Middlebury or Bowdoin?
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Anonymous
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Differences? Similarities?
Pros and cons? |
Anonymous
| Far more similar than different. About same size, academic level pretty similar, kids seem really happy at both. Midd in middle of nowhere but gorgeous campus, own ski bowl, and Burlington is a nice little city with a good music scene about 35 minutes away. Bowdoin in a small city/large town, so more in the way of stores/restaurants, and coast nearby. Certain departments stronger in one versus the other (languages for instance at Midd, some sciences stronger at Bowdoin). But really if kid is attracted to one likely will be attracted to the other. I have had kids or stepkids at both, all were very happy, but admit they probably would have been equally happy at the other school. |
Anonymous
| They are so similar that many people confuse the two schools. They are about equally difficult to get into. |
Anonymous
| Very similar schools, both with a lot to offer academically and socially. Maybe Midd has more creative types -- kids who are a little more out of the box and maybe more entrepeneurial? Possibly because it's so tucked away, the kids have to make their own fun. Some examples: school-wide Quidditch (sp?) match, Sunday night locovore meals cooked by students for students, one of the very few -- maybe only SLAC -- to participate in the Solar Decathlon engineering and design competition (and they did pretty well, if I recall). Not knocking Bowdoin here, so please don't flame, Bowdoin fans -- it's also a great school with a strong community service orientation. |
Anonymous
| Both are great schools academically. Personally I think Bowdoin is a little too impressed with itself while Middlebury students seem more down to earth and are a little less uniformly preppy. Both campuses are gorgeous. Drive wise Midd is about 7 to 8 hours away from this area whereas Bowdoin is around 10. Great food at Bowdoin, good enough food at Midd. Town of Middlebury is very charming; Brunswick is not without it's charms but nowhere near as picturesque (proximity of Portland and the ocean a definite plus though). |
Anonymous
| Two words about Bowdoin: queer gardens. Is Middlebury's curriculum equally flaky? |
Anonymous
| Oops, meant to post this link:http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/344548/queer-gardens-pocahontas-and-prostitutes-eliana-johnson |
Anonymous
The entire report is a great read. It does raise the question of whether the $55,000 plus is worth at the school. Doesn't appear so, regardless of how nice the campus looks. Can you imagine, $55,000 plus so you get a course like that? (NOTE: this has nothing to do with the sexual preference issue...so let's not have the dagger postings come out...the point here is CURRICULUM!) |
Anonymous
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Bowdoin graduates do very well with graduate school placement and jobs. Goofy sounding courses aside you get a top notch education at Bowdoin. 90% of the of the admits were in the top 10% of their high school classes. And I'm the person who posted that I think they are a bit snooty. All that snootiness means great connections on Wall Street and elsewhere. They have a great alumni network.
This is from Wikipedia: In 2006, Bowdoin was named a "Top Producer of Fulbright Awards for American Students" by the Institute of International Education.[27] In 2003, the Wall Street Journal ranked Bowdoin among the top twenty colleges and universities in the United States based on the percentage of the school's alumni who attend a "top-five" graduate program in business, law, or medicine.[28] According to payscale.com, alumni of Bowdoin College have a mid-career median salary of $106,000, making it the 29th highest among colleges and universities in the United States.[29] (this is a stat from 2009) |
Anonymous
| Another thought. Liberal Arts college require or encourage taking classes across all disciplines. It makes for well-rounded individuals. Does that mean that you take one or two flaky-sounding courses? Yes it does. If I had to take a music class you can bet it would be "The History of Rock and Roll" or similar. |
Anonymous
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I agree-- if you believe in a liberal arts education then you don't care if some conservative rag tries to do a hatchet job on a couple of courses. Obviously you want a quality education, but you are not going to be able to tell if you are getting that from a course catalog, or the national review.
ISTR wait wait don't tell me did a thing once on ridiculous courses at Ivy League schools. |
Anonymous
Hey -- it's the anti-free speech-at-Swarthmore poster! Welcome back. Can't wait to see your next post attacking yet another school with which you are entirely unfamilar other than via a single report in the obviously unbiased National Review or WSJ. How enlightening! |
Anonymous
I find the anti-free speech poster very entertaining and educational, speaking for myself. His/her posts are a real window into how Tea Partiers think, which apparently includes banning students' free expression of speech. Who knew? |
Anonymous
You are extremely broad-minded -- so much so that I am sure your alma mater -- whatever it may be -- is a hotbed of rad-fem-LGBTQ-eco-terrorist-Occupy-everything-extremists --and that it will be next on anti-free-speech poster's target list. Thank God for his/her efforts to expose this shocking and sad state of affairs -- that young people are being allowed to explore, consider and debate ideas -- at America's colleges and universities! |
Anonymous
| Awesome schools. |