<p>My daughter is an OSRUI kid. Six summers as a camper, and this will be her third summer on staff, since the going-into-senior-year summer work/study program is considered staff.</p>
<p>If the weekend leadership training is meant to take place THIS year, she couldn’t do it, because she’s in Israel. But I’m pretty sure her camp doesn’t participate.</p>
<p>Is someone considering Chapman? I have a colleague – brilliant and broad-gauged guy – who recently joined the faculty there and can ask him what he thinks of the school if that would be helpful.</p>
<p>With respect to Goucher, we know several kids who have gone there. All but one had issues in high school and straightened themselves out and have really blossomed at Goucher. The other one just finished her first semester. A gifted dancer (who was offered spots in famous companies) decided that while she wants to dance, she needs an education and apparently Gaucher has a strong dance program but also lets her get a liberal arts education. She seemed both very busy and very happy as well.</p>
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D2 is on NFTY regional board and their national meeting is at your D’s camp in February. Everyone keeps saying “There’s a Jewish camp in Mississippi?! Really?!” We’re just excited for her to see another part of the country :)</p>
<p>Where is everyone getting their “percentage of (student faith)” statistics?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Hillel.org reports Jewish enrollment for those schools with a Hillel. </p>
<p>One issue with southern schools is that many Jewish students don’t self-report. I live near a couple of larger southern universities not known for attracting Jewish students. Recent efforts by the Institute for Southern Jewish Life to attract more Jewish students to each campus revealed there were more Jewish students already on campus than anyone realized. Not a lot, but enough to get Hillel’s attention. Now, one of those campuses is “small and mighty”. It’s been fun to watch those kids in action!</p>
<p>PRJ: that’s super about your daughter coming our way! She’ll certainly see some “country” :). February will be a good time, because it won’t be oppressively hot. Hopefully, they’ll have their regular kitchen crew going, because those ladies can flat out cook. My daughter recently became a vegetarian but says the only thing she still wants is her camp’s fried chicken. It’s goooood. Also, the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience is located there. So very interesting. The Mississippi Delta used to be home to a large Jewish population. Sadly, it has waned over the last generation or so - but there are some wonderful photographs there (my favorite is of a couple of a guy holding the Torah…wearing a trucker cap. Priceless.) and other relics of disbanded congregations from the region.</p>
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<p>Reform Judaism magazine does an annual issue listing the schools with the top % of Jewish enrollment. It may be that their data comes from Hillel.</p>
<p>Note that I don’t think anyone on this thread is getting “percentage of (student faith)” statistics. We (well, I, anyway) only know about the percentage of JEWISH STUDENTS, and the data sources I’m using don’t collect or report on other faiths.</p>
<p>I agree that the Reform Judaism Magazine annual report on “schools Jews choose” is a good source. <a href=“http://reformjudaismmag.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=2888&destination=ShowItem[/url]”>http://reformjudaismmag.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=2888&destination=ShowItem</a>
I thought the conventional wisdom was that the Hillel site is often wrong, out of date, etc. but maybe that has improved over the last couple of years? </p>
<p>nbc1993 - wow. your description of the food and the museum makes me wish I was coming with her! I am fascinated the history of American Jewish experience in unexpected places like the South and the Midwest.</p>
<p>They do get their data from Hillel. Look at the footnote.
*Notes: All estimated population figures as well as information concerning fraternities/sororities, Jewish courses, and Jewish studies are
courtesy of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. Any questions, please contact Hillel directly (202-449-6500, hillel.org).</p>
<p>But it may be that Hillel doesn’t do a great job updating the stats on its website. </p>
<p>And, again, this won’t help MarkBass if he was hoping that these sources would have another column of stats for the percentage of, say, Episcopalian kids on campus. They don’t.</p>
<p>^^ hmm… I never looked at that footnote and for some reason, assumed that the magazine did their own research. my bad! perhaps where Hillel’s data is weak is not those schools that have significant Jewish populations, but the smaller ones who may not send Hillel updated data as often.</p>
<p>Interesting…i just checked my local University’s info on Hillel.org, and it does list outdated contact info on our Hillel. I’m pretty sure our student president submitted new info in August. Glad this came up so that I can let him know.</p>
<p>I think you’re probably right about that. A school that has a “small but mighty” community of, say, 20 kids getting together on Friday nights can lose them all in a couple of years.</p>
<p>Schools with 6000 Jews could be off by half and still have 3000 Jews. You could still make a minyan!</p>
<p>Even in the big Jewish schools, though, things change–</p>
<p>During my freshman year at college, there was a reform “minyan” that met Friday nights, but we rarely had 10 people. By 5 years later, it was routinely attracting 60 people. You’d think that kind of momentum would be sustainable forever, right? We went back during a college visit with my daughter 2 years ago and learned that it had fizzled completely at some point and been reborn, but was struggling mightily to survive and didn’t have a clear successor to the stalwarts who had been leading it for a couple of years.</p>
<p>Little micro-environments change so much when the population turns over by as much as 25% every year!</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your replies. </p>
<p>I can’t see letting her apply to Elon ED without seeing the school, but I don’t see us making the trip to NC unless she was accepted–a Catch-22. I’ll have to decide if a trip to NC is in the cards. It is strange to me that you mention NJ as well-represented there–I never heard of the school until I read this thread, but when I went to the NJ information session it was packed. Guess word just hasn’t gotten to my school district yet.</p>
<p>My sister in law went to Roger Williams but it was so long ago I wanted to hear more current thoughts. Sounds like it might be worth further investigating the Jewish presence.</p>
<p>Muhlenberg is very popular in our town, so not sure what her chances would be there. It might depend on who applies her year.</p>
<p>Based on responses from rockvillemom, simpkin, and momjr, sounds like my Maryland trip should focus on Goucher, McDaniel, and Hood, while crossing off St Mary’s. Frankly, I’m really hoping she likes Goucher. No one mentioned Washington but a friend who grew up in Baltimore told me the eastern shore schools are very isolated so I’m thinking of taking that one off too.</p>
<p>Socaldad, I just can’t see putting her on a plane to the west coast. D1, who is much more mature and independent, looked at schools in Colorado, but after making the trip got nervous about being so far from home. So while D2 would probably love the warmth of Southern California, I don’t think it’s going to happen.</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>My D just got accepted to university of Rhode Island. I’m pretty excited since this is a choice that is driveable. Does anyone have opinions on this school?</p>
<p>congrats, names! There has not been much discussion of URI on this thread so far. I remember I looked at it when making up my D’s college list since we were looking at medium sized public universities (URI has about 13,000 students) but she ended up not applying there. </p>
<p>I do remember asking on this thread whether it had any type of college town attached to it and I think the answer was not. If you take a look in the Princeton Review book, some of the students comments mention it may be a bit of a “suitcase” school so you might want to check out that aspect.</p>
<p>I hope this will not offend, but it was also mentioned as a possible “safety” school by my D’s college counselor. So it would seem this school might attract kids who were not able to get in to the more selective New England publics like UVM, U Mass, U Conn…?</p>
<p>I also recall that it had a marine biology program due to its location near the coast. What is your D interested in studying?</p>
<p>names1 - congrats on Rhode Island - fabulous news!</p>
<p>congratulations to names1. URI is a great school for B students; it has a nice Jewish population, too.</p>
<p>Simkin and Names, congratulations on the acceptances.</p>
<p>NBC: A- student, looking for a school walking distance from a village, and a paddler. Do I have that right? Does California work? I don’t really know about paddling but I believe that the Claremont Consortium has a club rowing team, is that the same thing? It is a very nice campus about 10% Jewish with a Hillel and a village within an easy walking distance from campus. There are 5 colleges with varying admission statistics and personalities, it could be worth checking out. </p>
<p>Linymom: Thank you for the information about Olim. It sounds like your daughter’s camp’s Olim group is equivilent to our Kibbutz. </p>
<p>PRJ: It does seem from what I’ve read since yesterday that four camps have been doing the Olim program for a few years and our camp is just joining the group this year. I don’t know if there are any other camps joining. Our new group is specifically targeting new counselors. Also if you enjoy learning about southern Jewish cultures and you find yourself in San Antonio check out the Institute of Texan Cultures.</p>
<p>URI has an attractive campus (except for the music building!) on a slightly sloping hill. The town is not next to the campus so you need a car to get anywhere (there are buses). Many students live off campus - I think they may even have to junior year - this may have changed since it has been 3 years since we visited. Many upperclassmen like to live in a nice little town which is right next to the beach - the people who have beach houses in the summer rent them to students in the winter. So it is a somewhat unique living situation there - I think that is why some might call it a suitcase school. Also Rhode Island is a small state so is is easy for the in-state students to go home on the weekend. The Pharmacy school is well respected and competitive to get into.</p>
<p>Remember the book I recommended a while back - “The Blessing of a B-” - well - the title of that book really comes to mind tonight as I am watching the bloodbath that is the UVA EA results. It is heartbreaking to see kids with 35 ACTs get deferred, 2200 SAT and top 10% rank get rejected and so forth! Our “B” students are doing just fine!!!</p>
<p>@nbc1993: I don’t really know what you mean by a paddler…she likes to kayak?</p>
<p>A few schools that come to mind are Lafayette, Muhlenberg and Connecticut Colleges.</p>