When we were doing the college-search for Rob and then for William, I am not even sure how we chose which colleges to consider. I feel like we’re completely starting over with the twins. Did we just…go to places we’d heard of? or something? It all seems so willy-nilly in retrospect.
Since then, I’ve skimmed a book about how some colleges/universities have spent a lot of money marketing their brands, and that this is part of the reason for the huge increases in costs and in application competition, and that essentially it’s better to AVOID the colleges/universities you’ve Heard Of, because they tend to be over-priced and not a good value.
This is why I feel At Sea, I think: how does one find the colleges/universities one has NOT HEARD OF? I wondered if this would be a good use of Group Input. Because it isn’t really that we want to find the ones literally no one has heard of; we’re looking for the ones people might not have heard of, but that we know of for reasons other than Good Marketing. Maybe our friend’s kid went there, and we’d never heard of it before then, but our friend and their kid were both really happy with the value. Maybe we’ve heard of the place but it has a super boring/unmemorable name.
For example, Paul’s cousin’s kid is going to University of Chicago, which is a boring-named place I would not have remembered Hearing Of. But it’s apparently a terrific school?? and he’s going there almost for free, because they have a fabulous financial-aid situation??
Anyway, I would love to hear of any school you think it would be a good idea to look into. With TWINS (and another kid probably going to college two years later, so we’ll have THREE in school at the same time), I am definitely more inclined toward the less-expensive Good Value types of schools. (I am familiar with the idea of saving money by going to a community college for the first two years, so I have tucked that idea away as one option, but right now I am looking for the usual 4-or-5-year living-in-a-dorm type colleges.)
Oh, and this is going to rule out a lot of places, but we are not interested in religious schools. I had a long paragraph here about how I went to a religious school and it was a good fit for me at that time for various reasons that don’t apply now etc. etc., and about how what I mean by Religious is probably Christian but at this point I am not really feeling favorable toward ANY religion etc. etc.—but let’s just say Not Interested in Religious Schools (including Oh But It’s Not REALLY Religious! schools) and leave it at that. If the kids want to seek out a religious school, that’s not hard to do and it’ll likely save us some money, but I’m not going to do the seeking on this one.
I have no idea how it works for American students these days, but when I went to McGill (Montreal) there were a lot of American students because it was less expensive than big name American schools. I don’t know if that is still true, but they’d be in Canada, which I think is a plus!
I just finished the YA audiobook Charming As a Verb, and the protagonist was trying to decide between Columbia and McGill and his girlfriend weighed in by saying it was a great school and so much less expensive than college in the US that he should think of it as an international experience for dirt cheap.
I fell in love with McGill in the college brochure and wanted to go there so we visited. Montreal was LOVELY in August! At the time (graduated HS in 2000) the price differential was $4000 for McGill $12000 for my (very highly rated) in-state school. I ended up not going for various reasons including a scholarship and my mom’s wise words about me hating the cold and the snow, but the monetary difference was very large.
Well, I am watching this thread with interest. One thing club soccer has been good for (this is the year that college coaches can start to recruit kids on Ava’s team) is finding out about different schools.
For example, the coach from Stephen F. Austin contacted her-it’s a public school, but not one of the big public TX schools like A&M, Texas Tech, etc. It’s a really good value, but then again, it’s in East Texas, so.
In my home state of MN there are some very good smaller public schools, like MN State in Mankato (where my sister went), and St. Cloud State (where my brother-in-law went).
Is there such a thing as a private school that is not religion-affiliated or for-profit? Seems like a dumb question, but I’m now realizing I can’t think of one? I guess the thing with private schools is that they usually have more financial aid to give away and also you avoid the out-of-state tuition thing.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing about more schools!
Yes, there are TONS of small liberal arts colleges with no religious affiliation — all of the Ivies, for instance. Many smaller ones as well, like Macalester, Oberlin, Ithaca, etc.
Middlebury, Hamilton, Amherst, (I’m in the Northeast), Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Clark, Clarkson, St Lawrence…..
Off the top of my head. Oh, Endicott in Beverly,
MA. Emmanuel in Boston (could be religious…). Simmons in Boston.
There are a LOT of schools out there. I have no idea how many of these fall into the heard of category but they’re all smaller and not religious AFAIK.
I’d add Whittier College in a suburb of Los Angeles and Occidental College in Los Angeles to this list. Obama went to Occidental College.
I’m familiar with Minnesota State Mankato and St Cloud because of NCAA women’s ice hockey. And found my (religious ) college I attended for the same reason. So maybe a very random way to find schools is to pick a school and sport, go to their website, look at what teams they play and make a list. I used to look at rosters for baby names too, ha.
Fingers crossed that my son will actually be going to Indiana State this year. I think it’s a great college for the money with instate or that Midwest state benefit. The big push where we live is IU or Purdue, the smaller state schools don’t get a lot of attention.
I am really partial to small instate state schools that are looking for good kids. But even that is so expensive with room and board.
I work at the HS and I’ve talked to a lot of kids going to the University of Alabama. Apparently they are giving a lot of aid to attract students from around the country.
My whole family lives in Terre Haute, so happy to help with any locale questions.
Could you maybe give us some general geographic/demographic parameters? And general subject matter interest parameters? My oldest is heading off to college in August so I am VERY FRESH from the college search process. Our very first winnowing-down was geographic/demographic. My daughter did not want rural or isolated small town. She did not want southern US or Pacific Northwest. The only midwest she was interested in was Chicago. She preferred New England/northeast/East Coast bc we live in California and she wanted to go far away. So that narrowed things down a lot!
Then we got into size: she didn’t want small liberal arts OR big state university (although she did end up applying to a couple of University of California schools, just because it seemed silly not to as the application was pretty straightforward and they are a good educational value for the money). So we were mostly looking at colleges in New England/northeast, with undergraduate population between 5,000 and 10,000 total students, not rural.
There are tons of great schools she just didn’t want to even consider because she didn’t want to live in those areas or thought were too big/small. Which is limiting but also maybe fine? Because you have to narrow down somehow! And if we had come up with too few colleges to apply to, we could have always re-visited some of the limits. But she ended up with PLENTY of colleges to apply to, in a range of difficulty (from crazy hard to pretty safe). So that was a helpful first pass at the college search for her!
I can definitely suggest a few schools if you have some geographic/demographic or subject matter parameters?
No location parameters: I want this to be a resource for other people, too. Elizabeth plans to study studio art, but wants a college with tons of majors (i.e., not an art school). Edward plans to study computer science.
Does Elizabeth have a medium? I think most schools will have drawing/painting. They’re easy to source and don’t require much in the way of special equipment. Tulane has a glass program, ceramics, and sculpture I think. All of which are less common because of the specialized equipment (welding, kilns, annealers). I’m not sure about photography and how it has changed since digitalization. Oohhh printmaking is fun too, it’s like the middle between drawing/glass.
Tulane is not an art school in a fascinating place. If she did that, lmk, I know some great people down there. A friend who is a graphic artist went to Carnegie Mellon, her husband does product design, so they have some art.
My husband is a Tulane prof. If you have an interest, we can help. It’s $$$$$ but I for example went to Tulane Law on full scholarship – they have lots of financial
Aid.
My kids went to Alfred University, a very small school in western NY, which has an art college, a liberal arts college, and an engineering college. The art program was very good and we got a ton of financial aid.
Sarah, I was just thinking of Alfred University as well!
If you’re not looking for “brand-name” schools, both UMass Amherst and Univ Maryland at College Park have excellent computer science programs!
My daughter is also studying studio art, and she is attending Indiana University in Bloomington this fall. Their art school is part of their College of Arts and Sciences, which fits your criteria to a T (tons of majors). Beautiful campus. Disclaimer: I went there too! Great school.
This was my rec, too. Their art school is great and the campus is so lovely.
I don’t know if Canada appeals, but the University of Waterloo has a great computer science program and is the best university for co-op in the country. My BFF’s daughter is just finishing a joint degree in computer science and business there and has TONS of job options open to her.
I am not familiar with many of the colleges around as I never attended a 4 year college. Here in California, Cal Tech is famous but if you’re looking for something less known, both Cal Poly San Luis Obispo & Cal Poly Pomona would work. As they are known for their floats in the Pasadena Rose Parade (for New Years Day), it would seem as if though computer science would be a major part of that. The students at each school, work on one half of the float, and then they come together to complete the build. As the animation is outstanding & they’ve won many awards, I’m sure that the emphasis would be on computer science. Besides the “fun” of working on something unique each year, the advantages of west coast weather & the silicon valley nearby couldn’t hurt.
One data point about CA state schools: They are tremendously hard to get into (they have a huge number of applicants). My nephew (CA resident with a 4.0 HS GPA and good test scores) did not get in to most of the large CA state schools he applied to.
I think this is the right approach, based on my now dated experience of applying to college (I ended up at University of Chicago, by the way! Probably couldn’t get in now, though…)
Anyhow, the person going to college should consider the college experience they hope for and think about whether that aligns to a city, college town, rural area, etc. Do they want the option of joining a fraternity/sorority or do they NOT want Greek life to predominate on campus? Should sports be a big thing or not? Should class size be hundreds, thousands, close to ten thousand? Do they envision learning well in mainly large lecture classes? And of course, what are acceptance rates and where do their test scores fall (if the school is still taking scores as a part of the application). When I was applying to college, I had a physical book (something like Princeton Review) with a list of colleges and all this information. I assume this information is all digital now, but might be worth checking the library to see if they have something similar in hard copy?
My first is going off to college in August, and we went through quite an extensive college search, so here’s what I learned. I think it’s easiest to narrow down by size, cost and location. So tour a large state school, a mid-size, and a smaller liberal arts college. Then location — does it have to be within driving distance (and what does that mean to you?). Finally, cost. How much (if anything) are you and Paul going to contribute? Will you cosign loans? Does the school give merit, or only need-based aid? I know major can play a role as well, but my son’s ideas of what he will major in have changed (and changed again) since fall of his senior year, so this is a “know your kid” kind of thing, I think.
We found the Fiske Guide really helpful and used little post it flags on the pages with schools of interest. Also take a look at school’s Common Data Sets. This is a long spreadsheet schools release every year with apples-to-apples info. I think they are absolutely fascinating and way underused. Everything from how many kids were admitted off the waiting list the previous year (section C2) to how that school ranks various criteria when looking at applications (section C7) to how many students join fraternities/sororities (F1) to the section I scrutinized the most — FINANCIAL AID (section H.) Section H really breaks down how much financial aid a school gives, and whether it’s only need-based, or whether they give merit only.
Good luck, and please report back!
Oh — to find a school’s CDS, simply google “SCHOOLNAME CDS” and usually it’s the first result.
I forgot about the CDS – we found it very helpful and informative too!
Do they have any special interests or programs they may to be into? It might be worthwhile to search random lists like “schools with great intramural sports” or “colleges for quirky art kids” or “colleges for science and math kids”
Not sure if these meet your criteria or not, but I went to Emory University and also considered Washington University in St Louis. The schools are very similar and I ended up choosing Emory because it had better weather … probably not the best reason but it ended up being great.
I went to the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. It’s coed (it used to be the women’s branch of UVA), small, highly respected and I loved it. I went to grad school at the University of Chicago and easily held my own with people who went to Heard Of colleges. Bonus: It’s the only public college in the US named for a woman!
I just want to say this is fascinating to me as a Canadian, where our school selection process is… well, quite different. Not entirely. But in many ways. I love reading about it!
I’m from a small town in northern CA (official population is 15,000 but there’s about twice that in the area) & when I was nearing college application time I applied to a random handful of large state schools (private school wasn’t in the budget). I didn’t have many older friends and didn’t have much guidance on how to approach the situation. I ended up at a very large state school (San Diego State University which had approx 30,000 students at the time) and wished so many times through out my 4 years in college that I’d gone to a smaller school because there didn’t feel like a sense of community. I considered transferring to Chico State & Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at various times during college, but I also didn’t want to move away from my college boyfriend or have to start over rebuilding a social circle. This probably doesn’t seem very helpful, other than to suggest making sure to have the twins consider the pros/cons that come along with different sized schools.
Unrelated, the first private school that comes to mind that I don’t believe has a religious affiliation but is definitely not of the small, liberal arts variety is Stanford University.
So interesting that it feels like starting over for you.
I agree that location and size of school were determining factors for me. Probably more so than a prestigious program.
Not my alma mater, but The College of Wooster is a gem of a liberal arts school in Ohio. It is kind of known for its Independent Study requirement which is like a thesis for undergrads. Weekly meetings with a faculty advisor during your senior year on a topic of your choice. A major accomplishment before graduation. I know several people who went there and loved this aspect of it.
Agree! I know someone who graduated from The College of Wooster and she spoke highly of her time there. In fact, some colleges are undergraduate only, like this college, and graduates say they like that the focus is on them, not on grad students.
They work really hard to get scholarships for most kids. It’s a pretty, leafy, and walkable campus.
My twins’ high school handled so much of this and that’s why they’re both going to schools that I had barely heard/thought of: Kalamazoo College and Ferris State.
The kid going to Ferris is only going for a year before transferring to UofMichigan (sophomore acceptance), so that doesn’t really help you. But my kid going to KCollege got SO MUCH in scholarship money that if she works part-time, she’ll have no loans to repay when she graduates. And it’s a small, liberal arts school (non-religious) with a fantastic reputation. One of their recent alum will serve as clerk to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court and a professor just won the Pulitzer in Poetry.
She wouldn’t have even looked at it (it is $$$ on first glance), but a friend’s older brother goes there and the friend got great scholarship money, too. When we toured, it seemed like such a good fit: very liberal, emphasizing studying abroad and ranked 71 in the nation. Definitely worth checking out!
https://www.kzoo.edu/
Kalamazoo College has such a great reputation! I remember how big the study abroad component is of their program.
Thank you! I was a bit hesitant at first because I had never heard of it (despite growing up nearby), but even my judgy FIL said he’s mentioned it to people and gotten positive feedback. I’m so excited for her! And she says I can visit her in Costa Rica when she does her study abroad component. :)
Kalamazoo is a pretty great little city, my husband grew up there!
When my daughter was looking at schools, the book “Colleges that Change Lives” was recommended to us. It is essentially lesser known schools that give (in the author’s opinion) a great education and are better Investments then some of the big name schools. It’s also been described as schools for the B student with the implication that if your child was better than a B student they would be able to get significant financial help. I read the book thoroughly and we picked a few of the schools that were not too far away to visit (along with other schools not in the book.) My daughter ended up going to McDaniel in Maryland which is featured in the book and we would not have heard of otherwise. She did get significant financial help and was very happy with her education. She was accepted into graduate school so going to school without a big name didn’t hurt her at least. We enjoyed visiting her there. Here’s a review from Amazon about the book that I thought was helpful:
As a college counselor, I often suggest schools from this book to students. When the book came out, I loved it because it allowed students and families to think beyond “the usual” and to get a sense of how colleges are very different from each other. I would not use it now because it is so out of date. However, there is a Colleges That Change Lives website (ctcl.org), which is up to date, though still does not give a complete picture of things like the financial health of schools. I highly recommend checking out the schools mentioned in this book.
I was coming here to recommend this book! It’s a good way to find “hidden gems” in many cases.
My standard advice about colleges mirrors a lot of what’s already been said, plus this: most people are happier as a medium-to-large fish in a small-to-medium pond than as a tiny fish in a giant pond. And by this I mean a “good fit” school is more likely to be one where your kid can float at the “top” rather than either attending a stretch school (where your formerly exceptional student is now utterly average and May experience an identity crisis and/or burnout) or a giant institution where they may not be able to easily find their niche. The other advantage of this approach is financial: a so-called top school is less likely to give merit money when all the students are exceptional, whereas a middle-of-the-road school will throw money at a good student.
My oldest attended a small state school where she found her tribe in the honors program and they gave her a ton of additional scholarships (here in GA, there are automatic state scholarship programs based on high school GPA and test scores). My youngest opted for a competitive stretch school and crashed and burned pretty much immediately. Several years of recalibration later, they first got back on track at a small, local school, and now are finishing up at our state’s flagship university, which has been good for them, academically, but difficult, socially. (That’s a whole ‘nother story.)
Tl;dr: You can get an excellent college education pretty much anywhere you choose. Go for what’s affordable, where you’ll be a valued member of the community, and where they offer the stuff you want to study.
I agree with the others that searching for ones by programs in which they have interests might be a good start. The colleges in my family are: Carnegie Mellon (for engineering), University of North Texas, University of Houston (good for business and hospitality), Baylor, Trinity University (San Antonio) and Oklahoma State University. I don’t know if that helps you any. Also they might want to consider some based on location; if they are wanting to get out of the cold and go someplace warm? Or wanting a smaller town than a big university town. I don’t envy this decision making. My kids are a long way off.
My older daughter went to the University of North Texas; it is a good “artsy” school but has lots of other majors as well. It’s outside of Dallas in a town called Denton which is a fun little town with coffee shops and vintage stores on the town square. Of course, it is in Texas so BYOPB (bring your own Plan B). :/
One thing that I made sure both my girls knew: the choice of college is not a one-time, final decision. If they had started somewhere and didn’t like it, they could decide to transfer elsewhere. I think that took some of the pressure off–and we said the same thing about majors, too. Our younger daughter started out as an education major and switched to business mid-sophomore year. One of my friends commented on the “wasted tuition,” and I said the bigger waste would have been to get a degree she didn’t want!
I cannot really relate to this because my country is smaller than most American states, buuuuuuuut, tge strategy I used for myself and still use for any younger friend/relative to help them pick us STEP 1, list ALL the options and then STEP 2, FILTER OUT.
Does the US have some website or list that contains ALL the universities? If not, a significant portion, or at least most the universities that are with affordable-travel distance from you guys? Or a list of all the universities that have the major Edward/Elizabeth/Henry is interested in?
Things to filter on in general:
– price of tuition / level of financial aid
– rankings
– has the uni had any significant controversy in the past decade that suggest it’s not run by great people?
Things to further filter on, based on how important/relevant it is for the child(‘s personality):
– ease of travelling home (can it be done within a week or must it be planned/booked months in advance?)
– type of dorm options
– whether friends are also going / if they already know anyone there
– is it a “student town” or a quiet ish town that happens to have a uni nearby
– is it a top school in a major they’re interested in
– climate / weather of town (quite important for EG seasonal depression sufferers or people who truly trut hate rain)
– political climate of town
– cost of living in the area (groceries and gasoline etc)
– extracurricular activities available (eg did you know some unis have absolutely niche stuff like FICTIONAL FANTASY CLUB? How cool is that? Perfect for a kid that’s super into that and can meet like-minded friends through it )
SO for example in my situation, I picked my university mostly because I really liked what they were uniquely doing with my preferred major, but I also picked it because it was (long but feasible) commuting distance from my parents, so I commuted the first year and moved to the town after that. If the uni had been on the other side of the country I would not have gone there.
According this website, the U.S. has 1765 accredited universities – https://www.4icu.org/us/a-z/
I definitely think filtering is a great idea, but the geographically filtering should probably be by state or region to avoid being overwhelmed.
Personally, I filtered by degree program after filtering by state.
Ah cool that you found this website! :)
I indeed agree that geographical filtering is very useful. Swistle’s kids or anyone in general could indeed, if they don’t know where to start based on other things I mentioned, start with things like selecting location based on weather, political climate, etcetera.
I work in an academic-adjacent field and have colleagues at smaller private schools that people seem to love – Lehigh, Bucknell, U of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Melon, Ithaca College, College of New Jersey, Central Michigan U, and Juniata College.
I am assuming that you can narrow down the list you get here by geography, demographics and whether the school has majors your children may be interested in. (BTW, I would ad the criteria of going to school in states that will continue to respect reproductive freedom.)
Sone great lessor know schools:
Middlebury College – Middlebury, VT
Skidmore College – Saratoga Springs, NY
Oberlin College – Oberlin, OH
Alfred University – Alfred, NY
Post University – Waterford , CT
Yup, hate that this has to be part of the college process but I would also consider continued respect for reproductive freedom…
My daughter and I have ruled out a few states already for this reason. I didn’t get the impression that she was all that interested in looking at schools in those states anyway so it may have been moot. There were a couple of states near our home state that I probably would have encouraged her to look at but not now.
Yes absolutely re reproductive freedom . In Ohio we have a state rep who is threatening businesses who pay for people to cross state lines to get abortions. Feels like North Korea or something and it’s hard to say yes come here and consider building your life here, right now.
Post University is a for-profit university in Waterbury, CT. It is also quite different from the other schools you mentioned. I am wondering if you meant Connecticut College in New London, CT? It is very similar to Middlebury and Skidmore.
Not the OP. I was thinking CW post, on Long Island? It seems to now be LIU Post, after a google.
I went to the University of Nottingham to do English and American Studies. Back then you applied to 6 universities based on visits and/or their brochure that you’d see at school. I liked the cover of the Nottingham one because it had grass and squirrels. I didn’t realize I was signing up for a US exchange program as part of my American Studies joint honor. But I ended up at Middlebury College in Vermont for a fall semester. I liked how small it was there.
Definitely check out small liberal arts colleges (SLACs)! They tend to be small, cozy communities and are totally focused on the undergrad learning experience (as opposed to large research universities, which are fantastic in many ways but tend to have other priorities).
The most well-known SLACs are highly selective (Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Swarthmore…) but there’s a whole world of others which are great schools, though not everyone has heard of them. Some offer good financial aid. Likely google will turn up a lot of options to explore, depending on your children’s interests and region of choice!
YES for this! I went to a SLAC that is ranked maybe between #40-50 nationally. I had a great experience, but they were extremely generous with scholarships.
I think often schools in the “middle of the pack” have to be more generous than bigger name schools. For wha try education wound up costing, it was a great deal.
I think it depends a lot on the personalities of the children….
A big school will have lots of options and opportunities – but also the option to get lost in the shuffle for a child who isn’t particularly good at self-advocacy or holding themselves accountable for things like actually going to class.
A prestigious school could be great for a kid who aspires to a certain kind of life…or really alienating for one who isn’t going to enjoy sitting around and listen to all of their classmates stories about European vacations.
A school with a really tight knit sense of community might be perfect for someone who is going to throw themselves into that whole heartedly – or horrible for someone who isn’t a joiner.
A school that’s really selective might be a great competitive challenge for one kid and paralyzingly stressful for another.
One kid might more motivated by a college that feels very traditional with bricks and ivy and esoteric subjects, while another might be more motivated by curriculum that’s completely tailored around a future career
One kid might want to use college as a once in a lifetime opportunity to try something different (a big city! an HBCU! Alaska! Whatever the heck Reed is!) while another might might need to stay a little closer to their comfort zone to stick it out for four years
But I am no use when it comes to identifying individual colleges…I work at a public university in California, and one of my best party tricks is reminding my East Coast colleagues that the rest of us have a hard time keeping straight which colleges are even considered Ivy League.
(You might also look at state governments. Its hard to know how much of it is just talk, but colleges in states with Republican legislatures seem like they might be looking at huge recruitment/retention problems with faculty over the next several years, and the public ones are getting their budgets slashed. on top of that. And faculty turnover ends up having a huge impact on students)
True re: state schools in red states having funding cuts (and also bizarre “anti-CRT” stuff). Spouse works for one. It is… perturbing. (and yes, active job search for something somewhere less-red is ongoing)
Also worth finding out class size. There are some things it’s fine to learn in a 200-person lecture class, and some students do fine with that, but if part of your motivation to complete work is a connection to your teacher, that is *not* the way you want to go.
As an Oregon resident I barked with laughter at “whatever the heck Reed is” perfect!
Not sure if this will be helpful but this College Navigator tool has a million filters if you want to drill down on specific things, and then it has all the information you could want on majors/programs, enrollment, tuition, and financial aid (ie average aid by award type). Note this has pretty much every college in the U.S. including technical and community colleges, so select the right filters or else you’ll get a ton of results.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to study, so I went to a large state school that had tons of options for switching majors. (I applied as an English major since I was told that applying as undecided lessened my chances of getting accepted.) I ended up adding two additional majors and keeping the English major, so that was a good call.
I also didn’t mind the large university part with huge classes of 200+ people since I also had a solid 10% of my high school (so some 40 students from each year and thanks to marching band and theater, I knew a lot of people above and below my grade) so I probably already knew at least 30 people prior to stepping foot on campus. It was kinda nice to randomly see familiar faces walking to class but I think I only ever had one class (with a total of 10 students) with another high school classmate unless we both made the effort to sign up for that class to share a class.
It was also just far enough away from home (3 hours) that my parents weren’t going to randomly stop by a ton but not so far away that going home for a weekend was out of the question. Add in in-state tuition and it seemed like a good fit. I have no regrets for picking my school or my majors.
I also suggest searching Google for good schools for the sorts of things that Elizabeth and Edward think they might want to study.
Maybe a good Summer Project for those two could be going through the March Madness college’s for the last four years and picking schools from there that they don’t recognize to research a bit more. It seems that there is always one or two schools that no one has heard off in the bracket each year.
A few of the smaller, less known colleges that I can name off the top of my head: Lehigh University, Davidson College, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, Ursinus College, and Emory & Henry College.
Swistle, I have been reading your blog since I myself was in college, before Henry was born! I am 37 now, and I just had my first baby. I had an alarming thought: I did the college application process when I was 16-17, which is somehow TWENTY years ago. It feels so recent for me, but I am closer in time to going through the college application process for my new baby than I am to my own college application process!
All that to say, things may have changed a lot since my time! But back in my day, I looked at the US News and World Report college rankings. They have lots of good data like acceptance rates and freshman class test scores/high school GPA, etc. Based on that I was able to narrow down the field to colleges to which I was likely to get accepted. I then further narrowed the field down to places where I would likely get scholarships or at least fall around the middle of the pack–versus like, Harvard and Yale, where I figured I would feel outclassed by the other kids and would have to take out a mazillion dollars in loans (now that I’m older and wiser, IMHO it is probably worth it to go to an Ivy if you can get in!). Then I narrowed it down further by geography. If the twins have ideas about what they want to focus on, the US News and World Report college rankings also rank schools based on subject matter–for example, ranking which schools are best for engineering, etc.
I also started reading Swistle in college all those years ago! Time is just a trip.
Hmm…having read the other comments now, I want to also add that while attending a large research university isn’t for everyone, it was definitely for me (although in a perfect world, it’d be nice to also try a small liberal arts college and be able to compare). For me, the advantages were…
1) I loved being surrounded by everything that was going on. I wasn’t a theater major, but there was a world class theater department. I wasn’t a music major, but I got a job in the music department and ended up doing my studying while a live symphony played in the background. I once had an engineering student hit on me by explaining the superiority of bamboo as a building product. Another friend dragged me along to her Womens Studies class. I took so many classes outside my major. A professor excitedly asked me in office hours once if I could read in German, because she was looking for a research assistant who could read German. Another offered me a job at the zoo watching bonobos. I met people from all over the world, with all kinds of accents, and from all walks of life. I’m sure you get some of that at any college, but at a really big research university, it’s basically an unlimited supply.
2) I also honestly enjoyed the anonymity. I was an outsider…but it didn’t especially feel like there was any inside that I was outside of. 20k students kind of collapses the difference between popular kids and less popular kids…no matter who you are, you’re going to end up spending lots of time with people you don’t know, and it saves you from getting stuck with people you don’t want to be stuck with. The roommates I didn’t particularly get along with? No idea where they ended up. My high school boyfriend and his new girlfriend who picked the same school as me but I never wanted to see? I barely saw them more than a handful of times. I was able to just keep meeting new people until eventually I found some that I genuinely liked.
When we were looking at colleges, geography and cost were the biggest factors. Shockingly enough, my son decided to go to a smaller state school than the ones his buddies ended up attending, and he loved it. If your kids have any interest in North Carolina, we found Appalachian State to be a great college. As I said, he loved it (the COLD would have killed me though). Books are included in the tuition, for the most part (at least, they were when he was there), which was a big help.
My question is this – how are all these kids growing up so quickly that we are looking at college options?! Yesterday, they were all babies.
When I was college-seeking, I ended up at a college that was recommended via a professor in a summer “college class for high school credit dual enrollment” situation. I had never heard of it, but he had taught there as a visiting professor and thought it would be a good fit when he asked about my future plans. I googled it on a whim, set up a tour, and decided to go when I did my campus visit.
What are your thoughts on religious schools that are loosely affiliated? I work at a Methodist SLAC, but everything’s optional. So no required chapel or similar things, we just have extra opportunities for religious stuff if you want it. It’s very much something you could skip out of in your 4 years here. I mostly ask because I want to shamelessly plug the institution (Centenary College of LA). If either of the twins cares about international travel, we send our first-year students to Paris and over 80% of our students have another international trip before graduation. We also have fairly good med and law school admission stats.
My feeling is no also to “But It’s Not REALLY Religious!” schools. It’s just, I feel like most people who belong to a religion tend to feel that an institution matching their religion is not REALLY religious, when someone outside that religion would beg to differ; the student body will also lean toward participants in that religion. I also don’t want my money going to the support of religious institutions if I have a choice—and there is SO MUCH CHOICE!
My daughter and I toured my alma mater because 1. we just happen to live 30 minutes from it and 2. it filled the “let’s look at an SLAC just to get a feel of what a SLAC might be like”. It is affiliated with a religion but claims to not be REALLY religious. And when I went there, I felt like Greek Life dominated the college campus/culture. So I did sell it to my daughter as “it’s not really religious” and really stressed this just for sampling purposes only. I was really annoyed that ALL 5 of the Res Life students on their AMA panel all talked about going to chapel 3 times a week and how bible study groups were super important to them (but that’s just them, of course! not *everyone* goes to chapel that much or bible groups. no, really! we mean it!) Had that been my experience when I did a formal visit day, I would not have attended that school. So now I feel like I need to find another SLAC so she doesn’t have the impression that SLACs are religious.
I’m a few years older than Rob, and grew up on/around three very different college campuses because my parents are academics. When I was looking, I knew I 1. had no clue what I wanted to do with my life and 2. wanted a live-on-campus-for-four years situation, preferably on the smaller side. As folks have mentioned above, there are lots and lots of small liberal arts colleges (SLACs) of varying levels of academic intensity (and varying price/aid points) that aim to give kids a well-rounded education in a small residential setting.
I would also second the recommendation of “Colleges That Change Lives,” even if they don’t choose one of the schools featured, they may get a better sense of the kinds of things to look for. I also was given the Fiske Guide to Colleges for my 16th birthday, which sadly does not seem to have a web edition, but is incredibly useful if not a bit overwhelming.
Even after applying to mostly SLACs, I ended up at a larger School You Have Heard Of that was very academically intense but mimicked some of the things about SLAC I liked (entirely residential, small academic communities, a high degree of support). I think I would have done well in either setting. Where I went, I went from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in a big pond, where I could not get As and perfect scores in everything, and it really forced me to mellow out and determine what I really value in life outside of “being perfect.” However, I think I could have done well at a SLAC too: I probably would have benefited from smaller class sizes and professors who were there because they liked teaching undergrads instead of there because of their Fancy Research.
All that is to say, they may end up somewhere completely different from where they started looking, and they shouldn’t feel pressure to find The Perfect School, there are lots of schools out there that would be great fits.
University of Wisconsin Whitewater Is a great school for business and education. Smaller college. Public. Many of the University of Wisconsin system colleges are very good. Also in Wisconsin Lawrence University. Liberal arts. Generally good financial help.
I agree- Lawrence is a wonderful SLAC and offers lots of financial aid. Beloit College is the same and always listed on the “Colleges that will change your life” list. Also, Milwaukee School of Engineering has a wonderful Computer Science program. It’s a small private school in a great downtown neighborhood.
I’d always heard that the unofficial motto of University of Chicago is “Where fun goes to die”.
My son went to University of St Andrews in Scotland. Comparatively inexpensive when compared to US private schools but the commute is rough.
To make up for that difference, my daughter went to Tufts which is OBSCENELY expensive.
So, in sum, we did not make out that well.
Last year, the marketing mailers my daughter got from the University of Chicago were some of my favorites. For instance, they sent one about their fictional alumni! Like Harry & Sally (from When Harry Met Sally) and Indiana Jones. Maybe they are trying to counter that saying, which I have also heard! 😀
I loved Chicago’s marketing so much that I kept some postcards after the rest of it all was ceremoniusly dumped in the recycling bin.
*ceremoniously (and what a happy ceremony that was).
One of the characters in the movie The Accountant actually said this line!
Haaaaa, my high-achieving, valedictorian daughter didn’t even finish her application to U of C because she said it was asking absolutely ridiculous questions and she assumed that students who were not up for that sort of BS would self-select out. She said it was like “What sort of animal would you choose to be?” type questions. Maybe they’re trying to turn up the whimsy?
I came to also recommend the Colleges That Change Lives list. Also, many religious-founded schools have unaffiliated, so check that out.
Also, if your county uses Naviance or SCOIR there are college search features built in.
I feel squicky talking about a business in the comments section, but counseling students through the college search is my job and I’m happy to answer a few questions through email for Swistle or commentors at collegewithsara at Gmail dot com. No obligation. I LOVE talking college.
The spacing put a dash in there on my phone.
Collegewithsara at gmail
I went to a big university (Iowa State), and I liked it because I was a biology major and there were LOTS of courses in Biology, Botany, Zoology, etc. and lots of kids from very small towns. It’s not near a large city, but that wasn’t important to me. I liked being totally anonymous. On the other hand, my daughter went to a small liberal arts college near home (Sewanee – they’re trying to drop the University of the South name) that coddled the kids (many of whom suffered from anxiety & depression – possibly a sign of the times), had fewer courses in Biology (her major also), but a huge campus (on top of a mountain in Tennessee where both the scenery and buildings are just beautiful), and would be great if you wanted to be a writer. They also did a spectacular job of handling the initial COVID epidemic. It was originally religiously-affiliated, but not really any more, other than the seminary.
I guess my point is, knowing what your kids are interested in/likely to major in would help narrow it down. Then you can google for “best colleges for whatever” and get a list of the top 50 for that major.
I went to a large public research university in a small college town, next to a medium city and just an hour or two away from a Big Famous City. And I largely adored it. I was definitely a tiny fish in a big sea, but I found a great group of friends, there was such a fun college town atmosphere, the university offered all the classes and all the majors, and there was abundant nature around.
I went there because they offered my major/type of major and because they offered me a huge scholarship and because my high school sweetheart (barf) went there a few years before I graduated. Even though we broke up almost immediately (some shame and regret now as an adult, still working on letting that go!) upon my arrival, I absolutely don’t regret going there. And I met my husband on top of my best friends there.
Anyway, huge research universities aren’t for everyone but they can be a wonderful choice for some people!
Now I really want to know if you went to UMass Amherst bc your description was so specific and would totally apply! (not that you have to answer, just as a local resident I found it amusing!)
My guess was UC Davis = ).
Ask about how many kids get the schedule they want and graduate in four years. My oldest went to a small LAC and had a good experience, graduated in four years. My middle went to a mid size state school, which we later learned was focused on budget cutting. It took him almost six years, not entirely his fault, to get his degree, because he would need a class to progress in his major and it was full and wouldn’t be offered again for another year. My third one wanted to go there and I wouldn’t even let her apply, I was so mad at them. She graduated from a regional campus of the state’s flagship university, and that went well and was super affordable compared to the others. For my kids, size was the most important thing, followed by the city and then the major. None of them but the third one knew what they wanted to study when they started.
For good value, I would start with in-state options. Especially if you live in one of the states with the lowest in-state tuitions: https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-state.
My experience/regrets were:
(1) I wish I had paid less and ignored the name on the building. I paid $300k for a bachelors at a liberal arts college that’s a “top 50” in the country. Most people I work with have never heard of it and don’t care. Complete waste of money, and academically, it was extremely rigorous (ie no fun).
(2) I wish I had gone to a school near where I wanted to work so I could have made connections with local companies & alumni working in the area.
(3) Grad school did not care about the tier/rank of my college. They wanted high GPAs & high test scores (GRE, LSAT, MCAT) to make their stats look good. I could have gone to an undergrad college no one had ever heard of, been the valedictorian there, & had a better shot at grad school with way less debt.
(4) As an employer, I only check to make sure the applicant has the degree required for the posting (ex: bachelors degree). I could care less where they went, what they majored in, or what their GPA was. Obviously, this could be very different depending on what field you’re talking about.
TLDR: Don’t overpay. Get the piece of paper as cheap as possible and move on with life. Bonus if you can get it somewhere you’d want to work/live after.
20 years out of college, I can’t agree more. Every (potential) employer is concerned that I have the requisite degree, but couldn’t care less where it came from. It’s only come up in passing and wasn’t a big deal – “Oh, that degree on your wall looks familiar. You went to SIU, too? Cool. Do you know how to fix this funky formatting thing Excel keeps doing?” And the networking I was able to do while working entry level jobs while earning my degree meant I was fully employed upon graduation. That didn’t seem like a huge win back then, but hearing about people who couldn’t find a job in their field and had to wait tables to pay off student loans after the grace period ended makes me glad I went that route.
This is also a useful tip for students who start out at a community college and then transfer–no one will know that you didn’t do all four years at the school where you earned your degree! And you can save SO MUCH MONEY it’s ridiculous.
I could make suggestions if I knew your location parameters – I am only familiar with the mid-atlantic and northeast. There are a ton of quality state schools that are less well known.
Re: cost, I have always heard that a private college may have more financial aid resources than state schools, so it could end up less expensive. Also, this is only an option for Elizabeth, but my alma mater (Smith) recently announced that they will no longer include loans as part of their financial aid package! I know there are others that have done this, too.
No location parameters, please suggest away!
I do think there’s a new location parameter that might weed out half the states.
The new forced-pregnancy laws make not only abortion by choice unavailable at a ridiculously early time, but are already endangering and killing women with ectopic pregnancies, with fetuses dying in utero, and also make medication inaccessible that is very necessary for other illnesses but can lead to abortion at very high doses.
Also no saying about where those states will land on regarding birth control. And also what other ridiculous consequences the interpretation of those laws might lead to in other areas of life.
I’d want neither a daughter nor a son living in an area that is threatening their health or that of the people around them, and taking away bodily autonomy. And is just getting started since other protective laws are on the chopping block as well.
So that might be a rather big location parameter.
YES, I think you are right. It is hard to know what will happen next with many states—but certainly there are some states that are NOT safe, and very likely to remain unsafe.
Years ago I went from Los Angeles to the University of Chicago and Loved it. Another totally different college is Reed, in Oregon.
My dad tried to get me to go to his alma mater, Allegheny College in PA because it changed his life but I had me heart set on a big name school.
Rice University is famous for having extremely generous financial aid – the lowest % of students with loans in the country
It would help to narrow this down geographically. Do they want to stay in state? Within driving range? Does someone have a state/region they really want to try living in? College is a good time to do that. I could list a dozen colleges that fit your request in Florida, but does anyone want to live in Florida? And travel costs add up
I don’t want to specify geography, in part because neither twin has specified yet, but also because I want this to be a resource for other people, too.
Oops – I just saw you didn’t want geographic restrictions. So in Florida – for big school life, University of Central Florida. Small Liberal Arts, Eckerd College and Stetson University. Science – Florida Institute of Technology. Really unusual liberal arts, I’m not sure how to describe it – New College. We also have some really good schools for very specific things, like hospitality, environmental science, if someone has a specific goal
A friend’s daughter was set to go to Eckerd but noped out over lack of financial aid and campus feel. She switched to New College and is much happier. It seems to be alternative in many ways; one is that they don’t need to wear graduation robes. Many students choose to cosplay.
I went to UCF for a year then transferred to Florida International Univ; huge, diverse school, public… because I wanted to be back in Miami where I grew up.. didn’t like central Fl.
U of Miami is wonderful for marine biology or the like.. considering for my son.
You’ve gotten so much good advice already – I thought I might come at this another way since my accountant brain tends to focus on cost more than anything. If you have a state school near you, if you were to take a job at that school – library clerk, secretary, advisor, etc, the kids’ tuition would be free!
And some have reciprocity with other schools, so your child doesn’t necessarily need to go to the school nearby at which you work. Tulane definitely has USC and others that I do no know. Still trying to figure out how to get my friends to adopt my children for 4 years.
Not all states are free for dependants – 75% off in PA. Room and board not included, of course.
This is good advice, and worth exploring, but also know that it’s often not the case. My husband is employed full time at the University of Colorado and I believe our tuition discount is just a handful of credit hours per year and nothing towards room, board etc… I was so sad to discover this!
Colorado schools you might want to consider: University of Colorado Boulder – big flagship research university, Colorado College – small, private liberal arts, with a very cool block schedule that some students love and University of Denver, also smaller, private liberal arts school.
@KBs advice about working for a university is a good one. If it’s a public nonprofit their benefits will be posted right on the website and you can review provisional period until the benefit starts and what they cover (ex: our university requires 6 months employment before they’ll cover the tuition. Tuition does not cover room & board or the taxes; but the actual tuition for a 4 year bachelors is free for all dependents).
A lot of Universities are struggling with staffing now because the actual $/hour can be pretty low compared to other companies, but the benefits are awesome.
Anyone with children graduating in June 2023 that would want to try this should be applying now to allow for provisional periods, make sure your child applies & gets in, etc.
Not always true. My former spouse and I work at the big-name state school where our kids went and there was not a penny offered because they were children of staff. Now, if they had gone to either of the smaller campuses affiliated with the big name state school and we had worked at one of those there was a significant staff discount. But not on the main (most expensive) campus.
Another plug for Reed College in Portland. I didn’t go there but my delightfully weird first boyfriend did. He wanted to be as far away from our hometown as possible. He was the first computer geek I ever knew. I haven’t seen him in 30 years but I imagine he is pretty much the same.
My college selection process is as many years outdated but it is indeed so particular to each person. I absolutely fell in love with UNC at Chapel Hill when I visited. We didn’t even take a tour or anything; now that I’m thinking about it, we might have just driven through as part of the whirlwind Look at Colleges Out the Window of the Family Station Wagon during Spring Break Tour. But I didn’t get in, so Plan B became the plan.
Is Methodist considered religious? I went to a Wesleyan for 4 years and have no idea how to be a Methodist, or really what a Methodist is. There was a chapel but I never went in it for religious reasons. As a UU, I was perfectly ok with just doing my own thing, which at the time was hiding in either my dorm room or the computer lab and writing bad poetry. I went there because they gave me a scholarship and it was ~600 miles from home (driveable for holiday breaks but not weekends/laundry runs). It was also near a very nice beach.
One thing to remember is that the sticker price may not be accurate for your situation. Smaller private schools with high sticker prices may offer more grants and financial aid. And instate tuition varies wildly by state and may have less financial aid to offer. In our case, it actually costs us less to send ours to Lafayette (small liberal arts with a strong engineering program in PA) than it would have to send them to our NJ in state options.
I work at a high school and live in a location with a ridiculous number of colleges nearby. Here are my recs:
State schools:
Kutztown University (where I am doing my PhD)
Shippensburg University
Bloomsburg University
Lock Haven University
Penn State Altoona
Penn State Harrisburg
Private Schools:
Albright College
Muhlenberg University
Moravian College
Lafayette College
DeSales University
Susquehanna University
Elizabethtown College
Lebanon Valley College
I went to Muhlenberg and LOVED IT!! I was given a very generous financial aid package, and have made some great alumni networking connections despit me Muhlenberg being a very small school and my field being semi-niche. Recommend!! :-)
I went to Florida State University and my sister went to the University of Florida (neither of us is from Florida), both on the same scholarship, National Merit Scholar. If you don’t have a National Merit Scholar and don’t live in Florida, maybe it’s not a bargain basement value, but the schools were great at both universities. I also went to Cal State University, Long Beach, and I believe it was a Good Value: the cost at all of the Cal State colleges is less than I expected and the schools are very good. Living in California was not cheap, but SoCal is gorgeous and fun.
Also, reading The Tangle, Isaac Saul answered a question about sending kids/choosing colleges in states with new anti-abortion laws in place. It made me think of you. It’s on this page, near the bottom (look for “Answering Your Questions”): https://www.readtangle.com/inflation-rises-again-june/
Also, I heard that Amherst is now tuition-free for folks earning less than $150k annually.
Yes, that’s true, but Amherst also had a 7% admittance rate this year. The pandemic and the dropping of the SAT/ACT (for most schools) have really thrown a wrench in college admissions. Schools are getting WAY more applicants, and it was very difficult to predict who would get in where this admission cycle. Put some Amhersts on your list, sure, but definitely have more target schools.
I went to a small liberal arts school in northeastern Missouri called Truman State University. Not a great choice if you want sports, Greek life, or a big city. A great choice if you are of the nerdier persuasion, want a strong liberal arts curriculum, need a lower price option, and want a sweet walkable campus.
Oh! Also, Rutgers in NJ is surprisingly good; spouse taught a few classes there while in grad school, and it was a good mix of students, supportive department (which means less teacher burnout and more teacher-student engagement), and it’s not a Big Name. People I have met who went there also said positive things about it. (but I’d never heard of it before we moved to NJ)
(and yes, U Chicago is really good for a lot of subjects, and contrary to rumor it is possible to find fun there!)
First, I wanted to say that I went to the university of Chicago many years ago and LOVED it, but it is not for everybody.
Second one of the most useful things for us in looking for colleges for kids was geography related specifically city, college town, or rural. Alfred, which has come up several times, and Bard are both AMAZING arty type schools but were right out for my city loving kids because they are super rural (this dropped out Williams, and several other good options), we discovered kid really wanted city and not college town so out went Oberlin and many state schools. In the city we looked at Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago (alumni preference is a thing and both me and his dad are alum), Haverford (Quaker affiliated) and Case Western Reserve.
I tout what I have started to call in my middle age the “fancy pants” SLACs, and I went to one myself (Carleton; shout out to any Knights reading this). But it’s true they aren’t for everyone. For me, it was fabulous from an educational perspective; I had amazing professors and continually felt like I was a kid wandering around in a candy store for intellectuals. So many cool classes to take! Good for both art and computer science, I believe. I was well-prepared for graduate school; the campus is beautiful. If you wanted a more urban version, there’s Macalester in St. Paul or a comparable, even more rural version is Grinnell in Iowa (though Iowa looks dicier these days because of the state’s politics)
As someone else upthread mentioned, this kind of school may not have been the best choice for someone who was, like me, somewhat unsure of themselves socially as a college-aged student. It was small enough that I felt self-conscious that I didn’t find “my people” immediately. I mostly did not like living in the dorms; they were loud and I felt like I didn’t have any space. (dorm life is probably better now?)
I’ve wondered if I might have done better socially at a larger school; I’ve since worked at two large NCAA Division I state schools in the South and Midwest with good honors programs. It might have been beneficial to me to be able to fade into the crowd more if I wanted to.
Some other schools that come to mind that don’t get the love they should in national press:
The Claremont Colleges in California
Colorado College (a school that runs on the “block” program; where students take one class at a time)
Westminster College in Salt Lake City
St. Mary’c College of Maryland (a state school that is more like a SLAC)
Willamette in Oregon
UNC-Greensboro
St Mary’s has one of the most spectacular campus locations, in my opinion, waterfront on the Chesapeake Bay. And on Money Magazines best college value list.
To throw in a wild card, all Canadian universities will be quite cheap compared to US schools and there are many beyond just McGill. The university culture in Canada is not quite the same as the college culture in the US but some of the issues raised here like access to reproductive healthcare and likelihood of being around firearms will be better.
Many European countries have free or quasi-free undergraduate courses. Obviously you’d pay a lot for flights and you need to be able to prove you can pay for living expenses etc, but in many cases the education is all in English anyway. I´m thinking of Norway for example.
College admission is my profession (10 years in a college admission office, 12 and counting as a college counselor in a college prep high school) and it is fun to see the variety of schools mentioned here, as well as lots of reminders that every path is different, and some roads are more winding than others, but there are so many places to get a great education. A few thoughts & resources:
-One more recommendation for Colleges That Change Lives. The book, including its introduction, is great. Their website and in-person events are also excellent resources:
https://ctcl.org
-Other books:
The Fiske Guide to Colleges (well-researched, not too dry but also not too subjective, updated every year)
Where You Go is Not Who You’ll be by Frank Bruni (a good one for a student or parent working through thoughts about prestige and worries that if they don’t get into a highly selective school, they are doomed)
The Price You Pay For College by Ron Lieber (thinking about cost/value in higher ed)
-Many private schools have a very high sticker price but become much more affordable if they offer merit-based aid. That’s true of almost all the CTCL schools. Don’t be scared off by the initial cost; they can end up being less expensive than in-state tuition at a public university.
-Some schools that may already have been mentioned? But maybe not?
Lewis & Clark College in Portland (good arts offerings in a fun city)
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (good comp sci, very hands-on)
University of Rochester (curriculum offering lots of choices for students, great STEM and arts)
Smith College (women’s colleges in general are truly amazing places to learn, and the alumni networks are incredible)
University College Dublin (if someone is open to going abroad, Irish universities offer some flexibility that English and other European schools often do not)
Willamette University in Oregon (good arts within liberal arts context, including a super art museum on campus)
Another plug for Canadian universities too – UBC is a favorite of mine!
Final thought about religious schools, that you may already have figured out; almost every private college/university was founded by the church, but there is a HUGE spectrum of what this means currently. Many of the schools I mentioned above, including many CTCL schools, have historic ties to a church, but are either no longer affiliated at all, or the tie is barely acknowledged. On the other hand, some (Catholic colleges and evangelical Christian universities come to mind) have a much closer tie. My point being that it’s worth looking into them if they sound at all appealing for other reasons to see if they’re religious in practice or just in their founding.
I was going to say the same thing about religious affiliation. My current job requires college/university employees to sign up their school for a thing and include their affiliation (public/private, religious/non-religious) with their registration. It is surprising and amusing how many people work somewhere and aren’t aware that the school is religiously affiliated. So there is clearly a very broad spectrum, with BYU and Liberty University on one end and founded-by-a-church-I-think (??) on the other end.
My husband went to University of Chicago so it always surprises me when people haven’t heard of it, at least by its reputation of “where fun goes to die” which evidently they have been working hard to change for the last thirty years or so. It’s a super-top academic institution so for the right kind of student can be a perfect fit, plus they do tend to have substantial financial aid packages.
Other ideas of private, non-religious colleges which may be less on-the-radar than U of C (and the other usual stable of liberal arts colleges that I consider very popular/harder to get into, e.g., Williams, Haverford, Colby, Bowdoin, Vassar, etc etc etc) and I would think offer good packages:
Carleton College (Minnesota)
Grinnell College (Iowa)
Davidson College (NC)
Miami of Ohio
Franklin & Marshall (PA)
Hamilton (NY)
Washington & Lee (VA)
Bucknell (PA)
Elon University (NC)
When I was applying to schools a million years ago, I got very generous, merit-based scholarships from Boston University (which I don’t consider off-radar for most people) and Butler University (in Indianapolis) and an okay one from Indiana University (out-of-state). Of course I instead went to Michigan (also out-of-state) where I got zero aid or scholarships. I also could have gone to my in-state school (UGA) for free. Ah well. Sorry, parents.
Unlike others, I will say that it has mattered where I went to school and I would say the same for many of my peers; my combination of undergrad and a top-five law school has opened a lot of doors and when I’ve worked in hiring we definitely made selections based on credentials including schools and grades — but that is my field and my geographic setting, and I am sure in others it is different.
My husband is currently teaching at University of Maryland in College Park, a lovely campus in a small city right outside DC. The computer science department has an excellent reputation.
Check out European universities, if distance is not an issue. Tuition is so much cheaper or nonexistent. My coworker’s son’s is going to school in Norway for free!
Michigan Tech is a highly regarded small college in the Upper Peninsula that tends to pull STEM students for obvious reasons but also has a pretty highly regarded art/theater community as well. My older son attends now, he is a Junior. My youngest will probably be heading there next fall. It is absolutely beautiful location/very welcoming fun community. However you do have to be okay with lots of snow and it can be treacherous to get home sometimes because of road conditions/airport closings. The students/alumni are all very helpful to each other when weather type situations arise however. They are very highly rated in that students who graduate often already have jobs lined up before they leave.
I feel like a total heel giving this advice but my kids are the same age and a friend has a son a few years older who has Crohns and gets immunosuppressant infusions. They were a little startled when their doctor told them- after a far away school was chosen and deposits paid- that dorms/communal living weren’t safe for their son. Anyway I know that you are probably more on top of this than they were and already know what you’re doing! Just wanted to pass along in case or if it helps someone else.
If Elizabeth will consider it, I highly recommend women’s colleges. Mine was Agnes Scott but there are several good ones. Great financial resources.
Smithie here…totally agree, and I would NOT have been someone who you might have expected to go to a women’s college. It was a truly great experience, I have never regretted it. Smith College also has a fabulous art museum, I don’t personally know anyone that did studio art but I know of several alumna who are in galleries.
Cottey College is my ‘wish I’d gone’ school. (I went to Shimer College, a tiny, rigorous, quirky liberal arts school that has now been folded into North Central College.) Incredible financial aid, incredible opportunities, incredible community.
I will give a plug to University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana (they are twin cities, and the campus is spread between the two). I lived in the college town so haven’t had the student experience (I went to a private religious college in another state), but it’s a fantastic school and a great community. It’s academically the best in Illinois, and honestly it’s always ranked really highly for engineering, medicine, and other disciplines.
Bradley University in Peoria, IL is a private university, but to my understanding not religious. I mean, I think students can join groups for a religious affiliation and join like a club, but the school does not endorse. Bradley is one of the best schools in Illinois for private schools.
I did go to UIUC as an undergraduate, quite some time ago, and I second all of this! It is a REALLY large campus so that can turn off some people, but for every “lecture” type class where you attend in a huge hall, there are also small classes where you can get individual attention.
I also really liked UIUC. It felt thrilling to be on a big campus and there were many opportunities to make friends. Even though its in central IL, at the university I met people from different backgrounds and took advantage of the cultural opportunities, which helped me break out of my affluent, suburban bubble. Once I got through the big lecture classes I saw many from same pool of students in my upper level classes and I got to know everyone well.
I interviewed for a job there and loved the campus. It’s in a pleasant part of the state; it feels enjoyably Midwestern and is so pretty in the fall.
Not that I’d recommend coming to Ohio since it’s currently a hellscape, but Denison, Oberlin and Kenyon are great schools.
Hopefully this isn’t redundant but I recommend the book Who Gets in and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions. It’s a fascinating look at the business of colleges, college admissions and how big data has transformed both. I think it’s an interesting read even if you aren’t in the midst of thinking about college and especially great if you are currently searching. Also, “The Price You Pay for College” by Ron Lieber was good as well. It helps untangle the idea of the “sticker price” vs. the price you will pay and the differences between merit aid, and other types of loans and scholarships. It also helps open discussions with kids about what they really want to get from college.
I agree about both of the books! Interesting and worthwhile reads for sure. Particularly for parents who went to college in the 1980s-90s. College admissions have changed SO much since then. Who Gets In really helped me understand what has changed and why.
Another plug for Davidson College in NC. They also have great financial aid. ‘Through The Davidson Trust, we meet 100 percent of your calculated financial need entirely through grants and student employment. Our financial aid packages do not include a loan component, but you have the option of borrowing educational loans as a matter of personal choice.’
It is somewhat unlikely that an undergraduate would exceed any decent college or university’s academic resources as long as they offer a major the student is interested in and have adequate libraries/labs/studios/other discipline-relevant resource. Given that, I think the most important things are a) whether the student is likely to feel happy and like they belong there, and b) the cost.
I love smaller state schools for undergrads. They are often big enough to offer a lot of interesting opportunities but small enough to still have actual professors teaching their courses. I did my undergrad degree at Grand Valley State University (as a Michigan resident) in the mid-aughts and had an excellent experience without incurring any student loan debt. Then I went to a Big Ten school for grad school and as a newbie PhD student I was sometimes required to teach undergrad courses that I was not terribly qualified to teach. I tried my best, but I think people who are paying that much for tuition deserve to be taught by somebody who is not learning alongside them. (And I cared a lot about teaching while some of my grad school colleagues… did not.)
I think I have plugged the book Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be by Frank Bruni in your blog comments before, but I think it’s a great read and probably calming to anybody who is doing a college search.
Yes, I went to the College of William and Mary in Virginia, which is a state school but more like a LAC, and loved every minute and graduated without debt. Bonus: it has a stunning campus and is in historic Williamsburg, which was a lot of fun.
I don’t have a lot of knowledge on US schools, but Malcolm Gladwell did dedicate a couple of Revisionist History podcast episodes to the topic and you may find them interesting. One of my takeaways was that people who go to smaller, less competitive schools have a better chance of graduating and working in the field they chose to study.
I remember Gladwell talking about fancy vs nonfancy schools in David and Goliath (I think), and it was pretty clear he didn’t understand American universities, but he assumed the University of Maryland was just a basic big state U, and it has a huge reputation in the sciences, as I understand it (most notably CS, but other places, too). And one of the advantages of pricier places is that they offer a lot of support to students who are willing to ask for it; a place with severe budget constraints may not be able to do so.
I say this as someone who so far has one kid who graduated from a fancy place and one who is going to a big state U that’s good at what he wants academically and not much on academic support, community feel, etc.
At the beginning of Oldest’s senior year the college advisory department at his HS had parents fill out a 3-4 page questionnaire about finances, our kid, what we were concerned about etc and Oldest had to fill out something like a 7 page questionnaire that attempted to get to colleges that might fit him best (stuff like size of school, programs offered, urban/rural, location, etc). They then generated a list of about 15 colleges to start from. Oldest ended up applying to 6 colleges they recommended and one college that found him (they reached out with financial aid offers and information). He ended up going to the place that found him due to a combination of it really being a good fit for him and they offered him enough money to make up for the difference between in-state tuition in our state and their private tuition.
All of that said, it was such a bizarre college search because it all happened during covid so Oldest never visited most of the schools he applied to. He ended up just visiting two of the schools he had been accepted to that he found most interesting and even then he wasn’t allowed inside any of the buildings. The whole thing was such a stripped down version of what students who had applied to colleges even just one year before him did that I’m pretty sure it’s going to be different with Youngest.
This comment is already way too long already, but I will offer that with Youngest we’re down to a very short list of states she will even consider going to college in since the recent USSC decision striking down Roe. Not sure how we’re going to limit our choices within those states, but it does cut the list way down I guess??
These comments are keeping me going right now. There is no such thing as one being too long if it is even remotely on topic, in my opinion.
Carry on.
Personally, I’m intrigued by colleges like Berea College in KY, where nobody leaves with debt and they are preserving folk skills and trades and local history.
But mainly I’m commenting to n-th the recommendation for Colleges that Change Lives. Hendrix, Reed, Swarthmore and others were all on my radar.
Berea is a wonderful school, but it does charge for room and board. (only the tuition is free) Its website currently indicates that the average student (after other need-based financial aid is applied) will still pay $1000 for room/board/books etc. Also, you basically need to be a first-generation student from an Appalachian county to be admitted – so it will likely not be a viable option for many college applicants.
But if anyone out there meets those criteria, highly encourage Berea as an option!
I know nothing about how the college process works now, but I don’t think anyone has mentioned my school or the one my brother went to — both of which were wonderful. I went to Wellesley College (all-women) and he went to Warren Wilson College. Wildly different schools but the right fit for both of us. So much depends on the person.
Warren Wilson is a great school that worked hard to define its niche in the higher ed landscape; it has really good environmental science/extracurricular activities, for anyone looking for a school with strengths in that area.
It’s helpful that they both have areas of interest already. Make a point to visit the art/compsci departments and meet with faculty to see if Elizabeth/Edward click with anyone. Ideally there should be faculty member they can imagine as a mentor. Of course it’s hard to know this from a visit, but I wish I had thought this through when I went to undergrad as a music major- which involves having a 1 hour lesson weekly with the prof who teaches your instrument. I never clicked with mine and it was part of the reason I transfered before junior year. I liked a lot of other things about the school but that was hindering my progress. I would guess for art having a good relationship with a faculty mentor would be important as well- it’s so personal. Maybe less so for compsci. Good luck!
I think that what’s right for a person is so variable that I would automatically discount any guidance that said that “such-and-such isn’t a good value, it’s just marketing!”
I went to a very large state university, not my own state. I went there because they were extremely well-known for the field I was passionate about and because even with out-of-state tuition, I could afford to go there. People outside of the field would say “why there???” It wasn’t a cool state, especially as teenagers evaluate things. But people in the field knew it was a top name. And it wasn’t due to marketing– it was due to the nature of the faculty and the program they offered.
But the value of the program to any given specific person was different, because to get the true value, you had to rigorously apply yourself. You got out of it what you put into it, and there were plenty of low-GPA slackers who didn’t get much out of the program because they didn’t put in a lot of work. You could look at their post-collegiate jobs and say “not a good value,” but if you looked at the higher-GPA types and the GPA+awards+honors types, it was a different story. I think this is probably true of most colleges– you need a certain decent-to-excellent baseline of faculty/coursework, but then it’s on the student to run with it.
One thing I would look at, though, if you’re looking at state schools, is to look at higher education funding within that state. When I was applying to grad schools, my professors discouraged applying anywhere in one particular state that was having funding cuts. They told me that even the places with solid programs might end up with a decimated program before I was done with my degree– that professors were looking to leave, and that in some cases, entire degrees were being cut.
Not always true. My former spouse and I work at the big-name state school where our kids went and there was not a penny offered because they were children of staff. Now, if they had gone to either of the smaller campuses affiliated with the big name state school and we had worked at one of those there was a significant staff discount. But not on the main (most expensive) campus.
My oldest visited Southern Miss while deciding and I was floored at the cost and scholarship opportunities. Out of state tuition is less than $12000 and an ACT score of 30+ was a full ride scholarship. It was my understanding that other Mississippi state schools had similar offerings.
Didn’t read all the comments so my apologies if already mentioned. These are ones I would have loved for my Critter to attend:
Ferrum – https://www.ferrum.edu/ (Methodist roots, but not overbearing)
Longwood – http://www.longwood.edu/
Sweet Briar – https://sbc.edu/
Scholarship opportunities were great at the time, no idea how that is now.
She ended up choosing VCU, and it was a good place for her! – https://www.vcu.edu/
Not often considered (but could be a good choice!) are historically Black schools, like Virginia State. – https://www.vsu.edu/
For Elizabeth: Sarah Lawrence in NY , Bradley University in IL, UMass Boston (all have Studio Art plus lots of other majors)
Check out Drexel (Philly) for computer science and other cool programs! They do cooperative education (co-ops) and I have friends who thrived there.
You’ve had a lot of suggestions already, so the only thing I will add is that some schools limit the number of students who can major in a particular thing. Lots of kids change majors anyway so it doesn’t end up mattering that neuroscience or computer science ends up being a no-go for them, but it’s worth keeping in mind.
OK, one other suggestion because I can’t help myself (I was a professor’s kid and have a fair number of professor friends): Don’t assume that high tuition = unaffordable or that state schools that aren’t in your state will be bargains. Places with big endowments tend to be very generous with need-based aid, and lots of places are very generous with merit aid to students whose stats are notably higher than the school’s average. A dorm-mate who transferred to the SLAC I attended said it was costing her less than the big state school she’d transferred from. Another friend said that her mom’s annual salary was only $1000 more than the cost of a year at our SLAC.
Meanwhile, the FB page for parents of students at our middle child’s big state U are shocked by how expensive it is for out-of-state students and how hard it is to qualify as in-state if, basically, you’re not.
Of course I want to nominate my alma mater the University of Delaware as a “lesser known” university. Being a state school in a small state they work hard to attract students from other states- and one of the ways they do that is with scholarship $. They have a really strong Honors program which just recently became and Honors College. What I liked about it is that you got a small university academic experience with big university resources. When I went to professional school I found that I had a much easier time than my peers getting letters of rec because even my freshman classes were small (25-50 vs 300+).
For Elizabeth they have a very well respected Art Conservation major and graduate program- for a practical more job oriented major in the art area. (Not that one needs to be totally job oriented or practical but sometimes that’s what people are looking for and I for one didn’t know anything about it until going to UD).
Ack- forgot to mention that they had the first Study Abroad program in the country and as such it is a very large program. Also they have a long winter break that includes a 5 week Winter Session where you can do anything, but most student do at least one Winter Session of classes. It can help to move a requirement that is difficult to a time when you can focus on it, or if you’re in a program that doesn’t allow for the flexibility to spend a whole semester abroad you can do Winter Session study abroad. I went to Martinique one year and London another year. Friends went to Italy, China, South Africa, and even Antarctica.
I don’t have any experience with US universities, but here is the post-secondary advice I’m giving to my kids (and any teenager who will listen):
If you can, figure out what kind of education/training you need to end up in a job you think you will like, not just what you find interesting to study. (I found my B.Sc. in biology and my M.Sc. in botany very interesting, but only realized well into my second degree that I 100% couldn’t picture myself working in the field long-term.) (The default expectation of my kids – and I know we are privileged to be able to think this way – is that they do a generic bachelor of arts degree if they don’t know for sure that they need something else specific. No problem if they want to do a trade or culinary school or whatever, but if they don’t know, off to university for them.)
Look at what you choose to do with your time for hints, not just what you’re used to saying you’re interested in. (If I’d looked at my bookshelf and noticed that it was filled with writing guides and manuals, and a slew of books on residential design I might have had an epiphany much earlier. My brother wasted 2 years attempting and failing different programs to become a mechanic, when he didn’t own a single tool and had handed over gift hint lists filled exclusively with video gaming stuff his entire life.)
If you start something and realize it’s not for you, change course! Don’t waste more time and money on something that won’t pan out because you feel bad about the sunk cost. (It honestly never occurred to me to not finish what I’d started, but if I’d felt free to stop I could have ultimately ended up in something that was a much better fit.)
Look for a program with co-op experience opportunities. It will help earn money to pay your way through school and give you invaluable experience which will either result in you getting a leg up on competition for jobs after school, or help you realize sooner whether you can see yourself in that field long-term. (I went to Waterloo, Canada’s premiere co-op university and I know people who are still working at companies like Microsoft that they did co-op terms at as university students.)
As many people have said, finding a good fit depends on specifics like personality, career goals, life goals etc… For example, someone majoring in CS is likely to get a good paying job with just an undergrad degree. For them it might be most useful to go to college in an area with tech companies where they can get an internship during their time in school, which will help them get their first job after graduating. For someone majoring in studio art, they will most likely need to get a graduate degree (either MFA or some art affiliated profession like teaching or art therapy or museum studies depending on career goals). In their case, it might be best to prioritize cost (since grad school is super expensive and does not typically have as much financial aid or scholarships available, especially when considered a professional program). Although people often say that small schools are best for more introverted people, that can backfire in some cases. I tend to be a bit reserved, but hated my small college because it meant everyone knew eachother’s business. Sometimes a bit of anonymity is good. I would also suggest going to school in an area that has other things to offer than just the college. That way there are places for volunteering and internships to help gain work experience. I also think having other stuff to do keeps the party culture from getting out of hand. In terms of life goals, it is important to remember that while college is only 4 years, the debt takes much longer to pay off and can significantly impact your future choices. Many millenials have had to get married later and have children later in life because of debt we acquired in college. Hopefully, gen z can avoid this. While not everyone wants to marry or have children, if they are part of someone’s future life goals it is important to keep debt low. In many cases the college experience is what the student makes of it, not an inherent feature of the school itself. If I were applying to college now I would make sure I was taking on limited debt, had access to internship or volunteer opportunities, and was building a life in an area I might settle in post graduation, regardless of my specific major.
After looking at U.S. schools for my son because of baseball, I don’t know HOW American kids ever decide on a college. There are SO MANY. In Canada you can apply to three in your province for one application fee (I think, I’m not looking it up) and almost no one I know needed more than that – maybe one or two additional out-of-province ones. My daughter ended up going to the same university where my husband and I met – it wasn’t her first choice but she ended up getting into a really great small program there. It’s such a tough decision, although chances are there is no perfect one and any one you make will work out okay. It’s the deciding that’s agonizing.
I’m a little late to the party, but since at 30 I am in between the ages of most of the parents and kids on this thread, I wanted to throw in my experience:
My friends who went to Ivies, near-Ivies (eg Duke), Amherst/Swarthmore/Williams tier liberal arts colleges, and boring but respectable state schools are mostly debt free, in careers they more or less like, and able to afford kids if they want them. This is true regardless of major.
On the other hand, my friends who went to less well known liberal arts schools or other “Colleges that Change Lives” type of places might have loved their college experiences more than some of the big university crowd, but they are all struggling financially and working jobs that they hoped would be more short term than they’ve turned out to be (eg barista). Again, this is true regardless of major.
Of course, this is purely anecdotal and just one person’s social circle, but I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that a school’s reputation matters a lot more than I thought it would when I was a high schooler making this decision for myself.