This is the thread where you recommend a college for my daughter

Oberlin's got a good reputation, particularly for their music program, but from what I know has more of a small lib. arts campus feel and thus less of a uni vibe than the others. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) UMichigan Ann Arbor is supposed to have a good grad writing program, but I'm not sure how this would trickle down to the undergrad classes.

I'm biased towards MA because I went to college there, but what about somewhere in the 5-colleges area? (Amherst, etc) That could give her an opportunity to sample classes at several very different kinds of schools.

might be worth looking into the residential college, specifically. (one of the many colleges at U of M) i think they do a lot of creative writing, and have their own scholarship programs. everyone i know that did it really liked it.

xpost with sgs-- you said michigan because it's great!

xpost..."big beads" wtf

Do a google for the US News and World Report Rankings, they factor in value for the money.

Also, for a smaller college, my financial aid was always pretty good.

Dave225 may be right about Oberlin: even though I ended up not applying there, it seemed like even if I'd gotten scholarships, it'd still be too expensive. (This was sort of true of Macalester, too, which I did apply to.)

I would suggest, however, to keep other small liberal arts colleges in the mix, in case she decides she's interested in this kind of environment. I couldn't decide for a really long time whether I wanted to go to a big state school or a small liberal arts college, and I was happy to have applied to both kinds of schools so I could make that choice when I was ready. (I ended up at the tiny Kalamazoo College in Michigan and now can't imagine why I ever would've wanted to go to a large, impersonal university.)

But yeah: check out that U.S. News issue to get an idea of what small colleges are in your area (I'm assuming she wants to stay in the East/South) -- although I'd be careful not to put TOO much stock in those rankings, which don't really tell the whole story. I'm sure there's a feeling of "only-the-very-best-for-my-baby," but I'd wager that any college within the first two tiers is pretty good. (I guess I'm speaking as a graduate of a second-tier school, though, haha.)

Noodles, I think she'd prefer to stay in the states the first year or two of college, until she gets the hang of being out on her own.

As far as expense, right now we're at the point of making out the wish list without too many delimiters. Over the next year we'll be excluding on the basis of cost, etc.

jaymc: Emory is on the radar screen, yes!

Please, keep it coming!

It might be too pricey for out of state though.

I would vote for my own alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University, but it might be too urban. And academically, she could do better by virtue of her GPA.

As with Lauren, I'm totally available to answer questions. She's probably better at that than I am, though.

http://www.bard.edu/academics/programs/programs.php?id=779023&pid=797

Director: Robert Kelly
Phone: 845-758-7205
E-mail: kelly@bard.edu

Director: Peter Sourian
Phone: 845-758-7212
E-mail: sourian@bard.edu

Faculty:
John Ashbery
Mary Caponegro
Robert Kelly
Verlyn Klinkenborg
Ann M. Lauterbach
Joan Retallack
Peter Sourian
William Weaver

i guess bradford morrow isn't there anymore? i dunno.

(Not intended as a slam against anybody in particular, just something to keep in mind.)

Reed College in Portland, OR might be worth looking into. They have a strong English program, are fairly prestigious but get ranked lower because they're non-traditional. Lots of hippies.

A young, maybe not so well-known option might be Texas State University - San Marcos. They're building a writing program, they've got a few big name authors on faculty (Tim O'Brien I remember). Texas schools are pretty decent on cost and generous for good students (to keep them from going to UT-Austin or elsewhere)

Wellesley. :-) They actually are pretty generous with financial aid because they have a huge endowment. My sister and I both went there... I could post a lot of reasons why I loved it (you get a single dorm room your last two years! close to Boston! beautiful campus! you can take classes at MIT! it has a lake!), but they might not be things she would like. In any event, if you're looking at New England schools, you should check it out.

Hmm... which school totatlly doesn't fit? Does she want to go to a school like 1,2,3 or does she want to go to a school like Oberlin? I mean, Ole Miss and Oberlin?! Those schools are totally different.

If she wants to go to a smallish, alternative-type, liberal arts college, then I recommend adding some more schools of that type to your list. Otherwise you've got all your eggs in one school's basket.

Why just Oberlin? There are numerous similar schools with varying strengths and weaknesses. Do some research.

Also, I wouldn't put too much stock in the strength of the creative writing program. We're talking about undergrad, right? It's entirely possible that she'll take one creative writing class, and decide that she doesn't dig on it. And she'll probably never be taught by some big-name prof at a university.

Next day he comes in to sign the loan papers and hands me a copy of an essay I had written on the first day of class in 1970. Wow!

I don't understand for a minute what binds the schools you're looking at. Part of it is the different structure of the institutions you're looking at. But perhaps a bigger part of it is that I see universities as demographic collections of students. Yes, there are a few professors around, and college is often what you make of it, but your academic (and non-academic) experience is going to be significantly influenced by the people around you. Duke is an Eastern (mixed South and North) college within a semi-major private university that is widely regarded as one of the better/best in the country but whose student body is also widely (perhaps unfairly) regarded as not having a particularly academically/intellectually serious bent, relatively speaking (i.e. compared to some ivy league-type schools), and being more party-oriented than many schools of the type. Ole Miss is a Deep Southern public state university that surely isn't terrible but is not of any particular renown, and socially I don't know. Oberlin is a well- (but not highly-)regarded small/medium-ish Great Lakes/Northeastern liberal arts college with a good number of students who are relatively serious and some notable faculty. It is one of the most politically liberal schools in the country and has no major social life of the type typically associated with big schools. Overall, it doesn't sound like there's a particularly clear idea of what is desired here.

For the record, my sister went to Oberlin. I don't know much about the place. I went there once for graduation (where it poured). The area around the campus wasn't not pretty, but it seemed like a pretty depressing place to spend 4 years. And, as much as I hate and find completely meaningless the term, for lack of a better one, it strikes me as a rather "PC" place in a way that may inhibit intellectual development. I think my sister was happy there - she was really into the coop thing, which sounded pretty fun if you got into it - but I know that she's happier in the real world. Cleveland did seem very cool, but it's a world away.

As for Reed, my impression is that it's a lot like Oberlin, if it were in a good location, but with lesser academic standards (and corresponding self-selection among the student body).

Maybe I'm just biased in favor of large research universities in major metropolitan areas.

NO, Top 10 not 10%.

Says the girl who was ranked ELEVEN

state universities are often cheaper than private ones, but also often much more expensive to out-of-state students. it sounds like your daughter wants to attend school in a medium-sized town in the Midwest or Southeast. there are lots of good state universities that fit the bill, notably those of Michigan, Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Iowa and Illinois. private universities that would fit the bill include Vanderbilt (if Nashville isn't too large), Notre Dame, William and Mary, and Wake Forest. private liberal arts colleges would include (on a quite demographically varied list) Carleton, Davidson, Washington and Lee, Grinnell, Macalester, Kenyon and Sewanee (noted for its writing program, I believe, but again I wouldn't go by that). of course, Oberlin is probably better than all of those except Carleton, with which it may be comparable, though I may underrate the Southern ones.

a liberal arts college is going to bring you into closer contact with the people around you, professors especially. but i favor universities because the people around you are less homogenous and the faculty is generally of better quality.

you should definitely look at the US News rankings. not because they're gospel (they're rather silly actually) but because they give you a general idea of academic quality/reputation. the number 10 school is by no means better than the number 15; it may be worse. but the number 10 school is probably better by some degree than the number 30. pay special attention to the peer assessment score, selectivity rank and acceptance rate.

http://www.smcm.edu/

If you are looking for a liberal arts college, there are a lot of liberal arts colleges out there that many not ring a bell the moment you hear the name, but will nevertheless offer a terrific education. Really a huge advantage will be the small class size and more personal approach, whereas at a large public university (such was my brother's experience) you hardly know your professors and are kind of lost in the shuffle of tens of thousands of students. Gabbneb, I realize there are advantages but.. how many of the excellent faculty actually teach and how many shuffle most of that work off to TAs? You ought to do a lot more research into small liberal arts schools if that is what you want. Also, what about Mary Washington College in Virginia?

this is the big criticism of major universities. while the degree to which "excellent faculty" teach depends on the school, the answer is that most of them do, i believe (it may help that i went to a school where they did, by and large). but the thing is "excellent faculty" usually refers to a few superstars people have heard of, some of whom may not teach or may only teach huge lectures. but the select superstars are far from the set of actually excellent faculty or great teachers in major universities.

Mary Washington College in Virginia

I have no idea about its quality but I do know that it's in a beautiful (though rural-ish and isolated-ish) area.

Supercub, thanks for sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Ole Miss is on the list because we live close to Oxford, because they have a decent writing program, because my wife used to be on faculty there and we still have a lot of friends there, and because it would probably be the least expensive of the four. Duke and Southern, I don't know. Those are two names my daughter and wife presented to me. Oberlin is the first name that came up in our research.

Yes, faculty do teach a lot at medium private Ivy types, that's true. Hella expensive, most of them..

But today I'm more skeptical about the point of an undergraduate creative writing major. It seems like the world's only professionalized major that's not actually a professionalized major, i.e., whether you do it or not has little or no bearing on your actual chances of becoming a writer, and perhaps even your ability to write. I'd think a good literature program would be more important. MFA programs, at least the best ones, might be different.

Then again, I'm no expert, and I think Jonathan Safran Foer did get his start through his professor -- Joyce Carol Oates.

I guess this would mean places like UNC, U-Mich, Berkeley, UVa (though some have told me the last one is becoming more and more like a private college.)

Supercub, thanks for sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Ole Miss is on the list because we live close to Oxford, because they have a decent writing program, because my wife used to be on faculty there and we still have a lot of friends there, and because it would probably be the least expensive of the four. Duke and Southern, I don't know. Those are two names my daughter and wife presented to me. Oberlin is the first name that came up in our research

you posted it twice

#2 was a general "don't be hatin'" to gabbneb for the generally negative tone. Instead of telling me why my daughter shouldn't want what she wants, how about telling her how to get what she wants? Barring that, sit on your hands.

Casuistry, we're all ears. Make yr. argument.

sorry, i wasn't trying to be negative. my point wasn't that she shouldn't want what she wants. rather, that i don't think she knows what she wants because i see nothing that the schools listed have in common. if we know what she wants, we can be more targeted (as i was trying to be). but if she doesn't (like most people), things seem more open to arguments in favor of different types of schools, different regions, etc.

The problem with taking undergrad creative writing classes is that you spend most of your energy focused on writing. Generally you are focusing on your peers' writing, and generally it's in a workshop situation, where you are expected to critique them. Many of the people in the classes will just be there for an easy A and will be irredeemibly boring writers who you will learn very little from critiquing. Generally their comments won't be very helpful. The path of least resistance for the teacher is to find some good quality to praise in the crap writing so that "everyone is a winner", etc., although perhaps with good teachers this isn't such a problem.

But the real problem is that you spend most of your energy focused on writing. And writing, the act of writing, is not uninteresting, but it's simply not as rich and deep a subject as, well, any other subject possible. Even the proverbial basket weaving major would be more interesting to take (and have a more interesting effect on your writing) than focusing on writing.

Because you need to know something well if you're going to write, and if all you know well is writing, then, well, your writing will suck. You'll have nothing. Whereas if you know, say, chemistry or mathematics or linguistics or whatever, this opens up all sorts of possibilities.

And what's more: The other reason you don't need a creative writing class is that if you're really a writer, you're already writing all the time. And what you need to do most is keep writing all the time. You don't need feedback and critique from anyone, yet, especially not some undergrad looking for an easy A. You just need to keep writing.

Since your daughter picked out Oberlin, maybe she should look into more small liberal arts colleges. If she'd like that kind of environment but closer to home she could look at, as others have said--Wake Forest, William and Mary, Mary Washington. Maybe she should look at Davidson College in North Carolina. I think Randolph Macon in VA has a good writing program. Sewanee definitely.

She should try and get a rough feel for whether she would like a small, liberal arts college or a large state university. She should also think about whether she wants to stay close to home or try out another area. Northern vs Southern is going to have to be a consideration. If you have time to take her on a few trips to get a feel of a few different places that would be a good idea. Besides the US News and World Report, there are some college guide/books written toward high school students which may be more helpful to her. Maybe you could get some at the library and she could browse through them. They will be written with the student in mind and be a bit more descriptive than the US News and World Report.

It's great that you're open-minded about this whole thing. My father "guided" me toward UVA. I ended up at another school the following year.

I was about to say. Visiting a school or three of different types, even if not schools she's interested in, could be very useful for getting a sense of what college environments are like and what she wants. Walking around for a while with you to take in the milieu can provide some of this information rather quickly. Visiting in more independent fashion - going to a class or two, perhaps staying with a student overnight - might provide even more info.

UVa, William and Mary, and Mary Washington are all very nice. UVa and William and Mary are the two best in the state. UVa is larger, in a nicer town, and more diverse while William and Mary is in Williamsburg which is a pit, but has smaller classes and there's less dealing with TAs. They're both hard to get into out of state, and she'll need to take the hardest level classes, have only a few Bs, and have sats in the 1400s. Mary Washington isn't as hard to get into, and Fredricksburg is a decent town. It's small, very pretty, and there aren't any fraternities.

I would also reccomend against Oberlin. I know a couple of people who go there and they are all pretty lame and it doesn't seem to tolerate a wide range of opinions.

Well, I may be getting myself into trouble here, but your daughter is a junior in high school - presumably 16 or so. What she wants, of course, is tantamount, but she needs guidance as well. There's nothing wrong with her wanting to be a writer, for example, but that doesn't mean that you/she shouldn't question whether a creative writing program is the best means to that end, and that you/she shouldn't look for opinions from people who have been through them. I myself didn't go through a program, but did take classes and very much agree with what Causistry said.

I think for the most part, she's going to get out of college what she puts into it, no matter where she goes. Some schools obviously have a better 'reputation' as far as her post-graduate options go.

Looking back, I think I would have had a *far* better attitude about school had I taken a year off after high school, moved out of my parents' house, and worked for a year. You could not have convinced me of this at the time, but still.

(Isn't Oberlin supposed to be one big orgy? Though I guess Tom Wolfe's recent book was set at a thinly-veiled Duke, and I missed out on most of the orgy part myself...)

In my spring of my senior year, I spent a long weekend at William and Mary and a long weekend at Wellesley, trying to decide between the two- before visiting I was pretty sure I wanted to go to William and Mary. I switched after visiting, and decided that Wellesley was much more what I wanted. Talking to the students there, eating in the dining halls, walking around in the evening and trying to get as many opinions as possible is really the only way that a 16 or 17 year old is going to be able to decide well on this.

Mookieproof brought up something else that is actually pretty important- the 'reputation' of your school. I do a **lot** of interviewing in my current job, and resumes that have a really good school on them get a much closer look that ones from most state schools. I know, there are good and bad grads from all schools, but when you have only 10 seconds to make a decision, your alma mater carries a lot of weight. Then again, depends what field she goes into- probably not all jobs are going to care as much about it.

Unfortunately most US schools, if they have a study abroad programme at all, have their own little campuses in foreign cities, classes taught in English, often by American lecturers. I had a girlfrien at the time in Columbia's programme in Rome, and although her understanding of italian Art and literature was explarary. I had the language skills to hold forth on art, literature, politics, work my way through the byzantine maze of the Italian tax system (useful if you wnat to know if the half month's tax on your rental contract is genuine or not (it is)), get much cheaper train tickets etc.

It's very important for someone who wants to be a writer, or for any human being really, to get the broadest range of experiences possible and studying for a semester or a year at a foreign university is a good way of doing it.

I' also not sure if a creative writing programme is as important to writing as devloping a broad range of academic interests. One of the best aspecs of a liberal art degree (and Modular English Degrees) is the opportunity to take a wide range of subjects; throw in a bit of maths, history or philosiphy, or even chemistry or physics. You'll learn something valuable and you'll also devlop very different styles of writing. My italian classes, where I had to produce papers on Art, architecture, technology and the like allowed me to develop more than just the staid technoogical writing style of Engineering. the flipside of this is that a 'creative' writer may at some point need the dry dispassionate technical style to put food on the Table.

frivolous speculation:
1. writers' workshops lead to valuable professional contacts.
2. writers who graduate from writers' workshops write the same. (maybe this is just a correlation.)
3. writers who are trained in writers' workshops can move on to successful careers writing for magazines and other media because of that very sameness -- the recognizable quality in their writing.
4. writers' workshops should not be mocked: they are just another form of apprenticeship or training. writing is a craft. writing is an art. if writers don't take their work seriously, who will?

dad was happy, because it was way more expensive than U of M. i was happy because i wasn't stuck in a sorority in evanston for four years.

Also, I think I spent about %15 of my time in college actually in classes or studying. I would actually choose a school based on where she wants to live and then the reputation of the school. Like it was said above, people DO look at your education when hiring. I have to look at resumes and people's job histories all day. And the ones that have an MIT, Harvard , UC Berk, Brown, are by far more impressive.

Also, I think merit based scholarships are a lot harder to accumulate in a substantial amount than you may think, unless she did some type of wacky building a nuclear device for the science fair thing. like, I had a 4.4 average and was a minority and still only got about $1500 for the first year in academic scholarships. be sure to apply for loans and more loans.

Workshops are good at producing material that feels... workshoppy. What is the main writing-related job that results from these programs? Teaching creative writing. Who reads the little magazines in which the work of this community appears? Students and teachers of creative writing. It's an industry that does a very good job of feeding itself. Which is fine, I guess, if that's what butters your biscuit.

But there are whole worlds of writing that exist outside that rather cloistered atmosphere: not as romantic or "literary," perhaps, but nonetheless fulfilling and occasionally lucrative.

It's not a statistical sample, but I know a good number of people who are writing for magazines and other media now, including Village Voice, The New Republic, New York Press, and none of them went to creative writing programs.

Better training would be found in an English major, or perhaps a journalism major (if you want to write creative non-fiction, you need something to write ABOUT, and learning to gather your information is as hard as learning to write).

Regarding writer's workshops, they're a mixed bag. Of course you need to hone your craft, but writers have done this for centuries without workshops. They do it by writing. A workshop can help force you to produce, but unless you're surrounded by brilliant people, the advice they give you is usually a waste. It's probably better to form your own writers' critique group with a few like-minded people.

I sort of agree with this, with one difference I'll explain below. I chose to major in English at a school where I could turn in a written creative writing thesis, and that worked very well for me in terms of my interests (and also that I spent time abroad, and taking a lot of classes in another department--allowed by the college's structure of a major with much room for electives). My thesis work then got me into a grad creative writing program (although not well known, it turned out to be perfect for me), and started me off on the grad school odyssey I am still in today. (NB I wouldn't recommend being as indecisive as I am, but then again I've always known that I wouldn't make a living off my writing, tried being a teacher instead, realized quickly that I didn't want to do that either, and have only just found a real career focus that has more to do with the aforementioned undergrad electives than anything.)

This is all leading up to me saying that although she may be confident and skilful enough to keep writing on her own without workshops, etc., workshops also teach you to recognize good feedback on your work and know what to discard and where to follow your own instincts. It's the rare writer in my experience who doesn't at some time want feedback, and need to then judge that feedback appropriately.

The most valuable part of the creative writing aspect of my degree was the mentoring process during my thesis supervision. I remember very little of the workshops themselves, but I'm still in touch with my thesis advisor who's been an incredible source of help and encouragement for the past 8 years. Our meetings about my work were invaluable.

Gah, this was long, hope it helps in any small way.

This is why I'd make a terrible English teacher.

yes to the general point. but reputation, especially below (but even at) the top tier of schools, varies greatly with region. Emory could be more impressive in the Southeast than some Northeastern schools that many (especially Northeastern) people regard as better.

(this assumes the relevance of reputation primarily to the non-academic world)

First I want to thank all of you for your thoughtful responses. This is so helpful, and I've been reading everything so far with pen in hand, taking notes. It's so great that you're willing to take time from your life to help a kiddo that you don't even know; I'm honored.

So... a few fill-in details: Ole Miss and Southern Miss. were on the original list because they're in-state schools and therefore cheaper. Ole Miss is somewhere Sarah feels comfortable with, since she lived there for five years. Southern has a good writing program. Duke is on the list because Sarah was selected by Duke in elementary school as part of their early talent recognition program, sort of an early-early recruitment program. She fell off their radar when we moved to California, but she likes the way the school looks and thought it was worth a try. Oberlin was a college we found by doing internet searches and from my memories of people talking about Oberlin when I was at Ohio University. She likes the idea of the liberalness of it. She's sick of living in a conservative world and would like to be in a place that's more open-minded. That's a strike against Ole Miss, by the way.

As for creative writing, I'm not too terribly concerned about that. She's one helluva writer right now. I changed my major at least four times in college and most of the people I knew did the same. I think it's just important to get *in* with something you feel comfortable with, and then let your expanding mind and world take its course.

But I've burbled long enough. Thanks for listening.

Grateful mom,
Jude

Denison (I think there are some ILXers who went there)
Kenyon (Olaf Palme & Paul Newman went there .. )

http://www.denison.edu/collaborations/ohio5/grant/
http://www.ohio5.org/

(That was me suggesting it by the way--thanks for the dl on how it really is. I'd never experienced it myself, just had friends who did --including one who was pretty resourceful and motivated and took classes several places-- but because I went to school in Western MA, we'd occasionally go to the area for record stores, shows, etc.)

Don't get your heart set on only one school, because you could be in for big disappointments - maybe you won't be accepted (it is a game of chance, in many ways), and maybe it won't be affordable. They always promise full financial aid according to the needs of every student, but what that often means is, they present you a financial aid package that "meets your need" which is almost entirely composed of massive federal + private loans. You can negotiate with several places and try to get better offers; I wish I'd known this as an undergrad, though I managed to secure nearly full funding anyway.

What I am saying in positive terms is, there are a lot of good schools, but don't expect to find the one, perfect school - and the most important thing is to visit and see if you like it and like the culture there, because the other students will be your peers (and future network/contacts) & as someone above said, probably have more influence on you than any other factor at the college. If it's between a school with a slightly lesser reputation and a big name school, and you feel you'll be happier at the lesser-known school, I'd pick that one. You know, for instance, I got in to Dartmouth and I thank my lucky stars I didn't go there, because I would have been probably both massively indebted and utterly miserable. College is supposed to be one of the best times of your life!

xpost
Chris, sorry to hear about your experience at Wm & Mary. I had that experience at Elite New England University. It blows. That's academe. They are not supposed to care. At some schools, they do anyway (St. Mary's! St. Mary's!) - at others, they don't.

I would look into Sewanee and give it a visit, in a heartbeat. Every time I visit my parents I try and imagine how my life would have turned out if I'd gone there. I'm happy how I ended up, but that's kind of by a series of absurdly lucky accidents. I can't see how attending that school could do anybody wrong (except if they weren't very sociable and wound up getting cabin fever)

"fygfrgr" should shove leave its head in its ass more often

2. I know very few people who ended up majoring in what they thought they'd major in. I guess that is another way of my saying that the college you choose is probably less important than you think.

3. I'm having a really, really hard time with the fact that mookieproof went to DOOK.

This (and your other points) are more true of grad level than undergrad (and it's debatable how true they are at grad level as well).

want to help your kid? disuade her choice of going into creative writing. there isn't a whole lot of demand in the market for creative writing majors.

That's the dumbest reason for not studying something in school that I can think of, outside of "it's kinda gay". University is not a votech!

i'm going to condescend and read a bit too much into the "more" here, but do you mean "a degree from a liberal arts college"? because just about every university offers liberal arts degrees and i don't think the libearl arts orientation of a liberal arts education in a good university is necessarily significantly smaller than that in a good small college. if you do lose something at the margin, you gain something else in the form of greater diversity of interest.

I am so eager to hear how this whole thing ends. When I was rejected from Brown their letter said "In many ways, it is not about where you go to college, but how you allow experiences to shape you" or something like that. My friend was rejected form Stanford, and that letter was icy cold. (She went to Haverford, another wonderful small college, on full scholarship. She went on to get her MD from Harvard.)
She is going to be fine, wherever she goes. I hope, for her, that she falls in love with a certain school and is allowed four years of learning and growth.
And, of course, she should go to Sewanee. But that's just my opinion.

- students there are typically outgoing (running the gamut from very friendly to arrogant). this is the perspective, of course, of a relatively reserved Northeasterner
- it doesn't have a particularly intellectual culture. but that doesn't mean the students aren't intellectual (or at least academic), just that it's maybe not as common to have serious discussions outside the classroom as it is elsewhere. many or most people are interested in things and compete academically, but they do it under the radar.
- many top nationwide schools are relatively racially diverse. Duke is too. it's not the most broadly diverse (taking into account all ethnic groups), but it may well be the most black-white diverse, and seems at least marginally 'greyer' than its peers (i.e. more black and white kids hang out together). (other top southeastern schools - Emory, UNC, Vanderbilt - will be similar; northeastern schools will be a bit more broadly diverse)
- you're going to find a fair number of rich people at any college/university, and the better-reputed the school the more of them there often are (a symbiotic relationship, really). but some schools have more of them than their peers. Duke is one of those. (so is, I think, the University of Michigan, and perhaps UVA)
- people are going to talk a lot about basketball and pretty much everyone goes to the game
- i'm told by a grad that the Duke Forest, which I believe abuts campus, is beautiful
- North Carolina is tobacco country

You say that like it's a bad thing.

The league was founded by a bunch of schools that didn't want to give athletic scholarships, so they banded together so that they wouldn't have to play schools that did (those Division schools get the athletically talented students because they can offer them a full ride).

Some of the schools are on the bigger and more sciency/engineering side (Lehigh), some are smaller and more liberal artsy (Bucknell, Lafayette). Also in the league: Holy Cross, American, Colgate.

I've been a student at both fancy private universities and two of the more prestigious state schools (including UNC-CH), and I'd say (arguably) that to some degree you get what you pay for.

Sarah is very pissed off this year because her classes are not teaching her anything.

it's a very liberal school. it doesn't really pretend to be anything else. students for the most part are very vocal about leftist politics, but i didn't see that as a problem. there are thousands of extremely conservative schools across the country, yet they never seem to get accused of brainwashing.

You're right about the basketball. (Not you, quincie!)

xpost re Duke diversity - yes, it's certainly diverse enough, like pretty much all major schools are. just not quite as diverse overall as say Columbia or Berkeley.

xpost re Oberlin - i don't have a problem with liberal politics (though maybe i do have problem with leftist and identity politics). it's not brainwashing that i'm concerned with, but rather a lack of ferment that occurs when most people agree with each other in the first place or are unwilling to cross certain boundaries. i'm painting a caricature - i don't see this as a big problem with the school, necessarily, but definitely a problem at the margin.

I haven't recommended my college since it was specifically for people who wanted to drop out of high school after junior or senior year and go straight there. Although it was great for me, I don't think it worked for everyone who went there, whether they stayed for 4 years and got a BA (as I did) or transferred out after 2.

But you mentioned your daughter doesn't feel like she's learning anything in high school--is she set on finishing out the 2 years, or would she want to start taking college courses ahead of time or think about some similar advanced-placing-type thing at all? This is probably of no use--I was just curious since it sounds like she's not being challenged enough.

Her school's guidance counselor is a pleasant enough dolt...

The kiddo is that awesome rarity in life, a person who loves to learn. She loves to be drenched with something new (as long as it isn't math - her personal Achilles heel), and she loves to be challenged. Public school just isn't cutting it for her. She spent four years, from fifth through eighth grades, being homeschooled, and it kinda spoiled the cookie-cutter educational process for her. My bad, I suppose. :/

Anyway, Sewanee is sounding very interesting. I've been doing some internet research on it, along with Vanderbilt and the Virginia and North Carolina schools. Finances will be key. We literally don't have the money to pay for her to go to college.

Oh, and for those who asked if she'd be interested in going abroad: She'd probably sell rights to any future children for the chance to go to England. But again, finances. ::sigh::

Jude, Mom who just wants to help

is it possible for your girl to take a few classes at community college to stretch herself? i really enjoyed that.

Also, the smaller liberal arts schools here (UNC-Asheville, UNC-Wilmington, UNC-Greensboro) aren't bad either. Of course, you can always look at things like Wake Forest and Duke, but they are really expensive. I'd stay away from NC State and South Carolina universities, but that's just MHO.

Oh, and I'll go on record and say I'm not a big fan of the music scene here. The Cat's Cradle gets good shows every now and then, but that's about it. Maybe the Local 506, too. Not getting all the love the music scene around here gets? Maybe someone can weigh in on this...

Anyway, hope this helps.

Um, an underhanded way to pay for school, provided you/she could stand it, is ROTC. You can drop out of it after the first year, which I did. It's the only way I was able to even sort of afford school. I found it somewhat distasteful, but it wasn't all that demanding and now I know more about naval propulsion systems than the average bear.

ROTC is probably 99.9% ruled out.

Oh, to monkieproof - wouldn't be surprised about that (Wilmington). Still, Chapel Hill's no better. People do love their partying down here. Whenever I mention this place to others, the first comment I get usually has "party school" in there somewhere. Halloween here is ridiculous (60000-70000 people came down to celebrate last year, it was insane). Most NC universities, or state public universities for that matter, would be no different, imo.

inhibition =/= "cannot"

Karbala College is lovely in the Fall

When she got home from school this afternoon, she did some looking with me, and really liked what she saw. The lack of a creative writing program, per se, didn't faze her at all.

So thanks, aimurchie, for that suggestion. Sewanee's going on the list for sure.

Jude

I really like Williams but I don't know if your daughter would because it's very rural (there are woods and mountains to hike in, which I see as a plus). There is no creative writing major, but people specialize within the English major, and a friend of mine is writing a contract major in creative writing because she dislikes the literature requirements of the English major.

Whatever your list says, definitely visit campuses (my best visits were after being admitted), it makes the decision much clearer.

Sarah wouldn't mind rural, as long as she has a small to medium city she can get to once a month or so. She's not an urban dweller so much, although she's not allergic to big cities like I am. ::wry smile:: Her dad loves big cities. The bigger the better. She's kinda in the middle.

I'll be checking into Williams also. Thank again. You guys are awesome.
Jude

Golf?

The main selling point for a lot of students is an extensive study-abroad program (something like 75% of juniors study abroad from anywhere from 3 to 9 months), which, depending on the place of study, is often no more expensive than regular tuition. I also found it to be a very personable campus. There's only 1200 or so students, so you wind up meeting almost everybody at some time or other; it's the kind of place where the college president says hi to you as you cross the quad and remembers the play you were in last fall. Some people, of course, find this sort of environment stultifying, but I found I excelled in it. Again, it's perhaps not as well-funded as an Oberlin or a Macalester, but its academic standards are very high and rigorous. (One of the school's most impressive statistics has to do with the percentage of students who go on to post-graduate work: it's on par with Ivy League universities.)

I don't know if it's the right place for Sarah (although there is an awesome poetry teacher who's so cool she's one of my Friendsters) but I sorta felt like I needed to give it some props, even if you just give it a cursory look.

Come to our college! You'll leave feeling unsatisfied about how much you've learned!

;-)

Bryn Mawr has a pretty good creative writing program but as others have noted above, the major could change easily. Academically all are stellar and you get the advantages of small schools (Haverford abt 1100, BMC about 1000 or so) but with all three colleges sharing programs a much wider range of classes than most other comparably sized schools can offer.

They're pricey but Bryn Mawr esp. is good about scholarships and grants.

okay i apologize the thread hijacking that's about to take place. freezing in the middle of nowhere is not bad, i sometimes think it's fun :) agreed that williams can be awfully rich and overachieving, and can sometimes feel unintentionally elitist, though. (i spent many hours during january term talking about race and elitism and people's backgrounds at williams so i'm feeling a little cynical at the moment, even though as a white kid from a rural school with pretty much no minorities and a generally sheltered life i'm part of the ignorance-and-lack-of-diversity problem.) but i doubt you can avoid that at any northeastern liberal arts school...if it matters a lot to you, then i guess it's a good reason to avoid northeastern liberal arts schools.

also, i was going to say i don't spend my time with any field hockey players from private school, but ironically enough my freshman roommate was a field hockey player from a magnet school. however, she's one of the most interesting, genuinely nice, brilliant people i know, so it's not like it matters.

well, the undergrad is

there was also no writing section. i wonder how the computer grades that.

i can't believe she's only taking it once, all the 'academically inclined' kids i knew took it like 5 times or more. i heard a rumor this one chick took it 8 times but i'm not sure if it was true.

I think she avoids ILX anyway because she knows I let my hair down a bit here, figuratively speaking.

She may change her mind about retaking it, but honestly, I think a 28 plus her class rank (1) will do as much good as a 30+. I think the writing section is fairly new, and is human-graded. It held her grade up a while. Her classmates got their grades at least two weeks ago, and she still hasn't gotten official notification of her grade — we went to the ACT website to get it the other night.

(OK, I'm totally guessing, and I'm no expert.)

amteur: what it mEANS is that i forgot to include th e part about the note that stanford sent her with the reverse-bribe (for that is what it was). actually i didn't forget about it, i just forgot what it said. surely someone here can enlighten the both of us.

Douglas, if you read this thread, congrats again, but FATHERHOOD IS A LIFETIME OF BEING PUT IN YOUR PLACE. (I wouldn't trade it for anything, though.)

(xpost haha SMART GIRL encourage her to go for the big guns, regardless of expense; most of them have amazing financial aid packages)

I'm speaking without really being informed here, but I think this stuff is more applicable to applicants that are:
a) from relatively privileged backgrounds (shows you can broaden your horizons, do more than the minimum, etc.)
and/or
b) from places/schools with numerous applicants (where A-M are equally qualified, but only J plays the French Horn, we'll take her)

My brother's now in the same position, and he's going to graduate a semester early and finish up senior year in community college because he's sick of high school and only has one class requirement left. I think he's leaning toward St. John Fisher in Rochester, NY - anybody know it, or other schools that are in cities, have decent humanities programs, and are sort of medium in terms of selectivity?

Aimurchie, if she winds up going somewhere other than Sewanee, I hope you won't track us down with a baseball bat! That said, we're going to do some campus visits this summer (thanks to a happy number at the end of our tax return) and Sewanee is on the list, along with Oberlin and one other that escapes me at the moment.

Chris, keep the "good party schools" recommendations coming, in case I decide to go back to college.

(Forgive him: He's got the flu and his brain is working less well than usual.)

Jude

Macalester College
Oberlin College
Sewanee College
Duke University
Kenyon College

Now's when some serious nuts and bolts pros and cons would be helpful. What you're dealing with here is an intelligent, curious, sensitive young woman who tends toward creativity and solitude rather than gregariousness and socialness. She loves to read, write, draw, do photography and spend time in nature. She's not interested in partying; it's just not her nature. She's liberal politically and socially. She loves small classes and really enjoys interacting with good teachers.

Given all that, any input you can give the three of us would be mighty helpful. Thanks!!

Jude, the mom wanting to get this right

I liked Macalester, and St. Paul seemed nice, but in the end it was maybe a bit too expensive, and I also decided that if I were going to a small liberal arts college, I'd go to one closer to home. (When I was first investigating schools, I looked all over the country, but in the end I realized I didn't actually want to go that far: so I went to Kalamazoo, a three-hour drive.)

I visited Duke, too, but just didn't really feel like I fit in.

Actually, I visited Oberlin, as well, but I think it was too expensive for me to even consider applying to.

I have a few friends who went to Kenyon, and they have nothing but good things to say about it.

The son of my college president goes to Sewanee. I don't know anything about him or what he thinks of the school, but if a college president sends his kid there, it's probably a good place to go.

The Wheaton College in Illinois is where Billy Graham went to school. It is known as the "Harvard of the Evangelicals."

She turns 17 tomorrow with the traditional Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake, and then Tuesday we're off to Sewanee for a campus visit and a bit of mountain air.

Kiddo made Star Student for her graduating class, which was tough on a classmate of hers who was dead even with her until the 3rd tiebreaking criterion. She gets to pick the Star Teacher, and it's going to be a bit of a surprise to her English teachers when she picks the math teacher who helped her go from math-illiterate to, uh, math-comfortable.

I was the sort of 18 year old who would have been eaten alive at a larger school. I knew I was spending 4 years in a sheltered world and I wouldn't want to spend my entire life in such an enlcosed atmosphere, but it was what I needed when I was 18 and trying to figure myself out. It is a very liberal school, but like with most liberals, we found plenty of issues on which we disagreed. A lot. Living in the middle of cornfields wasn't so bad either, especially with a conservatory full of talented musicians on campus.

I don't know much about the writing department, other than a couple of my friends are still in touch with some of their professors from there.

In general, I'm very pro-liberal arts colleges for undergrad education.

why is the kid sticking around home? even places like harvard and yale love kids who come from small towns in the middle and pay for travel expenses.

and if you do stay in the area (somewhat broadly defined), there are many other good or great options - Rhodes in Memphis, Hendrix in Arkansas, Wash U in STL, Rice (one of the very best schools in the country) in a nice part of Houston, Grinnell (one of the best small colleges) in Iowa. what about the University of Chicago?

(which isn't a dig on Houston as a city, it's a dig on mosquito-infested, polluted swamps)

anyway, Miss U for Women might be a good school, and college is in part what you make it, but she might be enough ahead of most students there that she won't be challenged much unless she does the challenging herself.

I'm really not sure what you're up in arms about. As I said, I have nothing against Houston as a city or its people, the Rothko Chapel is nice enough, etc. - but anyone choosing to live in a humid, polluted swamp is a better man than me. Or just enjoys sweating.

One of my classmates went to Rhodes, so I think your daughter should go there.

Hopefully she won't grow up to be an elitist like some.

remember, the sticker price is not necessarily the actual cost, and the richer the school, the truer the proposition

actually, this is true. Princeton's '03 avg cost after receiving grants based on need is $16K, $2K less than Rice, and it practices grant-only financial aid that is competitive in calculating parent contributions with Harvard and Yale, where the contribution from families under 40-45K is zero, and substantially reduced for families up to 60K.

I'm glad to be following this saga still! It's not QUITE as exciting as "LOST", but it contains just enough dramatic elements to keep me involved. Hope she is having a great Star Student senior year! xo to you three -Alison

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/mgm/igby_goes_down/_group_photos/claire_danes6.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/23/JuliaStilesinMonaLisaSmile.jpg/180px-JuliaStilesinMonaLisaSmile.jpg

Dean, please don't besmirch the fine names of Jordan Capri and Tawnee Stone.

as the College Board says, and at the risk of telling you what you already know, "Don't Rule Out Colleges with Higher Costs
Say your [Expected Family Contribution] is $5,000. At a college with a total cost of $8,000, you'd be eligible for up to $3,000 in financial aid. At a college with a total cost of $25,000, you'd be eligible for up to $20,000 in aid. In other words, your family would be asked to contribute the same amount at both colleges."

There are a lot of factors involved in her thinking MUW might be the choice: her favorite cousin went there and recommends it highly, for one thing. As college gets closer, she's starting to get a little nervous about being away from home for the first time, and MUW is less than hour away. The fact that MUW is in-state and not very expensive (relatively speaking) is a plus for her, because if she is having a crisis of nerves, she can save face by saying "Here's a good college nearby that won't break you guys financially." (I hope to hell she's not following this thread.)

I'm going to miss her when she goes off to school, and it would be great in one way if she goes nearby, but I don't want her to sell herself short by settling for MUW if better schools are going to be willing to give her a free ride. Right now, we're in a holding pattern until we file the FAFSA paperwork, which I think is in January. (That's the financial disclosure stuff that colleges use to determine need-based aid, for anyone who didn't already know it.) After that, colleges that are interested in her can start making more specific pitches, and we'll have a better idea of how limited our choices will be.

I would not discourage her from going to Rice or Swarthmore. (On a purely selfish note, I would rather visit Philadelphia than Houston, but hey.)

I wonder if Alex in NYC is following this thread...

in the small school-but-i-can't-vouch-for-the-financial aid-package category... Reed, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Scripps, Mt. Holyoke, Whitman, Sarah Lawrence, Lawrence U., Kalamazoo, Beloit, College of Wooster

in the aid-would-be-pretty-good-but-less-familiar-environment or bigger-pond (and harder-to-get-into) category...Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Pomona, Amherst, Brown, Williams, Wesleyan, Haverford, Wellesley

MUW looks like it has good faculty, if limited resources, and a very pretty campus, and the mostly-female environment probably reduces the conservatism of a Mississippi school (see Millsaps), but your daughter's test scores would be way above average there, and i'm not sure how the academic culture is affected by the fact that many students pursue nursing and education programs

Sarah got one of the Centennial Scholarships at MUW — four year free ride, plus $5000 grant for study abroad in the summer of '07.

EXCITEMENT

xpost -- actually, there are boys there now, after a lawsuit a few years ago. CONFIDENT boys, who don't mind being men at a school called "...for Women."

I doubt they would have a binding claim on her if she changed her mind after accepting, but see if there's any fine print on the scholarship.

i can't imagine that accepting MUW then UNC would have serious consequences unless she meant to play NCAA sports.

whatever happens, make her stay away from atlanta cause i hear chipper jones is a cheater!

MUW is a done deal. Sarah accepted their offer in January and it's all been taking care of the details since then. There was an early-registration session in March where she worked out her fall schedule -- in a fit of too-much enthusiasm, she signed up for 19 hours, which she will probably cut back to 15 during the first week of classes.

Freshman Orientation was last week and went very well, half a dozen new friends within 24 hrs. The MUW bookstore is not very good, and I had sticker shock at the textbook prices compared to '81-85, when I was in college. (I bought my Riverside Shakespeare new for $25 back then.) We're going to try to get a textbook list from her instructors and buy from Amazon marketplace sellers in late July/early Aug.

Right now she's staying up all night reading and writing, then sleeping until noon or one. It wouldn't hurt my feelings at all if she got a job.

We're waiting to hear about an NASE scholarship, but I'm not holding my breath.

You might want to check ABEBooks for textbooks too. New ones are scandalously priced. I paid $180 for a skinny little one for a design class (brand new too, so no used ones available), and then we barely opened it. Ridiculous.

Well congrats on having one leave the nest!

smart guys

Kiddo realized today that her binder full of DVDs, her entire collection, was missing. After a couple of hours of controlled panic, she had the phone in her hand to call the campus police when it turned up down the hall in another room. One of the other girls is a borrower and a forgetter-to-bring-backer, and was looking for a movie to watch.

Last word from Sarah to Judy was, "I'm going to dinner now, see if you can calm Dad down some."

So...grad schools. Museum science programs. Recommendations?

one of my best friends is like a top gun fighter pilot of museum science stuff - i'll email her and see what she thinks

Cool, thanks!

She's been looking at the Geo. Washington Univ. program and drooling.

The Curatorial Practice program at CCA is good, but probs expensive...that said, they gave me lots of money.

c/ped from the response from my friend:

JJ,
My program was pretty awesome, and also pretty reasonable: Seton Hall Univ. in South Orange, NJ which is right outside (12 miles) New York City. All of my classes were in the evening, which had 2 benefits: 1. you could work, and 2. your professors were all professionals in the field. I had the director of marketing at MOMA for a class. I had a development person at the Met for another class. Head registrar at the Newark Museum also taught at Seton Hall (she doesn't anymore) and became my mentor, and really helped me start my career (she was named one of the 100 most influential people in museums, on a list with like the founders of the Met and whatnot). Making those kinds of connections is invaluable in this field. The strengths of my program were the collections/registration department (which is what I do) and the education department (museum educator is kind of like being a teacher without having to grade or discipline). One of their education teachers, Claudio Ocello, is a powerhouse in the museum education field. She wins awards and stuff constantly, and is a highly visible figure in the museum world.
I have heard that George Washington Univ in DC has a very good program, but i think it's pretty pricey. It's actually the most expensive private school in America. yikes.
The University of the Arts in Philly has a program, but it's only real strength is in exhibitions, and I think you must have a strong background in fine art/design to get in and do well.
SUNY (State University of New York) in Cooperstown has a great program for people interested in history museums and historic houses. It's considered fabulous and it's fairly cheap b/c it's a state school. Pretty competetive, so tell your friend to work harder on her application that I did (I didn't get in - boo hoo).
I don't know of much in the Midwest. There are new museum studies programs springing up all the time, but the ones i mentioned above are some of the oldest in the US (Seton Hall's is about 15 years old now). There are also great programs in the UK, and I think they are only one year. The UK has been training in this field much longer than the US. If your friend has a couple in mind, let me know and I'll ask some folks in the field what they think.

Thanks, JJ! Have passed info along, and will likely have questions/requests for advice on this thread as the school year progresses.

further addendum:

Oh the Univ. or Delaware is supposed to have an excellent program, and i think it's kinda cheap. I would recommend that one, definitely.

Moved her back to school last weekend for her last undergrad semester btw. Seems like just a year or two ago that I started this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as3UlEsvwXo

Graduating with honors today.

congrats!!

World conquest to follow!

That's the plan!

I went to UTEP and hated it.

Congrats, Grizzly!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations!

all my friends graduated today but I am still stuck at tech for a couple more years

(Also congrats WmC's daughter!!!)

Thanks everyone! We just got home with the "kid" and all her stuff.

May I brag a bit more? Sarah graduated summa cum laude, fourth in her class of about 600. Whahey, half those genes came from me!

that's an amazing achievement. what's she planning to do next?

A bit of R&R, learning to drive and getting her license, finding and buying a car, finding a job (not sure how easy that'll be around here with a 13% unemployment rate), researching grad schools and financial aid possibilities with an eye toward a Masters program starting, uh, fall '11 I guess?

grad school is a good place to be when the economy's bad. i really enjoyed grad school, now that i think about it (i enjoyed law school, too, but it had such a different vibe and intensity level).

Taking a year off = very, very, VERY wise.

Yeah, that's the general agreement among us three. She's very tired after the final push on her Honors thesis/project, and would not have been able to put the proper time and effort into researching grad school possibilities along with getting current school work done. Regroup, recharge, research the future and then DOMINATE IT UTTERLY.

Hard to believe the little boomerang child is 24 today. Maybe we can get her moved out and on her own some year.

my sister moved out of home this year (for the first time ever - she never went to college) at the ripe old age of 24. but by the way she was bitching about how useless her boyfriend is around their new house, there's a good chance she'll have moved back home by the end of the year.

i guess you could take it as a compliment on how easy you are to live with?? i moved out at 18, and moved back for about 3 months when i was 20 - it was hell on earth, and i swore that i would live in a tent before i would ever live with my parents again.

is she still looking at museum degrees?

I don't think so -- we haven't talked grad school in a few months. She's extremely loath to take on any student loan debt, and we can't help.

xp -- yeah, we're too easy to live with -- the parents who don't get on her nerves (much). We've talked seriously about this -- her childhood wasn't enough of a grain of sand to drive her to form a pearl. She's got my level of ambition, which is nil or near enough. She needs to get out of the nest.

tough out there though.

Yeah, we're not making a big deal out of rushing her out. She's itching to go, but has to accumulate some $$$ first. She's been trying to make a go of her origami jewelry Etsy shop, but after a brief flurry of activity and a couple of wedding commissions (origami reception centerpieces and bouquets), that's settled into nuthin'. She had an interview this past Friday for a promising job at City Hall, fingers crossed.