Any thoughts on Macalester vs Connecticut College for Biology? Many thanks!
Do you want to be in Minneapolis or do you want to be in a small city near the coast in Connecticut?
Are you interested in marine biology? Or anything specific?
Both have large faculties but Mac is larger.
I’m sure they’re both fantastic - but - there are certainly school and location differences.
btw - neither shows up on the feeder list for PhDs - top 50.
Choose what’s best for affordability and desirability.
Best of luck.
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Have you been admitted*, or are you considering applying this coming fall?
What are your criteria and preferences for choosing a college, other than a biology major? Note that biology is a broad field with many subareas, so you may want to look at the upper level course offerings to see which department covers the subareas of greater interest to you.
*and at what net price after financial aid and scholarships, if cost is a factor for you and your family.
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You are so nice to reply right away! My daughter loves the idea of being in a city (Minneapolis) but also loves the idea of being in the Northeast, so the locations kind of balance each other out.
My daughter was admitted EA to Macalester with merit aid, and will be hearing back from Conn in late March. I think her decision will be largely based on the Admitted Students days at both schools in April. Thank you so much for weighing in, and looking into the upper level course offerings is an excellent suggestion.
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But the Northeast is an area like the MW. One is Minneapolis. One is New London. It’s not Boston or Providence or NYC. The places are distinct forgetting the part of the country they reside.
Those may become occasional trips to big NE cities but are not day to day.
Has she visited both ? If so where did she feel it was better ? Did she check the dorms, the dining hall food, stop and talk to kids on campus? Does travel to CC cause an issue ?
Are both equally in range of what you are comfortable paying ?
I guess I’m saying both are great. She’ll have to decide. If she had marine interests, I’d say conn college due to water access.
I can’t decide for her 
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Agree that admitted students days will be important. Both are wonderful options and, assuming they are equally affordable, she should go with her preference. If your D hasn’t done so already, I’d suggest she take a look through the course offerings in Bio at both schools (should be online).
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As a comment on Connecticut College, it is notably strong in the biological sciences subfield of botany. This opportunity may appeal to your daughter. For biological sciences generally, I also might recommend Connecticut College in this comparison.
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Having gone to school in both locations, there is no comparison. The Twin Cities are vibrant, full of things to do, young people, internships. New London is a depressed and isolated town. The best thing about it is the Amtrak station. We used to call it “Patheticut.” Macalester has the Ordway nature preserve a few miles from campus and an excellent environmental studies department. It has always been ranked much higher than Conn.
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Along similar lines, Connecticut College’s arboretum also seems worthy of note. This site, for example, places it seventh nationally among collegiate examples:
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My hunch is that, if the decision is this close for two such different host cities, it may just come down to campus aesthetics. Conn has the much prettier campus, and New London is sort of par for the course as an LAC town. OTOH the Twin Cities can make up for an abundance of shortcomings.
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This is a case where two reasonable people could make two different choices.
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Both of these schools are very strong in foreign languages for such small schools, and neither one has Greek life. Both of these were big pluses for my daughter.
To the extent that a midwestern city can have “east coast charm”, I’d say that the neighborhoody parts of St. Paul definitely do have that. The little strip with the brunchy little restaurants and Patagonia store etc, right next to Macalester buildings, oozes just as good of a vibe as many brick/leafy little pockets in New England, in my estimation. Yet the perks of the overall twin cities area — as far as internship and entertainment opportunities, airport, food, shopping, etc.— are also there.
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