<p>I saw this sort of a thread about UC Santa Cruz, and thought it might be a fun idea.</p>
<p>Having never attended Earlham College, but having a son who has just been accepted (and hasn't attended yet), I'll start the list off with this:</p>
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<li> Earlham welcomes you to their school with probably the best acceptance letter out there -- including personal references to your accomplishments and interest.</li>
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<li>You are encouraged to explore academic interests.</li>
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<li>Everyone, including professors, addresses each other by their first names.</li>
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<li> An emphasis on service.</li>
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<li>Professors are willing to help out each child whenever they need it. Doors always open.</li>
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<li> Students are very accepting of all types of kids.</li>
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<li> Excels in the sciences and is one of the top science schools in the country.</li>
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<li> The emphasis on Earlham's campus is on collaboration rather than competition.</li>
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<li>Earlham parents get free automatic subscriptions to the Earlhamite alumni magazine!</li>
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<p>^^ I pounce on The Earlhamite the minute it hits my mailbox.</p>
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<li> Advisors who really do live up to the full potential of their important responsibility. They advise about academic, extracurricular, and personal issues. They provide a 4-year guiding and steadying presence.<br></li>
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<li> The small campus allows students to really get to know many of their fellow students. </li>
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12-100 anyone? I’m curious about how arty it is. . . .
Trying to see how the personal support and attention that Earlham provides still results in such a low four-year graduation rate. We will ask about that when we visit in a week!
13, You have class of 5 students where students can discuss anything with the professor.
I’m an admitted student and had a campus visit last week. This is a really good school with great diversity. I also attend a class for mostly senior-junior and it was way too long for me. But I had great time listening to the genuine discussion about Filipino economy in that class
My admitted D also enjoyed her visit last week but was unsure about theater department, worried that its too small. Any opinions? But #14, enjoyed the diverse student body and noticed how the audience was mixed by race/ethnicity/interna. in the audience of a student gospel choir concert.
Just visited for admitted student event. Heard several people talk about the issue of graduation rates. Numbers are improving. Very encouraging. It was a wonderful visit.
@Joan2021: What’s the reason for the low graduation rates, did they say? Is it transfers out, or is it just students giving up? (I can’t imagine, given the nature of the school, that it’s a huge chunk of students dropping to part time and finishing in 8 years or somesuch.)
I’m not Joan2021 but I asked the admissions counselor a few weeks ago. It will be interesting to see if what Joan heard is similar to or different from what I was told. According to the AC, a few years ago the college was not getting the number of applications that they wanted/needed, so they dipped lower into their applicant pool than they should have. Supposedly their admissions is now more competitive and selective so grad rates have improved.
Graduation rates tie directly to the pool of admitted students. When they admit more students first in family to go to school or students that have high financial need, the grad rate goes down. One idea is it is a social good to admit these students, but of course it doesn’t help the student if they don’t graduate. They are doing a number of things to improve the outcomes, but generally the percentage game is really easy to play by only accepting privileged students. From what I see they are working on the issue from both the admissions and the support angles, and it appears to be working.
I heard that four year grad rate is already up to 63% (up from 59% a year or two ago). And the issue is largely one of balancing the goal of diversity with the goal of good statistics. Improving those stats is a goal of theirs. It really is such a nice school with very genuine people…staff, faculty and students. But…I fear I hijacked this thread. We need to continue the listing of the reasons to attend Earlham. Hmm…: