Anonymous wrote:Anyone have direct experience? Culture, social life, career placement. DC is bright and motivated but not intensely intellectual, artsy, activist etc. Obviously the school is great academically but will it be a good experience?

Kids generally enjoy Carleton. If your son is not "intensely intellectual, artsy, activist, etc." now, he may be by the time he graduates. My DD's fiance was a recruited athlete at a top SLAC (they met there). He felt ill-prepared academically in his first year and struggled a little, but he was getting straight As by his third (and maintained straight As for his last two years). He has done extremely well in his career since graduating and earns far above the average for his graduating class. He has become much more intellectual and politically aware as he has matured and is now looking into a part-time "executive MBA." He hopes to use his (absurdly high) earnings to improve the world.

I can't say whether Carleton would be right for your son, but he might "look" different and have different interests as he grows and develops, and Carleton may lay a foundation for growth that may not be obvious now. A boy of 17 will not necessarily have the same interests he will have as a young man of 25. A liberal arts education is a transformative experience that can profoundly change people. My DD's boyfriend evolved from a party-boy jock to an extremely thoughtful, articulate, and socially aware young man in his four years at a SLAC, and he has continued to grow since graduating. It's been a wonder to behold The athlete culture might help your son find his niche at Carleton and integrate into the school. At my DD's SLAC, the athletes (particularly the guys on some of the teams) were kind of "jock-esque" while happily mixing with the artsy and intellectual types. Everyone got along well, and neither group seemed stifled or offended by the other. I suggest your son test his comfort levels with Carleton by doing an overnight visit.

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Anonymous wrote:I graduated a long time ago, but completely understand OP’s inquiry. I was not wildly intellectual and was not quirky, as some students were. But there were a lot of people there similar to me, and some of them were athletes (I was a non-athlete). I genuinely enjoyed the quirky people too, for the most part.
And if you need a dose of normalcy, St. Olaf is conveniently nearby. I spent some time over there, even had a serious girlfriend there. But overall, I was much more comfortable at Carleton than at St. Olaf.
If your son is looking for a top small school in the Midwest, he will probably do fine there.

I've heard St. O is quite woke, too.

That's just Minnesota.

Anonymous wrote:OP, we were asking ourselves some of the same questions you are posing during our college search a few years back. We came across this piece by an admissions consultant. Perhaps it will be of some use. I agree with those recommending a visit, preferably while school is in session.

http://garthrobertson.com/a-visit-to-carleton/

Thanks. That's quite a review. I wonder if anything has changed over the past 10 years.

OP, we were asking ourselves some of the same questions you are posing during our college search a few years back. We came across this piece by an admissions consultant. Perhaps it will be of some use. I agree with those recommending a visit, preferably while school is in session.

http://garthrobertson.com/a-visit-to-carleton/

going and spending time on campus with the team is so important. My athlete looked at Carleton, Macalister, St Olof and University of Minn. after visits to the school and meeting the team, DC talked to others (on a different team, or non athlete) to get a feel. Good luck to your son these visits and checking in with current students is paramount in finding out the right fit.

OP here: maybe another way to frame this, what are some other liberal arts colleges that are comparable to Carleton culturally?

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Anonymous wrote:It's very woke. I'm honestly not sure if it's like Kenyon and some of the NESCACs where the athletes have their own bro culture that exists as kind of a separate entity within the larger woke campus culture. It's possible that schools like Carlton and Grinnell are so woke that it overpowers any efforts by the athletes to establish a more mainstream subculture. If I had an athlete kid looking at Carlton, I would implore him to spend a weekend there, preferably staying with a current student-athlete, so he could get a better read on the campus vibe.

You sure have a lot of opinions about a school whose name you don’t even know how to spell.

Also, I admitted in the first line of my post that I don't know a lot about the school other than that it's woke, which I've never heard anyone dispute.

Our son graduated from Carleton recently. He loved it. Said the profs were passionate and engaging and the students intelligent, friendly, and unpretentious. There was no discernible divide between athletes and non-athletes. He had several friends at Chicago and didn’t notice a difference in “wokeness” when visiting their campus or vice versa. He is very pro free speech, fwiw.

How is it for kids who want to go into business - consulting, banking etc ?

Carleton is full of kids who want to make a difference in the world beyond just making money. If your kids dream is to go work at Goldman Sachs, they don’t belong there. If they want to start a green fund that provides micro finance loans to small farmers in developing countries, sure.

My DC is incredibly happy there but the ethos is to do some good in the world whatever professional path they take.

The way to do the most good in the world is to be as productive as possible and chase the bag. Read Atlas Shrugged.

Oh bless, the Ayn Rand disciple has arrived. They are the most tiresome and pedantic of breeds suffering under the delusion that they are very smart deep thinkers. Like the college freshman who drops Nietzsche quotes nonstop on thanksgiving break after half a semester of philosophy 101, except if they were 38 years old and still doing it. We laugh at you.

Extremely tiresome... I much prefer to drop Bukowski, Kerouac, and Ginsberg quotes at T-giving.

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

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Anonymous wrote:It's very woke. I'm honestly not sure if it's like Kenyon and some of the NESCACs where the athletes have their own bro culture that exists as kind of a separate entity within the larger woke campus culture. It's possible that schools like Carlton and Grinnell are so woke that it overpowers any efforts by the athletes to establish a more mainstream subculture. If I had an athlete kid looking at Carlton, I would implore him to spend a weekend there, preferably staying with a current student-athlete, so he could get a better read on the campus vibe.

You sure have a lot of opinions about a school whose name you don’t even know how to spell.

Also, I admitted in the first line of my post that I don't know a lot about the school other than that it's woke, which I've never heard anyone dispute.

Our son graduated from Carleton recently. He loved it. Said the profs were passionate and engaging and the students intelligent, friendly, and unpretentious. There was no discernible divide between athletes and non-athletes. He had several friends at Chicago and didn’t notice a difference in “wokeness” when visiting their campus or vice versa. He is very pro free speech, fwiw.

How is it for kids who want to go into business - consulting, banking etc ?

Carleton is full of kids who want to make a difference in the world beyond just making money. If your kids dream is to go work at Goldman Sachs, they don’t belong there. If they want to start a green fund that provides micro finance loans to small farmers in developing countries, sure.

My DC is incredibly happy there but the ethos is to do some good in the world whatever professional path they take.

The way to do the most good in the world is to be as productive as possible and chase the bag. Read Atlas Shrugged.

Oh bless, the Ayn Rand disciple has arrived. They are the most tiresome and pedantic of breeds suffering under the delusion that they are very smart deep thinkers. Like the college freshman who drops Nietzsche quotes nonstop on thanksgiving break after half a semester of philosophy 101, except if they were 38 years old and still doing it. We laugh at you.

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Anonymous wrote:It's very woke. I'm honestly not sure if it's like Kenyon and some of the NESCACs where the athletes have their own bro culture that exists as kind of a separate entity within the larger woke campus culture. It's possible that schools like Carlton and Grinnell are so woke that it overpowers any efforts by the athletes to establish a more mainstream subculture. If I had an athlete kid looking at Carlton, I would implore him to spend a weekend there, preferably staying with a current student-athlete, so he could get a better read on the campus vibe.

You sure have a lot of opinions about a school whose name you don’t even know how to spell.

Also, I admitted in the first line of my post that I don't know a lot about the school other than that it's woke, which I've never heard anyone dispute.

Our son graduated from Carleton recently. He loved it. Said the profs were passionate and engaging and the students intelligent, friendly, and unpretentious. There was no discernible divide between athletes and non-athletes. He had several friends at Chicago and didn’t notice a difference in “wokeness” when visiting their campus or vice versa. He is very pro free speech, fwiw.

How is it for kids who want to go into business - consulting, banking etc ?

Carleton is full of kids who want to make a difference in the world beyond just making money. If your kids dream is to go work at Goldman Sachs, they don’t belong there. If they want to start a green fund that provides micro finance loans to small farmers in developing countries, sure.

My DC is incredibly happy there but the ethos is to do some good in the world whatever professional path they take.

The way to do the most good in the world is to be as productive as possible and chase the bag. Read Atlas Shrugged.

Anonymous wrote:Definitely go visit. It is a small school which means fit is especially important. There is not a big focus on sports (except ultimate frisbee) and so it may depend on the culture your DC prefers. Also, some teams are better than others, I’d look at their record and assume you’ve already met the coach. The hospital is a bit far to walk and cabs/uber are very limited in the small town. Injuries can be challenging to manage. Just some things to consider while weighing options.

Our kid is an athlete at Carleton. When injured, they received a typical quality of care in Northfield. But when we wanted a second opinion, we arranged a driver to take them to arguably the best hospital in the world, Mayo Clinic, which is only an hour’s drive away.

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Anonymous wrote:It's very woke. I'm honestly not sure if it's like Kenyon and some of the NESCACs where the athletes have their own bro culture that exists as kind of a separate entity within the larger woke campus culture. It's possible that schools like Carlton and Grinnell are so woke that it overpowers any efforts by the athletes to establish a more mainstream subculture. If I had an athlete kid looking at Carlton, I would implore him to spend a weekend there, preferably staying with a current student-athlete, so he could get a better read on the campus vibe.

You sure have a lot of opinions about a school whose name you don’t even know how to spell.

Also, I admitted in the first line of my post that I don't know a lot about the school other than that it's woke, which I've never heard anyone dispute.

Our son graduated from Carleton recently. He loved it. Said the profs were passionate and engaging and the students intelligent, friendly, and unpretentious. There was no discernible divide between athletes and non-athletes. He had several friends at Chicago and didn’t notice a difference in “wokeness” when visiting their campus or vice versa. He is very pro free speech, fwiw.

How is it for kids who want to go into business - consulting, banking etc ?

Carleton is full of kids who want to make a difference in the world beyond just making money. If your kids dream is to go work at Goldman Sachs, they don’t belong there. If they want to start a green fund that provides micro finance loans to small farmers in developing countries, sure.

My DC is incredibly happy there but the ethos is to do some good in the world whatever professional path they take.

Definitely go visit. It is a small school which means fit is especially important. There is not a big focus on sports (except ultimate frisbee) and so it may depend on the culture your DC prefers. Also, some teams are better than others, I’d look at their record and assume you’ve already met the coach. The hospital is a bit far to walk and cabs/uber are very limited in the small town. Injuries can be challenging to manage. Just some things to consider while weighing options.

Anonymous wrote:I graduated a long time ago, but completely understand OP’s inquiry. I was not wildly intellectual and was not quirky, as some students were. But there were a lot of people there similar to me, and some of them were athletes (I was a non-athlete). I genuinely enjoyed the quirky people too, for the most part.
And if you need a dose of normalcy, St. Olaf is conveniently nearby. I spent some time over there, even had a serious girlfriend there. But overall, I was much more comfortable at Carleton than at St. Olaf.
If your son is looking for a top small school in the Midwest, he will probably do fine there.

I've heard St. O is quite woke, too.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It's very woke. I'm honestly not sure if it's like Kenyon and some of the NESCACs where the athletes have their own bro culture that exists as kind of a separate entity within the larger woke campus culture. It's possible that schools like Carlton and Grinnell are so woke that it overpowers any efforts by the athletes to establish a more mainstream subculture. If I had an athlete kid looking at Carlton, I would implore him to spend a weekend there, preferably staying with a current student-athlete, so he could get a better read on the campus vibe.

You sure have a lot of opinions about a school whose name you don’t even know how to spell.

Also, I admitted in the first line of my post that I don't know a lot about the school other than that it's woke, which I've never heard anyone dispute.

Our son graduated from Carleton recently. He loved it. Said the profs were passionate and engaging and the students intelligent, friendly, and unpretentious. There was no discernible divide between athletes and non-athletes. He had several friends at Chicago and didn’t notice a difference in “wokeness” when visiting their campus or vice versa. He is very pro free speech, fwiw.

How is it for kids who want to go into business - consulting, banking etc ?

The anecdotal data I’ve heard about my kid’s friend group is everyone was pleased with where they landed, including a couple who went into consulting.

I graduated a long time ago, but completely understand OP’s inquiry. I was not wildly intellectual and was not quirky, as some students were. But there were a lot of people there similar to me, and some of them were athletes (I was a non-athlete). I genuinely enjoyed the quirky people too, for the most part.
And if you need a dose of normalcy, St. Olaf is conveniently nearby. I spent some time over there, even had a serious girlfriend there. But overall, I was much more comfortable at Carleton than at St. Olaf.
If your son is looking for a top small school in the Midwest, he will probably do fine there.