Brag about your "lesser known" school!

Parents Forum
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<p>Well…lists, lists, lists…whatever. Perhaps that is helpful, though very incomplete.</p>

<p>I would also add another school we visited, applied, were accepted…and in the end we graciously declined…</p>

<p>St. Louis University. Beautiful campus in very trendy mid town St. Louis. Gorgeous Cathedral on campus. Helpful, friendly, and STRAIGHTFORWARD people on campus…spoke to several professors. Cross registration with WUSTL. And one of the only certified aeronautical flight schools in the United States on campus.</p>

<p>A real gem. And its Jesuit.</p>

<p>We ultimately picked another Jesuit school.</p>

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<p>And for the record, I think Barron’s Directory is the best out there. 3,000 colleges and very complete information, including their median SAT scores. They also have their own internal ranking system for what that is worth.</p>

<p>But I like flipping back and forth on pages when picking schools to look at closely.</p>

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<p>Yes, we have over 3000 College and University in US.</p>

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<p>See, for me, this thread is all about NOT what the books say. NOT what the median SAT/ACT’s are. It’s about the schools who may be in “the book” but get brushed by quickly just because they are not well-known. Or they are not in the book, but in fact, for some, have so much to offer and in fact offer a “perfect fit”. </p>

<p>It’s about the students/families who may have been candidates for the more well-known schools but instead, for various reasons, chose a lesser-known and are happy to have the chance to brag about their find.</p>

<p>AND it’s about students/families who may not be considered for the top-notch schools, but have made the choice to go to college and choose a profession while receiving a GREAT education at a lesser-known. </p>

<p>CC surely has parents/students from ALL these categories cruising the messages here daily in search of info on all the different aspects of college. CC is a great place to spend time, and I just want to open the door and make EVERYONE welcome to sit down and stay for awhile…</p>

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<p>Montreat College, Montreat, NC</p>

<p>For background, my daughter was accepted at every college she applied to & heavily recruited academically & athletically by large, small & everything in between. Her gpa was ~5.3, very impressive EC & numerous awards & recognitions for volunteer service. She made a list of possible colleges in every state…I have to laugh now! She really was interested in NC so we started visits there. We scheduled 2 in one day. Our 2nd was to Montreat College. To make a long story short, when we got back in our car, we just looked at each other & I made sure I let her go first. We were blown away by this school. She attended fall & spring open houses. The professors knew her by name & even came & sat @ our table to eat lunch in the cafeteria. She receives emails from the professors related to what courses they think are best suited for her major (they actually personally reviewed her records) & to see how she is doing. We made 3 other visits to see how things are on regular days & during breaks. She was walking across a street & one of the professors stopped in his truck to speak to her.
Admissions & financial aid know her by name if she calls with a question. She received messages on her birthday & condolences when her grandmother passed away. As a matter of fact, every department is extremely competent & friendly. The President came up & talked with us on campus. The Vice-President has become like a friend to my daughter.The students act like they have known each other forever. There are ~500-600 students not including the other campuses & adult studies division. The main campus is 15 miles east of Asheville, NC in the mountains. BEAUTIFUL area!! Very safe campus.
Very happy with the financial aid…EFC of 0.
The girls’ dorm for underclassmen has private baths for each room. Unsure about guys.
2 credits in PE are required & the choices are unreal: fly fishing, rockclimbing, kayaking, team sports, jogging, snow skiing, weight training & many more.
Majors not found at larger colleges and academics are not compromised. Her largest class will have 40 & smallest ~8. As a matter of fact, the largest classroom is for 40 unless it’s something like chapel. All graduates that have applied to med schools were accepted. I could go on “bragging” about it…I keep telling them they are a jewel a lot of people don’t know about! My daughter is 100% sure of her selection. Oh, it came down to Baylor’s Honors Program & Montreat. She was accepted at Montreat in October of her senior year.</p>

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<p>Totally agree abasket. pgpc125, great post. To really make this thread useful to everyone, please share as much information as you can about the school and your child like pgpc125 did. This puts it into greater context for everyone and goes beyond the statistics that any of us can read from a book or get from the web. This is about getting texture behind the numbers and how someone found a school that is not as well known that met their needs.</p>

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<p>pgpc125</p>

<p>I learn every day from this thread. My daughter and I ventured through NC for various schools. Amazed at the wealth of schools in that state. And, ultimately, daughter attends a school within 112 miles of Montreat.</p>

<p>Amazingly, I never heard of the school before today. Maybe size is the reason, it is extremely small in contrast to most schools – even in contrast to LAC’s.</p>

<p>Sounds like D having a ball. Know the area in which school is located is a gem, I guess school is too.</p>

<p>Idea for CC – they recently created the “College Visits” post – <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visits/[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visits/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Your thread mirrors it with one great exception: knowledge. Your thread discussed something greater than first impression – which is the majority of the disclosure of “College Visits.” Wonder if there should be analogous blog of “Freshman Impression” for schools.</p>

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<p>Excellent thread! My son is at UMASS/Amherst commonwealth college…and while the college has a way to go to compete with private LAC’s IMHO a student that knows how to use the resources and the numerous placement opportunities can do well…one guidance counselor told me that many large fortune 500 companies recruit at UMASS/Amherst for diversity purposes ,but she found that many students do not show up for the interviews or don’t sign up at all!- one can be a big fish in a big pond!</p>

<p>The academics are excellent but no hand holding here- the student must be independent and be the type of student that will take advantage of all the university has to offer. If you are a wall flower you will remain one!- The admin treats the school like it is a factory so again the student that demands attention gets the red carpet rolled out. It is a shame that very few students “get it” though. A beautiful campus and town setting (Amherst) makes UMASS a bargain these days… they have to work on their reputation though and keep the strong PR program they started a few years ago going!</p>

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<p>Yep…Montreat is a real treat. Good luck there, and I hope you have a great time.</p>

<p>Elon is another gem in NC. A REAL up and coming school…getting HARD to get into…I know for a fact that last year’s class had over 25 kids accept and attend who had SAT’s above 1400. (No, I am NOT an SAT hound…just using that for anecdotal baseline.)</p>

<p>A huge number of Elon kids study overseas…they almost FORCE you to go overseas. They are huge into community service too.</p>

<p>I also happen to know that Wofford in Spartanburg South Carolina is a highly respected southern school with very strong programs. Its small and a little clubby at times…but they are working on changing that, I hear. But a fine school, whose graduates almost all go onto graduate school at some of the countries finest law, medicine and PhD programs.</p>

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<p>You see…I am not just plugging the school that my kid selected. lol.</p>

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<p>Congratulations to all involved in this extremely active, and eye-opening, thread. </p>

<p>Over the short period of a few weeks, the discussion has delivered interesting tidbits about colleges which many may have never known about or even heard of. A list of those schools is below – a simple CTRL-F of the school of note and moving the pages with cursor will direct you to the school of interest.</p>

<p>Alberston College (Caldwell, ID)<br>
Albion College (Albion, MI)<br>
Albright College (Reading, PA)<br>
Alma College (Alma, MI)<br>
Alverno College (Milwaukee, WI)<br>
Augustana College (Rock Island, IL)
Austin College (Sherman, TX) CTCL
Bard College (NY, NY)<br>
Belmont Abbey College (Charlotte, NC)<br>
Beloit (Beloit, WI) CTCL
Bentley College (Waltham, MA)<br>
Berea College (Berea, KY)<br>
Bradley University (Peoria, IL)<br>
Brandeis University (Waltham, MA)<br>
BU (Boston, MA)
Butler University (Indianapolis, IN)<br>
Cal State Monterey Bay (Monterey, CA)<br>
Centre College (Danville, KY) CTCL
Chapman University (Orange, CA)
Christopher Newport University (Newport News, VA)<br>
Clark (Worcester, MA) CTCL
Coe College (Cedar Rapids, IA)<br>
College of Santa Fe (NM)<br>
College of St. Rose (Albany, NY)<br>
College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, ME)<br>
Colorado College (Colorado Springs, CO)
Connecticut College (New London, CT)<br>
Cornell College (Mount Vernon, IA) CTCL
Denison (Granville, OH) CTCL
Depaul (Chicago, IL)<br>
Drew Univ (Madison, NJ)
Earlham College (Richmond, IN) CTCL
Eastern Illinois University (Charleston, IL)<br>
Eckerd College (St. Petersburg, FL) CTCL
Elon Univ (Elon, NC)<br>
Embry Riddle (Daytona Beach, FL)<br>
Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA) CTCL
Fairleigh Dickinson University (Madison, NJ)<br>
FAU (Boca Raton, FL)<br>
Fontbonne Univ (St. Louis, MO)<br>
Furman Univ. (Greenville, SC)<br>
Georgetown College (Georgetown, KY)
Georgia State University<br>
Gonzaga (Spokane, WA)<br>
Goshen College (Goshen, IN)
Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA)
Grove City College (Grove City, PA)
Guilford College (Greensboro, NC) CTCL
Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN)<br>
Hampden Sydney College (Hampden-Sydney, VA)
Hanover College (Hanover, `IN)<br>
Heidelberg College (Tiffin, OH)
Hendrix College (Conway, Ark) CTCL
Hillsdale College (Hillsdale, MI)<br>
Hiram College (Hiram, OH) CTCL
Hobart & William Smith College (Geneva, NY)
Illinois College (Jacksonville, IL)
James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA)
Kalamazoo College (Kalamazoo, MI) CTCL
Kansas State University (Manhattan, KS)
Keene State College (Keene, NH)
Kenyon College (Gambier, OH)<br>
Kettering Univ of Engineering (Flint, MI)<br>
Knox College (Galesburg, IL) CTCL
Lake Forest (Lake Forest, IL)<br>
Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) CTCL
Linfield College (McMinnifield, OR)
Louisian Tech University (Ruston, LA)<br>
Manhattanville College (Purchase, NY)<br>
Marlboro College (Marlboro, VT) CTCL
Mercer College (Macon, GA.)
Miami U (Oxford, OH)<br>
Millikin University (Decatur, IL)<br>
Millsaps College (Jackson, MS) CTCL
Mitchell College (New London, CT)<br>
Montreat College (Montreat, NC)
Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA)<br>
NC State University
Nebraska Wesleyan University (Lincoln, NE)<br>
New College of Florida (Sarasota, FL) CTCL
New England College (Henniker, New Hampshire,)<br>
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (Socorro, NM)
Northland College (Ashland, WI.)<br>
Northwestern College (Orange City, IA)<br>
Oberlin (Oberlin, OH)<br>
Occidental College (LA, CA)
Ohio Northern University (Ada, OH)<br>
Otterbein College (Westerville, OH)
Pepperdine (Malibu, CA)
Prescott College (Prescott, AZ)
Principia College (Elsah, IL)<br>
Randolph College (Lynchburg, VA)<br>
Rensselear Polytechnical Instit. (Troy, NY)
Rhodes College (Memphis, TN) CTCL
Ripon College (Ripon, WI)<br>
Roanoke College (Salem, VA)
Rollins College (Winter Park, FL)<br>
Rose-Hulman Instit Tech (Terre Haute, IN)<br>
Santa Clara University (Santa Clara, CA)<br>
Sewanee/The University of the South (TN)<br>
Simmons College (Boston, MA)<br>
SMU (Dallas, TX)<br>
Southeastern Missouri State University (Cape Girardeau, MO)
Southwestern U (Georgetown, TX) CTCL
Spring Arbor Univ (Spring Arbor, MI)<br>
St. Catherin (St. Paul, MN)
St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY)<br>
St Louis University (St. Louis, MO)
St. Mary’s (St. Mary’s City, MD)<br>
St. Mary’s College (South Bend, IN)<br>
St. Michael’s College (Colchester, VT)<br>
Stonehill College (Easton MA)<br>
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
SUNY Purchase
TCU (Texas Christian U)
Trinity U (San Antonio, TX)
Truman State (Kirksville, MO)
U Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH)
Univ of Denver (Denver, CO)
Univ of North Dakota (Grand Forks, ND)
University of Cincinnati College of Engineering (Cincinnati, OH)
University of Delaware (Newark, DE)
University of Mary Washington (Fredricksburg, VA)
University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
Universiuty of Mass. (Amherst, MA)
University of Oregon Clark Honors College (OR)
University of Portland (Portland, OR)
University of Redlands (Redlands, CA)
University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN.)<br>
University of Tulsa (Tulsa, OK)
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI)<br>
Ursinus College (Collegeville, PA) CTCL
Walla Wlla CC (Walla Walla, WA)
Warren Wilson College (Asheville, NC)<br>
Washington & Jefferson College (Washington, PA)
Wayne State College (Wayne, NE)
Wells College (Aurora, NY)<br>
Western Washington U (Bellingham, WA)<br>
Westminster College (New Wilmington, PA)<br>
Whitworth (Spokane, WA)<br>
Wichita State (Wichita, KS)
Willamette (Salem, OR)<br>
Wittenberg University (Springfield, OH)
Wofford (Spartanburg, SC)<br>
Wooster, College of (Wooster, OH) CTCL
Xavier College (Cincinnati, OH)
Yeshiva U (NY NY)<br>
York College of Pennsylvania.(York, PA)</p>

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<p>One to add–my DD will be a sophomore at University Of Dayton in Dayton, OH. It is a Catholic university–Marionist. ~7000 undergrads–big enough to have lots to offer, small enough for personal attention, and ~ a 90% residential campus. Once we visited and she really liked it there, we hunted for other schools that size and didn’t find very many. </p>

<p>A couple of corrections to add:
It is Xavier UNIVERSITY in Cincinnati, OH (my alma mater)
University of Cincinnati College of Engineering is part of the University of Cincinnati (already listed). U. of Cincinnati has a number of well-know colleges within the university–Engineering; Design, Architecture, Art and Planning; College-Conservatory of Music to name a few.</p>

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<p>Cincy, LOTS of kids in my area go to Dayton and really are happy - I’m in Northwest Ohio. My D considered looking there, but it was a little bigger than she was looking for. I have heard of some nice fin aid packages from UDayton. </p>

<p>UDayton is a favorite of many kids who go to Catholic high school here…</p>

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<p>My good friend’s son is going to University of Dayton too! It was love at first sight for him.</p>

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<p>I have to give a high-5 to my friends’ schools: Hampshire (Amherst, MA) and Seton Hall (Jersey, forgot which city). They are both great schools from what they tell me</p>

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<p>Has anyone experience with Florida Insitute of Technology? My son doesn’t go there, but there have been several friends of his who have. And I recall that many of his classmates received very generous aid offers. Mostly known for engineering and business, located on the east coast of Florida…
<a href=“http://www.fit.edu/about/[/url]”>http://www.fit.edu/about/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>My older daughter is just beginning senior year so I can’t brag about her school yet, but we have watched children of our friends and older sibs of her friends go off to all sorts of schools. Some of these have gotten relatively “hot” out here in the Chicago suburbs though they are not that well known elsewhere. These are all alternatives to the University of Illinois, Illinois State, DePaul, and Loyola, which of course are always popular.</p>

<p>Out of state public schools that are NOT flagships – particularly Winona State in Minnesota and Grand Valley State in Michigan.</p>

<p>Catholic schools – Marquette in Milwaukee; University of St. Thomas in St. Paul; St. Ambrose in Davenport, IA.</p>

<p>In Illinois – Elmhurst College in Elmhurst; Illinois Wesleyan in Bloomington; Bradley University in Peoria, especially for engineering and nursing; Augustana College, in Rock Island.</p>

<p>Christian schools – Taylor University in Indiana; Bethel College in Minnesota; Calvin College in Michigan.</p>

<p>In Wisconsin, Carthage College in Kenosha and Carroll College in Waukesha are known for nurturing B/C students.</p>

<p>Lastly, I must plug St. Olaf in Minnesota and Lawrence in Appleton, Wisconsin. Not exactly unknown, but so very underrated. These are the schools I wish my daughters would go to, but right now my oldest is just not gravitating toward small LACs. The extended family of my best friend all went to St. Olaf, and their loyalty to the school is handsomely matched by their many personal and professional successes. An awesome place that is nowhere near as “religious” as some students fear.</p>

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<p>Bard isn’t in NY, NY. It’s in Annandale-on-Hudson.</p>

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<p>I loved St. Olaf, and if I could live life over again…one D was accepted, great financial aid, and more important a place of great integrity. The setting alone is inspirational, white stone buildings on a hilltop, and all sort of classical music for the non major. As you say, very inclusive, and they want diversity. But my non Christian ex and kids could not get past the religious affiliation.</p>

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<p>It’s a shame a lot of people are like that about religious affiliation.</p>