<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>I am from Maine, but I go to Colorado College so I thought I could provide you with some feedback. </p>
<p>First, as a Mainer, do not go to Bates! It is in a bad area. There is a high Somali immigrant population that has caused the crime rate to skyrocket; I do not mean to sound racist, but this is just the unfortunate reality. Second, the quality of the education there is dropping. I have had friends visit and attend the school, and it is clear to them and me that Bates has fallen to the third best liberal arts school in Maine (Behind Bowdoin and Colby).</p>
<p>CC is a great school. I enjoy the laid-back atmosphere, and I am getting a very good education. For example, my teacher for my economics class that I took first block is the guy who predicts the Olympic medal count. Nonetheless, if you are worried about it being too close to home, do not go! One of my choices for schools was Colby, and, when it took me only 40 minutes to drive to the open house, I knew that Colby was not the right school for me. It sounds like you may have the same situation with CC.</p>
<p>I am from the midwest and considered all the schools you are choosing between other than Grinnell. IMO, the ducation seemed like it would be equal at all the institutions so I came down to where did I want to spend four years…and I loved the block plan…still love it. I thought Colby probably had the prettiest campus of the bunch; Bate, at the time, seemed a little run down and I did not like Lewiston; If Whitman had been closer to a major city I would have seriously had a hard time choosing. Walla Walla was just way to isolated for four years…after spending a weekend in the town, I kept running into the smae people, and students everywhere I went and felt that if it felt that small and isolated in three days it would only get smaller. In the end, CC had the block plan, proximity to all fo the outdoors stuff I wanted access to, and while Colorado SPrings isn’t the biggest metropolis, that combined with Denver provided some variety for city life for me. Hope it helps.</p>
<p>I responded on the other thread you asked this question.</p>
<p>My S will be attending Grinnell in the fall and I can answer questions about Grinnell. We also have visited Whitman and know quite a bit about Colgate and CC too, as we considered those as well.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Grinnell stole our hearts and we chose it for a number of reasons. Do you have any specific questions? BTW, Grinnell is an amazing school and has great facilities, people, endowment and the academics are simply the best.</p>
<p>d’smom, my DS is also considering CC and went to visit Reed this weekend and fell in love. I posted on the Reed forum about schools that were similar to Reed but maybe not so intense academically. Grinnell came up a lot. My only question would be that my DS loves the outdoors and definitely will only consider schools that have access to outdoor opportunities. Does Grinnell have any mountains close? Sorry for the ignorance,but we are from San Diego and haven’t been to the midwest.</p>
<p>Grinnell is not close to any real mountains. There are rolling hills around. Think “Little House on the Prairie”. They have incredible sports facilities and have an outdoor club. There are a lot of people that are into outdoors stuff. Biking, running and swimming are big there and they are getting ready to open an incredible natatorium and indoor tennis courts and indoor track. I know that a lot of people do road races. I have heard there is a little mountain for skiing not that far away, but not like the big mountains that we are used to in California.</p>
<p>I am from the midwest (Chicago area) and there are NO mountains anywhere near Grinnell. It’s a great school though but I was interested in outdoors as well and CC had it all over Grinnell as far as opportunity, especially with the proximity to the mountains and the great block breaks to take advantage of everything in the area. Loved Whitman as well but had the same problem there as I did with Grinnell…although they have an excellent run outdoors program by a man (Brian Sheedy) who has climbed the highest peak on all seven continents…that part was hard to pass up at Whitman.</p>
<p>Living about 45 minutes down the road from Grinnell I would have to agree with flyboy.
I grew up in Hawaii and attended a LAC in Massachusetts and my husband (a lifelong Iowa resident and Grinnell graduate) still tries to convince me that Iowa has “mountains”. I guess everything is relative. That said, Grinnell offers a top-notch education and AMAZING
facilities. I do not think you can go wrong with any of your choices.</p>