Colorado College missing enrollment targets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CC is a great, but is not a name brand on the East Coast. If you love Colorado, it might be worth it, but there are many similar colleges closer to the east coast population centers. Anecdotally, I see mostly private school kids going there whereas many other LACs including Claremonts, NESCACs, Liberty Leagues and Midwestern ones have students from both public and private schools

This is a weird comment. Why would someone obsessed with East Coast snobbery go to a liberal arts college at all? At best, Williams is known by some, but you are better off going to the various medium sized privates across the east coast. Second, undergraduate prestige is mostly bs and doesn't carry nearly as much as the regional strength of brands like HBS, YLS, Stanford Med etc.

Because many of the east coast snobs send their DCs to SLACs.

If they care so much about east coast name recognition, go to a top university.

For name recognition, large schools such as University of Alabama and Purdue seem prominent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CC is a great, but is not a name brand on the East Coast. If you love Colorado, it might be worth it, but there are many similar colleges closer to the east coast population centers. Anecdotally, I see mostly private school kids going there whereas many other LACs including Claremonts, NESCACs, Liberty Leagues and Midwestern ones have students from both public and private schools

This is a weird comment. Why would someone obsessed with East Coast snobbery go to a liberal arts college at all? At best, Williams is known by some, but you are better off going to the various medium sized privates across the east coast. Second, undergraduate prestige is mostly bs and doesn't carry nearly as much as the regional strength of brands like HBS, YLS, Stanford Med etc.

Because many of the east coast snobs send their DCs to SLACs.

If they care so much about east coast name recognition, go to a top university.

For name recognition, large schools such as University of Alabama and Purdue seem prominent.

Not on the east coast. Those names get laughed at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CC is a great, but is not a name brand on the East Coast. If you love Colorado, it might be worth it, but there are many similar colleges closer to the east coast population centers. Anecdotally, I see mostly private school kids going there whereas many other LACs including Claremonts, NESCACs, Liberty Leagues and Midwestern ones have students from both public and private schools

This is a weird comment. Why would someone obsessed with East Coast snobbery go to a liberal arts college at all? At best, Williams is known by some, but you are better off going to the various medium sized privates across the east coast. Second, undergraduate prestige is mostly bs and doesn't carry nearly as much as the regional strength of brands like HBS, YLS, Stanford Med etc.

Because many of the east coast snobs send their DCs to SLACs.

If they care so much about east coast name recognition, go to a top university.

For name recognition, large schools such as University of Alabama and Purdue seem prominent.

Not on the east coast. Those names get laughed at.

Purdue is a good school if you’re not a snob. Excellent engineering school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CC is a great, but is not a name brand on the East Coast. If you love Colorado, it might be worth it, but there are many similar colleges closer to the east coast population centers. Anecdotally, I see mostly private school kids going there whereas many other LACs including Claremonts, NESCACs, Liberty Leagues and Midwestern ones have students from both public and private schools

This is a weird comment. Why would someone obsessed with East Coast snobbery go to a liberal arts college at all? At best, Williams is known by some, but you are better off going to the various medium sized privates across the east coast. Second, undergraduate prestige is mostly bs and doesn't carry nearly as much as the regional strength of brands like HBS, YLS, Stanford Med etc.

Because many of the east coast snobs send their DCs to SLACs.

If they care so much about east coast name recognition, go to a top university.

For name recognition, large schools such as University of Alabama and Purdue seem prominent.

Not on the east coast. Those names get laughed at.

Purdue is a good school if you’re not a snob. Excellent engineering school.

Yeah yeah, sorry there’s Cornell, MIT, JHU, Penn…Purdue is too busy dealing with 70% of its CS class cheating on their assignments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CC is a great, but is not a name brand on the East Coast. If you love Colorado, it might be worth it, but there are many similar colleges closer to the east coast population centers. Anecdotally, I see mostly private school kids going there whereas many other LACs including Claremonts, NESCACs, Liberty Leagues and Midwestern ones have students from both public and private schools

This is a weird comment. Why would someone obsessed with East Coast snobbery go to a liberal arts college at all? At best, Williams is known by some, but you are better off going to the various medium sized privates across the east coast. Second, undergraduate prestige is mostly bs and doesn't carry nearly as much as the regional strength of brands like HBS, YLS, Stanford Med etc.

Because many of the east coast snobs send their DCs to SLACs.

If they care so much about east coast name recognition, go to a top university.

For name recognition, large schools such as University of Alabama and Purdue seem prominent.

Not on the east coast. Those names get laughed at.

Name recognition needs to be high in order to engender a broad response of any type. In any case, I believe Purdue is especially well known internationally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CC is a great, but is not a name brand on the East Coast. If you love Colorado, it might be worth it, but there are many similar colleges closer to the east coast population centers. Anecdotally, I see mostly private school kids going there whereas many other LACs including Claremonts, NESCACs, Liberty Leagues and Midwestern ones have students from both public and private schools

This is a weird comment. Why would someone obsessed with East Coast snobbery go to a liberal arts college at all? At best, Williams is known by some, but you are better off going to the various medium sized privates across the east coast. Second, undergraduate prestige is mostly bs and doesn't carry nearly as much as the regional strength of brands like HBS, YLS, Stanford Med etc.

Because many of the east coast snobs send their DCs to SLACs.

If they care so much about east coast name recognition, go to a top university.

For name recognition, large schools such as University of Alabama and Purdue seem prominent.

Not on the east coast. Those names get laughed at.

Purdue is a good school if you’re not a snob. Excellent engineering school.

Yeah yeah, sorry there’s Cornell, MIT, JHU, Penn…Purdue is too busy dealing with 70% of its CS class cheating on their assignments.

It's refreshing to see that some people don't go by rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CC is a great, but is not a name brand on the East Coast. If you love Colorado, it might be worth it, but there are many similar colleges closer to the east coast population centers. Anecdotally, I see mostly private school kids going there whereas many other LACs including Claremonts, NESCACs, Liberty Leagues and Midwestern ones have students from both public and private schools

This is a weird comment. Why would someone obsessed with East Coast snobbery go to a liberal arts college at all? At best, Williams is known by some, but you are better off going to the various medium sized privates across the east coast. Second, undergraduate prestige is mostly bs and doesn't carry nearly as much as the regional strength of brands like HBS, YLS, Stanford Med etc.

Because many of the east coast snobs send their DCs to SLACs.

If they care so much about east coast name recognition, go to a top university.

For name recognition, large schools such as University of Alabama and Purdue seem prominent.

Not on the east coast. Those names get laughed at.

Purdue is a good school if you’re not a snob. Excellent engineering school.

Yeah yeah, sorry there’s Cornell, MIT, JHU, Penn…Purdue is too busy dealing with 70% of its CS class cheating on their assignments.

You're totally tarted if you think the same thing isn't happening at the four schools you named.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CC is a great, but is not a name brand on the East Coast. If you love Colorado, it might be worth it, but there are many similar colleges closer to the east coast population centers. Anecdotally, I see mostly private school kids going there whereas many other LACs including Claremonts, NESCACs, Liberty Leagues and Midwestern ones have students from both public and private schools

This is a weird comment. Why would someone obsessed with East Coast snobbery go to a liberal arts college at all? At best, Williams is known by some, but you are better off going to the various medium sized privates across the east coast. Second, undergraduate prestige is mostly bs and doesn't carry nearly as much as the regional strength of brands like HBS, YLS, Stanford Med etc.

Because many of the east coast snobs send their DCs to SLACs.

If they care so much about east coast name recognition, go to a top university.

For name recognition, large schools such as University of Alabama and Purdue seem prominent.

Not on the east coast. Those names get laughed at.

Purdue is a good school if you’re not a snob. Excellent engineering school.

Yeah yeah, sorry there’s Cornell, MIT, JHU, Penn…Purdue is too busy dealing with 70% of its CS class cheating on their assignments.

You're totally tarted if you think the same thing isn't happening at the four schools you named.

I don’t know another school that purposefully covered up 70% of a class cheating and invalidated all academic dishonesty hearings even when students admitted they cheated, no.

[Anonymous]

A lot of second tier colleges are going to have problems. There is a surge to attend whatever is perceived to be the top colleges. If an applicant doesn't get into a T50, then they look to their flagship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of second tier colleges are going to have problems. There is a surge to attend whatever is perceived to be the top colleges. If an applicant doesn't get into a T50, then they look to their flagship.

I think some just out of T50 like Northeastern, Case, and the tech schools will be ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We looked at CC, but we’re a full pay family and the lack of merit aid was surprising. I think of CC’s competitors as being schools like Whitman, Oxy, Macalester - all of which give higher merit awards. DS may still apply to CC because merit aid can change year to year and there’s no way to know before he applies, but I’m not optimistic. Skidmore is another example of a relatively average LAC that is need aware but doesn’t offer merit aid and so is losing out on full pay families. You would think schools that are tuition dependent would want a student whose family might pay $75K (but won’t pay $95K).

I think a lot of families are in a similar position - yes, we could pay full tuition, but we’re not going to without a good reason. There are a lot of families that will full pay for an Ivy or Top 10 LAC, but if it looks like their kid is headed to a midrange LAC, they are going to steer them to one with more substantial merit.

We looked at CC very seriously. Also looked at Skidmore. Liked CC very much but kid ended up at a higher prestige school. I think it's hard to find true peers/comparators for CC. It's pretty unique. It was the only school kid considered off the East Coast.

I do think CC is great so I hope they figure it out. Agree giving merit aid would help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"CC doesn’t cross with those schools. Mostly they are battling with California and west coast schools to fill their class."

Colorado College's self-chosen comparison schools extend nationally, however:

Bates
Bowdoin
Carleton
Colby
Colgate
Holy Cross
Davidson
Hamilton
Kenyon
Lafayette
Macalester
Middlebury
Pitzer
Wesleyan
Whitman

If I were offered this list of colleges, with the inclusion of Colorado College, from which to choose, I'd be extremely happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Coming off the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, reports are that enrollments at Sewanee and Furman are both *up* 10-15% this year over last year, with both seeing the largest incoming classes in several years.

Both are excellent LACs which cater to affluent students, but which (contra Colorado College and many northern LACs) primarily use their financial aid budgets to induce wealthier kids to attend.

Looks like the Southern Surge continues, spreading out to LACs now from state schools and Vandy/Duke/Wake etc.

I certainly think one lesson is that for all but the most selective LACs with huge endowments (e.g. Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore/Washington & Lee), wealthy families are simply not interested in paying ~$95k full price at lesser known schools for the privilege of funding FGLI access.

Most SLACs/LACs had better get with the merit (e.g. discounted tuition) program, or they might find the customer base quickly losing interest.

Where did you find this data about Sewanee and Furman? Not involved in the argument about CC, just genuinely curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming off the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, reports are that enrollments at Sewanee and Furman are both *up* 10-15% this year over last year, with both seeing the largest incoming classes in several years.

Both are excellent LACs which cater to affluent students, but which (contra Colorado College and many northern LACs) primarily use their financial aid budgets to induce wealthier kids to attend.

Looks like the Southern Surge continues, spreading out to LACs now from state schools and Vandy/Duke/Wake etc.

I certainly think one lesson is that for all but the most selective LACs with huge endowments (e.g. Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore/Washington & Lee), wealthy families are simply not interested in paying ~$95k full price at lesser known schools for the privilege of funding FGLI access.

Most SLACs/LACs had better get with the merit (e.g. discounted tuition) program, or they might find the customer base quickly losing interest.

Where did you find this data about Sewanee and Furman? Not involved in the argument about CC, just genuinely curious.

I also think it’s disingenuous to not bring up that sewanees yield has been getting worse year over year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming off the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, reports are that enrollments at Sewanee and Furman are both *up* 10-15% this year over last year, with both seeing the largest incoming classes in several years.

Both are excellent LACs which cater to affluent students, but which (contra Colorado College and many northern LACs) primarily use their financial aid budgets to induce wealthier kids to attend.

Looks like the Southern Surge continues, spreading out to LACs now from state schools and Vandy/Duke/Wake etc.

I certainly think one lesson is that for all but the most selective LACs with huge endowments (e.g. Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore/Washington & Lee), wealthy families are simply not interested in paying ~$95k full price at lesser known schools for the privilege of funding FGLI access.

Most SLACs/LACs had better get with the merit (e.g. discounted tuition) program, or they might find the customer base quickly losing interest.

Where did you find this data about Sewanee and Furman? Not involved in the argument about CC, just genuinely curious.

I also think it’s disingenuous to not bring up that sewanees yield has been getting worse year over year

By "Sewanee" you mean "all LACs outside the top 10-15." Sewanee's yield of 18% is higher than Furman (13%), Rhodes (12%), F&M (17%), Union (14%), and so on. (Figures pulled from College Navigator).

The reality today is that a yield just below 20% might sound terrible, but when students are applying to 10-20 colleges each, having one out of five of the applicants you accept choose you isn't so bad.