rewrets

if anybody has any thoughts about these two schools... i would really appreciate some comparisons. social life? rumors that colby is a school for "functional alcoholics".. strength of each bio/pre med program?? and generally which school has a better name?

Right now i'm TORN between applying ED1 to COLBY or COLGATE. I would love to hear about anybody's personal experiences with admissions also. Thank you very much!!

elliott34

colby has no frats while colgate has a huge frat scene.

rewrets

i have a brother who attended colgate and was part of a frat... he said that they were pretty low-key though and that if you weren't part of Greek life, you didn't feel like alone, and lots of ppl still went to frat parties even if they weren't part of them.

does anybody know about the political leanings on each campus?....

i'm pretty sure that colgate is fairly more conservative... and colby is a little more moderate with some left leanings... but what does everybody else think?

mhc48

If by conservative you mean compared to a place like Wesleyan then politically and culturally it probably is more conservative in the original sense of the word. But if you mean are the students and faculty conservative politically, I don't think so. It is as liberal as just about any Northeast LAC.

And frats do still have a large place in the social life of the campus, but again not more than at other similar schools and less than many. I think you can feel comfortable not being in a sorority, but may find to your surprise (as my daughter did) that you will want to join one with the good friends you've already made, rather than join to get a social life.

No doubt you know about the new Ho Center for Science and the science and interdisciplinary study initiatives planned at Colgate. Those will be a big factor stressed even more in the next few years. It would seem to me that coming in in the ground floor (so to speak) coupled with Colgate's desire to spread the word, reputation and benefits to students of the Ho, could potentially open lots of doors for you. In addition, the nature of Colgate's commitment to undergrad teaching and lack of grad students means that research has always been done by undergraduates.

I don't really know much about Colby from personal knowledge and so can only tell you that although both are prestigious, I believe Colgate has been more so for longer.

It sounds to me though as if you haven't visited both. If you had many of these questions would probably have been answered (at least in your own mind). Perhaps if you haven't visited them, you ought not to apply to either ED?

lydia08

I wouldn't call Colgate's Greek life "huge" by any means. It's around 1/3 of the whole school that's involved. I'm not, and have never been to a frat party - there's plenty of other things to do, but it's there if you want it.

As for politics, Colgate has a reputation as "conservative" because it's more conservative than a lot of top schools (like say, Brown), but I'd say most people here are moderates to slightly left. There's College Democrats and College Republicans, both are relatively active groups, but it seems that most of the student body just isn't extremely passionate about national politics. Using the magic of facebook, 472 people in the Colgate network identify as "conservative", "very conservative" or "libertarian," whereas there's over 500 for "liberal" and over 500 for "moderate" (the search maxes out at 500), 250 "very liberal" vs 34 "very conservative." That's not exactly scientific, but gives you a good idea of general trends.

Pre-med is pretty strong here at Colgate, with special advising just for pre-med students. You can major in anything you want and also be pre-med, which is nice. There's also an opportunity to apply to GWU Med School and University of Rochester Med School during the spring of your sophomore year, and if you get in then, you're exempt from the MCATs and the whole application process your senior year. There's also a study abroad to the NIH in Maryland, where you spend most of the day assisting with hands-on research in NIH labs.

Have you visited both schools?

Edit: I started writing this then got distracted by facebook, so I didn't see mhc48's post, but I agree with it.

rewrets

thank you both very much for you insight! I have visited both, yet unfortunately it was before classes began, with only a few athletes and freshman on campus, so it was a bit hard to judge the nature of the student body. I have done quite a bit of research on both schools, yet I know that med school acceptance rates can be hard to trust, as they include med school dropouts etc... As far as science facilities go for the two, I know that Colgate's got Colby beat by far. Also, when researching the most popular majors at Colgate, science in general wasn't too high up there, which wasn't too surprising because it's a LAC, yet I did get the impression that the strength of the program was steadily increasing, especially with the addition of the new Ho Center for Science.

I also just wanted to get political perspectives of current students, as thoughts on campus leanings can be interpreted in a variety of ways by different people. Overall, I feel the political differences between the two schools isn't huge, and as long as neither are extremely liberal(which, from what I have heard from nearly everyone... they are not) I would be fine in either.

Greek life definitely isn't a huge factor for me. Not having it would be fine, and having a minimal amount of it is fine too. What concerns me about Colby though is that it has little to no relationship with Waterville, possibly contributing to the 'there's nothing to do but drink on campus' atmosphere. I do know that Colgate's relationship with the people of Hamilton is signifigantly better, and there are other off campus places for students to go on weekends, such as The Jug. However, what I really like about both schools is that they aren't big sports schools, which usually leads to heavy drinking and pardon my french, but a mass of drunken *******s, something I know I won't miss in my college career. (this is the feel I'm getting from Bucknell/Lehigh) Also, did anybody hear about the woman being attacked by a masked man at Colby, who was also said to have exposed himself to another student about a week earlier? Though I know this could happen anywhere, and I know better than to formulate my opinion of the school from this one incident, it's a little unnerving to say the least, for where I am in the process now.

Something I was wondering about.... I've heard from my brother about a pretty signifigant grade deflation at Colgate. He also said of the few friends he had who were interested in pre-med, many struggled and even failed their intro to bio/chem courses freshman year. Could anybody comment on the prevalence of grade deflation and difficulty of courses at Colgate, especially in the sciences?

Where I'm from(PA), I know that becuase of Colby's location it isn't known nearly as well as Colgate. Also, I would assume that because of it's greater endowment, newer facilities, and larger student body, Colgate generally holds a greater reputation.

In regards to ED1, when I made my visit to Colby I was in definitely in love with it compared to other schools I had visited in the same trip.(Trinity, Holy Cross, Bates, Con Coll) The campus itself is beautiful, lush, and very naturey... something I was certainly very attracted to. But in hindset I realize I may have been blinded by it's natural beauty, and ignored the fact that the facilities weren't exactly breathtaking or new. I had never really even considered Colgate as my ED school, mostly becuase of the fact that my brother is there now. Something that I now realize was a very foolish thing to do. I feel that I would be equally happy at both schools, so I'm trying to analyze all other possible aspects of comparison. Unless I can make up my mind in the next week as far as ED, I probably will wait for Regular, or possibly ED II, but I'm worried that this will affect my chances greatly at both. I know that there is no easy solution for this, but I'm hoping to gain maybe a few more pieces of info that can turn the tables for me and solidify my decision.

Thank you again for your help and knowledge, I really appreciate it!

zilong

Greeks don't dominate here. They're definitely present, but they won't force you to do anything or require you to join them.

Politically, I think we're moderate. There's a good balance.

I don't know if it's grade DEFLATION, since I think everything here's pretty fair, but i do think that the intro chem course is pretty brutal. I'm glad I'm getting a B. I can't wait for organic chem next year.

MADad

D looked at both schools. Regarding the frats:
Colby dealt with them by abolishing them years ago. Those small Georgian buildings that line the area in front of Roberts Hall used to be the frat houses. Now they are small dorms.

Colgate is trying to get the frats under university control. Some time ago, I'm not sure when, the university ordered the frats to sell their property to the school, giving the school control over what goes on there. All but one complied. The resisting frat I believe closed their chapter in defiance of the order. I don't believe the issue is settled yet.

Both schools have a reputation of having a drinking/party atmosphere. Both schools also attract extremely bright and capable students.

stonecold23

Yep, grading is very tough here, especially in the pre-med classes, but I feel like that will help in the long run (studying for mcats and being prepared for med school). As far as the frat scene, its fairly large I'd say, but not nearly what it used to be (i heard 70+% used to be in one, now its like 33%). Despite rumors of Colgate trying to get rid of Greek Life, this would never happen as the adminstration would lose way too much money from alumni. Although Colgate has bought all the frats, they do not care about what goes on in them or anything like that. In fact, the frat they shut down still exists underground, and the Colgate administration is very aware of this and doesn't do anything.

mythmom

Know people who attend both, and both are very happy.

Your brother could give you an advantage in Colgate admissions. Your tone sounds like to prefer Colgate. Why are you considering Colby? Is it the beauty of the campus or did you just feel like it was "your" school?

If you did, those gut feelings can mean something.

gellino

I always felt that Colgate was at least somewhat more well known and highly regarded than Colby if for no other reason than the larger size and D-I sports.

As a point of reference, I knew someone who had been accepted RD into Colby who only got into Colgate as a Feb-frosh (meaning he couldn't start until 2nd semester Freshman year) and still chose to go to Colgate over Colby. While I think Colgate is better, I don't know if the spread is so great to forgoe the first semester of college.

I get the impression the schools have a slightly different feel with Colby attracting more from New England who are interested in smaller schools like Bowdoin, Bates, Amherst and are from private high schools, while Colgate attracts more who are interested in somewhat larger schools like Dartmouth, Cornell, Princeton, are from the mid-Atlantic and attended public high schools.

Also, your situation sounds like you should hold off applying to either school ED and instead to apply to both RD. Down the road, you can change your application to ED II if you become so inclined. I got the impression that ED II doesn't put you at a competitive disadvantage in comparison to ED I, but am not entirely sure on that one since it is a gimmick that has been created after my time.

Papa Chicken

Following up on Gellino's points, here are some stats on student composition.....Colby's & Colgate's numbers are from different populations, but they should point out the big differences....

Public vs Private
Colgate's "Admitted" class of 2011: public- 69%, private- 31%
Colby's entire enrollment, 2005-2006: public- 52%, private/parochial- 48%

New Englanders
Colgate's "Admitted" class of 2011: 16%
Colby's entire enrollment, 2005-2006: 49.5%

New Yorkers are quite prevalent at Colgate, composing 26% of the admitted 2011 class.



Also, on acceptance rates (calculated by me from school-provided data).....
For the Class of 2011, Colgate had an overall ED acceptance rate of 50.4% versus Colby's 42.4%.

Note that Colby is one of the few school's that I've noticed that publishes their ED stats for each round of ED (thank you for your transparency, Colby)....ED 1 acceptance rate = 50.5%, ED 2 acceptance rate = 29.1%, the latter actually lower than their RD rate of 30.6%. Colgate does not provide such a breakdown. Don't know if this contrasting behaviour is characteristic of all ED 1 & 2 programs, but ouch!

Sources:
http://www.colgate.edu/DesktopDefault1.aspx?tabid=555
http://www.colby.edu/admissions_cs/about/stats.cfm

mhc48

Papa, you gave the % of New Englanders at Colby as 49.5%, but according to the figures on the site you gave, if you include students from Maine (does Maine not consider itself part of NE??) the figure is just over 60%.

On the otherhand I don't know how much difference these figures make. But they do raise a question I'd be interested to find out: the numbers of internship and post grad job placements of each and where they are. I wonder if Colby's placements are more in Boston or come anywhere near Colgate's in NYC.

I was kind of surprised too at the SAT and ACT test scores, which I would have thought would be virtually identical. But Colgate's numbers are slightly higher.

The figures are not really of different populations, the Colby numbers are also for the class of 2011.

Papa Chicken

mhc48....on % of New Englanders, I was just figuring that the Maine numbers were included in the NE total....if they aren't & Maine needs to be added in, then 60% is a large number! For comparison, Middlebury reports 26%....as we have no Colby regional add-up, I don't know for sure.

On different populations....for the public vs priivate comparison....Colby's measured population is the entire student body, but for Colgate its for the most recent class (one 4th of the population), and more importantly, for those ADMITTED, not those enrolled. For some demographics, its easy to imagine how some characteristics may be very different for the ADMITTED vs the ENROLLED population, like SAT scores which are always higher for the ADMITTED population (a pet peeve of mine in Colgate's somewhat desceptive reporting IMO; I love Colgate otherwise.) Don't know how different public vs private stats might change between ADMITTED vs ENROLLED, and it probably doesn't matter that much in this gross comparison....concluding that Colgate probably has a greater share of public school students, which think is interesting. It might make more of a difference perhaps if we were looking at minority subgroups, for instance. Likewise, population differences for the state and regional demographics whereby Colgate only reports who they admitted, not who they enrolled.....again, probably of no matter in this gross comparison. Acceptance stats are of course from the same population.

On SAT & ACT scores....IF you are concluding that Colgate's numbers are higher than Colby's based upon the 2 references above, there the measured population makes a huge difference. The difference between Colgate's ADMITTED SAT average (M+CR) and their ENROLLED average is on the order of 30 to 40 points, meaning their ADMITTED average is 30 to 40 points higher than their ENROLLED average. Colgate neither publishes the ENROLLED data nor a CDS like most other "transparent" colleges. Colby, like USNews's annual ranking, reports ENROLLED numbers. [Some schools report both.] Although, I don't have my Colgate database in front of me, I'd take a bet that Colby's SAT M+CR average was roughly 5 to 10 points below Colgate's average.....for enrolled students that is.

On internships & career placement, I think you are probably right on....everything I've read on this board (thank you gellino) and directly from the Colgate Career center shows a very strong career/internship placement, especially with Wall Street. Hard to imagine Colby could be as strong in Boston (nor do I recall hearing such claims while visting Colby), but I have no hard evidence to back that up. I'll look.

gellino

I think he means different populations because Colgate's numbers are for accepted students and Colby's numbers are for enrolled students. I think Colby's avg SAT dropped 34 points in the most recent year that PR reports.

That ED breakdown for Colby is interesting and probably means that the ED II candidates are panicked ED I deferrees/rejectees of Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst who are probably not as good as the RD candidates.

Not that that this is any kind of fullproof method, but on Bloomberg user profiles, there are 559 people from Colgate listed and 154 people from Colby listed, certainly a larger difference than the 50% larger class size at Colgate.