Underrated gems. Colleges that are never mentioned on CC but are really fantastic.
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Replies to: Underrated gems. Colleges that are never mentioned on CC but are really fantastic.
Monmouth University was a pleasant surprise. The location is amazing as it is a half mile from the beach and has housing options oceanfront. The campus is well manicured with a nice mix of old world charm and newer modern buildings and facilities. The on campus arena is brand new and houses D1 basketball games, concerts, student gym, indoor track. Many newer academic buildings with state of the art equipment/labs. There are numerous dining options thruout campus. It’s a Dunkin’ Donuts campus, lol. Asked numerous students about social scene as it’s a dry campus. Was assured by all “we are college kids”, plenty of bars, restaurants, clubs in area. Many upperclassman live off campus as there are hundreds of options in area, thus a robust social scene. 85% of first year students live on campus. Sophs live in apt style on campus units. The upper classmen live in school housing in beachfront apartments. Amazing location to say the least. Cars are allowed on campus from freshman year on. Seemed like an abundance of parking. 20+ sports teams all play on campus, 80+ clubs,10% of student body in Greek life. PNC arts center is 15 minutes away. NYC is 1 hour by car, 90 minutes by train ($32 r/t) 57% female to 43% male
MU is $52,000 per year tuition,fees housing. Merit aid ranges from 8-25k, AP classes with scores of 3 or higher get accepted, seemed easy to transfer credits in from other schools/community colleges. Large selection of summer/winter classes available. Seemed easy to double major or major/minor as there’s a minimal core required. Study abroad available to 10+ countries, including shorter summer option. Internship fairs and job fairs on campus Fall/Spring. Career services very active. Bruce Springsteen archives are housed on campus, strong music program, strong nursing, business school was certified, Bloomberg terminals, real estate school.
Acceptance rate is 70%, bulk of student body is from NJ, upstate NY, Long Island but 30 states represented.
Bottom line, Monmouth University has a great location, beautiful campus, 4500 student body, D1 sports, 85% white student body. It deserves a good look from B students with 1000-1200 SATs, is a serious safety school that I’m sure wouldn’t be a disappointment.
I’ve found at my kids’ h.s., universities that aren’t highly ranked have become attractive for those students who arent tippy top students but who want to venture further afield. While I don’t foresee a huge amount of students from our area applying to Montana State in the future, I do think it will start getting a handful of apps from kids who know the boys from our h.s. and are looking for that type of college experience.
"It's funny how a school in your region can have a great reputation but people who are from other areas don't know about it. "
That's also true of many highly ranked schools as well. Both my kids attended very selective LACs out of outside of our region that will most likely elicit blank stares where we live yet are held in very high regard in their area.
Bottom line is the vast majority of people only know a couple Ivies, big sports universities and schools in their own area.
Most wouldn’t be able to find them on a map with a gps.
It’s not like a Rolex and Timex do more than tell time.
Unless it matters to you. Which is ok too. To each their own.
Sophisticated employers and academics know. Even employers who don’t know, don’t care as long as it is an accredited school and your qualifications, communications style and attitude are what they are looking for in a candidate.
Hidden gems require no minimum prestige-o-meter levels to qualify.
What someone is Missouri, or wherever, thinks about my school in PA ,or wherever, has a value approaching less than zero for me, personally.
@4kids4us This definitely happens. My youngest went to Eckerd - no one around us (including us) had heard of it before it was suggested to him. There's a young lass from his school going there this year and now it's a recommended place to consider if the fit seems right.
The well-known academic schools also run into "huh?" issues too as @doschicos stated. Whenever I mention Rice, the most common response is a chuckle, followed by, "Oh, you're serious? That's a college?" That typical response around us turns many off from even considering it TBH.
I fully agree that most folks "on the street" know a couple of Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and big name sports teams - learning more if a team becomes good for the year, but often with a "Where's that?" accompanying it. Around here they'll know Slippery Rock, Shippensburg, and Kutztown though. Very doubtful if most could place those PA schools on a map, and many would have the same chuckle first wondering if it's a joke.
Rutgers.
Back more precisely to the topic, I would add Mills in Oakland, CA to the list. It’s a woman’s college that is a good bit easier to get into that Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Brown, or even Agnes Scott. It’s got cross registration with Berkeley and they have low tuition, decent merit, and a beautiful campus. They are also incredibly inclusive with 50% of the student body identifying as LGBTQA. There are not as many schools for the average student who wants to go out of state to Cali, so I definitely think it’s a hidden gem.
Isn't this the point of the thread - highlighting schools that are hidden gems? The point I was making was some people may see a college as not being a hidden gem because it's regionalyl well-known, but to those outside the region it would be a hidden gem. So Trinity U is not a hidden gem to those in Texas, but to those outside of Texas it would be a hidden gem. Obviously we don't care what people in Missouri think about Trinity because we are sending our daughter there. Our son goes to American U which almost no one from the Midwest knows about either. If I say he goes to school in DC people are like oh Georgetown or maybe they know GW. On the East Coast American is a popular college choice. One of our friends was talking about how a coach from Richmond U had contacted his son about coming to play there and he was like my son can do so much better. I almost died because they obviously knew nothing about how hard it is to get into Richmond or what a good reputation the school has out East.
Agree with your perspective 100 percent.
Just my thoughts on the subject you brought up.
Thanks for the insight! Very interesting topic to me.
Even within PA, I’d be hard-pressed to tell someone where all of them are, especially those on the Pittsburgh side of the state. I’m assuming PA isn’t exceptional in that regard, although it might be to a certain extent.
Not Rutgers
Fake news.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1953/10/28/rutgers-officials-may-apply-for-ivy/
But for an educated ivy person you would think that politeness and manners counted for something, it used to at schools at the ivy level.
Fake news instead of just saying it in pleasant manner is a dick move.
Do you know what the result of the petition was? The article doesn’t say.
Do you know they almost merged with Princeton?
And they were private until you 1945 or so. They are one of the 8 colonial era colleges. 1760 formation.colonial era schools also includes w and m and some of the current Ivy League.
So the roots are interesting. They merged win a women’s college named Douglas in the 1920s which was ahead of its time. Although primarily a men’s university in many of its schools until the 60s