canada is close! NYC 3 - 4 hours depending on time of day.

USC undergrad population is 19,000. Total population Grad and UG is like 45000. LA proper is 4 million. LA metro (OC, LA, “near” suburbs/cites) is close to 10 million. It is a college tradition among some LA schools to ski and surf in the same day (on Baldy or Big Bear, then drive the 2 hours to Malibu, County line or down to the south bay.) LA has one of the largest college/university student populations of any city in the world. Aside from SC and UCLA there’s Occidental, LMU, 4 Cal States… There’s all the basic Big City stuff: USC has the Broad and MOCA within uber/metro distance. Huge concerts across the street. A new soccer-specific stadium opening next year in Expo Park…

They will just be such different experiences that I don’t think academics (as is quality of the program) will matter as much as “overall vibe.” Both Colgate and USC are very well respected, will have awesome professors. USC will have more diversity of programs.

Colgate will have more east coast intellectual snobbery and “feel” whiter, USC will have more hollywood/dot.com financial success snobbery (tho, don’t be fooled, a lot of those Bernie bros you’ll meet at Colgate are carrying a lot of big family trust fund money in the pockets of their fraying cargo shorts and long-sleeve LLBean chamois shirts. They just might not be so obvious about it.)

Truth is, seems like you are reasonably outgoing, sane and adventerous. You will be a bit more unique at Colgate and will not be shunned for that in any way at all. In fact, you will probably at first get more attention then you’d like as you will be relatively unusual. (Colgate is <10% “asian/pacific islander” vs. SC which is 17% “asian” - think of that in raw numbers: 300 "asian/pacific island kids at Colgate. 2500+ “asian” kids at USC. You’ll be one of like 70-80 “international” incoming freshmen) Throw in that you can play hockey and, as mentioned, you’ll blow a few people’s minds and have lots of chances to make friends. What happens then will be up to you, but I would not be concerned about the social aspect of Colgate except the pool of folks to meet is relatively small. Your incoming class will be like 700/800 total (or SC, there’s a whole lot of very, very serious nerds running around SC campus in between the skateboarding VC prince-of-finance frat-boy wanna-bes.)

Either one will be really great, and challenging if you want - both have good academics and CS will not be a cake walk - as far as college goes. But they are really different experiences.

Good luck. You can’t really go wrong. And at either school you could probably work out a semester at another bigger (or smaller) school if you wanted to get more of a taste of the variety of the US colleges.

11

If you attend a small, elite school in a rural part of New England or the mid-Atlantic, then you should expect your fellow students to be predominantly white, predominantly wealthy, and predominantly from high schools in the Northeastern US (between Washington DC and Maine). I’m not trying to single out Colgate here; the same could be said, for example, of schools like Bucknell, Hamilton, Williams, Middlebury, Dartmouth, or Colby. Realistically, schools like these aren’t going to be as economically or ethnically diverse as a large, urban, West Coast school like USC or UCLA.

On the other hand, the small, elite schools in the rural Northeastern US are really, really good at undergraduate teaching. If you do fit in, the payoff is that you will get a world-class undergraduate education, even if you do not happen to be white, wealthy, or Northeastern.

12

One other thing to consider, in a large school like USC, there are schools within schools. Within the undergrad program, the CS and engineering students gave advising and activities just for them. USC has the highest % of female engineering students at 40% and a program supporting them.

Both my kids were happy at USC–S in EE and D in cinema. There are LOTS of Asians and international undergrads there.

Sorry, don’t know much about Colgate.

13

How many schools are there in New York anwyay? I remember S getting all these postcards from schools we never heard of and all were in NY. Add Colgate to that list, no idea it existed. So I won’t comment which is better not knowing anything about Colgate, but will say international population at USC is actually over 24% and that doesn’t include an already diverse student body from many of the California kids. Also add the 6% considered other, which I thought I remembered is also international and it is closer to 30%.

Decide if you want bigger or smaller. I would just be sure that socially they are accepting at Colgate, but aren’t most schools nowadays?

14

Colgate is a small LAC with very strong alumni network. Hamilton village is very small with one stop light. Due to its size, students tend to party and hang out together. You get to know everyone on campus. It can be great if you fit in, but if you do not find your tribe then it could be difficult. Colgate is surprisingly pre-professional. Many students go into finance and consulting. It has very good math, CS, geology, philosophy departments (and many others). When I was there, they had one of the best study abroad programs. Most students today still study abroad, the school encourages students to do so. I went to Colgate many years ago, both of my children considered Colgate and one did apply. They loved the campus and the curriculum, but they thought it was too small for them because they came from a very small prep school. They wanted something bigger, so they both ended up at Cornell.

As an Asian, if you want to continue to live like an Asian (food, TV, proximity to home) then USC would be a good choice, but if you are willing to take a risk and have a true American experience then Colgate may be a better choice. I think after you graduate you always have an option of living in a big US city (LA, NY, Chicago), but you wouldn’t have as much of experience in living in a NE small town. Colgate is 3-4 hrs from NYC and approximately the same distance to Boston, so many international students do spend time in those cities on breaks.

15

So what one did you pick ??

16

Lol We are in the same boat here with the USC vs Colgate struggle. This is almost too funny as I am also from Beijing, planning on majoring in neuroscience, and play an ice sport. What are the odds… I am very interested in which school you chose as I haven’t made my decision yet and it’s the 29th.

17

Thank you all soooooo much, your comments are incredibly helpful for some one who aren’t familiar with the social atmosphere at US like me, and you guys really helped me make this tough decision. I eventually, after talking to my dad, decide that I will go to USC. Although I’m really looking forward to studying at somewhere like Colgate, I think a more pre-professional education is better for me. I think USC will prepare me better for a job right after graduation, since it’s a big school, and it offers a bit more options for me. I have struggled between them for days, and I didn’t have the courage to take that risk.:frowning:
Thank you guys again for all your input! Good luck on everything!

18

Forgot to mention, I choose USC also because it offers me some financial aid, but Colgate will not give me any, at least for my first year. I didn’t apply FA during the application.

19

Good luck! USCal has several organizations supporting Asians and international students. I think you will enjoy your years there as my kids and many others have. Good luck, fight on! Thanks for letting us know what you finally decided.

20

I think the LAC undergrad experience can be a really good one for international students, compared to a huge school like USC whether you either get lost in the crowd, or more likely, end up in a little bubble with your fellow students from the same country. (This is especially common with Chinese, for cultural and linguistic reasons.) I think part of studying abroad should be to break out of one’s comfort zone, experience and learn to adapt to new environments - as preparation for real life, and to broaden one’s understanding of the world.

Having said all that, in the specific case of CS & Neuroscience, I agree USC is probably a better choice. If it were some other major, I’d probably recommend Colgate.

PS: It’s a myth that a big school like USC will “better prepare you for a job after graduation” in the US than an equally well reputed LAC. However, if you’ll likely return to China to get a job, then yes, USC will have greater recognition and probably an advantage. However, if you’re planning on working in neuroscience then you’ll almost certainly need to go to grad school. In which case, an LAC is at least as good, if not better, in getting you to a good grad school.