Beware of Small Liberal Arts Colleges if you're not on a sport
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Anonymous
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Did your kid visit campus? We did, and at one school noticed that at lunch the teams all sat together. As did one sorority.
When my kid did a sleepover after being accepted there, her host confirmed that the school was socially “cliquey.” DD turned them down. The one she chose (a lowered ranked LAC) was not like that at all. It is in the middle of nowhere, has no clubs that hold events that exclude other students (such as Greek organizations). There were many traditions and fun events that were attended by most (since all students are required live on campus for 5 years). Moral of the story:spend time researching schools BEYOND their USNWR ranking. Visit campuses (as we did both before and after she was accepted). Not foolproof, but it worked in this case. |
Anonymous
You should be really cautious about relying in whole or in part upon student newspapers, as the PP mentioned, to come up with this list or to evaluate schools generally. Just as media today tries to drum up interest by magnifying issues to create controversy, lots of school columnists on a deadline throw this issue and others out there to see if they will resonate with others or to speak it into existence rather than because there actually is some big upset at school about it. When I would ask my older kids (College classes if 201 and 2022) about something I read online in their school newspapers, not only did they have no idea what I was talking about, they had never read the school newspaper and no one in their circle of friends had ever mentioned the issue (whether it be about sports or otherwise). And the fact that an issue isn't discussed in the student newspaper of the school your kid is considering doesn't mean it hasn't come up there either. Student newspapers just are really weak barometers of student climate these days, even where there are actual events. |
Anonymous
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Maybe status seekers/elitists just self sort into a pecking order.
They can’t let it go because it is so central to the sense of worth? |
Anonymous
| agree with earlier poster that this is a real problem at smaller nescacs like Williams and middlebury - get ready for cold lonely winters there if ur not an athlete. Less of an issue at the larger schools like Tufts and Wes. Athletics is almost a counter culture at Wes, the jocks are basically seen as caricatures |
Anonymous
Amherst & Williams & Middlebury have written about NARP issues on campus. Trinity College has many reports regarding segmentation on campus due to various factors. Bowdoin, Tufts, & Conn College do not seem to experience such issues. I believe OP because I attended an LAC. Athletes socialized together & there were a lot of cliques. The problem was exacerbated by the LACs location in a rural, isolated area. LACs are not real life--they are like living in a bubble. If you fit in, then the LAC experience can be wonderful, but many do not fit the mold. Much easier to find one's crowd at larger schools due to diversity & to greater number of students & activities. |
Anonymous
I appreciate your perspective, but I still disagree. LACs are more cliquish than high schools and this is a problem because students spend 24 hours of each day on campus. There is no break from the segregation. At least during high school one ate breakfast & dinner elsewhere & slept at home. Larger schools require more maturity due to diversity on all levels--social, academic, athletic, as well as economically. If a student wants to segregate at a large school, then it is easy to join a fraternity or sorority or live in a group theme house; but large universities also have lots of independent students as well as the opportunity for occasional anonymity. In short, LACs are like living in a small town where everyone knows everyone's business and each person has a place while large universities are more like living in a city amid diversity in all of its forms. LACs delay real life--which is fine if that is what one prefers. |
Anonymous
Virtually all residential colleges are not real life and like living in bubbles - public, private, large, small, urban, rural - at least as long as you live in university-owned and run housing and eat in the university dining halls. But that's really the only reason to make them residential. They are supposed to provide a bridge or transition from living at home to living on your own. Many schools have apartment-style junior/senior housing with kitchen facilities and reduced dining plan requirements to push students along in this transition to independence. Suggesting that non-LACs are somehow not organized around this same principle ignores reality and indicates bias. Having a larger number of people in the bubble does not make it less bubble-like. Maybe a remote, rural, campus is less real in the sense of security issues or contact with people outside the campus, but there are plenty of remote, rural, non-LACs and even the urban campuses are literally set-up to minimize security issues, including having campus transportation services and campus police patrolling off campus, in a way that is not real life. And that's OK. That's part of the educational process you are signing your kid up for when you send them to a residential college. |
Anonymous
This is actually a long-standing issue at Bowdoin. Agree about tufts. https://bowdoinorient.com/2021/10/29/athletic-department-addresses-divide-between-athletes-and-non-athletes/ |
Anonymous
| OP - Do "we" every think your DC's problem socializing has something to do with him or her and not the school? I doubt "we" have as it's so much easier to blame a school. |
Anonymous
Sorry, but to blunt, you have no idea about the differences between small rural, isolated LACs and large universities. I have degrees from both & have been involved in college & university issues for several decades and my experience is quite different from your imaginary world. |
Anonymous
| Weid, this wasn't my experience at a SLAC at all. My best friends were people who lived in my freshman dorm. I actually was in a choir and acted in plays, but the theater/choir people were not my core friend group. |
Anonymous
Apparently I stand corrected. Thank you. Another thread has a recent post noting the segmented communities at Wesleyan University--which is a large NESCAC LAC--and at Conn College. I am not a fan of LACs because I attended one for college and did not enjoy the smallness, isolation, and cliquish behavior, but I do know that many enjoy the LAC experience. Very similar to prep boarding schools. |
Anonymous
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At most colleges, small or large, athletes mostly eat together and socialize with each other. Do you think the Duke basketball team is mingling with the commoners?
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Anonymous
Our HS is about the size of these 2000 kid schools and we didn’t have a men’s rugby team, women’s rugby, ski men /women (Bowdoin has alpine team AND Nordic team), crew men/women, diving men/women, sailing men/women, fencing men/women, lax men/women, field hockey, squash men/women, hockey men/women, cricket (haverford), equestrian (Bowdoin), waterpolo men/women etc etc |
Anonymous
Nobody thinks that. Athletes stick together by virtue of their schedule. The issue would be if 40% of duke kids were athletes. They’re not. A big sports college like ND has 9% athletes. But Bowdoin has 40%. It should change |