Anonymous wrote:One of my clients -- an NGO in the education field -- had a very bright, capable intern from Sewanee last summer. Her position was grant-funded, though my sense was that she came from an UMC background (attended an independent secondary school in a smallish Southern city). She was a little on the preppy-crunchy side, but also savvy in a fresh, unjaded way. Her post-grad plans are to teach, possibly with TFA or another similar organization, then go to grad school in education. She would have fit right in at my NESCAC alma mater.

All of the Sewanee grads I know (as in the ones my age - mid 40s) are like this.

I have spent a lot of time in Sewanee. Sometimes, you may see the heir to a liquor fortune walking around. Jack Daniels.

I love the area and it has its good and bad.

Rich, white area. Some hippies in the woods who are “off the domain.” Super small town. Everyone knows everyone’s business. Lots of places to hike within the domain. Need a car to get to non-campus stores.

The town has some creepy characters. Don’t go to parties at the homes of non-student, non-faculty if you are female.

If you hike in the woods, know where you are and don’t go alone.

Nashville is fun.

When I go, I always want to have a car.

Anonymous wrote:Sewanee has been discovered. The head of Sewanee is the former head of Middlebury. Things are happening there.

This was posted 5 years ago. How have things progressed since then?

Um, no, rely on finding a college that is a good fit for your individual child.

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Anonymous wrote:I agree, it is isolated. This is not a bad thing for some kids but would be horrible for others.

It is also still much less diverse than comparable northeastern schools. They do seem to be making a major effort to change that, but yeah. It's still pretty white.

I think it clearly is rising in terms of national reputation. Look at the changing percentage of kids from outside the south, for instance. (I don't have a link but I think if you google you can find stats). Two decades again it was almost entirely a southern school. It now has a much higher (and growing) percentage of kids from the northeast, CA, etc.

Back in the day, when I was applying for college (late 80s), Middlebury was seen as a second tier school - almost exactly like Sewanee now. That it: it was viewed as a safety school for rich white preppies who didn't get into HYP or Amherst or Williams. But today, Middlebury is ranked 7th. The same is true for places like Bowdoin and Colby- and Carleton and W&L were not even on the radar for most smart kids in the northeast. But each of those schools has bootstrapped themselves up in the last three decades, and now each is regarded as a top national liberal arts college. Sewanee appears to be poised to do the same (and no, not an accident that Sewanee brought in the former president of Middlebury).

Well, first they'd have to get back to where they were a decade ago, which was 11 higher in the rankings than they are now. Do your research -- their ranking has been dropping for years, not going up!

Anyone who seriously chooses colleges based on their US News rankings needs to have their head examined. Get a grip.

Right. Rely on Colleges that Save Lives, right? Ha!

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Anonymous wrote:I agree, it is isolated. This is not a bad thing for some kids but would be horrible for others.

It is also still much less diverse than comparable northeastern schools. They do seem to be making a major effort to change that, but yeah. It's still pretty white.

I think it clearly is rising in terms of national reputation. Look at the changing percentage of kids from outside the south, for instance. (I don't have a link but I think if you google you can find stats). Two decades again it was almost entirely a southern school. It now has a much higher (and growing) percentage of kids from the northeast, CA, etc.

Back in the day, when I was applying for college (late 80s), Middlebury was seen as a second tier school - almost exactly like Sewanee now. That it: it was viewed as a safety school for rich white preppies who didn't get into HYP or Amherst or Williams. But today, Middlebury is ranked 7th. The same is true for places like Bowdoin and Colby- and Carleton and W&L were not even on the radar for most smart kids in the northeast. But each of those schools has bootstrapped themselves up in the last three decades, and now each is regarded as a top national liberal arts college. Sewanee appears to be poised to do the same (and no, not an accident that Sewanee brought in the former president of Middlebury).

Well, first they'd have to get back to where they were a decade ago, which was 11 higher in the rankings than they are now. Do your research -- their ranking has been dropping for years, not going up!

Anyone who seriously chooses colleges based on their US News rankings needs to have their head examined. Get a grip.

Anonymous wrote:They are huge compared to the gas station and sandwich shop on the mountain.

A few summers back my DC attended the summer writing camp at Sewanee and without prejudice I would say it is the most remote college campus I have ever seen. With no town to be had for miles, there are a few restaurants on the back side of the campus best described as a cluster of buildings. The campus, itself, is nice but there's no denying you're literally in the middle of nowhere.

Anonymous wrote:I agree, it is isolated. This is not a bad thing for some kids but would be horrible for others.

It is also still much less diverse than comparable northeastern schools. They do seem to be making a major effort to change that, but yeah. It's still pretty white.

I think it clearly is rising in terms of national reputation. Look at the changing percentage of kids from outside the south, for instance. (I don't have a link but I think if you google you can find stats). Two decades again it was almost entirely a southern school. It now has a much higher (and growing) percentage of kids from the northeast, CA, etc.

Back in the day, when I was applying for college (late 80s), Middlebury was seen as a second tier school - almost exactly like Sewanee now. That it: it was viewed as a safety school for rich white preppies who didn't get into HYP or Amherst or Williams. But today, Middlebury is ranked 7th. The same is true for places like Bowdoin and Colby- and Carleton and W&L were not even on the radar for most smart kids in the northeast. But each of those schools has bootstrapped themselves up in the last three decades, and now each is regarded as a top national liberal arts college. Sewanee appears to be poised to do the same (and no, not an accident that Sewanee brought in the former president of Middlebury).

Well, first they'd have to get back to where they were a decade ago, which was 11 higher in the rankings than they are now. Do your research -- their ranking has been dropping for years, not going up!

They are huge compared to the gas station and sandwich shop on the mountain.

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Anonymous wrote:Isolated AF.

Not really. Chattanooga, a city of 180,000 people is less than an hour away, and Nashville, a city of nearly two million, is about an hour twenty.

LOL. This is the definition of isolated.

You’re such a dork. Go away.

Dp but why are you so defensive about basic facts? Sewanee is a solid school with a unique campus. That campus is isolated. That is not necessarily a flaw to many applicants. But it is nonetheless a fact.

Agree. Why so defensive?

Not the PP but the reaction was to ‘isolated AF’, an extreme position. I’d argue that there are many, many LACs that aren’t within an hour of a large metro area, as so by the standard of LACs it’s not particularly isolated.

Those generally are in small college towns. Sewanee is not.

Ever been to Kenyon? Gambier OH ain't a booming metropolis.

Anonymous wrote:If the school is pursuing geographical diversity it should probably ditch the ‘University of the South’ name (nickname?). It seems overly, intentionally provincial.

They seem to be doing exactly that. They made a deliberate decision about 15 years ago to use the name "Sewanee" and de-emphasize the "University of the South" name. Over the noisy protests of many alums...

It is not just that. There are also just more good schools than there used to be. In part this is because of overall population increase in the last 30 years. More kids>more colleges>more good colleges.

And it part it is b/c of changes in the higher ed job market. Universities have produced more PhDs, including in areas where there is frankly not a ton of demand (classics! medieval studies! philosophy! etc). There are not enough new jobs at the traditional top schools to employ all those PhDs as professors, so the "top" PhD students- the ones with PhDs from Harvard and Princeton, who once assumed they would get jobs at same, now find themselves competing with one another for the jobs at Outer Podunk Community College... which means that the quality of the teaching and scholarship at Our Podunk goes way up... and kids get a better education there than in the past... so Outer Podunk starts getting a better reputation and attracting kids with higher GPAs and test scores. This phenomenon has lifted up a lot of colleges and universities once considered second or third or fourth tier.

I tell my own kids that there are literally hundreds of colleges where they can get a top-notch education. The crazed competition is all for a handful of fancy brand names in the top 20 or so (using USN's very arbitrary ranking system), and if they are not obsessed with name brand, they will have no trouble finding a great college where they will have smart, interesting peers and smart, interesting professors.

Like NYU.

If the school is pursuing geographical diversity it should probably ditch the ‘University of the South’ name (nickname?). It seems overly, intentionally provincial.

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Anonymous wrote:Isolated AF.

Not really. Chattanooga, a city of 180,000 people is less than an hour away, and Nashville, a city of nearly two million, is about an hour twenty.

LOL. This is the definition of isolated.

You’re such a dork. Go away.

Dp but why are you so defensive about basic facts? Sewanee is a solid school with a unique campus. That campus is isolated. That is not necessarily a flaw to many applicants. But it is nonetheless a fact.

Agree. Why so defensive?

Not the PP but the reaction was to ‘isolated AF’, an extreme position. I’d argue that there are many, many LACs that aren’t within an hour of a large metro area, as so by the standard of LACs it’s not particularly isolated.

Those generally are in small college towns. Sewanee is not.