Greater name recognition: Lehigh, Lafayette, Dickinson, Bucknell?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Outside of the DMV or NY/NJ areas which has greater name recognition? Not the recognition is super important but I have been surprised that none of my in-laws have heard of any of these.

Didn't Steph Curry go to Dickinson?

I've heard of all four schools. But as demographics change, I'm guessing all four go out of business over the next thirty years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outside of the DMV or NY/NJ areas which has greater name recognition? Not the recognition is super important but I have been surprised that none of my in-laws have heard of any of these.

Didn't Steph Curry go to Dickinson?

I've heard of all four schools. But as demographics change, I'm guessing all four go out of business over the next thirty years

🙂 Steph Curry went to Davidson. But I hear you, my stepmother went to Denison and my sister’s best friend went to Dickinson and I can still never keep them straight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outside of the DMV or NY/NJ areas which has greater name recognition? Not the recognition is super important but I have been surprised that none of my in-laws have heard of any of these.

Didn't Steph Curry go to Dickinson?

I've heard of all four schools. But as demographics change, I'm guessing all four go out of business over the next thirty years

Steph Curry attended Davidson College which participates in D1 basketball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone tell me why these are worth knowing?

Tell me without telling me that you are a striving prestige hunter only interested in a vocational type of outcome for your student (likely IB or CS) from a brand name school.

Are they worth $100k of undergrad debt?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outside of the DMV or NY/NJ areas which has greater name recognition? Not the recognition is super important but I have been surprised that none of my in-laws have heard of any of these.

Didn't Steph Curry go to Dickinson?

I've heard of all four schools. But as demographics change, I'm guessing all four go out of business over the next thirty years

Steph Curry attended Davidson College which participates in D1 basketball.

Lehigh, Lafayette and Bucknell also participate in D1 basketball. As mentioned upthread they all show up occasionally in the NCAA tournament (although not lately, go ‘Gate!)

[Anonymous]

Dickinson College is in Carlisle PA
Fairleigh Dickinson main campus is in Madison NJ

[Anonymous]

None of these really have any beyond their state.

[Anonymous]

Lehigh.

The only time I ever hear of Lafayette or Bucknell is here on DCUM.
The only time I've heard of Dickinson has been extremely negative ("Should white boys even be allowed to talk?")

I have mostly favorable impressions of Lehigh. I've known people who went/currently go there.

[Anonymous]

The PA schools are popular with kids from NJ because NJ doesn’t really have great options. Lehigh and Bucknell are the most notable, depending on what you’re looking for. Lafayette and Dickinson are more niche and popular with the kids who want what they offer. We don’t know your in-laws, so we can’t speak to why they haven’t heard of these schools. I think it speaks more of them than of the schools.

[Anonymous]

What is the probability these schools will still be in business in 30 years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PA schools are popular with kids from NJ because NJ doesn’t really have great options. Lehigh and Bucknell are the most notable, depending on what you’re looking for. Lafayette and Dickinson are more niche and popular with the kids who want what they offer. We don’t know your in-laws, so we can’t speak to why they haven’t heard of these schools. I think it speaks more of them than of the schools.

On a national level, these schools are all pretty irrelevant even if they have their unique niche.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another NC native. I hadn’t heard of any of them until I started the college search with my first kid. Only exception is a former babysitter who was an athletic recruit to Lehigh. And my first thought was: wow, sad such a promising kid is going somewhere so random.

Wow, sad you're such a condescending ignoramus.

Not really. No one from my high school class (and I went to GS 2 HS in rural NC with W AP classes with fewer than 10 kids in each) went outside NC for college. Zero students. The class ahead of me one student went to GE. More kids enlisted than went to college. And many more went to work in the textile factories. We had one Duke, one Davidson, one Wake Forest, a handful go to UNC and the rest went to non-flagship NC state schools. I had an affluent friend who probably had undosagnosed learning disabilities who went to Guilford. No one suggested I could leave the state, so I never looked at OOS schools without a brand name, especially outside the South, where I live. That makes me like 90% of Americans. If you want name recognition, here it is. Most Americans have not heard of these schools unless they live near them.

Now that I’ve done a college search, I realize that Lehigh is a great school and not at all an easy admission and our babysitter had indeed done very well. And Dickerson can be a great fit for the right kid who is a solid hard worker, but not a superstar.

I’m also the person who said if you know you know. It doesn’t matter if random people in the rural South have heard of these schools. It matters if they fit your kid’s academic profile, if it’s a good fit, and if the schools has a good placement record in your kids area of interest.

Most people don’t dissect the USNWR, especially the liberal arts colleges, unless they have a high performing kid and live in an area where it’s common and accepted for kids to go to college more than a couple of hours from home. They don’t care and you don’t need to impress them.

NP Interesting story! I think most of us got your subtext of your initial post even though it was lost on the PP. So, sorry you had to spell it all out, but still very interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say Lehigh or Bucknell, but not by a lot

Lee Iacocca went to Lehigh!

How many people under 40 have even heard of Lee Iacocca?

Didn't Phil Hartman used to do a great Lee Iacocca? And, yes, I'm over 50! (& I can kick and stretch and kick)!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say Lehigh or Bucknell, but not by a lot

Lee Iacocca went to Lehigh!

How many people under 40 have even heard of Lee Iacocca?

Didn't Phil Hartman used to do a great Lee Iacocca? And, yes, I'm over 50! (& I can kick and stretch and kick)!

Haha - that cast on SNL was the best!

-signed mid-40s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me think maybe it’s better to just go for a cheaper flagship than a $$$$ small school like these. Yes, I know fit matters most…

My kid is at a SLAC. And it’s an “if you know, you know” thing. I really don’t care what my neighbors with 2nd grade kids or my PCP thinks about my kids college. Hiring managers, grad programs, professional schools etc know (and so do parents who have gone through a college search with their kids). I’m in it to help my kid get the best education they can and the best preparation for after college. Not for having the “right” car magnet.

That said, now that I have done 2 college searches, I’d rank Lehigh and Bucknell above Dickson and Lafayette on reputation. But, fit matters too.

Okay grad programs and professional schools maybe, but hiring managers, no. You do realize that at nearly every single company, your resume has to GET to the hiring manager first through either an automated program or an HR representative/recruiter. Even if the hiring manager has heard of your SLAC, chances are the HR team did not. And FWIW, I am a hiring manager and have personally found that students from larger universities, even gasp public ones, tend to perform much strongly in the interview and testing process.