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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"Fit" is a thing but my hope is that our children aren't in need of a particular fit. We discourage SLACs.[/quote]

The college professors in our family have the exact opposite opinion. They discourage large schools and any school with a big graduate program. They want all the kids in the family to attend a school where the primary focus of fully tenured professors is undergraduate education.[/quote]

Even if there are only 1800 students in the entire school and it feels suffocating??[/quote]

then for that student, you find a bigger school. Not all of them are that small.

Also don't forget that there are consortiums at many smaller schools, and if the school is near a metro area, that also increases social opportunities.

A few examples:
As I stated above, my alma mater is Wake Forest. I was in the marching band and our consortium with Salem College allowed those students to participate with us. I have heard of other places where this happens, so worth thinking about.
My child was considering Randolph College, which has a consortium with ULynchburg and Sweet Briar - that would have expanded class options for her and social group.
We looked at Meredith College in NC. Small women's college, but a mile from NC State (also part of a consortium) AND in Raleigh. So you get the small school experience with larger school AND city opportunities. My daughter didn't wind up applying in the end, but it was a lovely school.[/quote]

The consortium option sounds appealing in theory, but few work all that well in practice.  I have no comment on the above options, but unless it's like the Pomona schools that are all right next to each other, the logistics tend to make these difficult.

Just make sure you ask current students if anyone makes use of the consortiums.[/quote]

I understand logistics and what not - Obviously, you do ask how that works out.

What about the Five Colleges in Amherst area?

The above were just examples, not suggestions where everyone should look. Just thoughts how a small school may not be as stifling as some fear.

It was fun to have people from outside our campus in our marching band. And I know some of them took more than just band at our school.

As for Meredith and NC State, I was told one girl was on the NCState dance team by taking one course per semester there.

People need to do their own research, obviously.
[/quote]
Even the five college consortium suffers from transportation and the will power to go to another college when it isn’t immediately on your campus like the Claremont Colleges. Though, the Claremont colleges are basically a university and even are modeled after Oxford and Cambridge[/quote]

That’s fair, but again, each student/family should do their own research on whether this arrangement would work for them. My daughter thought Meredith’s proximity to NCState and Raleigh (plus the free bus services to both) were a big selling point, even if she never took a class at NC State.[/quote]

Not sure why it’s a selling point if you never expect to use it.

I think what others are pointing out is don’t pick a school thinking lots of students take advantage of the consortium and somehow that is part of the culture that all the Swarthmore kids are taking classes at Haverford and vice versa.  Very few take advantage though I understand Bryn Mawr students somewhat take advantage of the Haverford relationship (but near zero the other way).

It is something that sounds good on paper but not so much in reality.[/quote]
This is kind've accurate. The TriCo (Swa(r)t, Haverford, Bryn Mawr) is dead. Haverford and Bryn Mawr's BiCo is in well use, and there is a bus that runs between the two. No, Bryn Mawr students don't leach off of Haverford. Bryn Mawr runs a few of the BiCo departments and offers all the classes there. People go to both![/quote]

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