Favorite College that changes lives?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Kalamazoo and enjoyed my experience. When I look at the alumni magazine, it still seems to draw lots of kids who want to make a positive impact, even in majors like Biology and Business. But I would look at the finances of whatever school you choose, there’s a wide variation about how secure they are. For instance, Denison on one end, and Antioch on another.

Another happy K alum! Great study abroad, helpful alums, fun town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have a child that attended Eckerd, and whose second choice was Juniata. DC picked Eckerd because the student body was more geographically diverse and they liked the FL weather. Both Juniata and Eckerd gave comparable merit aid. Although DC picked Eckerd,we were both impressed by the significant personal attention that Juniata gave its applicants. In retrospect, I wish perhaps DC had picked Juniata. Eckerd had more entitled B student rich kids and there was a significant drug culture. I also think that when looking at small LAC it is important to figure out the social organizing piece. Schools need something---either a traditional greek system or "houses" like they have at Rice, or co-ops like at Oberlin--otherwise freshmen are cast adrift and have even more difficulty finding their people.

Juniata has a good inbound experience (open to all incoming freshmen—not just those who can afford it). The kids get to pick from a wide range of fun experiences . That way, you are automatically introduced to other freshmen who chose the same focus. And when classes start you have some built in familiar faces.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Our oldest just started at Beloit this year. He really likes it. Small classes, engaged professors, more relaxed vibe. And I really can't complain that it costs the same as our average state school.

I thought Beloit looked really great, kind of a less obnoxious Reed or Bard, but I could not sell my kid on Wisconsin.

My sibling and I both went there; we're west coasters. It was a great experience for both of us. One thing that was important to both of us was study abroad opportunities -- we both spent one full year abroad with no issues.

For better or for worse, it doesn't have the most Wisconsin-y vibes... the closest meaningful airport is O'Hare and a pretty big chunk of people go there from Chicago and Chicagoland.

You can study abroad with “no issues” while attending virtually any college or university in this country. Beloit is by no means special when it comes to that.

Depends on when the poster graduated. I attended a school a bit ago where many, many kids went on study abroad, including athletes and STEM majors. The whole curriculum was set up to facilitate this. Some overseas centers were offered that were one of kind for any US college/university.

Lots of schools do this now but much less so then and at that scale.

I will concede that you have made a good point, but all that means is that the Beloit booster’s data is so old that it’s meaningless. And I guess I should add that I have no doubt that I studied abroad long before the Beloit poster, as did my Big Ten spouse, and neither one of us had any trouble.

The bottom line is study abroad is not a uniquely CTCL thing by any means.

How are you so certain of that?

And no one in this thread, no one, has has said study abroad is uniquely CTCL.

I doubt she went to college in the 1980s. And, yes, she implied that study abroad was a distinguishing characteristic. She literally said that’s why she went to Beloit and that she couldn’t have done it going to a Big Ten school. And when I called her out on that - and I’m 100 percent right - she derisively called me “Jan” and I was labeled the bad guy. So typical of the CTCL crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a child that attended Eckerd, and whose second choice was Juniata. DC picked Eckerd because the student body was more geographically diverse and they liked the FL weather. Both Juniata and Eckerd gave comparable merit aid. Although DC picked Eckerd,we were both impressed by the significant personal attention that Juniata gave its applicants. In retrospect, I wish perhaps DC had picked Juniata. Eckerd had more entitled B student rich kids and there was a significant drug culture. I also think that when looking at small LAC it is important to figure out the social organizing piece. Schools need something---either a traditional greek system or "houses" like they have at Rice, or co-ops like at Oberlin--otherwise freshmen are cast adrift and have even more difficulty finding their people.

Juniata has a good inbound experience (open to all incoming freshmen—not just those who can afford it). The kids get to pick from a wide range of fun experiences . That way, you are automatically introduced to other freshmen who chose the same focus. And when classes start you have some built in familiar faces.

Tell us more about Juniata! 😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Have a child that attended Eckerd, and whose second choice was Juniata. DC picked Eckerd because the student body was more geographically diverse and they liked the FL weather. Both Juniata and Eckerd gave comparable merit aid. Although DC picked Eckerd,we were both impressed by the significant personal attention that Juniata gave its applicants. In retrospect, I wish perhaps DC had picked Juniata. Eckerd had more entitled B student rich kids and there was a significant drug culture. I also think that when looking at small LAC it is important to figure out the social organizing piece. Schools need something---either a traditional greek system or "houses" like they have at Rice, or co-ops like at Oberlin--otherwise freshmen are cast adrift and have even more difficulty finding their people.


I'd like to understand your last point a little better. Are you saying that Eckerd lacked some sort of social organizing structure, and that as a result your kid struggled to find their people? There's a lot my kid really likes about Eckerd, but finding her people is a top concern.

Eckerd did not have any social organizing structure. They do not have a Greek system or any eating house/eating club system. They do have some really strong extracurricular activities that do seem to serve that purpose if a student is interested in them (mine was not)---for example, they have a very sophisticated water rescue organization which serves as adjunct search & rescue for the Tampa Bay Area---it is competitive to join it and the kids in it seem very bonded. The arts community on campus also seemed tight knit. Our DC is not really a "joiner" so I think a lot of it was tied to DC's specific personality and not so much the school. Unfortunately, I also think that at Eckerd the kids who do not get engaged in more positive activities seem to be the ones who have lots of interest in the less positive drug culture and there is a lot of that. I would also add that the food is terrible. And because the campus is somewhat isolated, there is not a lot of off-campus options in the immediate vicinity. I don't mean to sound down on Eckerd---I think lots of kids do great there and I think our DC would have had some of the same responses no matter what school they went to.

I appreciate your perspective, thank you! DC is thinking HARD about this one. Such an eclectic place, really unlike anywhere else, which makes it kind of a head scratcher. Your thoughts are really helpful to try to get a fuller picture. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a child that attended Eckerd, and whose second choice was Juniata. DC picked Eckerd because the student body was more geographically diverse and they liked the FL weather. Both Juniata and Eckerd gave comparable merit aid. Although DC picked Eckerd,we were both impressed by the significant personal attention that Juniata gave its applicants. In retrospect, I wish perhaps DC had picked Juniata. Eckerd had more entitled B student rich kids and there was a significant drug culture. I also think that when looking at small LAC it is important to figure out the social organizing piece. Schools need something---either a traditional greek system or "houses" like they have at Rice, or co-ops like at Oberlin--otherwise freshmen are cast adrift and have even more difficulty finding their people.

Juniata has a good inbound experience (open to all incoming freshmen—not just those who can afford it). The kids get to pick from a wide range of fun experiences . That way, you are automatically introduced to other freshmen who chose the same focus. And when classes start you have some built in familiar faces.

Tell us more about Juniata! 😂

$73,000 a year. https://www.juniata.edu/admission/scholarships-and-aid/index.php.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a child that attended Eckerd, and whose second choice was Juniata. DC picked Eckerd because the student body was more geographically diverse and they liked the FL weather. Both Juniata and Eckerd gave comparable merit aid. Although DC picked Eckerd,we were both impressed by the significant personal attention that Juniata gave its applicants. In retrospect, I wish perhaps DC had picked Juniata. Eckerd had more entitled B student rich kids and there was a significant drug culture. I also think that when looking at small LAC it is important to figure out the social organizing piece. Schools need something---either a traditional greek system or "houses" like they have at Rice, or co-ops like at Oberlin--otherwise freshmen are cast adrift and have even more difficulty finding their people.

Juniata has a good inbound experience (open to all incoming freshmen—not just those who can afford it). The kids get to pick from a wide range of fun experiences . That way, you are automatically introduced to other freshmen who chose the same focus. And when classes start you have some built in familiar faces.

Tell us more about Juniata! 😂

$73,000 a year. https://www.juniata.edu/admission/scholarships-and-aid/index.php.

And average net price is about $30k. Same as most schools in their peer group
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=juniata&s=all&id=213251#netprc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a child that attended Eckerd, and whose second choice was Juniata. DC picked Eckerd because the student body was more geographically diverse and they liked the FL weather. Both Juniata and Eckerd gave comparable merit aid. Although DC picked Eckerd,we were both impressed by the significant personal attention that Juniata gave its applicants. In retrospect, I wish perhaps DC had picked Juniata. Eckerd had more entitled B student rich kids and there was a significant drug culture. I also think that when looking at small LAC it is important to figure out the social organizing piece. Schools need something---either a traditional greek system or "houses" like they have at Rice, or co-ops like at Oberlin--otherwise freshmen are cast adrift and have even more difficulty finding their people.

Juniata has a good inbound experience (open to all incoming freshmen—not just those who can afford it). The kids get to pick from a wide range of fun experiences . That way, you are automatically introduced to other freshmen who chose the same focus. And when classes start you have some built in familiar faces.

Tell us more about Juniata! 😂

$73,000 a year. https://www.juniata.edu/admission/scholarships-and-aid/index.php.

And average net price is about $30k. Same as most schools in their peer group
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=juniata&s=all&id=213251#netprc

Man somebody really has a boner for Juniata.

[Anonymous]

60 percent of the entering class at Juniata comes from Pennsylvania. It’s no more diverse geographically than a state school. Its SAT average is only a 1220, which is also lower than half the state schools in VA.

I don’t get the appeal.

[Anonymous]

JMU, CNU, Mary Washington, and GMU all have higher SAT scores than Juniata, and obviously W&M, Tech and of course UVA blow it completely out of the water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a poster on DCUM who absolutely loves to rag on the CTCL whenever it’s mentioned. He or she then goes on to reply to nearly everyone else, totally derailing the threads. The CTCL is a marketing tool, the schools are all on the brink of financial collapse, they’re nothing special, and they also accuse posters with anything positive to say about the school of being boosters or admissions officers. It’s tiring and entirely predictable, and lo, they have made it to this thread. As always

There’s more than one of us who recognizes the CTCL charade

Sure, Jan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:60 percent of the entering class at Juniata comes from Pennsylvania. It’s no more diverse geographically than a state school. Its SAT average is only a 1220, which is also lower than half the state schools in VA.

I don’t get the appeal.

We know, but you're a joyless middle manager in a boring, over employee IT consulting government job. Odds are, you're not going back to undergrad anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JMU, CNU, Mary Washington, and GMU all have higher SAT scores than Juniata, and obviously W&M, Tech and of course UVA blow it completely out of the water.

Yes. And I'm thrilled your little worker bee kids are going there to become little cogs in the wheel just like their dad. Because if they have double your social prowess, they would still be boring.

[Anonymous]

I agree that financial stability is important, and I was actually curious about how these colleges fare on that metric. I plugged in each of the schools to Forbes (2023 financial grades) -- the list is below.

Personally, I have some quibbles with Forbes's letter grades, mostly bc the rounding seems generous (for example: Hiram's 2.84 counts as a B, and Lynchburg's 3.23 is a B+). So the numeric grades are useful context.

Anyway, here's the list:

Agnes Scott: A+ (4.31)
Allegheny: A (3.96)
Antioch - not graded
Austin College: A- (3.83)
Bard: A (4.03)
Beloit: B (3.05)
Birmingham Southern: C- (1.61)
Centre: A+ (4.27)
Clark University: A (3.92)
Cornell College: B+ (3.35)
Denison: A+ (4.45)
Earlham: A+ (4.32)
Eckerd: B- (2.77)
Emory & Henry: A- (3.65)
Evergreen State: not rated
Goucher: A (3.93)
Guilford: B (2.99)
Hampshire: A- (3.99)
Hendrix: A (3.93)
Hillsdale: A (4.50)
Hiram: B (2.84)
Hope: A- (3.81)
Juniata: A- (3.53)
Kalamazoo: A (4.06)
Knox: A (4.04)
Lawrence: A+ (4.19)
McDaniel: A (3.52)
Millsaps: A (3.93)
New College of Florida: not rated
Ohio Wesleyan: A (3.97)
Reed: A+ (4.50)
Rhodes: A (4.17)
Southwestern: A (4.07)
St. John's College: A+ (4.24)
St. Mary's College of California: A- (3.72)
St. Olaf: A+ (4.31)
University of Lynchburg: B+ (3.23)
University Puget Sound: A (4.05)
Ursinus: B+ (3.46)
Wabash: A+ (4.27)
Wheaton IL: A+ (4.50)
Whitman: A+ (4.32)
Willamette: A (3.88)
Wooster: A (4.06)

[Anonymous]

The one that surprises me is Wheaton IL - it has a perfect score? Same as Harvard and Princeton and Williams?

Reed and Hillsdale also have perfect scores (and Denison's getting so so close), but these surprise me less. Wheaton IL. Huh.