Kind and gentle T20 school = Notre Dame

Anonymous wrote:For my son who is ambitious but has had emotional problems, and is easily triggered. School size is not a concern.
We have considered F&M, W&M …?
Suggestions welcome. TIA

Small Private far, faaar away from DC or NYC.

Anonymous wrote:
This is a roundabout way of suggesting that it may be a bit of a fool's errand to try to identify a school based on criteria such as kindness or gentleness. Instead, select a school which seems a good match by conventional measures - class size, professorial availability and commitment to undergraduate teaching, campus attributes, students who are generally similarly academically capable, courses the student wants to take and majors of interest, extracurricular activities available, and so on. The student will be surrounded by like-minded others, which should make it possible to form supportive and rewarding personal relationships, not with everyone, obviously, but with at least a few people.

Wow, it's surprising that someone would post here with so little familiarity about the range of college cultures.

I will add that those cultures can change for the better or the worse. When I was in college, the Seven Sisters had a reputation for being places that nurtured women's academic achievements. In the past few years, a more-recent graduate of one of them told me that when she was there, students would hide library books so no one had access.

What do you mean great academic reputation but not selective? Is is good or not? If great why is it not selective? I just looked it up and the acceptance rate is 50% so it is somewhat selective. Tell me more about this school. Child will be in Posse program next year and Sewanee is on the list. How is the diversity there?

What about Sewanee? Great academic reputation but not cutthroat or brutally selective. Friendly, welcoming community. Good party scene.

I'd imagine the question is not whether a school is competitive or not. If a child can gain admission to a highly selective school, presumably that child is capable of successfully meeting that school's academic standards with a reasonable amount of effort and focus, just as the child previously demonstrated in high school. A depressed and anxious person may be depressed and anxious anywhere. It seems improbable that any, or at least very many, schools can accurately be characterized as broadly "unkind" or as brutal or harsh rather than gentle. Those really are personal, not institutional, attributes, and a child's experience is far more likely to depend on his personal associations than on the college or university. There almost certainly will be students and staff at every school who will align well with this child's personality and traits, and others who will not, just as all of us make friends with some people and not with others.

This is a roundabout way of suggesting that it may be a bit of a fool's errand to try to identify a school based on criteria such as kindness or gentleness. Instead, select a school which seems a good match by conventional measures - class size, professorial availability and commitment to undergraduate teaching, campus attributes, students who are generally similarly academically capable, courses the student wants to take and majors of interest, extracurricular activities available, and so on. The student will be surrounded by like-minded others, which should make it possible to form supportive and rewarding personal relationships, not with everyone, obviously, but with at least a few people.

One other consideration might be distance from home. If the child does experience periods when coping is proving unusually challenging, it could be beneficial if a parental visit, or a visit home, was relatively easy because the campus isn't many hours away.