Tell me about St Olaf's and Carlton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really feel like the MN schools sound like good fits for my DS but the winter thing is just too overwhelming. He does not like the cold weather, sigh. I wish there were schools like Carleton or Macalester in the south!

The cold is real but I think people in the east don’t appreciate how sunny the winters are in Minnesota. For a kid who is ok with bundling up but just kind of shuts down on dreary days, there’s a real benefit to the upper Midwest over places like Ann Arbor/Ithaca.

Agree. Winter in Minnesota is cold as hell, but sunny. My niece and nephew are both at Carleton and love it and are having a great experience. They are private east coast school kids that I would describe as preppy and outgoing and have large friend groups. I mention this because Carleton had a reputation for being very quirky when I went to college in the 1990s. Academics are obviously good.

St. Olaf is exceptional for music. Obviously academically it isn't in the same league as Carleton, but it would still be a solid education.

Northfield is a great town and it's as easy drive to MSP for flights.

[Anonymous]

Hang in there, OP. We moved to the Midwest from the DMV a couple of years ago. I still come her for info because there are kind, generous people who give it. But heck, there are a lot of miserable people on these boards. You would probably like MN. Those two schools are a couple of miles apart and have different vibes. Might be worth a tour.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:PP with kid at St. Olaf. He might have gotten into Carleton, but didn't even look at it because we couldn't afford it. Both excellent schools for different reasons. If your high stats kid is looking for a safety that they could love, and you can easily afford, St. Olaf might be worth a second look. It's a pretty special place. Do Grinell and Carleton do better for grad school placements in my kids major? Yep. But not by much. https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-phd-programs

You really shouldn't have posted that link if you think it supports the idea that St Olaf is anywhere near the same league as Carleton or Grinnell. Both of those schools appear in the top ten for PhDs in numerous of the fields mentioned, while St Olaf appears in none.

Actually Carleton and St. Olaf ARE in the same leagu. It’s called the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. It’s Grinnell that’s not in the same league. They’re in the Midwest Conference.

Ha ha cute. Off point, but cute.

Not as off point as you think.

Please explain why. Every single member of Carleton's athletic conference is a Minnesota private school, every single one of them, and the Minnesota private schools that are members run the gamut from nationally known Carleton and Macalester to little known Bethel and St Scholastica. Carleton has Division III athletics and a limited athletic budget, so why wouldn't it participate in a league comprised exclusively of Minnesota private schools?

Grinnell isn't a Minnesota school and none of the members of its conference are Minnesota schools either. But, like Carleton, academically it is considered the best school in its conference.

The midwest isn't the northeast. It's much larger geographically and its top colleges aren't an hour's drive from each other. Carleton and Grinnell are just being practical.

Distance isn’t the factor you’re making it out to be. Concordia is in Moorhead, across the river from Fargo. If distance were the issue, Concordia would be playing in a North Dakota conference. Grinnell is 50 miles close to Carleton than Concordia is. St. Scholastica is in Duluth, 200 miles north of Carleton. Grinnell isn’t much farther than that. If distance were the issue, Grinnell and Carleton could be in the same conference. A friend of mine is from North Dakota. He traveled hours to play HIGH SCHOOL sports. People in that part of the country are used to traveling long distances.

Collegiate athletic conferences come together for lots of reasons. One of them is a level of comfort with the academic demands at the competing colleges.

The harping on test scores as a measure of “smarter kids” ignores a lot of what we know about testing and about intelligence. We no longer refer to “intelligence” as a single entity, which was in fact the thinking when tests were created in the first half of the last century. Multiple intelligences is how we now look at cognitive abilities. SAT focused only on one kind of cognitive ability.

The one thing that SAT scores correlate with better than anything else is wealth. And the higher the scores get, the stronger the correlation becomes. Calling a group of kids “smarter” because they have higher test scores is going into very dangerous territory. There’s a lot of racist thinking that flows from that. This is the territory of the affluent and the privileged, patting themselves on the back because Todd and Muffy are just oh so smart.

Referring to the number of kids who go on for doctorates is ludicrous when then generalizing to an entire student body. That approach is so flawed that it’s not even worth commenting on further.

There's no arguing with the likes of you. You have a kid who can't get into a top school like Carleton. I get it. I've had kids like that too. But I'm not so stubborn and insecure about my kids that I'm going to insist until I'm blue in the face that just because one school, by every objective and quantifiable measure, has a stronger student body academically than another doesn't mean the average student there isn't smarter than the other school. THAT is what is ludicrous.

And if you want to talk about race and privilege, I have news for you: St Olaf is an expensive private school with less generous financial aid than Carleton and is also whiter than Carleton and has a much, much smaller African American population. It's hardly a school for minorities and the destitute. You talk as if one of these schools is for the privileged and the other isn't. In fact, they both are schools for the privileged -- one of them just happens to have privileged kids who, on average, are smarter and more accomplished.

You’re right. I don’t have kids that go to Carleton. My two go to Harvard and Rice. The two Carleton grads I know personally are farmers. Should I generalize from that small sample?

My point about these two schools is that they are different and with different strengths. St. Olaf has an excellent Music program. That can’t be measured by test scores. This is just one example of why test scores are not objective and why something that’s quantifiable misses things. Both are very good and I have no need to go beyond that and say which is “stronger”. That is a meaningless descriptor of colleges and says nothing about the educational experience that a student will have at either school. Students should pick the one where they’re more likely to thrive. And students can thrive at either of these 2 schools.

I know full well what the composition of the student body at St. Olaf is. And that is beside the point when it comes to what the SAT measures. St. Olaf’s racial mix doesn’t change the fact that high SAT scores are a by-product of wealth more than anything else. They’re not objective as you claim. Thy have a bias.

You're just being contrarian. If you really felt the way to claim to, you wouldn't have kids at Harvard and Rice. Stop pretending to be something you're not just for argument's sake.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The only parents who think St Olaf and Carleton students are on the same page intellectually are those who know their kids would never get into Carleton. Stop kidding yourselves. Yes, St Olaf is a good school -- but it ain't in Carleton's league and never will be.

So rude. Do better.

--Carleton grad

And you know I'm right.

-- Not a Carleton grad

And for some sad reason, that seems to haunt you...

LOL, hardly. I had a kid who was torn between going to Carleton for full tuition or Grinnell with a generous merit aid package. It really came down to the wire before the kid decided to go with Grinnell, which proved to be a great decision both from a "fit" and practical standpoint. The kid actually preferred Grinnell from the very beginning and the decision would have been an easier one had the kid not been a little too caught up in the rankings at the time.

St Olaf wasn't on the radar.

One nice thing about bring connected to one of the Northfield colleges is that there is really very little rivalry between them. It's kind of annoying to have people unconnected to the two come into the thread and be combative and argumentative about the possible differences between the two. Maybe you could go pick some fights about Grinnell vs. some of its neighrbors.

Interesting to hear you say that considering that, at least according to Wikipedia, Carleton considers St Olaf to be its biggest athletic rival.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really feel like the MN schools sound like good fits for my DS but the winter thing is just too overwhelming. He does not like the cold weather, sigh. I wish there were schools like Carleton or Macalester in the south!

The cold is real but I think people in the east don’t appreciate how sunny the winters are in Minnesota. For a kid who is ok with bundling up but just kind of shuts down on dreary days, there’s a real benefit to the upper Midwest over places like Ann Arbor/Ithaca.

Agree. Winter in Minnesota is cold as hell, but sunny. My niece and nephew are both at Carleton and love it and are having a great experience. They are private east coast school kids that I would describe as preppy and outgoing and have large friend groups. I mention this because Carleton had a reputation for being very quirky when I went to college in the 1990s. Academics are obviously good.

St. Olaf is exceptional for music. Obviously academically it isn't in the same league as Carleton, but it would still be a solid education.

Northfield is a great town and it's as easy drive to MSP for flights.

Careful, now! The Harvard/Rice parent isn't going to like you!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The only parents who think St Olaf and Carleton students are on the same page intellectually are those who know their kids would never get into Carleton. Stop kidding yourselves. Yes, St Olaf is a good school -- but it ain't in Carleton's league and never will be.

So rude. Do better.

--Carleton grad

And you know I'm right.

-- Not a Carleton grad

And for some sad reason, that seems to haunt you...

LOL, hardly. I had a kid who was torn between going to Carleton for full tuition or Grinnell with a generous merit aid package. It really came down to the wire before the kid decided to go with Grinnell, which proved to be a great decision both from a "fit" and practical standpoint. The kid actually preferred Grinnell from the very beginning and the decision would have been an easier one had the kid not been a little too caught up in the rankings at the time.

St Olaf wasn't on the radar.

One nice thing about bring connected to one of the Northfield colleges is that there is really very little rivalry between them. It's kind of annoying to have people unconnected to the two come into the thread and be combative and argumentative about the possible differences between the two. Maybe you could go pick some fights about Grinnell vs. some of its neighrbors.

Interesting to hear you say that considering that, at least according to Wikipedia, Carleton considers St Olaf to be its biggest athletic rival.

I have a student currently at Carleton. It's a friendly sports rivalry. I've never heard my kid say any negative thing about St. Olaf students. The invite each other to some campus events (like concerts or get out the vote kind of stuff) and similar campus groups/clubs follow each other on social media and that kind of thing. Lots of Oles and Carls have siblings at the other school or parents/family who attended. It's annoying that posters here are so obsessed with rankings because that is not really the ethos of either of those schools. The kids all know that St. Olaf is less selective, but so what? It's still a terrific school in and of itself so who cares if the students there missed like 5 more questions on the SAT or got a couple Bs instead of As in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only parents who think St Olaf and Carleton students are on the same page intellectually are those who know their kids would never get into Carleton. Stop kidding yourselves. Yes, St Olaf is a good school -- but it ain't in Carleton's league and never will be.

So rude. Do better.

--Carleton grad

And you know I'm right.

-- Not a Carleton grad

And for some sad reason, that seems to haunt you...

LOL, hardly. I had a kid who was torn between going to Carleton for full tuition or Grinnell with a generous merit aid package. It really came down to the wire before the kid decided to go with Grinnell, which proved to be a great decision both from a "fit" and practical standpoint. The kid actually preferred Grinnell from the very beginning and the decision would have been an easier one had the kid not been a little too caught up in the rankings at the time.

St Olaf wasn't on the radar.

One nice thing about bring connected to one of the Northfield colleges is that there is really very little rivalry between them. It's kind of annoying to have people unconnected to the two come into the thread and be combative and argumentative about the possible differences between the two. Maybe you could go pick some fights about Grinnell vs. some of its neighrbors.

Interesting to hear you say that considering that, at least according to Wikipedia, Carleton considers St Olaf to be its biggest athletic rival.

I have a student currently at Carleton. It's a friendly sports rivalry. I've never heard my kid say any negative thing about St. Olaf students. The invite each other to some campus events (like concerts or get out the vote kind of stuff) and similar campus groups/clubs follow each other on social media and that kind of thing. Lots of Oles and Carls have siblings at the other school or parents/family who attended. It's annoying that posters here are so obsessed with rankings because that is not really the ethos of either of those schools. The kids all know that St. Olaf is less selective, but so what? It's still a terrific school in and of itself so who cares if the students there missed like 5 more questions on the SAT or got a couple Bs instead of As in high school.

I don't disagree with a single word you just said. Literally, none. You are, after all, stating the obvious. It's another poster who refuses to acknowledge that Carleton students are, by conventional measures, "smarter" in general. It's not being "negative" to acknowledge that. It's merely stating a fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only parents who think St Olaf and Carleton students are on the same page intellectually are those who know their kids would never get into Carleton. Stop kidding yourselves. Yes, St Olaf is a good school -- but it ain't in Carleton's league and never will be.

So rude. Do better.

--Carleton grad

And you know I'm right.

-- Not a Carleton grad

And for some sad reason, that seems to haunt you...

LOL, hardly. I had a kid who was torn between going to Carleton for full tuition or Grinnell with a generous merit aid package. It really came down to the wire before the kid decided to go with Grinnell, which proved to be a great decision both from a "fit" and practical standpoint. The kid actually preferred Grinnell from the very beginning and the decision would have been an easier one had the kid not been a little too caught up in the rankings at the time.

St Olaf wasn't on the radar.

One nice thing about bring connected to one of the Northfield colleges is that there is really very little rivalry between them. It's kind of annoying to have people unconnected to the two come into the thread and be combative and argumentative about the possible differences between the two. Maybe you could go pick some fights about Grinnell vs. some of its neighrbors.

Interesting to hear you say that considering that, at least according to Wikipedia, Carleton considers St Olaf to be its biggest athletic rival.

I have a student currently at Carleton. It's a friendly sports rivalry. I've never heard my kid say any negative thing about St. Olaf students. The invite each other to some campus events (like concerts or get out the vote kind of stuff) and similar campus groups/clubs follow each other on social media and that kind of thing. Lots of Oles and Carls have siblings at the other school or parents/family who attended. It's annoying that posters here are so obsessed with rankings because that is not really the ethos of either of those schools. The kids all know that St. Olaf is less selective, but so what? It's still a terrific school in and of itself so who cares if the students there missed like 5 more questions on the SAT or got a couple Bs instead of As in high school.

Well, according to the most recent statistics the mid 50 percent SAT range for Carleton is 1440-1530 and for St Olaf it's 1240-1420. In other words, middle 50 percent in each school don't even overlap at the low end of Carleton. That's probably more than 5 questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really feel like the MN schools sound like good fits for my DS but the winter thing is just too overwhelming. He does not like the cold weather, sigh. I wish there were schools like Carleton or Macalester in the south!

There are.

First of all before I get to the South, let me just mention that Reed College in Oregon is intellectually a lot like Carleton and winters in the Pacific Northwest are a lot milder than Minnesota winters by a long shot. Pomona in Southern California is a lot like Carleton. Coming back to this side of the Rockies, Colorado College would be a good fit. People don’t think of Rice university when thy think of liberal arts colleges because it’s a research university and it has Engineering, but it’s one of the 3 or 4 smallest research universities in the country with 4000+ undergrads and has great liberal arts. Davidson is a classic liberal arts college, just outside Charlotte. Trinity in San Antonio isn’t listed as LAC but at its core it really is, and it’s small (2500), and it’s very good. Furman, , Sewanee, and Rhodes are worth checking out. And of course you know about Washington & Lee and Richmond.

I’m the PP and Rice and Davidson are on his list. He’d prefer not to go to the west coast otherwise you mention some good options. The others you mentioned all seem to lean a little too much culturally southern, Christian and/or fratty than would seem to be a good fit (we are Jewish). Feel free to tell me I’m mistaken!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only parents who think St Olaf and Carleton students are on the same page intellectually are those who know their kids would never get into Carleton. Stop kidding yourselves. Yes, St Olaf is a good school -- but it ain't in Carleton's league and never will be.

So rude. Do better.

--Carleton grad

And you know I'm right.

-- Not a Carleton grad

And for some sad reason, that seems to haunt you...

LOL, hardly. I had a kid who was torn between going to Carleton for full tuition or Grinnell with a generous merit aid package. It really came down to the wire before the kid decided to go with Grinnell, which proved to be a great decision both from a "fit" and practical standpoint. The kid actually preferred Grinnell from the very beginning and the decision would have been an easier one had the kid not been a little too caught up in the rankings at the time.

St Olaf wasn't on the radar.

One nice thing about bring connected to one of the Northfield colleges is that there is really very little rivalry between them. It's kind of annoying to have people unconnected to the two come into the thread and be combative and argumentative about the possible differences between the two. Maybe you could go pick some fights about Grinnell vs. some of its neighrbors.

Interesting to hear you say that considering that, at least according to Wikipedia, Carleton considers St Olaf to be its biggest athletic rival.

Grinnell doesn’t really have any neighbors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only parents who think St Olaf and Carleton students are on the same page intellectually are those who know their kids would never get into Carleton. Stop kidding yourselves. Yes, St Olaf is a good school -- but it ain't in Carleton's league and never will be.

So rude. Do better.

--Carleton grad

And you know I'm right.

-- Not a Carleton grad

And for some sad reason, that seems to haunt you...

LOL, hardly. I had a kid who was torn between going to Carleton for full tuition or Grinnell with a generous merit aid package. It really came down to the wire before the kid decided to go with Grinnell, which proved to be a great decision both from a "fit" and practical standpoint. The kid actually preferred Grinnell from the very beginning and the decision would have been an easier one had the kid not been a little too caught up in the rankings at the time.

St Olaf wasn't on the radar.

One nice thing about bring connected to one of the Northfield colleges is that there is really very little rivalry between them. It's kind of annoying to have people unconnected to the two come into the thread and be combative and argumentative about the possible differences between the two. Maybe you could go pick some fights about Grinnell vs. some of its neighrbors.

Interesting to hear you say that considering that, at least according to Wikipedia, Carleton considers St Olaf to be its biggest athletic rival.

I have a student currently at Carleton. It's a friendly sports rivalry. I've never heard my kid say any negative thing about St. Olaf students. The invite each other to some campus events (like concerts or get out the vote kind of stuff) and similar campus groups/clubs follow each other on social media and that kind of thing. Lots of Oles and Carls have siblings at the other school or parents/family who attended. It's annoying that posters here are so obsessed with rankings because that is not really the ethos of either of those schools. The kids all know that St. Olaf is less selective, but so what? It's still a terrific school in and of itself so who cares if the students there missed like 5 more questions on the SAT or got a couple Bs instead of As in high school.

Well, according to the most recent statistics the mid 50 percent SAT range for Carleton is 1440-1530 and for St Olaf it's 1240-1420. In other words, middle 50 percent in each school don't even overlap at the low end of Carleton. That's probably more than 5 questions.

DP: Actually, once you're in the top 20% of scores (e.g. roughly about 1230+) the differences in scores are really just a handful. But the point being, in this ranking system mentality people are acting like these differences are super meaningful. Just because there objective, consistent, distinctions in these particular measures of academic achievement (I wouldn't go so far to say "smartness" as that is a much wider, fuzzier category) doesn't make them meaningful differences in things we care about in quality of education. I think that's all the PP is getting at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only parents who think St Olaf and Carleton students are on the same page intellectually are those who know their kids would never get into Carleton. Stop kidding yourselves. Yes, St Olaf is a good school -- but it ain't in Carleton's league and never will be.

So rude. Do better.

--Carleton grad

And you know I'm right.

-- Not a Carleton grad

And for some sad reason, that seems to haunt you...

LOL, hardly. I had a kid who was torn between going to Carleton for full tuition or Grinnell with a generous merit aid package. It really came down to the wire before the kid decided to go with Grinnell, which proved to be a great decision both from a "fit" and practical standpoint. The kid actually preferred Grinnell from the very beginning and the decision would have been an easier one had the kid not been a little too caught up in the rankings at the time.

St Olaf wasn't on the radar.

One nice thing about bring connected to one of the Northfield colleges is that there is really very little rivalry between them. It's kind of annoying to have people unconnected to the two come into the thread and be combative and argumentative about the possible differences between the two. Maybe you could go pick some fights about Grinnell vs. some of its neighrbors.

Interesting to hear you say that considering that, at least according to Wikipedia, Carleton considers St Olaf to be its biggest athletic rival.

I have a student currently at Carleton. It's a friendly sports rivalry. I've never heard my kid say any negative thing about St. Olaf students. The invite each other to some campus events (like concerts or get out the vote kind of stuff) and similar campus groups/clubs follow each other on social media and that kind of thing. Lots of Oles and Carls have siblings at the other school or parents/family who attended. It's annoying that posters here are so obsessed with rankings because that is not really the ethos of either of those schools. The kids all know that St. Olaf is less selective, but so what? It's still a terrific school in and of itself so who cares if the students there missed like 5 more questions on the SAT or got a couple Bs instead of As in high school.

Well, according to the most recent statistics the mid 50 percent SAT range for Carleton is 1440-1530 and for St Olaf it's 1240-1420. In other words, middle 50 percent in each school don't even overlap at the low end of Carleton. That's probably more than 5 questions.

DP: Actually, once you're in the top 20% of scores (e.g. roughly about 1230+) the differences in scores are really just a handful. But the point being, in this ranking system mentality people are acting like these differences are super meaningful. Just because there objective, consistent, distinctions in these particular measures of academic achievement (I wouldn't go so far to say "smartness" as that is a much wider, fuzzier category) doesn't make them meaningful differences in things we care about in quality of education. I think that's all the PP is getting at.

The only people who say they don't care about that kind of stuff are parents of kids who don't have the scores. Otherwise you'd see lots of kids with really high scores in every school, and you don't.

[Anonymous]

Put another way, the cut off for the bottom quarter of the entering class at Carleton is the 97th percentile on the SAT, and for St Olaf it's the 81st. That's not a small difference.

[Anonymous]

Boy, I thought I had seen the nastiest of DCUM, but the amount of venom directed at outstanding schools in other regions that don't meet DCUM's stats-obsessed standards is beyond beyond. WTF is wrong with you people?

OP, Minnesota is great and both schools are great. Go visit and let your kid get the vibe of both onsite.

- PhD PP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boy, I thought I had seen the nastiest of DCUM, but the amount of venom directed at outstanding schools in other regions that don't meet DCUM's stats-obsessed standards is beyond beyond. WTF is wrong with you people?

OP, Minnesota is great and both schools are great. Go visit and let your kid get the vibe of both onsite.

- PhD PP

I never said one negative thing about St Olaf. I agree that it's a fine school. All I did was take issue with this patently untrue statement, in response to which others dug their heels in:

"St. Olaf is friendlier, no less smart but less intense about it, fewer east coasters."

Smarter isn't necessarily better, but that doesn't mean smarter isn't real. Had this poster written what I've quoted without the part in bold I'd agree.

It's not "nasty" to contradict what isn't true.