Carleton vs Grinnell

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You say location doesn’t matter but Carleton does have another college in town (st. Olaf) and is 45 min to Minneapolis vs Grinnell is 45 min to Des Moines. I think Carleton could provide more opportunities for internships and academic collaboration.
Any cost difference?

Thats exactly OP should be careful of - St Olaf nearness to Carleton. Significant disparity in terms of standards, academic orientation & overall quality of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say location doesn’t matter but Carleton does have another college in town (st. Olaf) and is 45 min to Minneapolis vs Grinnell is 45 min to Des Moines. I think Carleton could provide more opportunities for internships and academic collaboration.
Any cost difference?

Thats exactly OP should be careful of - St Olaf nearness to Carleton. Significant disparity in terms of standards, academic orientation & overall quality of students.

How does the proximity of St. Olaf negatively impact Carleton students any more than the proximity of the University of New Haven impacts Yale students, or Drexel vis-a-vis UPenn? Your post makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say location doesn’t matter but Carleton does have another college in town (st. Olaf) and is 45 min to Minneapolis vs Grinnell is 45 min to Des Moines. I think Carleton could provide more opportunities for internships and academic collaboration.
Any cost difference?

Thats exactly OP should be careful of - St Olaf nearness to Carleton. Significant disparity in terms of standards, academic orientation & overall quality of students.

Wait, what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say location doesn’t matter but Carleton does have another college in town (st. Olaf) and is 45 min to Minneapolis vs Grinnell is 45 min to Des Moines. I think Carleton could provide more opportunities for internships and academic collaboration.
Any cost difference?

Thats exactly OP should be careful of - St Olaf nearness to Carleton. Significant disparity in terms of standards, academic orientation & overall quality of students.

Ridiculous. St. Olaf is currently ranked #51 on the US News list of liberal arts colleges. It is known for the excellence of its music programs, and its 25th/75th percentile SAT range is 1300-1480.

Are you similarly terrified of the students at Lafayette (1330-1480), GWU (1330-1490) and Lehigh (1340-1490)? Do choristers frighten you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid was accepted to both last year. During his visits he found Grinnell to be much more academic, so he chose Grinnell. This was based on sitting in on classes at each school. The other reason he went with Grinnell is that he was able to choose which classes to sit in on in Grinnell whereas Carleton chose for him and wouldn't budge. Grinnell sells itself as a school with flexibility, so Carleton's inflexibility on that day was a big contrast.

Are these assessments accurate? I don't know. Kids who are trying to decide are presented with a one day impression. His impression of Carleton that day did not match what he was looking for.

I think it might have to do with preferences in the form used for registering to visit and when that form is submitted. It makes sense colleges need to figure out in advance if and how many extra seats will be needed. Our child was able to sit in on the classes he wanted at both schools, and both were in a competitive (popular) dept (CS.)

[Anonymous]

Carleton sends many on to PhDs in science and other areas. Wouldn’t call it less academic. Also, a little bigger might yield a little more variety in students. Just a little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say location doesn’t matter but Carleton does have another college in town (st. Olaf) and is 45 min to Minneapolis vs Grinnell is 45 min to Des Moines. I think Carleton could provide more opportunities for internships and academic collaboration.
Any cost difference?

Thats exactly OP should be careful of - St Olaf nearness to Carleton. Significant disparity in terms of standards, academic orientation & overall quality of students.

Ridiculous. St. Olaf is currently ranked #51 on the US News list of liberal arts colleges. It is known for the excellence of its music programs, and its 25th/75th percentile SAT range is 1300-1480.

Are you similarly terrified of the students at Lafayette (1330-1480), GWU (1330-1490) and Lehigh (1340-1490)? Do choristers frighten you?

It's OK, Carleton requires cootie shots to protect its students from the St. Olaf low-SAT virus.

[Anonymous]

We drilled down on both of these impressive schools. The “open curriculum” at Grinnell is flexible, but we determined the Carleton curriculum is actually more flexible for our child. Grinnell has division limits: no more than 2/3 of a student’s courses can be from any one of their three broad divisions, which are sciences, social studies, and humanities. This can be a challenge if double majoring in two sciences and wanting to take more than the bare minimum of courses for a given major. As a reference point, students from MIT or Caltech will regularly graduate with 3/4 or more STEM courses. We determined it was possible to take more than 3/4 STEM at Carleton.

Another data point would be size. These are both small colleges, but Grinnell is and felt smaller, about 85% of the student population, 10% of the campus acreage, and 1/3 of the town population.

Also there were more profs and research projects in the depts that interested our child.

OP ruled out location considerations but that ended up being a big difference in our eyes too. We much preferred Northfield MN and the short drive to a major metro area to Grinnell IA, but certainly that’s subjective. I will just say that Northfield was selected as one of the 50 best places to live in the US!

https://money.com/best-places-to-live/

These are both great schools. Congrats to OP’s family!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say location doesn’t matter but Carleton does have another college in town (st. Olaf) and is 45 min to Minneapolis vs Grinnell is 45 min to Des Moines. I think Carleton could provide more opportunities for internships and academic collaboration.
Any cost difference?

Thats exactly OP should be careful of - St Olaf nearness to Carleton. Significant disparity in terms of standards, academic orientation & overall quality of students.

How does the proximity of St. Olaf negatively impact Carleton students any more than the proximity of the University of New Haven impacts Yale students, or Drexel vis-a-vis UPenn? Your post makes no sense.

This, but also St Olaf is nothing like those other two “lesser” schools in this example.
Geez

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say location doesn’t matter but Carleton does have another college in town (st. Olaf) and is 45 min to Minneapolis vs Grinnell is 45 min to Des Moines. I think Carleton could provide more opportunities for internships and academic collaboration.
Any cost difference?

Thats exactly OP should be careful of - St Olaf nearness to Carleton. Significant disparity in terms of standards, academic orientation & overall quality of students.

Ridiculous. St. Olaf is currently ranked #51 on the US News list of liberal arts colleges. It is known for the excellence of its music programs, and its 25th/75th percentile SAT range is 1300-1480.

Are you similarly terrified of the students at Lafayette (1330-1480), GWU (1330-1490) and Lehigh (1340-1490)? Do choristers frighten you?

I think they are scared of those studying Norwegian…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You say location doesn’t matter but Carleton does have another college in town (st. Olaf) and is 45 min to Minneapolis vs Grinnell is 45 min to Des Moines. I think Carleton could provide more opportunities for internships and academic collaboration.
Any cost difference?

The two Northfield colleges have very little interaction.

[Anonymous]

St Olaf grad here. St Olaf is not an issue that needs to be considered when evaluating Carleton. Carleton is not an issue re attending St. Olaf. They do their own thing

[Anonymous]

I am a Carleton grad and have wonderful friends who went to Grinnell. They are both terrific schools, and I think very similar in terms of the kinds of students they attract. Ultimately my (biased) opinion is Carleton wins out due to location. Northfield is a wonderful, walkable town (Grinnell's town is very small) and you can easily get to the Twin Cities if Northfield starts to bore you-- having the Twin Cities there also makes it easier to travel for winter and summer breaks. But ultimately your child should visit both and see what feels right to them.

[Anonymous]

DC was accepted to both, chose Carleton and had a great experience. I think DC would have been happy at either. The schools are similar. Looking back DC didn’t think about the semester versus trimester schedule but the difference between the two could be really significant for some students. Trimesters are short and very intense. You can fall behind and have trouble recovering by getting sick for one week or just having an off week. DC initially preferred the open curriculum at Grinnell but looked at the Carleton requirements and class options and decided to live with them. DC had a plan though for meetings requirements in areas DC wasn’t as interested in. DC went to both accepted student days and Carleton felt like a better fit. Travel home was easy from Northfield. FWIW I thought Grinnell’s administration came across as more thoughtful at the accepted student day. They had me sold. But DC preferred Carleton. It is just a little larger and Northfield has enough available to students so that it does feel different. DC also ended up loving and using the Arb for cross country skiing. Both schools are great. Congrats.