<p>All have their perks, I got accepted to 8 but it is down to these.</p>
<p>Whitman: Beautiful campus, happy students that i get along with, great education</p>
<p>Colgate: Kinda prestigious, stunning campus, great education, great post grad opportunities and alumni relations.</p>
<p>Bates: Great education and I could be on their crew team.</p>
<p>Colo College: Love the block plan, love the campus, but a little too close to home (Im from denver)</p>
<p>Grinnell: They have tons of money and probably have the best overall education of the bunch. Plus they have the funding to do pretty much whatever I want.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that Colorado college and whitman are much lower ranking-wise than your other schools, so you should drop them
Colgate has a very weird name (toothpaste?), Grinnell is academically the best, but location is pretty bad
I would say it’s between Bates and Grinnell, and maybe Colgate</p>
<p>Btw - do you really think that Colgate has better post gard opportunities than the other colleges? I feel like Grinnell and Bates should be just as prestigious and have great post-grad opportunities</p>
<p>lefleur - Bates, Colorado College and Whitman are very similar. Whitman’s stats for admitted students are slightly higher than the other 2 (even though Bates is SAT optional) and if you were referring to the USNWR ranking, Colorado College is ranked 1 higher than Bates. Each of the 5 schools neontb is considering is top notch. At this point, I would say look at the lifestyle differences and the specific professors and departments in each school.</p>
<p>Bates and Grinnell are on our list, too. Found this quote in Princeton Review from a Grinnell student, and it’s exactly the experience S is looking for, both in and out of the classroom. Will we find this at Bates?</p>
<p>“When you sit in a class with a diverse group of students who are all passionate about different things, it leads to some of the most interesting and intense discussions possible. Because I am surrounded by a group of highly intelligent, motivated, and inquisitive peers, I am constantly challenged to examine topics from different perspective. This constant thinking outside of the box is a primary aspect of a liberal arts education.”</p>
<p>Our S is going to be attending Grinnell. He sat in on two classes while he was visiting. One was a philosophy class and the other was a sociology class, needless to say the above quote you posted sounds exactly like the two hours our son experienced in Grinnell’s classroom. He wanted to sign up that day and start attending class. Needless to say, he is a senior and has to finish high school, but he is going to Grinnell this fall and we couldn’t be happier. It’s far away from us(from California), but after visiting for a long weekend, we feel like this college will make him feel right at home and that is very important. Let me know if you have any questions about Grinnell.</p>
<p>The atmosphere of an animated academic passion is what my daughter was also looking for and found it at Whitman. My guess is that this is exactly why an 18 year old would head out to the middle of nowhere to attend a top LAC! For what it’s worth, the Princeton Review academic rankings give Grinnell and Whitman 98, Colgate 96, Colorado College 95 and Bates 94.</p>
<p>^yes, that is partly true. He also fell in love with the beautiful campus at Grinnell, the accepting students, engaging professors and loved all the things that he can chose from for free.(Big endowment). Plus he will be able to participate in a sport he loves and also add to their music scene. Life is good.</p>
<p>BTW, I had a very favorable impression of Whitman as we visited there and our S did an overnight. I think you would have to visit them all and see what fits best as they are all great schools.</p>
<p>Well, of course Bates is the best…Seriously, one of the best things about Bates is the long liberal(in the best sense of the word)tradition.
The strength of the faculty, the large and well-placed alumni network, location near the beautiful Maine Coast and the Maine Mts with great skiing and a fabulous outing club, collegial student body and the genuine closeness of the faculty and students, with tons of bi-dis and intra-dis discussions and research going on…It worked for me, anyway.</p>