Wooster vs Roanoke: any insights?

Our senior is down to The College of Wooster or Roanoke College, and is super split on the schools! Just curious if anyone with knowledge of these two schools has any opinions, information, or experience to share. We parents go back and forth also! LOL. Thanks for any help. :slight_smile:

Don’t know about either, but assume they are similar in terms of cost or any financial awards or price breaks. If so may be you may want to compare both the schools in the major of interest? The department websites, faculty profiles, research grants/activity, facilities, student-faculty ratio, support etc? Would be ideal to pay a visit, but may be difficult in the current situation.

There has been a lot of love on these boards for both schools, but particularly for Wooster. @EconPop posted a moving tribute to Wooster (even though it ended up being his DS’s second choice) a while ago:

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Below is another link under the school forums you may find helpful in case you are not familiar already:

@ububumble visited Roanoke recently so maybe they could chime in?

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We visited both with D20. She applied to Wooster but not Roanoke but did not attend Wooster. Have you had a chance to visit? I liked Roanoke a lot. The kids and admission staff seemed really nice. We are from the northeast and the campus had a NE feel to it. I loved that the town was right at the edge of campus as it made the campus seem larger. The surrounding area was gorgeous with spectacular Mountain views. The city of Roanoke was small and nothing special but did have some more options for dining out. The school seemed very supportive of its students.

Wooster was also a very nice campus. Students seemed quirkier than Roanoke. (My D is quite quirky as well). It seemed very academic, it almost seemed like it should have been a little harder to get into than it is as kids seemed very smart. Seniors have to do a capstone project which seems like a ton of work and I think kind of scared my D. Kids we met seemed to be involved in tons of activities and multiple majors. Town of Wooster was very cute but about a mile from campus. Good luck with your decision. I think they are both good options.

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@BGTENN , as @RockySoil said, Wooster was on the final list for my S20. We also considered Roanoke, but never actually applied. The reasons for not applying regarded factors other than quality of RC. It’s not far from home, so it didn’t really check the box of going to another region for the possibility of extra personal growth, which was important to me. In the end, as some early acceptances (and FinAid offers) rolled in, S20 decided pretty quick that for various reasons RC was not going to be a serious option for him.

Wooster was far enough away to check that box. It also checked some boxes that RC checked, some for him, some for me. Though we visited approximately 25-30 colleges, we never actually visited Wooster. After a while, S20 said all the campuses and tours began to be very similar and it became easy for him to be able to look at pics and videos and put schools in various buckets with similar schools.

Instead of repeating what I said in the WiF thread, I’ll let you read it at RockySoil’s link. In the end, my S20 preferred a university experience with a larger enrollment than 1K-2.5K students, as long as the other boxes were checked. S20 ended up at UDayton, with an undergrad enrollment around 8600, and is having a great freshman year there.

I think CoW might end up being a better fit for my D24, if she decides to go that far for college. She loves smaller environments, and a more personal touch and self study, and the Capstone project would be right up her alley. She’s already claimed the Wooster poster my S20 had on his wall.

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Wooster alum here. Send me a DM if you would like to discuss in detail.

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Hello! Have just come back from a Roanoke tour a week ago, if you haven’t been and there are questions I can answer, shout them out.

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