Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Trying to decide if we should visit Oberlin or any of the Ohio schools. If DS liked SLACS liked Colby, Wes, Pomona, Vassar, and Hamilton but felt weirdly out of place at Bard and Reed, would he find Oberlin too quirky or alternative?
I sent a kid to Oberlin. Probably not for your kid. My other kid almost Ed’d Vassar, but found the other schools on your list to be too country club, wealthy, stuck up— something. She like Carleton, Macalaster, W&M, St. Olaf better. Did IR, so American, GW, etc also made the list. She didn’t like the Oberlin vibe (“it feels like it’s full of pretentious drama kids” was the reason— she had an overload of pretentious drama kids in HS, and that’s what she was drawing from I think, because drama great there, but the music is obviously the reason most fine arts kids are there. Whatever. Not the school for her. Moving on.). So if your kid likes the vibe at those schools, Oberlin probably isn’t it. But, it was absolutely perfect for her sibling. No regret on that choice.
That said our first college visit for both kids was Oberlin, Kenyon, Wooster and Denison. And if you have a kid who would go Midwestern LAC, I recommend doing this and doing it early. Most will let you interview while you are there. Do it. You can also throw Miami of Ohio in there. These are all very different schools. Denison is most country club,, Kenyon is isolated, but beautiful and homogenous and has an amazing writing program, Oberlin is vibrant, obviously full of fine arts, is incredibly strong in STEM and a 1/2 hour outside Cleveland and Wooster can be a great safety, gives amazing merit, and has a really great and unique program where you work four years, step by step towards a senior capstone. Also good in the arts. Very different vibes, locations, sizes, strengths. Oberlin’s relatively large for an LAC, because the Con is there. One of them (forgot which) is on the small side. And with both kids, their various reactions to different schools helped guide us towards which colleges to look at next. We got a ton of useful information— even for our second kid who came out convinced she would never, ever attend college in Ohio. We still had a sense she wanted a larger school, but LAC like feel, a less isolated school, a school where music performance was available to non-majors, that zero sports on campus was fine and kids running around with LAX sticks was a turn off, etc. The Minnesota LACs were more her speed.
The Ohio LACs are just a great cluster of very different LACs to get a feel for what your kid wants. And if your kid hates everything about all of them. Drop by Ohio State and see if they want a large U with football and maybe LAC isn’t right. Timing? We went summer before junior year, which was about right. Junior year was asking the list and visits on breaks.
And BTDT advice. Especially early on, the question after visiting a college is less “is this one” and more what did you like about this school? What did you dislike? And write it down in the car ride after. They start to blend together.
But, I’d do those 4 early, even if one or more doesn’t seem right on paper. They might dislike Oberlin’s vibe, but discover they do want an active campus music scene and like/hate sports being emphasized, for example. That’s valuable info.
The other loop to do, BTW, is Macalaster, Carleton, St. Olaf. It’s worth the plane ride. All fantastic. And St. Olaf can be a great safety that also gives great merit, especially for STEM and fine arts. It was my son’s safety. He got into Macalaster, St. Olaf, W&M, Grinnell, CWRU, Oberlin, Kenyon, Wooster and Pitt. Knew he wanted Oberlin. But if it hadn’t worked (and we did call and negotiate on merit to make it work without loans), them St. Olaf was his second choice. And ai would have been okay with it. I did the Minn trip with him and understood why. Special place.
As a funny aside, my Oberlin kid only applied to W&M because we required an in state school he would probably get into (and for various reasons, he was a strong admit). But he hated it. His sibling who hated Oberlin ended up at W&M and loves it so much. Life can be strange.
Happy hunting!
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