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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I think SLACs these days can be tough for boys who are not recruited athletes and have no interest in sports. The nature of these schools is that they are very small. Athletes generally keep to themselves. They have different schedules and priorities than other students. Which is normal. At larger D1 colleges that's not an issue at all. Athletes don't change the social vibe at Stanford or MIT or Brown or Case Western and so on.

But you can really feel that separation at small schools. Williams, Amherst, and Bowdoin are roughly 35-40 percent athletes. So too are Bates, Haverford, Colby and many others. That's a lot of guys who are generally taken out of the social pool when it comes to making friends.

I have two boys so we looked into this. Both smart, athletic, and very social. One was even recruited by a bunch of D3 schools for his sport. But he was interested in engineering, so SLACs didn't work for him. And neither wanted to be a full time athlete in college regardless. They both noped out of considering SLACs. Too small. Too limited in social opportunities. Too bifurcated for men. A SLAC is such a roll of the dice for the non-athlete guys. Maybe you get lucky and find a good friend group freshman year. But if you don't, you are out of options when you attend a school in the middle of nowhere that is smaller than most high schools. It's a substantial risk for guys not on the team.      [/quote]

I have a non-athlete son at one of these schools and view this statement as accurate.[/quote]
As do I and several friends. Patently false based on our collective experience. But at least you and I speak from fact, not conjecture. The poster above is making a lot of assumptions for someone with zero boots on the ground.[/quote]

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