I know that these two schools are different in many ways, but I have been accepted into both and am now deciding which one is right for me! I am also aware that it is difficult to compare these two because Lafayette is a liberal arts college and Villanova is not, but I feel that Villanova is rooted enough in the liberal arts mindset that I would receive a wonderful, well-rounded education from both. I have toured both schools and will be attending their open houses for admitted students, but I really want to start forming a concrete idea of which one I will attend earlier than that.
I will be studying Biology at both, so if anyone has insight into either biology program that would be great! Otherwise, I was just wondering more about campus life, the surrounding areas, resources available, workload, their overall levels of prestige, etc. However, anything that anyone knows about either one will be appreciated! Thanks so much!
These schools are very similar. Use the “compare colleges” tool on College Results dot org, that could help you.
As far as Bio, 40% of Lafayette degrees are in STEM fields, compared to 20% of Villanova degrees. So, more STEM presence at Lafayette? I think of Villanova as more of a business school so that might give Lafayette the edge.
Now compare costs. That could be your decider since if one is significantly less than the other, I’d go with the cheaper option.
2017 Lafayette enrollment: 2,594
2017 Villanova enrollment: 10,983 (including grad students)
From: Common Data Sets
2017 Lafayette endowment per student: $305,000
2017 Villanova endowment per student: $59,000
So there is a significant difference in institutional wealth, as measured by the commonly-used “endowment per student” metric. Higher scores on this metric are commonly associated with things like smaller classes, lower student-faculty ratio, better-equipped academic facilities, nicer dorms, and better food. Have no personal experience with these two schools, so don’t know if such differences do in fact exist, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
For comparison, this figure is in the same ballpark as some Ivy League schools, e.g.:
~ $350,000 Columbia
~ $340,000 Brown
~ $305,000 Cornell
So Lafayette has a good deal of wealth to throw around, by private school standards (this metric isn’t necessarily applicable to state schools, because they typically have state funding as well as endowments). And anything that Lafayette does with their wealth is going to go towards undergraduate education, because they don’t have any grad programs.
Compare apples to apples. Villanova has 6,999 undergrads. I imagine the spending on the law school is pretty minimal, for example.
Freshman dorms are lousy, but housing is pretty good otherwise. It is also the centerpiece of the school’s current building project. Facilities are fine, being updated all the time and food is probably better than lots of places. No knock of Lafayette. Liked it when we visited and I have no issues with Easton.
It probably comes down to whether you see yourself landing in NYC or the Philadelphia area.
Thank you, everyone! All of your comments really help. I have been leaning towards Lafayette for the past week, but the endowment info @Corbett really verifies the quality of an undergrad education at Lafayette. Nothing against Villanova, of course! I was waitlisted at Cornell, so it is interesting that Lafayette and Cornell have equal endowment/student ratios! It solidifies the fact that even if I don’t get off the Cornell waitlist, Lafayette would still offer similar resources and wealth.
I’m not suggesting that you pick a school just because it has a relatively high endowment-per-student value (although it can’t hurt). And the fact that Cornell and Lafayette have similar values doesn’t necessarily mean that the schools have similar resources, because they use their wealth in different ways.
The point is that is simply that Lafayette is in a relatively comfortable financial situation: they have a significantly smaller enrollment than Villanova, yet they actually have a larger endowment. So in general, you might expect that things like financial aid and student-faculty ratio would be better at Lafayette (and College Navigator confirms that both of these points are true). This doesn’t automatically make Lafayette a better choice though.
My daughter is finishing her first year at Laf. She has fewer than 20 students in inorganic chem and about 25 in her bio class. This is the main reason she chose Laf. She has done bio research as a Freshman. A new bio building has started construction and i believe is supposed to be ready for the '19-'20 academic year.
For full disclosure my D graduated from Lafayette and loved it. But the truth is that both would be excellent choices. Hopefully one will jump out at you as being the right place during accepted students day. Here are a couple of things to consider:
–One difference that you didn’t mention is that as a Catholic school Villanova has a fairly large core curriculum while Lafayette has more flexible set of distribution requirements.
–Similar to the experience above, my D did a great deal of research with professors at Laf, (and co-authored an article in a scholarly journal with a professor). At accepted students day I would ask if those types of opportunities also exist at Villanova.
—The quality of basketball teams is a difference LOL – but in its defense, Lafayette does have a fun sports rivalry with Lehigh.