Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an interesting thread for me to read. My kids are middle school aged not high school so I am sure I have a lot to learn, but I went to high school in the northeast and many of the colleges named on this thread had a different reputation back in my day - part of that of course is that reputations change, but I do believe that part of that is that in this area some of the SLACs are not as well regarded as they are in the northeast. For example, you would never name F&M, Colgate, Bucknell and Tulane, on the one hand, with U of Miami, Northeastern or even Boston U, on the other. And Lehigh/Lafayette would be lumped with the first group, but no better than them. OP, there are a lot of SLACs in the northeast that could fit the bill for how you describe your son - Boston College, Fairfield, Tufts, Holy Cross - he should check out UMass and Clark, too.

You're absolutely correct - when your children become old enough to start looking at schools you will quickly learn that things are vastly different now then they were back in the day. Trust me, when my DD started looking at schools I realized that I had to re-organize my thinking. I was dismissing certain schools that didn't have high rankings back when I was going to school in favor of ones I thought were good. Turns out I was wrong in many cases - the school I thought was great was actually ranked much lower than the ones that I dismissed. And the schools that were not considered great when I was looking at college are now significantly better, more selective and much harder to get into (both Northeastern and Boston Univ. come to mind for me). Schools change over time - both positively and negatively. All of the schools you listed above are actually good schools and rather competitive to get into. The ones on your list that I would say don't belong are Fairfield, Clark and UMass. Not to say they are not good schools, but they are ranked lower or in the regional category (Fairfield) and have acceptance rates in the 60-70% range - not schools I would put with Boston College or Tufts.

Bottom line…getting our kids into college is a different ballgame for all of us now. (Paying for college is also a different ballgame altogether, but that's for another thread!)

Anonymous wrote:This is an interesting thread for me to read. My kids are middle school aged not high school so I am sure I have a lot to learn, but I went to high school in the northeast and many of the colleges named on this thread had a different reputation back in my day - part of that of course is that reputations change, but I do believe that part of that is that in this area some of the SLACs are not as well regarded as they are in the northeast. For example, you would never name F&M, Colgate, Bucknell and Tulane, on the one hand, with U of Miami, Northeastern or even Boston U, on the other. And Lehigh/Lafayette would be lumped with the first group, but no better than them. OP, there are a lot of SLACs in the northeast that could fit the bill for how you describe your son - Boston College, Fairfield, Tufts, Holy Cross - he should check out UMass and Clark, too.

Anonymous wrote:University of Miami might be a good fit. Many, many internships available because it is one of the only good schools in southern Florida and many companies have offices there. Campus has a good feel. Not just football.

Anonymous wrote:This is an interesting thread for me to read. My kids are middle school aged not high school so I am sure I have a lot to learn, but I went to high school in the northeast and many of the colleges named on this thread had a different reputation back in my day - part of that of course is that reputations change, but I do believe that part of that is that in this area some of the SLACs are not as well regarded as they are in the northeast. For example, you would never name F&M, Colgate, Bucknell and Tulane, on the one hand, with U of Miami, Northeastern or even Boston U, on the other. And Lehigh/Lafayette would be lumped with the first group, but no better than them. OP, there are a lot of SLACs in the northeast that could fit the bill for how you describe your son - Boston College, Fairfield, Tufts, Holy Cross - he should check out UMass and Clark, too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - Well- since you asked - DC is leaning towards business (entrepreneurship) or law with some sort of tech focus. Would like to be close to internship opportunities so he can get some real world experience before he graduates. Suburban setting with access to city/town would be a plus. Looking for a place that is intellectual yet active/outdoorsy/sporty. 2,000-12,000 students. He is a pretty easy going kid and gets along with all kinds of people, so in that sense he is open to checking out a range of places to see what clicks.

That's not Dickinson or Gettysburg. We ran into the same problem with DC who wanted computer science and game design. The smaller SLACs usually don't offer a computer science degree. DC wound up at a university to get the majors he wanted. Dickinson also wants to see a 4.0 GPA.[/quote]

Yeah, they might want to see that but that's not what they are getting. Mine had barely a 3.0, although good scores, and got in (and went). They do have a very good business major (but it is not a business degree), and good off campus programs/internships, but it's clearly not a suburb of anything. Sounds like Northeastern is what you want OP, but that's gotten harder to get into. Or maybe Boston University.