Anonymous
08/25/2025 18:08
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
You're projecting. Go re-read OP's posts. There's nothing in them that says CTCL schools would be too small or too academic for her kid. To the contrary, her posts suggest that at least the larger Jesuit schools might be too big and too sporty. (Which isn't to say she should just dismiss them all--I don't think she should--but she'd be crazy to dismiss all the CTCL schools just because you don't like them.)Anonymous wrote:I’m the Jesuit school booster again. The problem I have with the suggestions being offered is that they’re largely small out of the way second tier liberal arts colleges. That works for only a certain kind of student.
A Jesuit university is typically larger, has more comprehensive — and often more practical — offerings and attracts a wider range of student types. They’re not dominated by navel gazing types. The students are smart and engaged and career focused. Most also have good but not all consuming sports programs that unite the student body and make it fun. And very few if any have Greek programs.
OP says “up to 10,000.” Most of the suggestions here are far, far smaller than that. My sense is that they’re too small.
Anonymous
08/25/2025 17:54
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Schools ranked in the 50 to 100, like Juanita, Lake Forest, Lewis & Clark, Wooster, Drew, Sewanee, Knox, Kalamazoo, Randolph Macon… those schools will give him aid.
Anonymous
08/25/2025 17:48
Subject: Re:Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Anonymous wrote:Hi OP.
My DS just started at one of the Colleges that Changes Lives and is over the moon!! His school is mentioned above. He only considered two of these but I have positives about most. Please consider CTCL carefully. They do give significant merit.
As to Jesuit schools, which I was also pushing him to visit, he was accepted at St. Joe’s in Philly, where the admitted students day was quite off-putting on multiple levels. Later someone told me that Jesuit schools can be insular and provincial - that’s what we both felt there.
Admitted student day at Loyola MD was totally different - I came away very excited but my kid not so much and did not say why.
Good luck!!
Why do posters persist with the fiction that CTCL schools are somehow related to each other and share anything in common other than they have banded together to market themselves?
Anonymous
08/25/2025 17:28
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Anonymous wrote:Elon (is that too far south?)
Franklin & Marshall
Duquesne
American
Some very good suggestions above.
F&M focuses on need based aid over merit aid. Merit is available, but F&M doesn’t give as much as other schools.
Anonymous
08/25/2025 15:13
Subject: Re:Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Hi OP.
My DS just started at one of the Colleges that Changes Lives and is over the moon!! His school is mentioned above. He only considered two of these but I have positives about most. Please consider CTCL carefully. They do give significant merit.
As to Jesuit schools, which I was also pushing him to visit, he was accepted at St. Joe’s in Philly, where the admitted students day was quite off-putting on multiple levels. Later someone told me that Jesuit schools can be insular and provincial - that’s what we both felt there.
Admitted student day at Loyola MD was totally different - I came away very excited but my kid not so much and did not say why.
Good luck!!
My DS just started at one of the Colleges that Changes Lives and is over the moon!! His school is mentioned above. He only considered two of these but I have positives about most. Please consider CTCL carefully. They do give significant merit.
As to Jesuit schools, which I was also pushing him to visit, he was accepted at St. Joe’s in Philly, where the admitted students day was quite off-putting on multiple levels. Later someone told me that Jesuit schools can be insular and provincial - that’s what we both felt there.
Admitted student day at Loyola MD was totally different - I came away very excited but my kid not so much and did not say why.
Good luck!!
greenleaf19
08/25/2025 13:09
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
I have added so many schools to the list from this thread! I'm now working my through websites and data to see which might be best to suggest to my son.
To the Jesuit poster--Jesuit schools were not in my sight at all, but I've just added Fordham and Loyola MD. Thanks!
As for size, my son says he is fine with both small and medium schools, just doesn't want huge.
To the Jesuit poster--Jesuit schools were not in my sight at all, but I've just added Fordham and Loyola MD. Thanks!
As for size, my son says he is fine with both small and medium schools, just doesn't want huge.
Anonymous
08/25/2025 12:44
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
University of Dayton.
about 8,000 undergrad students, good merit aid, not a big Greek life school or overly rah-rah, not a pressure cooker.
about 8,000 undergrad students, good merit aid, not a big Greek life school or overly rah-rah, not a pressure cooker.
Anonymous
08/25/2025 11:39
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Wooster, Beloit, St Olaf all sound like good fits.
Note that the OP seeks suggestions in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
Ah! Then I agree that SMCM, Dickinson, Clark U, Washington College, are all great. Maybe Lafayette and F&M?
Anonymous
08/25/2025 10:59
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
I’m the Jesuit school booster again. The problem I have with the suggestions being offered is that they’re largely small out of the way second tier liberal arts colleges. That works for only a certain kind of student.
A Jesuit university is typically larger, has more comprehensive — and often more practical — offerings and attracts a wider range of student types. They’re not dominated by navel gazing types. The students are smart and engaged and career focused. Most also have good but not all consuming sports programs that unite the student body and make it fun. And very few if any have Greek programs.
OP says “up to 10,000.” Most of the suggestions here are far, far smaller than that. My sense is that they’re too small.
A Jesuit university is typically larger, has more comprehensive — and often more practical — offerings and attracts a wider range of student types. They’re not dominated by navel gazing types. The students are smart and engaged and career focused. Most also have good but not all consuming sports programs that unite the student body and make it fun. And very few if any have Greek programs.
OP says “up to 10,000.” Most of the suggestions here are far, far smaller than that. My sense is that they’re too small.
Anonymous
08/25/2025 10:48
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Clark
Quinnipiac
Saint Mary’s of Maryland
Xavier
Denison
Salve Regina (maybe too small?)
Quinnipiac
Saint Mary’s of Maryland
Xavier
Denison
Salve Regina (maybe too small?)
Anonymous
08/25/2025 10:22
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
University of Minnesota - Duluth has an excellent environmental science department. A lot of students intern with the DNR and go on to work in that field.
Anonymous
08/25/2025 10:21
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Dickinson, F&M, Gettysburgh
Anonymous
08/25/2025 10:20
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry
Anonymous
08/25/2025 10:20
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:This site offers potentially suitable suggestions, such as Dickinson, Clark, HWS and Juniata:
2025 Best Colleges for Environmental Science - College Transitions https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/best-colleges-for-environmental-science/
Meh...better career opportunities and career track would be Environmental Engineering. These are the better schools for that.
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/environmental-engineering-rankings
meh, meh, but quite the opposite of what OP asked for (not a list that starts with UC Berkeley)
Similarly unsuitably, the list posted is of graduate school programs.
Here you go. Top for Undergraduate.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-environmental-health?_sort=rank&_sortDirection=asc
Again, not what OP is asking for. Those are environmental engineering programs, all large schools and highly competitive.
Anonymous
08/25/2025 10:17
Subject: Please recommend small/medium private colleges
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:This site offers potentially suitable suggestions, such as Dickinson, Clark, HWS and Juniata:
2025 Best Colleges for Environmental Science - College Transitions https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/best-colleges-for-environmental-science/
Meh...better career opportunities and career track would be Environmental Engineering. These are the better schools for that.
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/environmental-engineering-rankings
meh, meh, but quite the opposite of what OP asked for (not a list that starts with UC Berkeley)
Nah..there are smaller private colleges within that list.