Carleton and Macalester: How similar?

Descartesz
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:38:18 +0000

If you visit the Twin Cities, it is really worth the extra time to see all three. St. Olaf is less than five minutes from Carleton and could at least be seen via a drive-through of campus. Yes, it is a little less selective than the other two schools, but has a reputation for exciting academic fervor in students who, perhaps, had been solid but coasting through high school.

St. Olaf does not hide its religious (Lutheran) connections but sees its mission as delivering education to all traditions. Many students are observant Lutherans, but many are not and are not pressured to be in any way. The student body is socially aware but are generally centrist-to-liberal in their outlook, as is the Lutheran denomination (ELCA) that supports St. Olaf. Of the three schools, St. Olaf is probably the most “conservative”, but this is only relatively so.

I agree with just about all the observations on this thread.

– Mac is more activist than Carleton (in spite of the Wellstone connection).

– Mac kind of specializes in pursuing international perspective, especially insofar as it provides support for a large number of international students. Carleton in this respect is closer to average for LAC’s.

– Mac is in a tidy residential neighborhood with easy access to a wide variety of restaurants. It has a compact campus (about 40 acres) with two borders on busy city streets. Carleton has more of the traditional LAC feel with a beautiful estate-like campus that blends into a large arboretum. Northfield, its home, is a neat large town more or less suspended between St. Olaf on its western edge and Carleton on its east.

–Carleton has the reputation for being particularly academically demanding.