Experience with Messiah? Chapel probation sounds intimidating

TheGreyKing
Sat, 15 Sep 2018 11:50:57 +0000

Your son is a strong student. The ONLY reason for him to attend a college like Messiah (with its specifically religious mission) would be if he specifically wanted a college for evangelical type worship. But you and he have reservations about their religious requirements and do not share the predominant religion there, so it seems a poor match.

There are so many great colleges in the nation. Everyone here seems to have named strong Catholic-affiliated colleges as suggestions. That’s great, but if you were willing to look at a non-Catholic college in Messiah, why not look at some completely secular non-religious-affiliated colleges?

If you want your son to be able to attend Catholic services, he will be able to do that at most of the secular colleges. Every college we looked at in the northeastern United States- and we primarily looked at colleges without any religious affiliation, on purpose- has opportunities for Catholic students to worship together… even the only college we looked at that had a plurality of Jews still had a large number of Catholics and a Catholic chapel!

At a nonreligiously-affiliated college, there will be opportunities to join worship and service groups for students of his own faith, but the college will not be FORCING him or any other student to engage in religious practices nor will it try to elevate one religion above another.

He might look at Clark University, with no religious affiliation and great merit aid. He might check out Muhlenberg, which is strong for pre-med and has good merit aid. It is officially Lutheran but has more Catholics than Lutherans. Loyola in Maryland is Catholic and offered great merit aid to a student I know who had a lower test score than your son. So he can find many colleges, both affiliated and not, with merit aid. Look through College Confidential threads about colleges that offer merit aid, and scan descriptions in College guide books for this as well, and cross check these for his preferred majors, the percentage of students accepted to medical school, and the presence of Catholic services if he wants these. He will find a ton of options, many of which are fully secular and welcoming to students of all different faiths and nonreligious students as well.