Question of Parents of Kids at SLACs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who has recruited 100+ people from both SLACs and Research Universities, I would say it's a different answer than it was 10 years ago. Circa 2010, I'd take SLAC grads over a place like VT, Cal, or Michigan e.g., because they were generally better critical thinkers and writers. The emphasis on core curriculum, writing, logic, etc. made better entry level employees in consulting. That has changed, imho. SLAC grads are weaker than they were (not judging on why, but can guess). It's not that the big school grads are better at critical thinking and writing, but they haven't gotten worse, and they tend to be more motivated and have useful hard skills. This is just one recruiter's observation.

Why do you think the SLAC grads are now weaker?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why are the obsessed anti/SLAC posters so obsessed? It’s really sad. If you think they are inferior, why are you threatened by them? And why not be happy that those students aren’t taking up spots in the schools you covet?

Why do the handful of obsessed SLAC posters write inaccurate descriptions of National Universities and often resort to insults and name-calling rather than discussing the realities ?

If LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer of the existing LACs would be in such dire financial situations.

I am not that PP and I went to state schools and HYS so no personal experience with SLACs. I started reading this forum about a year ago. As a FYI, my kids aren’t at SLACS, except that now that I’ve been reading your obsessed posts on DCUM for awhile, I’m going to encourage my youngest to look at SLACs. Your posts are distinctive — you post ALL the time on any post even slightly related to SLACS — and over the past year or so have made me look a lot more deeply at SLACs because you sound so bizarrely jealous and unhinged. I figure there must be something really good for someone to be so bitter about not getting into one and to blanket the College forum so incessantly. Then I learned about the spectacular educational possibilities. So thanks for that education! I think my youngest will benefit!

Unigo is a good place to get direct feedback from students.

LAC obsessed people seem a bit over the top and unwilling to deal with the realities of small, rural, isolated schools.

Again if LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer would be suffering from inadequate funding.

Agree with another poster who notes that the top LACs are interesting--especially the Claremont schools and Barnard & top 10. Larger schools offer more diversity and more options in every aspect of student life.

Look, I’m just telling you that as someone newish to this board and who wasn’t really looking at SLACs, your bizarrely over-the-top rants about SLACs have pushed me in the exact opposite direction as you intended, so maybe cool down the crazy-sounding posts a bit if you truly want people to not go to SLACs?

As an example, the bolded is absurdly over-the-top. For some students looking for certain experiences, it’s simply not going to be true. God knows HYS isn’t the paradise you seem to think it is for all students all the time, as an alumni.

Just stop being so weird and nutty if you want people to really not consider SLACs. You really aren’t doing your argument any favors. You come across as obsessed, bitter, and jealous, and anytime someone is that negatively entranced with something, to somebody who is coming to this as a neutral person, it makes the SLACs look better, not worse.

Talk about bizarre - you appear to be assuming that you are arguing with only one poster when there are several posting the “anti” SLAC position right now. And you are ranting and raving like a lunatic yourself. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are bizarre.

🤷‍♀️Look, I’m just telling you the experience of one neutral person who is coming to this as a fairly new person to this forum. You can take the input or not. You sound like a crazed jealous obsessive to someone who really hadn’t given SLACs much thought before reading DCUM. Thanks to the posts I’ve read here, I’m now looking more closely at SLACs for my youngest, and I like what I see so far.

Also I don’t get the person who is talking about the price. The kids I know who are going to lower-level SLACs have told me the amount of merit aid they get, and it’s substantial and certainly competitive with the state schools. Those are just the personal datapoints I have, but it doesn’t seem to be all that dramatically different in price.

Anyhow, I’ve said my piece here. Keep ranting away (I know you will), just know that you don’t sound reasoned and logical to a fairly new poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Why are the obsessed anti/SLAC posters so obsessed? It’s really sad. If you think they are inferior, why are you threatened by them? And why not be happy that those students aren’t taking up spots in the schools you covet?

Why do the handful of obsessed SLAC posters write inaccurate descriptions of National Universities and often resort to insults and name-calling rather than discussing the realities ?

If LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer of the existing LACs would be in such dire financial situations.

I am not that PP and I went to state schools and HYS so no personal experience with SLACs. I started reading this forum about a year ago. As a FYI, my kids aren’t at SLACS, except that now that I’ve been reading your obsessed posts on DCUM for awhile, I’m going to encourage my youngest to look at SLACs. Your posts are distinctive — you post ALL the time on any post even slightly related to SLACS — and over the past year or so have made me look a lot more deeply at SLACs because you sound so bizarrely jealous and unhinged. I figure there must be something really good for someone to be so bitter about not getting into one and to blanket the College forum so incessantly. Then I learned about the spectacular educational possibilities. So thanks for that education! I think my youngest will benefit!

Unigo is a good place to get direct feedback from students.

LAC obsessed people seem a bit over the top and unwilling to deal with the realities of small, rural, isolated schools.

Again if LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer would be suffering from inadequate funding.

Agree with another poster who notes that the top LACs are interesting--especially the Claremont schools and Barnard & top 10. Larger schools offer more diversity and more options in every aspect of student life.

Look, I’m just telling you that as someone newish to this board and who wasn’t really looking at SLACs, your bizarrely over-the-top rants about SLACs have pushed me in the exact opposite direction as you intended, so maybe cool down the crazy-sounding posts a bit if you truly want people to not go to SLACs?

As an example, the bolded is absurdly over-the-top. For some students looking for certain experiences, it’s simply not going to be true. God knows HYS isn’t the paradise you seem to think it is for all students all the time, as an alumni.

Just stop being so weird and nutty if you want people to really not consider SLACs. You really aren’t doing your argument any favors. You come across as obsessed, bitter, and jealous, and anytime someone is that negatively entranced with something, to somebody who is coming to this as a neutral person, it makes the SLACs look better, not worse.

Talk about bizarre - you appear to be assuming that you are arguing with only one poster when there are several posting the “anti” SLAC position right now. And you are ranting and raving like a lunatic yourself. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are bizarre.

🤷‍♀️Look, I’m just telling you the experience of one neutral person who is coming to this as a fairly new person to this forum. You can take the input or not. You sound like a crazed jealous obsessive to someone who really hadn’t given SLACs much thought before reading DCUM. Thanks to the posts I’ve read here, I’m now looking more closely at SLACs for my youngest, and I like what I see so far.

Also I don’t get the person who is talking about the price. The kids I know who are going to lower-level SLACs have told me the amount of merit aid they get, and it’s substantial and certainly competitive with the state schools. Those are just the personal datapoints I have, but it doesn’t seem to be all that dramatically different in price.

Anyhow, I’ve said my piece here. Keep ranting away (I know you will), just know that you don’t sound reasoned and logical to a fairly new poster.

I am not the poster to whom you directed your post, but you are the one who appears to be over-the-top with emotionally based remarks designed to insult rather than to inform.

Also, some of us have decades of experience with LACs and with universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m another anti-SLAC poster, but not because I think they’re overrated or you can’t get a job coming out of them etc. I think they’re fine schools generally, but only if they’re top 14-20, and below that (CTCL level) they’re just not worth the extra money and attract too many underachieving students with well to do parents who somehow have convinced themselves that simply by virtue of smaller size and larger price they are better than the other option available to their kids - second tier state schools - when in fact the truly important metrics (quality of entering study body, graduation rates, and employment statistics) are equal.

I’m the HYS/state school PP who said the anti-SLAC posters have convinced me to look at SLACs more closely, and this response is another example of why. It’s just not very thoughtful and sounds more like jealousy and resentment than anything substantive.

Right? If it's not that person's money, then why do they care? Some kids will not get into top SLACs, yet may not thrive at a state school. So what does it matter then if they go to a "CTCL level" school?

And what is an "underachieving" kid?" FWIW, many kids with LDs are sometimes not diagnosed until late MS/early HS as they had developed techniques to compensate until they are no longer viable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid (who just graduated from an SLAC) had many more leadership and research opportunities then she would have at a large public. The community is so small that no one goes unnoticed (in a good way). She really emerged and shone.

Plus, because there are only undergrads to staff the labs, she had her choice of research opportunities and parlayed that into 3 or 4 peer reviewed publications as an undergrad. I doubt that would have happened at a large RO1 university.

Except you don’t know this. You’re just assuming.

Well I know she did not emerge when she was a student at a large public high school (which was larger than the college she chose).

I have met people who told me that if you skip class or sit in the back row and sleep in very large survey classes (more common at large universities), you can go unnoticed entirely or for longer a big university (my kid's school had no classes larger than 50, and most were under 20. Also, each kid was assigned two advisors).

I know she did not have to compete with graduate students to score a position working in her advisor's lab.

And I am pretty sure that if she was taking The History of Food at a large school, the whole class would not be invited to go to their professor's house to cook the food they had based their final papers on, and meet his family.

I know what my kid's experience was, and I have talked to PLENTY of people who had polar opposite experiences (such as having to study in their parents' living room during finals week because they could not find a place to study in the library/on campus. Seeing signs all over the library that it is not safe to leave your laptop or backpack for even a few minutes, etc). Those are not assumptions, those are experiences.

[Anonymous]

*Polar opposite experiences at large state universities.

[Anonymous]

IMO the best experience is a SLAC in a large city. Small community of students and professors to have as a "home" with a larger city to interact with and draw from for internships and job opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO the best experience is a SLAC in a large city. Small community of students and professors to have as a "home" with a larger city to interact with and draw from for internships and job opportunities.

Agree with this. In the city itself or within an easy commute.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend with a freshman kid in the dorms at UC Berkeley. Her dorm has been in multiple lockdowns due to invasions from violent street residents, where the kids have been ordered to stay in their rooms and lock the door. Meanwhile her kid hasn’t had a class since end of October because of strikes. Not really seeing how that experience is supposed to be so much better than my other friend whose kid is at Middlebury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the obsessed anti/SLAC posters so obsessed? It’s really sad. If you think they are inferior, why are you threatened by them? And why not be happy that those students aren’t taking up spots in the schools you covet?

Why do the handful of obsessed SLAC posters write inaccurate descriptions of National Universities and often resort to insults and name-calling rather than discussing the realities ?

If LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer of the existing LACs would be in such dire financial situations.

I am not that PP and I went to state schools and HYS so no personal experience with SLACs. I started reading this forum about a year ago. As a FYI, my kids aren’t at SLACS, except that now that I’ve been reading your obsessed posts on DCUM for awhile, I’m going to encourage my youngest to look at SLACs. Your posts are distinctive — you post ALL the time on any post even slightly related to SLACS — and over the past year or so have made me look a lot more deeply at SLACs because you sound so bizarrely jealous and unhinged. I figure there must be something really good for someone to be so bitter about not getting into one and to blanket the College forum so incessantly. Then I learned about the spectacular educational possibilities. So thanks for that education! I think my youngest will benefit!

Unigo is a good place to get direct feedback from students.

LAC obsessed people seem a bit over the top and unwilling to deal with the realities of small, rural, isolated schools.

Again if LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer would be suffering from inadequate funding.

Agree with another poster who notes that the top LACs are interesting--especially the Claremont schools and Barnard & top 10. Larger schools offer more diversity and more options in every aspect of student life.

Look, I’m just telling you that as someone newish to this board and who wasn’t really looking at SLACs, your bizarrely over-the-top rants about SLACs have pushed me in the exact opposite direction as you intended, so maybe cool down the crazy-sounding posts a bit if you truly want people to not go to SLACs?

As an example, the bolded is absurdly over-the-top. For some students looking for certain experiences, it’s simply not going to be true. God knows HYS isn’t the paradise you seem to think it is for all students all the time, as an alumni.

Just stop being so weird and nutty if you want people to really not consider SLACs. You really aren’t doing your argument any favors. You come across as obsessed, bitter, and jealous, and anytime someone is that negatively entranced with something, to somebody who is coming to this as a neutral person, it makes the SLACs look better, not worse.

Talk about bizarre - you appear to be assuming that you are arguing with only one poster when there are several posting the “anti” SLAC position right now. And you are ranting and raving like a lunatic yourself. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are bizarre.

🤷‍♀️Look, I’m just telling you the experience of one neutral person who is coming to this as a fairly new person to this forum. You can take the input or not. You sound like a crazed jealous obsessive to someone who really hadn’t given SLACs much thought before reading DCUM. Thanks to the posts I’ve read here, I’m now looking more closely at SLACs for my youngest, and I like what I see so far.

Also I don’t get the person who is talking about the price. The kids I know who are going to lower-level SLACs have told me the amount of merit aid they get, and it’s substantial and certainly competitive with the state schools. Those are just the personal datapoints I have, but it doesn’t seem to be all that dramatically different in price.

Anyhow, I’ve said my piece here. Keep ranting away (I know you will), just know that you don’t sound reasoned and logical to a fairly new poster.

I’m a different poster, and you really sound unhinged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO the best experience is a SLAC in a large city. Small community of students and professors to have as a "home" with a larger city to interact with and draw from for internships and job opportunities.

Agree with this. In the city itself or within an easy commute.

Unless your kid has no desire to go to school in a large city. You’d be surprised at how many kids who grew up in the DC area actually want to escape to a smaller area for a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the obsessed anti/SLAC posters so obsessed? It’s really sad. If you think they are inferior, why are you threatened by them? And why not be happy that those students aren’t taking up spots in the schools you covet?

Why do the handful of obsessed SLAC posters write inaccurate descriptions of National Universities and often resort to insults and name-calling rather than discussing the realities ?

If LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer of the existing LACs would be in such dire financial situations.

I am not that PP and I went to state schools and HYS so no personal experience with SLACs. I started reading this forum about a year ago. As a FYI, my kids aren’t at SLACS, except that now that I’ve been reading your obsessed posts on DCUM for awhile, I’m going to encourage my youngest to look at SLACs. Your posts are distinctive — you post ALL the time on any post even slightly related to SLACS — and over the past year or so have made me look a lot more deeply at SLACs because you sound so bizarrely jealous and unhinged. I figure there must be something really good for someone to be so bitter about not getting into one and to blanket the College forum so incessantly. Then I learned about the spectacular educational possibilities. So thanks for that education! I think my youngest will benefit!

Unigo is a good place to get direct feedback from students.

LAC obsessed people seem a bit over the top and unwilling to deal with the realities of small, rural, isolated schools.

Again if LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer would be suffering from inadequate funding.

Agree with another poster who notes that the top LACs are interesting--especially the Claremont schools and Barnard & top 10. Larger schools offer more diversity and more options in every aspect of student life.

Look, I’m just telling you that as someone newish to this board and who wasn’t really looking at SLACs, your bizarrely over-the-top rants about SLACs have pushed me in the exact opposite direction as you intended, so maybe cool down the crazy-sounding posts a bit if you truly want people to not go to SLACs?

As an example, the bolded is absurdly over-the-top. For some students looking for certain experiences, it’s simply not going to be true. God knows HYS isn’t the paradise you seem to think it is for all students all the time, as an alumni.

Just stop being so weird and nutty if you want people to really not consider SLACs. You really aren’t doing your argument any favors. You come across as obsessed, bitter, and jealous, and anytime someone is that negatively entranced with something, to somebody who is coming to this as a neutral person, it makes the SLACs look better, not worse.

Talk about bizarre - you appear to be assuming that you are arguing with only one poster when there are several posting the “anti” SLAC position right now. And you are ranting and raving like a lunatic yourself. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are bizarre.

🤷‍♀️Look, I’m just telling you the experience of one neutral person who is coming to this as a fairly new person to this forum. You can take the input or not. You sound like a crazed jealous obsessive to someone who really hadn’t given SLACs much thought before reading DCUM. Thanks to the posts I’ve read here, I’m now looking more closely at SLACs for my youngest, and I like what I see so far.

Also I don’t get the person who is talking about the price. The kids I know who are going to lower-level SLACs have told me the amount of merit aid they get, and it’s substantial and certainly competitive with the state schools. Those are just the personal datapoints I have, but it doesn’t seem to be all that dramatically different in price.

Anyhow, I’ve said my piece here. Keep ranting away (I know you will), just know that you don’t sound reasoned and logical to a fairly new poster.

I’m a different poster, and you really sound unhinged.

How so? I don’t see “unhinged” in any of that?

[Anonymous]

Does anybody actually think an honors college within a large state university is comparable to a SLAC? I've taught in SLACs and at smaller universities in the Boston region. There's no way that the honors college at UMass Amherst is anything like being a student at Holyoke or Holy Cross. And that's okay. Each has its role and attracts different students who are looking for different things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the obsessed anti/SLAC posters so obsessed? It’s really sad. If you think they are inferior, why are you threatened by them? And why not be happy that those students aren’t taking up spots in the schools you covet?

Why do the handful of obsessed SLAC posters write inaccurate descriptions of National Universities and often resort to insults and name-calling rather than discussing the realities ?

If LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer of the existing LACs would be in such dire financial situations.

I am not that PP and I went to state schools and HYS so no personal experience with SLACs. I started reading this forum about a year ago. As a FYI, my kids aren’t at SLACS, except that now that I’ve been reading your obsessed posts on DCUM for awhile, I’m going to encourage my youngest to look at SLACs. Your posts are distinctive — you post ALL the time on any post even slightly related to SLACS — and over the past year or so have made me look a lot more deeply at SLACs because you sound so bizarrely jealous and unhinged. I figure there must be something really good for someone to be so bitter about not getting into one and to blanket the College forum so incessantly. Then I learned about the spectacular educational possibilities. So thanks for that education! I think my youngest will benefit!

Unigo is a good place to get direct feedback from students.

LAC obsessed people seem a bit over the top and unwilling to deal with the realities of small, rural, isolated schools.

Again if LACs were so great, there would be more of them and fewer would be suffering from inadequate funding.

Agree with another poster who notes that the top LACs are interesting--especially the Claremont schools and Barnard & top 10. Larger schools offer more diversity and more options in every aspect of student life.

Look, I’m just telling you that as someone newish to this board and who wasn’t really looking at SLACs, your bizarrely over-the-top rants about SLACs have pushed me in the exact opposite direction as you intended, so maybe cool down the crazy-sounding posts a bit if you truly want people to not go to SLACs?

As an example, the bolded is absurdly over-the-top. For some students looking for certain experiences, it’s simply not going to be true. God knows HYS isn’t the paradise you seem to think it is for all students all the time, as an alumni.

Just stop being so weird and nutty if you want people to really not consider SLACs. You really aren’t doing your argument any favors. You come across as obsessed, bitter, and jealous, and anytime someone is that negatively entranced with something, to somebody who is coming to this as a neutral person, it makes the SLACs look better, not worse.

Talk about bizarre - you appear to be assuming that you are arguing with only one poster when there are several posting the “anti” SLAC position right now. And you are ranting and raving like a lunatic yourself. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are bizarre.

🤷‍♀️Look, I’m just telling you the experience of one neutral person who is coming to this as a fairly new person to this forum. You can take the input or not. You sound like a crazed jealous obsessive to someone who really hadn’t given SLACs much thought before reading DCUM. Thanks to the posts I’ve read here, I’m now looking more closely at SLACs for my youngest, and I like what I see so far.

Also I don’t get the person who is talking about the price. The kids I know who are going to lower-level SLACs have told me the amount of merit aid they get, and it’s substantial and certainly competitive with the state schools. Those are just the personal datapoints I have, but it doesn’t seem to be all that dramatically different in price.

Anyhow, I’ve said my piece here. Keep ranting away (I know you will), just know that you don’t sound reasoned and logical to a fairly new poster.

I’m a different poster, and you really sound unhinged.

How so? I don’t see “unhinged” in any of that?

For starters, you keep coming back when you say you’re done. That’s unhinged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO the best experience is a SLAC in a large city. Small community of students and professors to have as a "home" with a larger city to interact with and draw from for internships and job opportunities.

I don't know, you really need to be sure you'll fit in with the culture of such a small school. I went to a small private high school, and it was generally okay, but it would've been hard if I didn't fit in with the other kids. For college, I picked a large state school in order to have the potential for a lot of different social options. SLAC's are going to have a fairly distinct school culture, so that may or may not be attractive to a given kid.