<p>I found the thread about Lehigh and linked it in case you want to read it over. I guess that would be one thing to ask about - the party rep - the dominance by fraternities, etc. I looked at our hs Naviance and it really is more of an “A” student school - unless you apply ED. I’m sure the academics and sports are great - I just have a sense that there is something in the pervasive culture at Lehigh that does not impress me. Maybe they need more girls!</p>
<p>Hi Linymom, yeah, Lehigh does have a party image, but I really think RM should look into it anyway…not everyone of the 5000 kids is going to be a partier…maybe Lehigh realizes that kids are going to party anyway and it’s just more out in the open than at other schools…RM: if you do look at Lehigh, even though it may be a reach academic-wise…they do have an excellent business school reputation…& also great reputation for their sports teams…then also maybe you’d consider Univ. of Richmond again. I mentioned it a long time ago, and even though it may be a bit of a reach, you never know what colleges will admit kids…if he has what they’re looking for, they’ll accept him! U of Richmond is also known for their excellent business school. Maybe less Jewish kids than Lehigh, but maybe a core group is all he’ll need…those two schools are in pretty good driving distance from your home, I believe, and have that 4000/5000 student total you’re looking for…Richmond may be a bit warmer in the winter than PA!</p>
<p>At our HS, Lehigh and Richmond both are for A- students and students on this thread who need merit aid or who psychologically need to be in the top half of the class probably should look elsewhere. Both are fine schools, but our Lehigh kids have had some DUI issues and the frat binge drinking rep is pervasive.</p>
<p>Both have good basketball programs, although Lehigh plays much weaker competition (Lafayette, Army, Colgate, etc). Lehigh has recently been weak in football and Richmond strong; both play in the second tier of division 1.</p>
<p>Re sports programs, you need to know if your child is likely to attend the events if they are not huge campus happenings and do not involve nationally known opponents. My son loves to play sports, but never watched his HS play football, even though he knew many kids on the team, because he is more of a player than a spectator.</p>
<p>I note that recent campusvibe reports cover RIT and Binghamton, among others discussed on this thread.</p>
<p>Hollie raises a key issue–some kids will not “travel well”–north to south or vice versa. </p>
<p>Rockville raises a difficult question–2500 students vs. 5000 vs. 16000. I tend to think that a 16000 student school requires a child who is good at dealing with large classes, being aggressive to get into required courses, etc.</p>
<p>I am not sure a 5000 school will foster more “wing spreading” than a 2500. It may be easier to grow as a leader in a smaller school because fewer kids are vying to be editor in chief, class president, head of the radio station, etc. A smaller school may also provide more mentoring and security to help a student become confident enough to spread their wings. I would check that the 5000 school actually does offer better opportunites, rather than the same number with twice as many kids. </p>
<p>Of course, much depends on the exact schools involved and what he student wants to explore. There are certainly pairs of schools where the larger school will have more courses or more study abroad programs. And some schools are larger without adding anything except larger or additional sections of intro to psych, etc or something irrelevant–such as a large health professions or engineering program of no interest to your child.</p>
<p>My sugestion is to look hard at what the specific differences are and also at whether the school fosters an environment where kids are likely to be willing to grow–for example, a strong mentoring system, where they will be encouraged to grow and reassured that there is no adverse consequence to trying an struggling; pass/fail options so that taking that exotic course does not harm their GPA; a challenging, but friendly academic atmosphere with small classes, not a sink or swim environment or large classes where the professor will not notice they are struggling until it is too late.</p>
<p>This complex equation will not always favor the small school-- Elon might score better than Ursinus, or Penn State better than James Madison. I think you make no assumptions and research in depth. And it may just come down to where your child senses he or she will be most comfortable.</p>
<p>Slitheytove: Thanks for the reference to the article about distance between schools and home. This is a big issue for us because one of my daughter’s top choices is a short plane ride away while the others are within an hour of home. I suspect that she is the type of kid who would benefit from being farther away in ways that the article mentions. She could take the safe route and attend the state flagship where she would have an instant social niche, but she really wants to spread her wings and live in a different city at a school with kids from all over the country (and the world).</p>
<p>I have to chime in on the distance. My D is fairly close to home (freshman) and the main reason she chose this school was because it is a reasonable car ride away. I was hoping for a different school (which gave more money) but D refused to be a plane ride away. All things considered, I think she was right. In fact, now I am wondering if staying home and attending the state flagship may not have been an even better idea. Some children are just not ready to separate at the grand old age of 17. Of course my 11 yo is ready to leave home tomorrow, so it is really a difference in personality (they are both girls).</p>
<p>Queen’s Mom: I agree that it really depends on the kid. My older daughter is 2 hours from home with great Amtrak access and that has been ideal. She loves school but appreciates the option of coming home for holidays. We usually drive up once or twice a semester for an afternoon visit. </p>
<p>My younger daughter was originally interested in schools that are very far away, where it would be difficult to come home for a weekend. Now, the farthest schools that she’s seriously considering are in Boston. It’s very easy and reatively cheap to fly from BWI to Boston, so I think it would work. We sent her to a 2 week summer program at BU to try things out, and she didn’t want to come home!</p>
<p>For those that are concerned about travel for Thanksgiving, you might also want to check each college’s academic calendar. The school that my son is attending offers a week off for Thanksgiving break. This means that he does not need to fight the crowds flying home, the plane fare is reasonable, and he can return on Saturday (even Friday if he wanted to) and avoid the Sunday flight back.</p>
<p>To be frank, we looked at one school that was never on top of his list because there were several items that we felt were deal breakers. One item was that it was a regional school with classes still held on Wednesdays before Thanksgiving. That is fine for the student who commutes 2 hours or less. I don’t think it is fine for a school who is looking for students from all over the United States. Yes, my son could meet with professors and explain that he has a flight to catch, but for my tuition dollar I don’t want my son missing a class because of this, and I don’t want my kid to need to jump through these extra hoops. There are too many schools to choose from. It was not just this issue, but the reply that I got to another question that made me realize that this school is truly catering only to regional students. We voted with our feet on that school.</p>
<p>“The further a woman travels to attend college, the more likely she is to gain confidence in her academic, intellectual, writing, public speaking, and leadership skills.” How would you know whether the gain in confidence was a result of the school being distant as opposed to the girls already having greater confidence which lead them to choose more distant schools?</p>
<p>And how can you tell that this does not simply reflect that the very large number of girls who attend community and commuter colleges are not as confident, etc as those who attend noncommuter public colleges? Or private colleges, especially prestigious colleges, both of which are much more likely to be out of state? </p>
<p>Meanwhile, pn the Atlantic coast, states are so small that anyone going 100
miles (especially West) is in a vastly different environment than is the case in the large states.</p>
<p>yabeyabe2, the quote notes that the study consisted of “approximately 10,000 women and 7,000 men who attended 204 four-year co-educational colleges and universities in the late 1990s”. That eliminates the confounding factor of community colleges, at least. It’s a national study, but I don’t know if the results were broken down by geographic region (the study originates from UCLA). </p>
<p>The entire article is an interesting read. Another short quote:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree that 100 miles is one thing in California, and another on the east coast.</p>
<p>we looked long and hard at Lehigh. We visited it before apps, and again after DD was admitted. </p>
<p>There is MUCH to like about it. relevant here, they have Jewish studies, and a strong Hillel, and also close to other schools (Lafayette and Muhlenberg) with Jewish kids. Its a beautiful campus and close to Philly and NYC. Strong school spirit, and a strong alumni network.</p>
<p>As for drinking/partying, we were strongly under the impression that A. Thats mostly on weekends, this is a work hard party hard school, NOT a school where its party only and academics be damned B. It IS possible to have a social life outside the Greek/drinking scene - many on campus activities, and for Jewish kids, Hillel itself provides a social base apart from the Greek scene.</p>
<p>That said, my DD was still concerned about the drinking culture, she simply wanted a place where it would be less central, and she would be less likely to worry about being the caregiver for a drunken roommate. </p>
<p>had that been the ONLY thing leaning against Lehigh, she probably would have gone. However she got into RPI, which offered a better financial package, a superior Architecture program (her field) and an atmosphere particularly supportive of quirky, nerdy type kids. However it was not an easy choice.</p>
<p>“How would you know whether the gain in confidence was a result of the school being distant as opposed to the girls already having greater confidence which lead them to choose more distant schools?”</p>
<p>"A national longitudinal study I conducted of approximately 10,000 women and 7,000 men</p>
<p>Since it was a longitudinal study, they presumably got to survey the panel at different ages, and measured some indicator of “confidence” at age 16, and again later. If they didnt, they wasted the potential of a longitudinal study. They are expensive to do, but preferred for getting at such cause and effect issues. Of course its possible that real confidence, driving the choice where to go to school, was not revealed by whatever question they asked the 16 YOs. Nothing in social science is perfect.</p>
<p>Slithey, good point about the community college exclusion. I would bet that the greater average distance for Jewish kids reflects a greater willingness to send kids far away to the most prestigious school which accepts them and to pay for very expensive distant colleges (e.g., I bet the northern kids at Tulane, Emory and Miami and the nonEastern kids at NYU, GW, American and BU are disproportionately Jewish).</p>
<p>my brisket is done too, so is the chicken soup and gefilte fish. Still have to make some kugels and other sides. I have no idea what to do for desert. I bought some honey cake at costco but I really don’t like it much.</p>
<p>H and I just got back from taking S2 to his senior year at the University of Denver. How did he grow up so fast ?!?!</p>
<p>He didn’t need us to take him–he’s always flown out alone since the first time we took him freshman year, but this year he INVITED us to go with him and help him get settled in for senior year. We made a nice weekend of it–he is an ultra low-maintenance child, so we did our best to spoil him a little bit.</p>
<p>We had an impromptu lunch with the Chabad rabbi, with whom my S has become a good friend.</p>
<p>We also saw a lot of boys moving in to the new ZBT house–ZBT took over what used to be the Sigma Chi house, across the street from my son’s fraternity. When S2 started at DU, both ZBT and AEPi were colonizing, and he liked some of the boys…but neither had a house or the prospect of a house when he was a freshman, and he really wanted the quintessential experience of living in a fraternity house, so he went with another house.</p>
<p>Something to know about smaller campuses—a lot of times, the houses are more “mixed” than they may be on larger campuses. For example, all of the houses at DU have significant number of Jewish members—and the Jewish houses have significant numbers of non-Jewish students. S2 estimates that ZBT is probably close to 50/50.</p>
<p>Also wanted to add my two cents to the distance discussion–our family considered the ease of transportation more so than the distance factor. It’s not a big deal if there is good airport transportation or a doable drive–we felt it was something to think about if getting to an airport and from an airport to campus was going to be a problem. At DU, it’s not a problem–Denver is an easy flight from almost anywhere, and while SuperShuttle is not cheap, it’s easy and reliable. Son has also used the RTD to the airport (very cheap and easy) but SuperShuttle is easier if he has a lot to shlep–at Thanksgiving, for example, because he comes home for 6 weeks, and switches his wardrobe.</p>
<p>Shana Tovah everyone…time to go cook. We always have sweet and sour meatballs–for a sweet and smooth year. Yum! We are having other empty nesters over tonight so it won’t be so lonely at our table.</p>