Promote/Demote a college from firsthand experience.

[Anonymous]

Demote NYU. It's fine for grad school, but the undergrads there were annoying wannabe intellectuals who thought they'd be living either Sex and the City or Girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Visited all of these schools, and ended up at one of them:

Promote: Oberlin (great info session, personal tour, exco, cute town)
Promote: Kenyon (great info session, had a specific arts tour, loved the campus)
Promote: Grinnell (amazing on campus visit, nice campus, cute midwestern town)
Promote: St. Mary's College of Md (so underrated, loved the visit/location)
Promote: Ohio Wesleyan (great tour, student who led it was so impressive, was a safety school that she really liked)
Promote: Mount Holyoke (warm environment, great academics, cute campus)

Demote: Bryn Mawr (not a great visit, seemed unorganized and not interesting)
Demote: Muhlenberg (thought it would be a great fit arts wise, but it was an uninspiring visit)

+1 for SMCM

[Anonymous]

Promote: Scripps college. All the benefits of a small, women’s college with the experience of the Claremont College consortium. Excellent place for an excellent education.

[Anonymous]

Scripps is a great school. Tread lightly and carefully with ST majors, though. They rely on Claremont-McKenna for access to their science school (Keck). Scripps and Pitzer were supposed to be building/enhancing STEM facilities, and CMC was going to contribute, but apparently CMC backed out, leaving them strapped for funds.

Sorry I don’t have a link to share, but it might be something worth investigating if interested in Scripps.

[Anonymous]

Surprised to see Muhlenberg on a couple down lists so just thought I’d mention I know a recent grad who really liked it for STEM (and is now in a PhD program). I was also impressed on visiting it (although Allentown is so-so).

[Anonymous]

Yeesh, gotta agree with all the folks here who are demoting NYU - for undergrad (several of its grad programs are spectacular and a boon for New York professionals). Simply overrated in every aspect.

+1 promoting the Claremont colleges. A real oasis and bastion of the liberal arts out west, and the setup feels more intimate and intentional than the Five College Consortium (Amherst et al) out east. Special shoutout to Pomona with its gorgeous Californian campus.

+1 promoting Northwestern. For a school that for pretty much its entire existence has skirted the Top 10, it's made some significant headway in recent years of solidifying its place in the upper echelon of schools. The campus was a bit of a wash IMHO when I visited with DC (the Lake is blistering in the colder months) but she loved it and will be applying next year, if not in the ED round definitely for RD.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Promote

Pomona (ended up here) - best of both worlds, small college with large student body/classes/activities thanks to the Claremont Consortium, very diverse, great location.

Vassar and Bryn Mawr - beautiful, engaged student body, interesting majors.

Wesleyan (sister went) - highly intelligent and engaged student body, great vibe, excellent small classes, plenty of on-campus activities.

Demoted:

Middlebury - remote, jock vibe, homogenous.

[b]Penn - competitive/cutthroat, very pre-professional.
[/b]
Columbia - stressful atmosphere, expensive surroundings, students seemed unhappy.


I see this comment a lot. Not usually about Penn but certainly about a lot of other schools. What does this mean exactly? It is clear that "pre-professional" is seen as a negative, but why is that? I mean medicine, law, finance etc are all 'professional' fields. Folks seem to be happy if their kids are going to be lawyers or doctors or financiers. What is the opposite of pre-professional? To me that would be something like a liberal arts focus but that is generally looked down by DCUMers. Can someone clear this up?


[/quote]

To me, pre-professional can translate into caring too much about grades and outcomes versus learning/the life of the mind. These students are less likely to take electives simply because they sound interesting and are more likely to fight you for a point on their exam (former college instructor).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Promote: Stony Brook - nice, research oriented university
Promote: CWRU
Promote: W&M
Promote: UCSD

Demote: VT
Demote: CMU - everyone looked miserable
Demote: UIUC
Demote: UC Berkeley
Demote: UW Madison

Just for perspective, mine applied to W&M, Grinnell, Stony Brook, CWRU, WUSTL, Rice, and RPI

Their attending CWRU

For what reasons? And how much experience do you have first-hand with them other than application process? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Promote: Stony Brook - nice, research oriented university
Promote: CWRU
Promote: W&M
Promote: UCSD

Demote: VT
Demote: CMU - everyone looked miserable
Demote: UIUC
Demote: UC Berkeley
Demote: UW Madison

Just for perspective, mine applied to W&M, Grinnell, Stony Brook, CWRU, WUSTL, Rice, and RPI

Their attending CWRU

For what reasons? And how much experience do you have first-hand with them other than application process? Thanks.

I think she answered the question on the previous post #3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Promote: Stony Brook - nice, research oriented university
Promote: CWRU
Promote: W&M
Promote: UCSD

Demote: VT
Demote: CMU - everyone looked miserable
Demote: UIUC
Demote: UC Berkeley
Demote: UW Madison

Just for perspective, mine applied to W&M, Grinnell, Stony Brook, CWRU, WUSTL, Rice, and RPI

Their attending CWRU

For what reasons? And how much experience do you have first-hand with them other than application process? Thanks.

I think she answered the question on the previous post #3

PP here. I was asking specifically about Vermont which I don’t see in the post you mention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Promote: Stony Brook - nice, research oriented university
Promote: CWRU
Promote: W&M
Promote: UCSD

Demote: VT
Demote: CMU - everyone looked miserable
Demote: UIUC
Demote: UC Berkeley
Demote: UW Madison

Just for perspective, mine applied to W&M, Grinnell, Stony Brook, CWRU, WUSTL, Rice, and RPI

Their attending CWRU

For what reasons? And how much experience do you have first-hand with them other than application process? Thanks.

I think she answered the question on the previous post #3

PP here. I was asking specifically about Vermont which I don’t see in the post you mention.

Haha. PP here again. I see now that she meant Va Tech. Vermont is on my radar for some reason so my mind automatically went there when I saw VT. My bad! And we live in Va so I should know better. Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Visited all of these schools, and ended up at one of them:

Promote: Oberlin (great info session, personal tour, exco, cute town)
Promote: Kenyon (great info session, had a specific arts tour, loved the campus)
Promote: Grinnell (amazing on campus visit, nice campus, cute midwestern town)
Promote: St. Mary's College of Md (so underrated, loved the visit/location)
Promote: Ohio Wesleyan (great tour, student who led it was so impressive, was a safety school that she really liked)
Promote: Mount Holyoke (warm environment, great academics, cute campus)

Demote: Bryn Mawr (not a great visit, seemed unorganized and not interesting)
Demote: Muhlenberg (thought it would be a great fit arts wise, but it was an uninspiring visit)

+1
St. Mary's great value and education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Promote:
W&M -- everyone seemed to be having a good time, even with the hard workload
VT -- so many opportunities
Iowa State -- Surprisingly good

Demote:
UDEL -- great place to be a big fist in a small pond was a turn off
JMU -- looks like a fun school, but not serious about academics
UVA -- To pretensious
RPI -- Computer-human interface is not all there are to humanities
SUNY Binghamton -- just depressing. Campus architecture is the ugliest (I got my PhD there)

*too pretentious*

I rest my case. Grammar Nazis for UVA.

No DPs Just laughing at the SUNY Binghamton Ph.D. who misspelled two words out if two. And are you -a SUNY person - to criticize UVA? What’s your personal experience?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Promote: Stony Brook - nice, research oriented university
Promote: CWRU
Promote: W&M
Promote: UCSD

Demote: VT
Demote: CMU - everyone looked miserable
Demote: UIUC
Demote: UC Berkeley
Demote: UW Madison

Just for perspective, mine applied to W&M, Grinnell, Stony Brook, CWRU, WUSTL, Rice, and RPI

Their attending CWR

How shallow. You're basing this on first impressions, not firsthand experience. Didn't realize that's what the OP was asking. So we're supposed to respond with impressions based on tours or walking around a campus?

Guess what...readers are allowed to interpret" first hand impressions" as they like.

Most of us are enjoying this thread. No one died and made you the moderator. (Thank goodness, Jeff appears to be in good health )

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Promote

Pomona (ended up here) - best of both worlds, small college with large student body/classes/activities thanks to the Claremont Consortium, very diverse, great location.

Vassar and Bryn Mawr - beautiful, engaged student body, interesting majors.

Wesleyan (sister went) - highly intelligent and engaged student body, great vibe, excellent small classes, plenty of on-campus activities.

Demoted:

Middlebury - remote, jock vibe, homogenous.

[b]Penn - competitive/cutthroat, very pre-professional.
[/b]
Columbia - stressful atmosphere, expensive surroundings, students seemed unhappy.


I see this comment a lot. Not usually about Penn but certainly about a lot of other schools. What does this mean exactly? It is clear that "pre-professional" is seen as a negative, but why is that? I mean medicine, law, finance etc are all 'professional' fields. Folks seem to be happy if their kids are going to be lawyers or doctors or financiers. What is the opposite of pre-professional? To me that would be something like a liberal arts focus but that is generally looked down by DCUMers. Can someone clear this up?


[/quote]

To me, pre-professional can translate into caring too much about grades and outcomes versus learning/the life of the mind. These students are less likely to take electives simply because they sound interesting and are more likely to fight you for a point on their exam (former college instructor). [/quote]

MY interpretation of this comment is that the students in those tracks are all taking the same required courses, to check a box and get into a grad program that will lead to a job. There is actually nothing wrong with it, per se, but it is different than the liberal arts notion of exploring and learning for the sake of personal growth and expanding your ways of thinking.