lolz2009

Are there any pre-orientation trips offered by Carleton? You know, like a three day white-water rafting or hiking trip, or something?

I know some schools like Bowdoin have them, I am just curious if Carleton does. I haven't heard about any, so I am going to assume the answer is a negative.

If there are, where can I find out information on them?

breakfast

I think they used to, but they stopped a couple years back...could be wrong, though.

1190

Breakfast is right. But I think it was just last year they stopped. Controversial. Kids who did the programs really enjoyed them. Think the school felt NSW should be the all-inclusive, unchallenged true freshman introduction and not be diminished by experiences preceding it.

limner

I didn't realize that they'd stopped doing them. My son's a sophomore, and they offered two (IIRC) the year he started.

NEValu

My son is a junior and canoed the boundary waters with a pre orientation trip. It was a fantastic experience for him. He is still close with some of those kids but, it certainly didn't hamper him from making lots more other new friends within other social groups.
It's sort of a shame that this slight bent for social engineering that Carleton has is resulting in them curtailing what was an excellent set of programs. (They also had a backpacking crew in N. Minn. and a service learning crew in Minneapolis in years past.)

lunitari

Last year was the first year they didn't do the trips. The concern was that the trips created two classes of freshmen...those who could afford to pay for the trip and leave a summer job early, and those who couldn't. At richer schools like Pomona, the school can afford to pay for the trips for everybody; but Carleton isn't in that league (in endowment size, I mean, not academic reputation).

I know the plan was to look at other kinds of shared experiences for new students.