Carleton and Macalester: How similar?

bclintonk
Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:02:27 +0000

I know two kids currently attending St. Olaf who just love it. My impression is they draw more students from an Upper Midwest regional base than either Carleton or Macalester which are truly national and increasingly international, though I think St. Olaf is working hard to expand out of its traditional Norwegian Lutheran constituency, which might give out-of-region kids a slight edge in admissions. Still, a lot of kids of Norwegian heritage and/or Lutheran religious affiliation are drawn to it, but (as Descartesz says above ^^^^^^^ ) it’s ELCA which is the moderate-to-liberal mainstream branch of Lutheranism, consequently it would be a mistake to categorize it as a “conservative” Christian college. IMO St. Olaf is very much an underrated school, and a good match for a kid in the B+ range academically: median ACT 29, median SAT 1320, median unweighted HS GPA 3.65.