Before going into specific points I should emphasize that overall my son is very happy at COW, partly due to the good academic environment and partly because he has found lot of friends. The cons (as well as pros) below may be common for many small colleges across USA and may not be specific to COW.
Cons
Grades are largely absolute threshold with very little curving. 93+ A, 90-93 A-, 85-90 B+ etc. I feel absolute threshold is a wrong way to go. It takes away from professors power of keeping difficult exams, home-works etc. On the flip side students have to keep studying for exam rather than learning more outside curriculum out of interest. One mess up makes it difficult to cover up later. Relative grading and tougher exams is a much fairer way in my opinion. Not sure if this is standard way for undergraduate classes everywhere.
Funds don’t seem to be available abundantly. You will feel the college has to be careful with spending. Less class sections, transportation unavailability for class research outing, some sports activities are underfunded and athletes have to cover some of the costs. It is not a big issue. All basic and necessary things are well covered but you can feel dearth of money.
Remote town. Hard to access airport except with Uber which is flaky. Multiple connections have to be done for an international travel.
Internships, paid summer research seem to be difficult to get at least for an international freshman student. My son could not get a paid assignment either within the school or outside so he is coming back home.
They should run their placement tests better with clean syllabus disclosure and some sample tests posted online. Current way is causing a lot of under placing of well prepared students.
Medical treatment seemed quite expensive even after insurance. @400$ for three stitches and removal which involved two visits.
Dorms are alright, nothing to write home about. Common areas with little or broken recreational facilities etc. Again one can feel it may be funding issue.
Students with A/IB/AP preparation may find @40% of freshman year topics in courses related to the ones already done in high school. If college improves placement tests this may get resolved and students can do additional non-major courses.
Pros
College, teachers, administrators care and are quite responsive.
An irritating situation of course clashing due to a unique double major combination of my son was resolved quickly once an email was sent to academic director. One can’t expect it to happen so easily in larger schools.
Atmosphere seems to be politically centrist. At least definitely not overly left leaning.
Course overload is easily approved as long as you meet the grade threshold.
Credit transfer for A/IB/AP curricula is relatively easy. We could transfer 4-science and math credits. Useful for overall degree requirements. Not accepted for major requirements unless you separately place out of those based on tests.
If international students can find internship then CPT process seems to be well ironed out. I know this can be a problem in many small colleges with less international students. Not a huge support for finding these internships though. At least not for freshman year students.
Research opportunities (unpaid) are available during semester even for freshman first semester students. Labs are fairly well equipped in Biology and Chemistry.
Focus on undergraduate thesis is really strong. You feel the vibe even in freshman year.
International as well as American students diversity of students is excellent.
Students seem to be quite serious about studies. May be compulsory undergraduate thesis ensures that at the intake.
Data science as a major is available. Not many colleges have it formalized in US.
Even a tough double major is relatively easy to do especially if you can transfer some credits from A/IB/AP.
Dorm food seems to be satisfactory at least for a non-picky eater with no allergy, vegetarian, vegan constraints. Door-dash et al works well.
Sports classes like Scooba, tennis, golf etc. are relatively easily available.
Relative (competitive or curved) grading is mainly usable in large classes, since small classes could end up with strong or weak students who would be graded unfairly with competitive grading.
However, absolute grading can be done with thresholds that are different from typical US high school thresholds of 90% = A, 80% = B, etc. to allow for more difficult tests and the like.
Colleges probably prefer a bias toward underplacement because (a) fewer students will flunk out, and (b) lower level courses are less expensive to offer than additional more advanced courses that students may be able to take if they started with higher placement.
That is a general aspect of the US, not specific to college or a specific college. Of course, people used to much lower cost medical care outside the US may be in for a shock.
Yeah. I compared it to the costs I had to pay as graduate student for using medical services. It was quite miniscule after insurance. However, as you said this could be a norm now especially for colleges which do not have internal medical departments.
Thanks for continuing to share your son’s experience. I’m sure this will help other international students and parents interested in LACs.
Regarding lack of internship opportunities for freshmen: that is true for almost everyone, both US citizens and international students. Very few get internship or research opportunities after freshman year.
I don’t think that is Wooster specific. Frankly, that is a common complaint for many parents of 1st and 2nd year undergrad students at schools nationwide (at least from reading CC that is my impression).
Internships are very competitive everywhere. 1st and 2nd year undergrads are usually the least qualified of the applicant pool, it shouldn’t be surprising that relatively few get paid internship offers.
D23 got her summer internship literally through a referral of a teammate, otherwise she would have had almost no luck as well.
I’m going to chime in here quickly. My son is a current student at Wooster and we (parents) have been so impressed by his experience so far. DS is quiet, and I was worried about how he’d do socially, but he had no trouble finding a great group of people to hang out with. From what I can gather, his group seems studious but fun. His professors have been great, we’ve never had any problems dealing with administrative offices, etc. As the OP alluded to, DS did not get an internship after freshman year. However, he did participate in the AMRE program the summer after sophomore year, and he had a really good internship experience in the program. He is currently studying abroad, and that is also going very smoothly. In short, we couldn’t be happier with his college choice. It’s been great so far.
Just a brief anecdote. DS got quite sick last January and passed out in the bathroom, hitting his head. He managed to get back to his room, but felt pretty terrible so he called campus security. Campus security brought him to the wellness center, where the nurse checked him over but sent him to the local hospital for some tests to be sure. Campus security drove him to and from the hospital ER. Wellness called the next day to check on him, and a college caseworker also reached out to check on him, make sure that all was well and offered to contact professors on his behalf if necessary. From awful start to finish the Wooster staff (and local hospital, by the way) were absolutely wonderful. I felt like DS was in really good hands and that he was very cared for as a young adult experiencing something quite scary on his own for the first time.
Thanks for sharing this! This my son’s 3rd semester and the experience continues to be positive. He now has a paid lab research assistantship also…after the semester ends I will create a post of updated experience!