Favorite College that changes lives?

[Anonymous]

Correction: Hampshire is a 3.55, not a 3.99. Wish I could edit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the GPNW and know the schools on this list from that region pretty well--have had friends attend all of them. They're all great places for kids who dig their respective ethos. In alpha order:

Evergreen State is super hippie. Like a left coast version of UNC-Asheville only more so. Or a mini UC Santa Cruz. More intellectual than academic, if that makes sense.

Reed is intense. Like a less selective but no less ambitious Swarthmore--but with lots of black eyeliner and hard drugs. If you're not both brilliant and cynical, it's not your spot.

UPS is kind of like a miniaturized flagship. Solid for business, music, and liberal arts and sciences. Wide range of kids there, almost all of them happy.

Whitman is like west coast Middlebury but in a bigger, better town (but also way further from anything else). For kids who check the "intellectual," "outdoorsy," and "at least somewhat preppy" boxes, it's heaven.



Willamette is right next to the state capital and is a school for go-getters, across a decent range of raw intellectual firepower levels.

Cool details on these schools!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the GPNW and know the schools on this list from that region pretty well--have had friends attend all of them. They're all great places for kids who dig their respective ethos. In alpha order:

Evergreen State is super hippie. Like a left coast version of UNC-Asheville only more so. Or a mini UC Santa Cruz. More intellectual than academic, if that makes sense.

Reed is intense. Like a less selective but no less ambitious Swarthmore--but with lots of black eyeliner and hard drugs. If you're not both brilliant and cynical, it's not your spot.

UPS is kind of like a miniaturized flagship. Solid for business, music, and liberal arts and sciences. Wide range of kids there, almost all of them happy.

Whitman is like west coast Middlebury but in a bigger, better town (but also way further from anything else). For kids who check the "intellectual," "outdoorsy," and "at least somewhat preppy" boxes, it's heaven.



Willamette is right next to the state capital and is a school for go-getters, across a decent range of raw intellectual firepower levels.

Cool details on these schools!

Agree. And PP articulated about UPS what I hadn't been able to. It does feel like a miniaturized flagship! That's exactly right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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)

That's really interesting to compare. I thought some of those were a lot less sound than they are. Very few seem on the brink. I think it's possible that colleges on this list and ones with similar focus may be better-positioned to maneuver than larger state schools facing budget cuts and consolidations, or smaller schools with more prestige who demand full freight.

I don't see schools entirely populated only by very rich and very poor students to be sustainable, or conducive to learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My nephew attends College of Wooster and loves it. They have a cool thesis programs for
seniors.

This is one of ours. I honestly wasn't sure dc would get accepted, they're more selective than some others and I know they're popular. I have a friend who went there about fifteen years ago and loved it and has done quite well in a very tough and very popular field. Wooster's even moved to the top of my list, but they're farther away than I'd like and there are some closer options that also do capstone projects and offer many things that seem similar.

Wooster does seem like it's in good financial shape, and the merit was good.

My dd attended Wooster for 3 semesters and then transferred. Granted, she was there during the height of Covid so she did not have a traditional experience. But the reality for her was very different based upon what she expected from several visits.

Dorms: Research this. You can’t choose (understandable) as a freshman but some dorms are fairly new with A/C and some are literally falling apart. The dorm sophomore year was so bad that dh was worried about leaving her there. Read articles about the bats, etc. in the dorms.

Finances: Check our recent issues of the school newspaper (dd occasionally still reads it and mentioned it). They are making some changes to reduce expenses. I’m not saying they are close to closing but some of the changes may affect the school going forward.

The school has a new president since dd was there. The former president is now at Whitman…

The dumpiest dorm I've seen is at Williams College and the second dumpiest right next to that one, so go figure.

That is great, except we know that anyone on this thread - including you - doesn’t have a kid in the running for Williams.

IKR, with it's 9% acceptance rate. and 3.5B endowment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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)

Thanks, PP, for taking the time to look all these up and post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

The one distinguishing factor that you appear to have left out is that the typical CTCL school attracts underachieving kids from affluent families who need hand holding, as opposed to hard-working students. That makes a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

The one distinguishing factor that you appear to have left out is that the typical CTCL school attracts underachieving kids from affluent families who need hand holding, as opposed to hard-working students. That makes a difference.

Have you visited any?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

The one distinguishing factor that you appear to have left out is that the typical CTCL school attracts underachieving kids from affluent families who need hand holding, as opposed to hard-working students. That makes a difference.

DP. Weak rebuttal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

The one distinguishing factor that you appear to have left out is that the typical CTCL school attracts underachieving kids from affluent families who need hand holding, as opposed to hard-working students. That makes a difference.

DP. Weak rebuttal.

And ignores the data. From the same website:
Freshman pell share -
JMU 15%
Ursinus 18%
UMW 17%
Kalamazoo 25%
Juniata 26%

I think PP just has a problem with the existence of B students. Her kids are fortunate they never needed any support. I know the big schools can be fun and have the name recognition but I think most B students would probably get a better education at a smaller school that, yes, does some hand-holding and personal encouragement.

FWIW, I have one kid at Virginia Tech. He's having fun and getting a great education in his STEM major but I don't think he's learning to write well or learn much else about the world. He's able to take most of his general eds online and skate by. By the end of sophomore year he didn't know any professor enough to feel comfortable listing them as an academic reference. Obviously, that's on him. A student who takes the initiative can certainly be challenged, know professors, etc. He did eventually learn his lesson, now (a senior) has a job as a TA and last semester was able to pick a gen ed class that was somewhat related to his major and finally was excited by something other than math/data/programming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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)

That's really interesting to compare. I thought some of those were a lot less sound than they are. Very few seem on the brink. I think it's possible that colleges on this list and ones with similar focus may be better-positioned to maneuver than larger state schools facing budget cuts and consolidations, or smaller schools with more prestige who demand full freight.

I don't see schools entirely populated only by very rich and very poor students to be sustainable, or conducive to learning.

Yeah, these are interesting. I'm really surprised about Hampshire, which was on the brink of merging a few years back.

I like a lot of these small colleges, and attended one, but I do think paying attention to things like this is smart. I have a friend who went to Antioch in Ohio, which had major financial turmoil, and it was somewhat traumatizing to her college experience. It seems as thought there are more colleges in the US than we are likely to need in the next 25 years, and some will be likely to close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

This is 100% accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

The one distinguishing factor that you appear to have left out is that the typical CTCL school attracts underachieving kids from affluent families who need hand holding, as opposed to hard-working students. That makes a difference.

You have no data to support this. None.

That said, if by "need hand holding" you mean may need supports for learning differences, then I agree - but that's the case at every school. Some schools do it better than others.