Why go to a small college in a rural area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being from an urban area, I wanted a change and graduated from a rural college. Loved it! Was a peaceful, low crime, nurturing environment with lots of campus activities and instruction from actual professors instead of teaching assistants.

Let's not confuse the thread. You went to a very specific type of rural college...there are hundreds if not thousands of small, rural colleges that are just regional colleges with declining student populations and underfunded programs.

Rural college does not automatically = Williams. In fact the Top SLACs are the exception in terms of the profile of the average small, rural college.

Look at the original post: "Some lovely schools are in distant locations, from Bates and Bowdoin to Grinnell and Oberlin.
Why go to a school like this if you could get into a comparable school with access to more resources? I'm not being snarky. I am genuinely curious about the appeal."

The question was not about the average college.

[Anonymous]

I went to a little state school/teacher's college. It was very much like a LAC. My professors were amazing! I had dinner a few times a year with the President of the college, and to professors' homes for cookouts, etc.

It was a wonderful experience. I like rural settings, though -- I live on a farm now and enjoy being a Wendell Berry type over a Gatsby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being from an urban area, I wanted a change and graduated from a rural college. Loved it! Was a peaceful, low crime, nurturing environment with lots of campus activities and instruction from actual professors instead of teaching assistants.

Let's not confuse the thread. You went to a very specific type of rural college...there are hundreds if not thousands of small, rural colleges that are just regional colleges with declining student populations and underfunded programs.

Rural college does not automatically = Williams. In fact the Top SLACs are the exception in terms of the profile of the average small, rural college.

Look at the original post: "Some lovely schools are in distant locations, from Bates and Bowdoin to Grinnell and Oberlin.
Why go to a school like this if you could get into a comparable school with access to more resources? I'm not being snarky. I am genuinely curious about the appeal."

The question was not about the average college.

Fair enough...I focus on the recent posts. The heading really should be "why go to a selective small college in a rural area"...using the definition that if you accept less than 50% of applicants you are selective.

To the PP regarding the vast majority of rural, small colleges:

So the school (Chatfield) announced in the fall of 2022 that it would shut down at the end of that semester, taking 70 jobs with it. It barely made the headlines. But it had joined more than a dozen other private, nonprofit universities and colleges in rural areas or that serve rural students that have closed or announced their closings just since 2020.

Those include Nebraska Christian College, Marlboro College in Vermont, Holy Family College in Wisconsin, Judson College in Alabama, Ohio Valley and Alderson Broaddus universities in West Virginia, Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in New Hampshire, Iowa Wesleyan University, Marymount California University, Cazenovia College in New York, Finlandia University in Michigan, Presentation College in South Dakota and Lincoln College, Lincoln Christian University and MacMurray College in Illinois.

[Anonymous]

Speaking personally, I liked the isolation and small setting of my SLAC. Not having much to do off campus meant I was constantly investing in my life on campus.

As just one example: when I wanted a cup of coffee, and the only place to go was the student cafe, I was investing my time in the student baristas with whom I’d chatter, in the friends and classmates I ran into there, in the small, serendipitous conversations I had along the path there and back.

It was like that again and again. Tiny deposits in campus life that I didn’t even realize I was making, but that cumulatively added up, and at a certain point started paying dividends.

[Anonymous]

Usually by senior year, most kids have had enough and are ready for bigger pastures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some lovely schools are in distant locations, from Bates and Bowdoin to Grinnell and Oberlin.
Why go to a school like this if you could get into a comparable school with access to more resources? I'm not being snarky. I am genuinely curious about the appeal.

Quit being snarky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Speaking personally, I liked the isolation and small setting of my SLAC. Not having much to do off campus meant I was constantly investing in my life on campus.

As just one example: when I wanted a cup of coffee, and the only place to go was the student cafe, I was investing my time in the student baristas with whom I’d chatter, in the friends and classmates I ran into there, in the small, serendipitous conversations I had along the path there and back.

It was like that again and again. Tiny deposits in campus life that I didn’t even realize I was making, but that cumulatively added up, and at a certain point started paying dividends.

When you wanted a snack, did you go over to the widow McGillicuddy’s place to see of she was cooling a freshly baked apple pie on the kitchen window’s sill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speaking personally, I liked the isolation and small setting of my SLAC. Not having much to do off campus meant I was constantly investing in my life on campus.

As just one example: when I wanted a cup of coffee, and the only place to go was the student cafe, I was investing my time in the student baristas with whom I’d chatter, in the friends and classmates I ran into there, in the small, serendipitous conversations I had along the path there and back.

It was like that again and again. Tiny deposits in campus life that I didn’t even realize I was making, but that cumulatively added up, and at a certain point started paying dividends.

When you wanted a snack, did you go over to the widow McGillicuddy’s place to see of she was cooling a freshly baked apple pie on the kitchen window’s sill?

You mock someone who said they were personally invested in their community? Let us know where you went to college so we can avoid it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have your whole life to work in a city.

And, you have your whole life to live in a podunk town! One that has no tertiary care hospital, no south Indian food, no retail store where you can actually try on the boots before you buy, no theater and no museum with European art.

How many days per semester were you in the hospital?

Was responding to “you have your WHOLE LIFE” to live in a city. True. You also have your “whole life” to live in an isolated rural town. You’re not giving up anything by skipping the isolated tiny town thing from ages 18-21.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have your whole life to work in a city.

And, you have your whole life to live in a podunk town! One that has no tertiary care hospital, no south Indian food, no retail store where you can actually try on the boots before you buy, no theater and no museum with European art.

How many days per semester were you in the hospital?

Was responding to “you have your WHOLE LIFE” to live in a city. True. You also have your “whole life” to live in an isolated rural town. You’re not giving up anything by skipping the isolated tiny town thing from ages 18-21.

But you might miss something by forgoing the chance to be in the tight community forged in four years of undergrad in a small college in a rural town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have your whole life to work in a city.

And, you have your whole life to live in a podunk town! One that has no tertiary care hospital, no south Indian food, no retail store where you can actually try on the boots before you buy, no theater and no museum with European art.

How many days per semester were you in the hospital?

Was responding to “you have your WHOLE LIFE” to live in a city. True. You also have your “whole life” to live in an isolated rural town. You’re not giving up anything by skipping the isolated tiny town thing from ages 18-21.

But you might miss something by forgoing the chance to be in the tight community forged in four years of undergrad in a small college in a rural town.

.

Okay, and the (let’s say) Colby Grinnell Bucknell kid misses out on the gift of developing critical life skills forged by navigating Los Angeles or New York or London and gives up the possibility of making friends with the kinds of people who only inhabit major cities and global capitals.

You’ll now say there’s always time for that later, and I’ll respond that there’ll be time later to form a tight intimate friend group that endures through the decades

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also wonder about the professors at some of these schools. Are they fine with long careers there or do they try to get out? I can understand a few years but many of these schools are in small places that get cold and dark too.

This goes for OPs question too but different people like different things. I have some coworkers in a very remote/rural western town. I live in a huge city. Neither of us would switch with the other. The same goes for professors. Not everyone wants to be at an R1 in Chicago.

Also, college is a limited time period and most/many students don’t have time or money to take advantage of that big city life. I sure didn’t. The SLACs free on campus Options were fine by me. Most undergrads aren’t going to the Cleveland symphony, they’re going to the senior class dance recital.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have your whole life to work in a city.

And, you have your whole life to live in a podunk town! One that has no tertiary care hospital, no south Indian food, no retail store where you can actually try on the boots before you buy, no theater and no museum with European art.

How many days per semester were you in the hospital?

Was responding to “you have your WHOLE LIFE” to live in a city. True. You also have your “whole life” to live in an isolated rural town. You’re not giving up anything by skipping the isolated tiny town thing from ages 18-21.

But you’re really missing the point. Some kids actually WANT to spend those four years living somewhere totally different from what they’re used to and know they won’t stay there after college. No one is saying everyone has to go there or that everyone wants to, but the OP can’t seem to comprehend that there are people who seek it out and who don’t want to go to college in a city.

[Anonymous]

OMG. I am the OP and I understand that SOME PEOPLE LIKE RURAL AREAS.

I was asking why because I was curious to see the reasons people gave. I did not post, "Gee, I am stumped. I would only live in a city." This is DCUM at its hyper-defensive finest!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG. I am the OP and I understand that SOME PEOPLE LIKE RURAL AREAS.

I was asking why because I was curious to see the reasons people gave. I did not post, "Gee, I am stumped. I would only live in a city." This is DCUM at its hyper-defensive finest!!

It's DCUM. People gonna hyper-defend

I've been interested in some of the responses. One of my kids went to a rural SLAC and loved it. I think she'd also have been happy in a big city school. Another went to a big city school and loved it, but I think she'd have been equally happy at a small rural school. Given how much time kids spend on campus, I don't think city vs. rural necessarily makes a huge difference. If you can find your people on campus, you're likely to be happy there. For example, if you're happy at small, rural Grinnell, you'd probably also be happy at much bigger, citified U of Chicago, but probably not at Ouachita Baptist, although it is about the same size as Grinnell and also in a rural area.