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[quote=Anonymous]Honestly, if you've come to DCUM for encouragement you've come to the wrong place.   Most of the know-nothings here would if asked dismiss Yale as a past-its-peak fallback for Harvard rejects.

Colgate offers phenomenal learning opportunities.   It's a beautiful campus in a beautiful setting.   The town of Hamilton is small but pretty, and struck me when i visited as offering a surprising amount of options for a small college town (compared to say a place like Middlebury VT -- and the town Hamilton is convenient to campus unlike Clinton NY).   The people i know who went to Colgate (and subsequently went to top grad schools and became tech and national security professionals) look back really fondly on the friendships and faculty mentors they had there, which they felt were strengthened by the manageable size and relative isolation.  They also commented they felt Colgate was a perfect size -- small enough that they recognized faces and could easily meet people, but large enough that they continued to meet and make new friends (which they didn't feel would be the case at a smaller college).

I went to a highly ranked school similar to Colgate (size, rural setting, social environment) that wasn't my first choice.   I spent my first month rolling my eyes, appalled by the drinking/frats and the neanderthal behavior of my classmates, and thinking of transferring.   I threw myself into my classes and developed some strong faculty relationships; i forced myself to join some activities as a way to be around hardworking upperclassmen who weren't just hosting parties; and I got to know more of my fellow freshmen and realized there was a lot more to them than the awkward performative behavior on weekend nights I was witnessing.   By Thanksgiving I realized my experience there would be a lot richer than I had initially assumed, and I dropped thoughts of transferring.   And I also saw that most freshmen's behavior normalized considerably after the rumspringa of freshman fall.

People have been going to Colgate, and having great experiences there (probably coupled with some bad ones -- that happens everywhere), and going on to accomplished careers for a couple of centuries.  19 of 20 students who matriculate at Colgate opt to return for sophomore year; and over nine in ten stay to graduate -- they can't all be thick or passive.   If your son insists on finding reasons to determine Colgate is a bad "fit" for him (not a concept i invest a lot in -- open-minded students should be able to find their fit among the accomplished students at any highly ranked school), he probably can (and realistically I suspect that may be his first inclination upon arrival).   But encourage him to give it a little time, and force himself into activities (and not just be a passive observer of behavior he dislikes), and he should come to realize it's a privilege to be given the opportunity to attend a school like Colgate, notwithstanding that there were other schools he was more focused on during the application process.

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