Ok @zoosermom
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St. Michael’s - stellar location, lovely campus, zippy, preppy, well dressed kids, friendly everywhere, new library, new admin building, new student center, free skiing at Smugglers Notch, free buses throughout Burlington. Burlington is the best college town in the East. Close to 20,000 students. The order is Edmundite, very small order. The priests wore their black shirts with jeans and sneakers. When we there there was an organic farmers market in the quad. We were wandering around on a day without any planned events and a professor invited us up to sit in on Freshman Seminar. We did sign in at admissions and within 48 hours the local admin person set up an interview in October at a local Starbucks.
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St. Anselm. Very good location in the Nashua - Concord Corridor only an hour from Boston. Very serious environment, outstanding food, lovely campus with an upper and lower quad. 60% female due to the nursing program. We had a great interview and then a private tour in a golf cart by two students. Within a week we received handwritten thank you notes. More old school than St. Mike’s. The New Hampshire Institute of Politics is there so everyone has been there and the CNN debates are there. It is reminiscent of Holy Cross. We met a Monk who warned us about the workload at the school and that A grades were really A grades. Very strict on visitation, which is fine with me. I really liked it but it is a bit more traditional.
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Siena - It is much larger than the others and location is very good. The area around the school is upscale and attractive. The campus has a beautiful quad filled with mature trees. We visited the day before classes started and the RAs and athletes were there. It is a D1 school so more jocky than the others. The Friars are more visible but they are very casual. One hugged my wife and daughter and gave each a kiss on the cheek as we departed. With the added size it has a more hefty feel. It is right off the NY State Thruway and easy to get to. The facilities are very nice, the student center has outdoor fire pits and it is brand new.
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Providence - Much more bouncy and judging by the kids we know there, much heavier on the party side. I personally don’t like the location but the campus is nice except the food, terrible, It is well known and solid academically.
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Fairfield & Stonehill - Nice but overly affluent. Fairfield is strong academically but something about it just rubbed me the wrong way. I got the feeling many of the kids were rejected by BC or Holy Cross and went there instead. Very very preppy. Stonehill sort of the same. Stonehill was entirely forgettable.
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St.Bonaventure - I didn’t mention this one because we did the trip in February for the Winter Open House and the game against Virginia Commonwealth. My daughter plays basketball and the women’s team is very strong. She could never play there. It is a very old school with tons of history and lots of famous people. We met Joe Biden’s personal physician at the event and the CEO of Delta Airlines who are alumni. We also met a Pulitzer Prize winner from AP. Location is not great but it has a lot of heft to it. It is rather cheap too. They beat VCU which was nationally ranked and 10,000 people stormed the court. It was on ESPN. Doubtful it will be on list but only due to location.
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Ursinus, Juniata, Susquehanna, Allegheny. So this is the whole point of my thread. All nice, Ursinus best location by far, campuses all nice, people all nice but no hooks. All are good academically but they are just very generic and I continue to confuse them. They lacked zip, they lacked spirit and were forgettable but not negatively so. Hard to explain.
If I had to bet, St. Michael’s is in first place followed by Siena and Ursinus. We will see what happens with Villanova but it is a reach.
The Catholic schools just have a feeling the kids are there for more than just going to school.