Elite schools with down to earth students

[Anonymous]

Northwestern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swarthmore

Maybe. But lots of angst, too.

[Anonymous]

Stanford. My kid says it’s very collaborative.

[Anonymous]

DC picked Purdue over Michigan for engineering for this reason. Michigan is not laid back or collaborative (I attended). Too many wealthy, east coast students that judge anyone not like them. And the students judge each other by grades, post grad jobs, and Greek status.

Purdue felt much more laid back. People say hello when you walk by. Purdue has an academic boot camp and study centers. I never had that at Michigan.

[Anonymous]

Why does this matter? Im sure there are down to earth kids at every school. Are you able to get into both an elite college and
a "cool laid back one" Bravo!
My guess would be MIT because having a super brilliant stem kid myself, they seem to care zero about social status- thus making them just who they are, without pretense. Now, granted my kid was rejected from MIT like everyone else but even today, he is totally unaffected by popular sentiment but doing incredibly brilliant and elite work at a non-elite university, so I am projecting a bit. I think he'd be the same at MIT.

[Anonymous]

This is ironic, I just posted the above about my brilliant non elite kid- who also happens to be at Purdue like the PP. Small world!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Caltech and MIT
Midwestern schools

+1 Yep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, only liberal arts colleges??

Maybe not only liberal arts colleges, but it stands to reason that with their smaller sizes, they might be able to select for a particular ethos in the student body and then attract new students on that basis. So if 80% of students at a 2000-person school are down-to-earth, that's pretty pervasive in the student body, even if it's only 1,6000 people. As someone else said, you can no doubt find many down-to-earth students at large universities as well. If 10% of students at a 40,000-person university are down-to-earth, that's a larger number. But do they pervade the school? Probably less likely.

80% of students are down to earth, but have parents willing and able to afford a liberal arts education for their children? That seems very unlikely to me.

Definitely not SLACs. Too expensive. State schools are where you find the down to earth

SLACs with a lot of money that spend it on enabling non-kids people to attend (e.g., Grinnell).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, only liberal arts colleges??

Maybe not only liberal arts colleges, but it stands to reason that with their smaller sizes, they might be able to select for a particular ethos in the student body and then attract new students on that basis. So if 80% of students at a 2000-person school are down-to-earth, that's pretty pervasive in the student body, even if it's only 1,6000 people. As someone else said, you can no doubt find many down-to-earth students at large universities as well. If 10% of students at a 40,000-person university are down-to-earth, that's a larger number. But do they pervade the school? Probably less likely.

80% of students are down to earth, but have parents willing and able to afford a liberal arts education for their children? That seems very unlikely to me.

Definitely not SLACs. Too expensive. State schools are where you find the down to earth

SLACs with a lot of money that spend it on enabling non-kids people to attend (e.g., Grinnell).

*non-rich kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Caltech and MIT
Midwestern schools

+1 Yep.

Good Lord, not MIT! It's dog eat dog (I went up the river to Harvard).

[Anonymous]

Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Caltech and MIT
Midwestern schools

+1 Yep.

Good Lord, not MIT! It's dog eat dog (I went up the river to Harvard).

You again?

[Anonymous]

Notre Dame. Great community feel, friendly, collaborative. Being from cut throat DC area, it is a breath of fresh air. My son has made lifelong friends and may have met his future wife. Her family is from Chicago, very wealthy, and the most lovely down to earth people...you would never get the sense they have that much money. We are pleased and hope to send our younger one there!

[Anonymous]

Kalamazoo College

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Notre Dame. Great community feel, friendly, collaborative. Being from cut throat DC area, it is a breath of fresh air. My son has made lifelong friends and may have met his future wife. Her family is from Chicago, very wealthy, and the most lovely down to earth people...you would never get the sense they have that much money. We are pleased and hope to send our younger one there!

? ND is very much into legacy and keeping it all in the family. That doesn't seem down to earth to me.