Any experience with Skidmore or Connecticut College?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Conn College and Amherst is part of the highly regarded "NESCAQ" schools also referred to as little ivies. Don't know much about either but that they are small and academically rigorous.
Have you visited? Does your D want a small school in the northeast? Sounds like a road trip is due.

Yes, both Conn College and Amherst are NESCAC schools. NESCAC is an athletic conference -- New England Small College Athletic Conference -- and, as the name suggests, there are similarities among the members (i.e., they are small schools in New England), but also many differences in culture -- e.g., Trinity (super-preppy with lots of kids who want to transfer to a more selective school) v. Wesleyan (more hipsters and intellectuals who come to Wesleyan as a first-choice school). OTOH, NESCAC is a very competitive NCAA D3 conference, particularly in certain sports where NESCAC teams perform at the same level as some D1 schools (e.g., cross-country, and for this reason, you'll find a fairly significant cohort of athletes at all of these schools.

Re "the little Ivies" -- historically, these were Amherst, Williams and Trinity, which had an intense sports rivalry in the late 19th Centuryand early-mid 20th Century. Today, while there's still a strong Amherst/Williams rivalry, none of the NESCAC schools would embrace the description "little Ivy." While the most selective of these schools are just as hard to get into as the more selective of the Ivies, the NESCAC schools are selling a very different type of education and campus vibe. These schools are small, with strong ties among students and alums, and are focused on undergraduate education. They're almost hte opposite of the Ivies and Ivy-competitive schools.