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Anonymous wrote:I think that the main attraction for many to CTCL schools may be merit scholarship awards for above average--as opposed to superior--students.

A concern might be internship & employment opportunities.

The low interest rates of a couple of years ago helped some of these schools to raise their financial ratings along with cost-cutting of low enrollment majors & streamlining administrative payrolls.

Again, would be wise to check retention rates (percent of students who return for the sophomore year) and 6 year graduation rates for any school--not just CTCL schools--of interest.

Superior students may also fall into the "donut hole" category. Simply because they are superior doesn't mean the $ spigots open at non-merit schools.

You misunderstood my point & I was not as clear as I should have been. Superior students can get merit scholarships at better schools and can automatically qualify for substantial merit scholarship awards at several state flagship universities and their respective honors colleges.

Schools like Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, etc do not give merit scholarships. Period. You get need based aid, or pay full price. If a superior student can't afford 80k/year, they go down the list and find the best schools that will give them merit aid such as Denison and some of the other CTCL schools mentioned here. You will find superior students at that level.

Williams, Amherst, & Bowdoin are a totally different class of schools than those written about in CTCL.

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Anonymous wrote:Evergreen State College is the poster child for what’s wrong with the CTCL list. It accepts virtually everyone who applies, a full one-third of its students are gone after freshman year, and only 1/3 of an entering class graduates in four years. Why on earth would that school be selected out of hundreds if not thousands of no name state colleges as being a college that “changes lives?” It’s just nuts, and it calls into question the entire list.

Every one of these schools needs to be judged on its own merits, and the list as a whole or as an aggregate needs to be thrown out the window.

This may come as a shock to PP, but some in higher education believe in offering opportunity to as many students as possible. By definition, that means that many won’t make it. Complaining about this makes PP seem really bad at math.

I don’t disagree with any of that, my point is that none of that makes this particular school special enough to be included in any book about colleges that “change lives.” It is no different than hundreds of other schools in exactly the same category.

Agree.

The author of CTCL could have thrown darts at a long list of relatively unknown, obscure schools in order to find a list of "special, caring schools".

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Anonymous wrote:60 percent of the entering class at Juniata comes from Pennsylvania. It’s no more diverse geographically than a state school. Its SAT average is only a 1220, which is also lower than half the state schools in VA.

I don’t get the appeal.

We know, but you're a joyless middle manager in a boring, over employee IT consulting government job. Odds are, you're not going back to undergrad anytime soon.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

The one distinguishing factor that you appear to have left out is that the typical CTCL school attracts underachieving kids from affluent families who need hand holding, as opposed to hard-working students. That makes a difference.

8:23, what do you have to support this claim? From what I can tell in this forum and College Confidential, there are a number of bright students who seek a LAC but are not full pay. As fit is important to them (and perhaps a more keen awareness of their learning styles), they are willing to attend a LAC where they may receive generous merit over their state flagship. If anything, the "underachieving" affluent kids I knew in HS were more interested in attending regionals or less competitive flagships in other states to continue with their party lifestyle.

This point is supported solely by the voices in “underachieving” PPP’s head. They seem desperate to validate their own choice by denigrating the choices of others, so they invent a narrative to that effect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that the main attraction for many to CTCL schools may be merit scholarship awards for above average--as opposed to superior--students.

A concern might be internship & employment opportunities.

The low interest rates of a couple of years ago helped some of these schools to raise their financial ratings along with cost-cutting of low enrollment majors & streamlining administrative payrolls.

Again, would be wise to check retention rates (percent of students who return for the sophomore year) and 6 year graduation rates for any school--not just CTCL schools--of interest.

Superior students may also fall into the "donut hole" category. Simply because they are superior doesn't mean the $ spigots open at non-merit schools.

You misunderstood my point & I was not as clear as I should have been. Superior students can get merit scholarships at better schools and can automatically qualify for substantial merit scholarship awards at several state flagship universities and their respective honors colleges.

Schools like Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, etc do not give merit scholarships. Period. You get need based aid, or pay full price. If a superior student can't afford 80k/year, they go down the list and find the best schools that will give them merit aid such as Denison and some of the other CTCL schools mentioned here. You will find superior students at that level.

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Anonymous wrote:Evergreen State College is the poster child for what’s wrong with the CTCL list. It accepts virtually everyone who applies, a full one-third of its students are gone after freshman year, and only 1/3 of an entering class graduates in four years. Why on earth would that school be selected out of hundreds if not thousands of no name state colleges as being a college that “changes lives?” It’s just nuts, and it calls into question the entire list.

Every one of these schools needs to be judged on its own merits, and the list as a whole or as an aggregate needs to be thrown out the window.

This may come as a shock to PP, but some in higher education believe in offering opportunity to as many students as possible. By definition, that means that many won’t make it. Complaining about this makes PP seem really bad at math.

I don’t disagree with any of that, my point is that none of that makes this particular school special enough to be included in any book about colleges that “change lives.” It is no different than hundreds of other schools in exactly the same category.

I think the main attraction for CTCL schools is parents and kids who do not have the goods for the top goals, but somehow think they are too good for state schools, so they fall for the hype that the book generates.

Anonymous wrote:Evergreen State College is the poster child for what’s wrong with the CTCL list. It accepts virtually everyone who applies, a full one-third of its students are gone after freshman year, and only 1/3 of an entering class graduates in four years. Why on earth would that school be selected out of hundreds if not thousands of no name state colleges as being a college that “changes lives?” It’s just nuts, and it calls into question the entire list.

Every one of these schools needs to be judged on its own merits, and the list as a whole or as an aggregate needs to be thrown out the window.

This may come as a shock to PP, but some in higher education believe in offering opportunity to as many students as possible. By definition, that means that many won’t make it. Complaining about this makes PP seem really bad at math.

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Anonymous wrote:No one who has ever been to Kalamazoo would claim it's a school for the affluent. That's just not its vibe, ethos, or population.

But FYI: While Kalamazoo's percentage of kids from the top 1% is lower -- by a lot! -- than most private colleges, at 5.5%, it is higher than JMU's (which is 2.6%). BUT Kalamazoo also has a higher percentage of kids from the bottom 50% than JMU (16.4% Kalamazoo vs. 12.6% JMU).

For context, on the top 1% metric, a lot of prestigious LACs (Nescacs, Davidson, Carleton, etc.) start at 15% of their student body and go up to 25+%. Which is why the whole conversation feels really weird to me. Both of these schools do better than most schools in this metric, which is great. (Yay, Kalamazoo, yay, JMU. Remind me why we're fighting?)

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html

PP, I'm not the one with whom you've been going back and forth, but want to say that I appreciate your posting.

As a K grad from some time ago, the school has changed a lot over the years. When I attended, it was pretty much coasting. The president when I started clearly pined for a position somewhere on the East coast. The president after him was a gentle soul, but perhaps not up for the task of heading up a college in the Reagan years.

But, PP, the student body was a lot more affluent, or maybe aspirational affluent, at that time - preppies who were very pre-professional in focus. Subsequent administrations have worked hard to diverse the student body by economics, geography, and race and have been fairly successful in doing. Good to hear that they are succeeding in some of these areas.

I'm not the PP people are going back and forth with, either! I'm a DP (I posted the Forbes list -- I like actual data, especially when conversations start going round and round).

That's really interesting perspective. My kid visited and applied to K -- we did a big, fun midwest road trip, and had a really nice night in the city of Kalamazoo, as well as a great tour. The kids we met were SO down-to-earth, really humble and kind of quietly thoughtful. AO was also a former K student, attended on scholarship. The place clearly meant a lot to him. Campus was charming, but without the flashy $75 million buildings that a lot of schools feel compelled to build. And if I recall, the one supplemental was about giving back to the city of Kalamazoo. So that history is very interesting.

Well, yeah, the city of Kalamazoo is a cesspool and can use all the help it can get.

-- grew up there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that the main attraction for many to CTCL schools may be merit scholarship awards for above average--as opposed to superior--students.

A concern might be internship & employment opportunities.

The low interest rates of a couple of years ago helped some of these schools to raise their financial ratings along with cost-cutting of low enrollment majors & streamlining administrative payrolls.

Again, would be wise to check retention rates (percent of students who return for the sophomore year) and 6 year graduation rates for any school--not just CTCL schools--of interest.

Superior students may also fall into the "donut hole" category. Simply because they are superior doesn't mean the $ spigots open at non-merit schools.

You misunderstood my point & I was not as clear as I should have been. Superior students can get merit scholarships at better schools and can automatically qualify for substantial merit scholarship awards at several state flagship universities and their respective honors colleges.

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Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the GPNW and know the schools on this list from that region pretty well--have had friends attend all of them. They're all great places for kids who dig their respective ethos. In alpha order:

Evergreen State is super hippie. Like a left coast version of UNC-Asheville only more so. Or a mini UC Santa Cruz. More intellectual than academic, if that makes sense.

Reed is intense. Like a less selective but no less ambitious Swarthmore--but with lots of black eyeliner and hard drugs. If you're not both brilliant and cynical, it's not your spot.

UPS is kind of like a miniaturized flagship. Solid for business, music, and liberal arts and sciences. Wide range of kids there, almost all of them happy.

Whitman is like west coast Middlebury but in a bigger, better town (but also way further from anything else). For kids who check the "intellectual," "outdoorsy," and "at least somewhat preppy" boxes, it's heaven.

Willamette is right next to the state capital and is a school for go-getters, across a decent range of raw intellectual firepower levels.

Which of these schools would work for a moderately conservative student who is interested in that area of the country?

UPS or Willamette for sure. Probably Whitman, too. Definitely not Reed or Evergreen State.

I second UPS for this description. Work in Seattle in non-profit adjacent to people in finance annd investment management work and the its littered with UPS grads who are down to earth, slightly conservative for this area, sporty into adulthood, and a bit more “East Coast” than my other colleagues.

Which one of those schools is UPS? I don't understand the abbreviation.

"UPS" is the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. I had to smile when I read PP's description of a UPS grad ("down to earth, slightly conservative for this area, sporty into adulthood, and a bit more “East Coast” than my other colleagues") as it so perfectly describes the one UPS grad I know. Rather preppy Marin County type. Definitely down to earth. Liberal, but not so much for Seattle. Very hard-working. Extremely polite. LOTS of interests and specific knowledge of a very wide range of subjects, which indicates a broad education. I was impressed with the guy.

University of Puget Sound was on my kid's list last year and it was my favorite tour. The students were friendly, smart and happy. The campus is beautiful. They seemed to have a nice community. I liked Tacoma. They fed us really great ice cream. The financial aid package was good.

Alas, my kid decided to go elsewhere.

For those who like UPS (and other PNW schools), Lewis & Clark might be worth a look too. It's not on the CTCL list, but it probably could be. The campus is gorgeous!

Lewis & Clark is somewhat similar to UPS, but it definitely has more of a trustafarian vibe.

If that's a statement about trust fund and not the style in which the trust fund is expressed, in terms of family income, Lewis & Clark and University of the Puget Sound are nearly identical, with UPS slightly higher.
Median family income Lewis & Clark: 130,900 UPS:138,500.
60% of students at Lewis & Clark come from the top 20% income, 61% at UPS.
7.7% of students at Lewis & Clark are from the top 1%, 7.6% at UPS.
4.4% at L&C are from the bottom 20%, 3.1% at UPS.

I love this NYTimes upshot tool! I hope they continue to update it with new data.

The NYT tool is great but it doesn't capture generation-skipping trusts or other tax-avoidance tools of the truly wealthy, more of whom end up at L&C than UPS.

Anonymous wrote:I think that the main attraction for many to CTCL schools may be merit scholarship awards for above average--as opposed to superior--students.

A concern might be internship & employment opportunities.

The low interest rates of a couple of years ago helped some of these schools to raise their financial ratings along with cost-cutting of low enrollment majors & streamlining administrative payrolls.

Again, would be wise to check retention rates (percent of students who return for the sophomore year) and 6 year graduation rates for any school--not just CTCL schools--of interest.

Superior students may also fall into the "donut hole" category. Simply because they are superior doesn't mean the $ spigots open at non-merit schools.

I think that the main attraction for many to CTCL schools may be merit scholarship awards for above average--as opposed to superior--students.

A concern might be internship & employment opportunities.

The low interest rates of a couple of years ago helped some of these schools to raise their financial ratings along with cost-cutting of low enrollment majors & streamlining administrative payrolls.

Again, would be wise to check retention rates (percent of students who return for the sophomore year) and 6 year graduation rates for any school--not just CTCL schools--of interest.

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Anonymous wrote:60 percent of the entering class at Juniata comes from Pennsylvania. It’s no more diverse geographically than a state school. Its SAT average is only a 1220, which is also lower than half the state schools in VA.

I don’t get the appeal.

We know, but you're a joyless middle manager in a boring, over employee IT consulting government job. Odds are, you're not going back to undergrad anytime soon.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

The one distinguishing factor that you appear to have left out is that the typical CTCL school attracts underachieving kids from affluent families who need hand holding, as opposed to hard-working students. That makes a difference.

8:23, what do you have to support this claim? From what I can tell in this forum and College Confidential, there are a number of bright students who seek a LAC but are not full pay. As fit is important to them (and perhaps a more keen awareness of their learning styles), they are willing to attend a LAC where they may receive generous merit over their state flagship. If anything, the "underachieving" affluent kids I knew in HS were more interested in attending regionals or less competitive flagships in other states to continue with their party lifestyle.

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Anonymous wrote:Here's a list of the schools in question. Which ones do you like? Hate? Have never heard of?

https://ctcl.org/category/college-profiles/

I loved Lawrence University in Appleton, WI when we visited. It is both an LAC and a music conservatory. It had a very pleasant feel and a pretty setting, straddling the Fox River. From Lawrence, we drove out to Björklunden, a 425-acre satellite campus, about 1.5 hours from the main campus on the shores of Lake Michigan in Door County. It was the most heavenly place, and students can go there for seminars and summer classes. Lawrence has a marine program (LUMP, or Lawrence University Marine Program) in which students take three marine biology classes over the same trimester, and a 2-week field trip to the Caribbean is included. Lawrence also offers classes in London and Senegal. Since DC was considering a double degree in marine biology and music performance, it felt like a good fit. We absolutely loved it. DC ended up at a different school, but Lawrence was the one I'd have chosen if it were up to me.

Thanks - evaluating a really nice merit offer now. Haven’t been, but headed there for an admitted students day. How important would you say is fitting in a visit to Björklunden to understanding the overall experience?

It's always nice to get to know the area, and a visit would really expose you to the beauty of the Great Lakes region, so if you have time to fit it in ... Winter is probably not the best time to visit. Spring, summer, and fall are all spectacular, but at least going in winter would give you an idea of how COLD Wisconsin gets, which is something your student might want to consider. If you are spending the night in Green Bay, it's an easy trip. Green Bay is just about half an hour from Appleton and about an hour or a little more to Björklunden. On admitted students' day, they'll probably show you pictures of Björklunden and the other two satellite campuses in London (Bloomingdale) and Senegal. One reason I was so excited about Lawrence was that my DC wanted to minor in French, and they offer a French immersion program in Senegal. Then you can also do a study abroad at the London Center, which would be a good place to get some English literature classes. The trimester system with the extended campuses makes it easy to get two study abroads on different continents. I also had visions of my DC doing Semester at Sea, which would only have cost her one trimester on campus if she had done it in the fall, and that would have allowed her to see even more of the world. As it was, she went to a very nice alternative to Lawrence, but the pandemic wiped out the one study abroad she had planned:-/ Enjoy your visit!

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Anonymous wrote:60 percent of the entering class at Juniata comes from Pennsylvania. It’s no more diverse geographically than a state school. Its SAT average is only a 1220, which is also lower than half the state schools in VA.

I don’t get the appeal.

We know, but you're a joyless middle manager in a boring, over employee IT consulting government job. Odds are, you're not going back to undergrad anytime soon.

Nope. That’s another poster. I’m a parent of UVA and top ten liberal arts grads. Had my kids not made the cut for those, they’d have gone to any one of the VA state schools I just listed instead of a Juniata type school, where they would have paid less money for an equal if not greater amount of geographic, economic and racial diversity, and would have attend school with classmates who are at least equally capable and graduating at at least as high if not higher rates. Nice try though.

Then you would not have done your research. I have a kid who is not competitive for those schools (UVA, W&M, T10 LACs) but likes a smaller environment. Her best match in VA was UMW and also looked at SMCM, the public option in MD. These schools are pretty comparable with CTCLs mentioned here when it comes to SAT scores but the private schools tend to do a bit better in retention and graduation and are less exclusively in-state students and generally end up in the same price range.

UMW=87% in-state
Kalamazoo=65%
Ursinus=63%
Juniata=56% (and 11% international)

UMW's 4 yr graduation rate = 59%. The others are a bit higher, 66-71%
Net prices for a family with a $110K+ HHI is about $30k for all these schools.

Or I could ignore her desire for a small school and insist on JMU. 73% in-state students, similar average net price, grad rate in the same range as the listed CTCLs, similar SATs to Juniata, both of them a little lower than Kalamazoo and Ursinus.

So, on the stats and cost, the in-state schools you think are superior are pretty much the same as the LACs you denigrate. Obviously, no school is good for everyone and different schools have different strengths and unique resources so you need to do the research to find a good fit.

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=james+madison&s=all&fv=213251+216524+170532+232681+232423&cp=1&sl=213251+170532+216524+232681

The one distinguishing factor that you appear to have left out is that the typical CTCL school attracts underachieving kids from affluent families who need hand holding, as opposed to hard-working students. That makes a difference.

DP: Alright, let's just compare based on the latest CDS. Take Kalamazoo and JMU from the PPs list above. They are two schools in the running for my kid who is a sophomore in HS now.
Kalamazoo has higher SAT scores, with more students reporting: 1200-1370, 43% reported scores (38% SAT, 5% ACT)
JMU: 1180-1310, 26% reported scores (23% SAT, 3% ACT).
39% of students at Kalamazoo were in the top 10% of their class, 67% in the top quarter, and 95% in the top half.
At JMU, 17% are in the top 10%, 29.4% in top quarter, and 88% are in the top half.

So how exactly are these kids less hard-working?

22% of students are first gen at Kalamazoo, 24% receive Pell grants, 31% are domestic students of color. Nearly everyone gets financial assistance to attend. And there's lots of financial assistance for internships and study abroad experiences there too.

I think you're operating with some pretty sloppy biases to say these schools are full of underachieving, affluent kids.

How do the JMU spankers explain this one? These are terrible numbers. Even most directional state unis have more than 3 out of 10 students coming from the top quarter of their class.

Name the schools

I mean shit, the first two no-name directionals I looked up at random had higher percentages in the top quarter of their class than JMU.

University of North Texas: 38%
Southeast Missouri State: 43%

I could find many more if I really wanted to, because face it, JMU, at 29%, scores extremely poorly on this metric. Keep spanking, though.

You said "most" therefore can you name more? Two isn't significant.

I'd have an easier time finding schools that do than you would finding schools that don't.

Can you name them?

Please take this discussion somewhere else. It is no longer on-topic.