what "good" college did you attend but would not necessarily recommend to your kids or others?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swarthmore -- too small and too intense for most kids

I got a great education but I think I would have had a more balanced experience at a larger school. Most of my classmates loved it, though, so for the right person, it can be a great place.

+1 I loved my time there, but you really do have to be a particular person to thrive at Swarthmore. Most students at other top SLACs and universities would dislike it.

[Anonymous]

Michigan

-- overwhelmingly huge; over 50,000 students, 30,000 undergrads
-- dovetailing above, bureaucracy is bloated beyond belief; it's daunting and exhausting
-- bottom 20% of LSA are legitimately dumb
-- location is cold and grey most of the school year
-- Mid-Michigan is dreary and isolated; spare me the Ann Arbor "great" college town rankings nonsense
-- Greek life and pseudo pro sports control campus
-- Lots of cocaine use
-- Everyone from out of state was rejected from all private top 20s and the top UC campuses, so they have an obnoxious insecure chip on their shoulder
-- dovetailing above, there's a lot of over-the-top and tacky bragging and flashing of money

If you truly seek a school environment like Michigan, I'm not sure why you wouldn't just go to USC. Or even Georgia, Clemson, UNC, Texas, UVA, Alabama. Honestly, nobody cares about Michigan "top 30" standing, our BA/BS degrees are treated like any other large public university.

[Anonymous]

UCLA as an undergrad. It has this shiny reputation largely because of sports and marketing (and good weather), but is a mediocre state school at best. The professors aren't interested in teaching undergrads, preferring to focus on their research. Classes are overcrowded and difficult to schedule, often requiring an extra year or even 2 years to get all your labs. The student body is terribly segregated with significant racial tensions. It's really not a good undergrad experience.

[Anonymous]

Pepperdine

It has a very insular culture and there’s a long list of schools in socal with higher performing students

[Anonymous]

Duke. So insanely pompous, and the kids there wear their pretense on their sleeves. Also extremely "white". Racism and micro-aggressions are fairly standard, and the Greek life only magnifies those issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grad school at University of Chicago. Intellectually, it was an amazing experience but I mostly learned about how I don't want to act toward other people.

University of Chicago Law School. SAME!

[Anonymous]

Holy Cross. I got a decent education there, but it’s not worth today’s exorbitant tuition. Small student body. A bit more diverse than a generation ago, but still majority preppy and homogeneous. And Worcester remains a depressing place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swarthmore -- too small and too intense for most kids

I got a great education but I think I would have had a more balanced experience at a larger school. Most of my classmates loved it, though, so for the right person, it can be a great place.

+1 I loved my time there, but you really do have to be a particular person to thrive at Swarthmore. Most students at other top SLACs and universities would dislike it.

Can you elaborate on this? Aren't other top SLACs very competitive and focused as well?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NYU: I loved it for grad school but I did not encourage my kids to apply for undergrad. Socially you have to find and form your own group, otherwise it can get pretty hard finding your people. My DH thinks JHU is NOT at all a great undergrad experience. Expectations are different for GRAD school so good for GRAD school.

This was my experience at Hopkins (I went to grad school on the medical campus but lived and studied on the undergraduate campus). The graduate programs (especially medicine, public health, etc) have students from many different backgrounds and from all over the world. The student bodies are interesting and diverse. In the medical school you have athletes, ballerinas, art majors, engineering majors, entrepreneurs, refugees, trust funders, and on and on.

The undergraduates (in my observation)are primarily pre-med gunners. Study, study, study. Very similar kids--can't tell one from another. The library (MSE--Milton S. Eisenhower) was jam packed every Friday and Saturday night--no lie. It just seemed like a sweatshop of a university. My classmates who attended JHU undergrad were all sort of shell-shocked. It think getting into medical school or graduate school at Hopkins following undergrad at Hopkins is akin to the survival of the fittest.

Reading this I kinda want my physician to have gone undergrad at JH.

The body can not be separated from the person. Social interaction and emotional iq are an important part of being a doctor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke. So insanely pompous, and the kids there wear their pretense on their sleeves. Also extremely "white". Racism and micro-aggressions are fairly standard, and the Greek life only magnifies those issues.

When did you graduate? I am class of ‘07 and the culture was super weird. The campus was actually 40% POC but it seemed like everything revolves around the rich white kids who were in frats. It’s a very self segregated campus. White people did not want to befriend POC. Just kind of a nasty place all around for me as a POC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TCU: It was a fun school but they’re raising tuition by 5% a year (already >$50k tuiton) and it’s a very academically average school

If my dd got in to Rice I’d happily send her there but I’m not enthusiastic about the idea of sending my kid to college in texas

Rice is amazing. I've been to the campus for work and it is so liberal. So is the surrounding city. Light Bright Happy campus.

Rice campus is very nice, especially if you've been there in the winter. So green. Warmish so lots of students are out. Rice is full of grinders, reminds me of the folks talking about Hopkins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke. So insanely pompous, and the kids there wear their pretense on their sleeves. Also extremely "white". Racism and micro-aggressions are fairly standard, and the Greek life only magnifies those issues.

+1 And too lax bro-y. I know it's harder to get into now but seems like the entitled rich kid frat culture is still dominant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top catholic college as a woman. Why did not someone talk me out of doing that? Solid jesuit education but almost a second class citizen by definition in the faith. Women are not permitted in leadership positions. I would have been better off elsewhere.

Why don't you name the school?

Her problem seems to be the Church. Apparently she doesn't think any woman should go to any college affiliated with the Catholic Church, ever. Which of course is ridiculous.

It was georgetown and I gave my opinion about my unsatisfactory undergraduate experience like everyone else on here. I am sure there is a poster that disagrees with every opinion on every school on here but that was not the point of the thread. Don't single out one post for your own agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke. So insanely pompous, and the kids there wear their pretense on their sleeves. Also extremely "white". Racism and micro-aggressions are fairly standard, and the Greek life only magnifies those issues.

When did you graduate? I am class of ‘07 and the culture was super weird. The campus was actually 40% POC but it seemed like everything revolves around the rich white kids who were in frats. It’s a very self segregated campus. White people did not want to befriend POC. Just kind of a nasty place all around for me as a POC.

Class of '02. My cousin who graduated much more recently, in '16, reported the same exact experiences. It is a weird culture indeed. There were other POCs who I would befriend at Duke who would very clearly think of themselves as superior to me because they were more "in" with the white crowd, and were not ashamed to communicate that. I got a decent education, but wonder what my experience would have been at a slightly more welcoming or genuinely inclusive campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NYU: I loved it for grad school but I did not encourage my kids to apply for undergrad. Socially you have to find and form your own group, otherwise it can get pretty hard finding your people. My DH thinks JHU is NOT at all a great undergrad experience. Expectations are different for GRAD school so good for GRAD school.

This was my experience at Hopkins (I went to grad school on the medical campus but lived and studied on the undergraduate campus). The graduate programs (especially medicine, public health, etc) have students from many different backgrounds and from all over the world. The student bodies are interesting and diverse. In the medical school you have athletes, ballerinas, art majors, engineering majors, entrepreneurs, refugees, trust funders, and on and on.

The undergraduates (in my observation)are primarily pre-med gunners. Study, study, study. Very similar kids--can't tell one from another. The library (MSE--Milton S. Eisenhower) was jam packed every Friday and Saturday night--no lie. It just seemed like a sweatshop of a university. My classmates who attended JHU undergrad were all sort of shell-shocked. It think getting into medical school or graduate school at Hopkins following undergrad at Hopkins is akin to the survival of the fittest.

Reading this I kinda want my physician to have gone undergrad at JH.

The body can not be separated from the person. Social interaction and emotional iq are an important part of being a doctor.

To each his own. I want results from my doc and I feel comfortable with a super geek.