<p>Here are some things I noticed just from basic research:
-MHC is a women’s college, Marist is coed.
-MHC is a liberal arts college dedicated to undergraduate education. This means that all your classes (except perhaps language labs and science labs) will be taught by professors, none of this grad student/TA nonsense. Marist has both undergraduate and graduate programs, thus their resources are split. It might be good to do some research in this area at Marist and see whether graduate TA students teach undergraduate classes, and if so, how many.
-MHC has a student body of roughly 2,200 students while Marist has an undergraduate student body (not including grad students) of roughly 5,000 students which is over twice the size of MHC. The small population definitely makes you feel more of a sense of community at MHC. I know class sizes at MHC are relatively small and there’s a student: faculty ratio of something like 1:10 or 1:11. I’m not sure about Marist’s, you may want to look into that.
-MHC’s campus is 2,000 acres (though that includes a golf course) and 1,000 acres are part of the academic campus. Marist’s campus is 240 acres. --Again, look at the space differential given the small student body of MHC!
-Marist and MHC are both suburban campuses. You may want to see what Marist’s college town is like…my guess is that since there are more students there, the surrounding community may have more recreational opportunities than MHC has (book stores, movie theatres, cafes, malls, etc.)
-As we mentioned, MHC has a much smaller student body than Marist, yet their endowment is almost four times the size of Marist’s endowment. MHC’s endowment is roughly $488 million, while Marist’s is $124.4 million. This could mean that despite the fact that Marist’s “sticker price” is smaller than MHC’s, it’s entirely possible that your actual financial aid package may be better than the one you receive from Marist (since MHC has lots of money to give institutional grants and scholarships).</p>
<p>MHC is incredibly well respected in academia, and I know the school has a very high rate of students that go on to get their master’s and PhD’s from Ivy League institutions. I have several friends that went on to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, and Cornell. Roughly 25% of MHC students go immediately to graduate school upon graduation and 75% of MHC students go to graduate school within 10 years of graduation. I also can’t find the research, but I know that graduates of women’s colleges have a greater likelihood of attaining PhD’s than their co-ed female counterparts.</p>
<p>Take a look at some of the advantages of attending a women’s college on the women’s college coalition’s website here: [Our</a> Perspective | The Women’s College Coalition](<a href=“http://www.womenscolleges.org/perspective/index]Our”>Women's College Coalition | Directory of Women's Colleges & Degrees)</p>
<p>Personally, I would attend a seven sister’s college over Marist any day if money weren’t an issue, however, if it financially makes more sense for you to go to Marist, it is still an excellent institution. I do recommend applying to both and just seeing who gives you a better financial aid package. I ended up getting a better financial aid package from MHC than I did for other private AND PUBLIC institutions!</p>
<p>Also, be sure to visit both campuses, and talk to students at both institutions. You may find that you prefer one environment to the other just from walking around on campus! Best of luck in your search!</p>