Thoughts on Union College?

[Anonymous]

My son was recruited to play sports there, so we toured it several times and did an overnight. It's a good school. He ultimately went elsewhere, but it left a good impression on us.

DS did hear that Greek life was fairly strong, but he didn't really elaborate on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son was recruited to play sports there, so we toured it several times and did an overnight. It's a good school. He ultimately went elsewhere, but it left a good impression on us.

DS did hear that Greek life was fairly strong, but he didn't really elaborate on that.

I have a relative that was in a fraternity there a decade or so ago. My sense is that although there are fraternities it’s not like what you find at some schools. I think they are kind of geeky fraternities. He’s a huge feminist, a political progressive. and a very outgoing, low key guy. I’m sure he has his beer and pizza days at the fraternity house but I don’t think it was the raucous party scene that happens at some schools (cough, ASU).

[Anonymous]

My daughter goes there every summer for camp and I would never let my kids go there for college. The town is very run down and has very little going on. Visit it and you will see. FYI my oldest goes to VT so I am fine with rural- not run down. Union doesn’t feel like a place where we would want to leave campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Union College is the Harvard of Schenectady.

If you knew much about the history of Union, you might consider this with less flippancy. At one point, Union may have been one of the four most prominent colleges in the entire country. Hints of this era can be seen in its carefully planned campus layout and in the boldness of some of its existing architecture.

OK, I'll send my kid to 1835 for college. They'll be an auto-admit when they show up for the alumni interview in a working time machine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like poster above we are quite interested given its programs - their engineering (the writeup at least) sounded good to us. However when I read about its historical and deep ties to fraternities I want to throw all that out the window. I do not want that to be anything but a niche sideshow at any school my kid attends.

Historical or current? If current, can you please share more detail about the Union fraternity scene?

[Anonymous]

A few high achieving students from DD's public HS (New England region) have gone there.

The science facilities are great for a college of their size and they're building additional facilities opening in 2027 (?).

It's appealing to DD for the science and engineering programs, but with a liberal arts focus. She also likes the 3 classes per term, though I believe they're in school more/longer than traditional semester-based colleges.

I think the town has an Amtrak stop, which is convenient from NYC. It's also in the tri-city region, including Albany, which I would expect is helpful for internships.

From what we were told, the schools in their sports conference are all within a 3 hour drive of Schenectady, so theoretically less time out of class for student athletes.

She's interested in other schools mentioned in this thread - Rochester, Lehigh, etc.

[Anonymous]

The walk from the college to areas of interest in Schenectady takes about 10 minutes, I believe.

[Anonymous]

Not with the money.

[Anonymous]

"The science facilities are great for a college of their size and they're building additional facilities opening in 2027 (?)."

Yes, that's the plan.