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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I attended, also went to Columbia for grad school.

It’s everything DCUM hates: collaboration not competition, very little name recognition in corporate America, if your child is the right fit they will thrive, nobody goes to IB afterwards. Lots of counterculture and alternative kids. No “prestige”.

Your child must be VERY VERY self-directed to succeed. Actual dumb hippies crash out fast, you need to do real work. Nobody will hold your hand. You do not get a gold star or an A at the end, you must create your own meaning because you get narrative detailed evaluations for all work.

If your idea of rigor is memorize the book for the test and actually learn nothing, it’s not for you. You can’t succeed by grinding and being a good copycat, you must actually deliver original work and it will be judged fairly. It’s grad school style program for undergrad. It prepared me extremely well for professional degree in grad school.

Five College cooperation is easy and very useful, for most of my work I used the MHC and Amherst libraries because they had the materials I needed. Cross registration is a breeze, take whatever you want any time you want.

The school was in financial crisis a few years ago, but has stabilized. 
[/quote]

I did not attend, but it was the kind of school I considered. I do think those schools have changed since the 90s. I wasn’t against it for my kid because it’s a “quirky” school, or whatever we’re going to call it. I just think that financially it’s kind of scary—I’ve heard facilities are not in great shape. My kid is applying to Sarah Lawrence as a safety, and I don’t actually feel great about that because I believe Moody’s gives them a D in terms of financial stability.[/quote]

Facilities were never in the best shape, and you better really love brutalist architecture.

Hampshire received an A and a “most improved” on its latest Moody’s financial health report, the new President is really putting 100% effort into saving the place. Alumni and donors have stepped up. The 5 college system protects them in a way the other schools don’t get.

My beef with Sarah Lawrence is they let a parent run a sex cult on campus for years and nobody stepped in, there’s a documentary on Hulu about it.

I think the “alternative” colleges will come back in vogue eventually, but they have the same issues all small LACs with small endowments have.[/quote]

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