Tell me about Kenyon College
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Anonymous
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What else? A cappella groups are a big thing, and you can check them out on youtube.
The cafeteria stays open for extended hours for snacks, tea and coffee so lounging like its a starbucks while your friends come and go from classes is time-honored tradition. A lot of people study abroad for a semester or a year, junior year. If your student has AP credits they can jump over the survey classes into small classes and seminars first year. Quite a few families make attendance a family and multi-generational affair. |
Anonymous
| The school is far too isolated....if your DC wants "some" city life (albeit a matter of opinion of what constitutes "city life") this is not the school for that DC. |
Anonymous
So obnoxious. OP didn't indicate her DC wanted some or any city life. |
Anonymous
| I'm not the OP, but this is a helpful thread. DS is considering applying to Kenyon next year and all perspectives are appreciated. Cost is a big consideration for us though. |
Anonymous
| Kenyon has a beautiful campus, but it's in the smallest town I have ever been in. The campus deli/bookstore is the biggest business in town. We have family in Gambier, and IIRC there is a small hotel for those visiting the college, a gas station, maybe a post office (or they pick up their mail at Kenyon), and maybe one other place to eat that's not on the campus. The people I know who went to Kenyon are all smart, partied like crazy during college, and fiercely love their alma mater. |
Anonymous
I am the alum. Kenyon gives a lot of aid of varying types. Definitely inquire. I was on a performance based aid. If g.p.a was 3.5 or over the met full need the next year. |
Anonymous
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Alum pp again. I apologize for the above garbled sentence. I plead small children pulling at me.
Anyway, Kenyon offered to meet my need through a combination of loans and direct grade-based scholarship. I don't know what they are doing these days but a much larger proportion of the student body has some form of aid now than in those days. There is much more writing, and much more attention from professors than at many larger schools. |
Anonymous
| We all had high expectations for Kenyon as a great fit for DC. But...take a look at it. It is definitely remote -- and not an hour from a major city remote, or Middlebury remote, but a small campus on a hilltop that is a 30 minute drive to a McDonalds (I'm making this up but you get the point). More surprising was the state of the facilities -- I had heard the school's endowment was clobbered during the recession, but the dorms were definitely the worst we saw, anywhere, although maybe it was the contrast with the sparkling new athletic facility that heightened the contrast. Lots of kids from East Coast prep schools, for whatever that's worth. The academics are impressive and the John Green connection is a huge selling point -- you get the feeling half the kids wrote their essays about Looking for Alaska. But although DC applied, got in and thought hard about it, the love just wasn't there. You should ask around -- it's a pretty popular school in these parts and it would be good to get more personalized straight talk. |
Anonymous
| I can echo what prior posters said. DS thought he was going to love Kenyon and was so excited to visit, but he couldn't get past the setting. We stayed in a motel in a town about 10-15 minutes away. There was no place to go out to eat. We ended up at a sports bar that was just gross, and you would need a car to get even there from campus. I went to a rural school (Oberlin) and loved it. But for a kid spoiled by the DMV, Kenyon's environs just didn't cut it. Agree that the dorm was the worst we saw. They should never show boys' wings. It reeked of sweat! |
Anonymous
| I'm the pp from Ohio. If your DC wants to be able to go to the movies/shopping/etc. then your DC could consider other Ohio schools such as Denison, Otterbein or CasecWestern, which is outside if Cleveland. Denison is kind if close to Columbus and Otterbein is in a very cute small town very close to Columbus. Columbus is a great town. |
Anonymous
| DD is a rising junior at Kenyon, and we could not have asked for a better college experience for her. OP, if you have any more specific questions about the school, I'd be glad to answer them, but first I'd just like to say that yes, it's a tough school, and yes, it's rural--there's no doubt in my mind that it's not a school for just any kid. However, DD absolutely loves those aspects of the school, and I think it's interesting to note that she and the vast majority of her friends are from big cities (DC, NYC, LA, etc). In a way, I think it's really nice for the kids to be so isolated for their college years, as it's definitely a change of pace from city life, and most kids will go on to grad school or work in major cities after graduation. It also definitely builds a really strong sense of community unlike any I've observed at other schools. Once again, the location isn't for everyone, but I wouldn't nix it until you visit to see if it's something your DC might actually enjoy. Hope this helps! |
Anonymous
When my DD visited last year she stayed in a new dorm complex that was built to look like farmhouses. |
Anonymous
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DC,
Just visit. A classmate of my son's is a rising sophomore and loves it. We visited, but decided it wasn't the right fit. And it's all about the fit! |
Anonymous
| Watch the movie "Liberal Arts". |
Anonymous
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Ironic!
Kenyon is a top 10 hipster school popular among those from the non-athletic DC private schools. |