Is 'fit' overrated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people are using fit in two ways:
* Objective preferences, like size, location, weather, academic strengths, facilities, etc.
* Subjective/cultural preferences, like artsy, preppy, intellectual, hippyish, pre professional, etc.

OP asserts that the second meaning doesn't matter past a certain size, say the "Goldilocks" threshold of about 7-9000 undergrads. I think this sounds reasonable. At that size, you go for the best ranked school that meets your objective criteria, generally.

Basically, all large schools are essentially the same and have many different kinds of students, so if one is a fit, they all are. Fit might become more regional at that size (e.g., Berkley v. Bama v. Wisconsin v. U of SC). The smaller you get, the more the feel of the school and the type of student the school generally admits matters (e.g., Washington and Lee v Reed).

I think the difference between large schools is more academic. Berkeley is a massive cutthroat hell that does not help you. It is much more competitive than Bama.

Small colleges tend to be similar in terms of their peers: Williams isn't that different to Amherst isn't that different to Pomona. Colby and Bates are pretty similar, etc.

I would have assumed this but found when DD was narrowing down her choices for a rural/small town LAC with a strong environmental program (not looking at elite schools), she got a really clear sense that some felt right to her and some didn't. For her, this "vibe" read mattered a lot on top of her basic school characteristic requirements.

Every college has small differences. But, for as much as people talk up the rigor of Swarthmore, Pomona students who have studied away in their exchange program have found it...pretty much the same experience just in the East Coast. The only massive exception I have found for this is Reed, but that is because they should likely be somewhere near the level of WASP if they could get their retention rate up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people are using fit in two ways:
* Objective preferences, like size, location, weather, academic strengths, facilities, etc.
* Subjective/cultural preferences, like artsy, preppy, intellectual, hippyish, pre professional, etc.

OP asserts that the second meaning doesn't matter past a certain size, say the "Goldilocks" threshold of about 7-9000 undergrads. I think this sounds reasonable. At that size, you go for the best ranked school that meets your objective criteria, generally.

Basically, all large schools are essentially the same and have many different kinds of students, so if one is a fit, they all are. Fit might become more regional at that size (e.g., Berkley v. Bama v. Wisconsin v. U of SC). The smaller you get, the more the feel of the school and the type of student the school generally admits matters (e.g., Washington and Lee v Reed).

"basically, all large schools are the same". Please explain. 45,000 to 50,000 undergrads in itself show diversity as opposed to a small LAC of 4-7 thousand.

Smalll LACs have 1.5k - 2.5k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are talking about fit. If a small school is best for your kid, then diversity isn't going to be about "sheer" numbers. If sheer numbers is important for you for fit, then a large school that is also diverse is a better fit.

Of course diversity is about sheer numbers, because there is diversity within diversity that's much harder for small schools to have.

Also, you seem to be defining diversity in a narrow way.

Considering race only, what is more "diverse," a school with 2500 students and 30 percent students of color, or a school with 3500 students and 28 percent students of color?

[Anonymous]

When we visited schools in Ohio, we realized it would be interesting for my kid from Bethesda to acquire some friends who had grown up on a farm. She had (fortunately ) had plenty of racial diversity growing up in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are talking about fit. If a small school is best for your kid, then diversity isn't going to be about "sheer" numbers. If sheer numbers is important for you for fit, then a large school that is also diverse is a better fit.

Of course diversity is about sheer numbers, because there is diversity within diversity that's much harder for small schools to have.

Also, you seem to be defining diversity in a narrow way.

Considering race only, what is more "diverse," a school with 2500 students and 30 percent students of color, or a school with 3500 students and 28 percent students of color?

Diversity is when more URMs. Why, what else could it mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are talking about fit. If a small school is best for your kid, then diversity isn't going to be about "sheer" numbers. If sheer numbers is important for you for fit, then a large school that is also diverse is a better fit.

Of course diversity is about sheer numbers, because there is diversity within diversity that's much harder for small schools to have.

Also, you seem to be defining diversity in a narrow way.

Considering race only, what is more "diverse," a school with 2500 students and 30 percent students of color, or a school with 3500 students and 28 percent students of color?

Sure but if you're a mainstream race-Black American/Nigerian, White, East Asian, and Mexican, which make up the majority of the represented people in this country, you will be fine represented in a small community, because there aren't that many people to compare in the first place. It's a lot harder to find the 500 or 600 black people in a 10,000 student population versus the 100 in a 2,000 student population. I went to a massive school that factually had 1,000s of black students but felt very isolated, because in my classes I would never see a black person, walking down the main row, I would never see a black person, etc.

Large state school environments are great for people who say they love diversity but never actually want to hang out with diverse groups of people. That's why Berkeley looks like it still is experiencing segregation, because it is undoubtedly difficult for students to hang out with actual diverse backgrounds at these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are talking about fit. If a small school is best for your kid, then diversity isn't going to be about "sheer" numbers. If sheer numbers is important for you for fit, then a large school that is also diverse is a better fit.

Of course diversity is about sheer numbers, because there is diversity within diversity that's much harder for small schools to have.

Also, you seem to be defining diversity in a narrow way.

Considering race only, what is more "diverse," a school with 2500 students and 30 percent students of color, or a school with 3500 students and 28 percent students of color?

Sure but if you're a mainstream race-Black American/Nigerian, White, East Asian, and Mexican, which make up the majority of the represented people in this country, you will be fine represented in a small community, because there aren't that many people to compare in the first place. It's a lot harder to find the 500 or 600 black people in a 10,000 student population versus the 100 in a 2,000 student population. I went to a massive school that factually had 1,000s of black students but felt very isolated, because in my classes I would never see a black person, walking down the main row, I would never see a black person, etc.

Large state school environments are great for people who say they love diversity but never actually want to hang out with diverse groups of people. That's why Berkeley looks like it still is experiencing segregation, because it is undoubtedly difficult for students to hang out with actual diverse backgrounds at these schools.

Black students' ability to find each other is surely an important part of maintaining a diverse campus, but you're making it the definition of diversity itself.

[Anonymous]

Also Berkeley doesn't have that many black students. CA is not a very black state, and UC schools still can't practice AA. Their workarounds catch a lot of Hispanic kids, but not many black ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we visited schools in Ohio, we realized it would be interesting for my kid from Bethesda to acquire some friends who had grown up on a farm. She had (fortunately ) had plenty of racial diversity growing up in the DMV.

I dated a guy who grew up on a tobacco farm - he became a lawyer. His dad brought a cow down from the mountains for cow patty bingo on our campus. They literally got 3 stations on their tv.

I grew up in a somewhat smallish town, but between Baltimore and Philly. My upbringing was a lot more cosmopolitan by comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also Berkeley doesn't have that many black students. CA is not a very black state, and UC schools still can't practice AA. Their workarounds catch a lot of Hispanic kids, but not many black ones.

Being AA at Berkeley sounds miserable. They have to lose some non-consequential chunk of black applicants to better schools every year due to the lack of black people in the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are talking about fit. If a small school is best for your kid, then diversity isn't going to be about "sheer" numbers. If sheer numbers is important for you for fit, then a large school that is also diverse is a better fit.

Of course diversity is about sheer numbers, because there is diversity within diversity that's much harder for small schools to have.

Also, you seem to be defining diversity in a narrow way.

Considering race only, what is more "diverse," a school with 2500 students and 30 percent students of color, or a school with 3500 students and 28 percent students of color?

Sure but if you're a mainstream race-Black American/Nigerian, White, East Asian, and Mexican, which make up the majority of the represented people in this country, you will be fine represented in a small community, because there aren't that many people to compare in the first place. It's a lot harder to find the 500 or 600 black people in a 10,000 student population versus the 100 in a 2,000 student population. I went to a massive school that factually had 1,000s of black students but felt very isolated, because in my classes I would never see a black person, walking down the main row, I would never see a black person, etc.

Large state school environments are great for people who say they love diversity but never actually want to hang out with diverse groups of people. That's why Berkeley looks like it still is experiencing segregation, because it is undoubtedly difficult for students to hang out with actual diverse backgrounds at these schools.

Black students' ability to find each other is surely an important part of maintaining a diverse campus, but you're making it the definition of diversity itself.

On these big campuses, students of the same background cling to one another for four years. There's very little diversity in big schools. A society that's 99% one race, but has a billion people, doesn't mean it's more diverse than the US, because it has more of that 1%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On these big campuses, students of the same background cling to one another for four years. There's very little diversity in big schools. A society that's 99% one race, but has a billion people, doesn't mean it's more diverse than the US, because it has more of that 1%

What's the geographical size of this "society" with a billion people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On these big campuses, students of the same background cling to one another for four years. There's very little diversity in big schools. A society that's 99% one race, but has a billion people, doesn't mean it's more diverse than the US, because it has more of that 1%

What's the geographical size of this "society" with a billion people?

This wouldn’t change PP’s point

[Anonymous]

Why not?

[Anonymous]

A very few small schools may be as racially diverse as larger schools, but it is doubtful that they are as diverse when it comes to personality type, talents, viewpoint, interests, values, etc.

It may be true, however, that the diversity of *very* large schools gets lost, as people experience only their own little "islands" within the school.

There's a reason 7-9000 undergrads is considered a "Goldilocks" school.