Hey CC, I have applied to both of these schools and they are at the top of my list. I can seem to distinguish much between them. I have visited both and while their campuses seem very different (F&M was much nicer) in terms of academics and offerings I can’t tell them apart. I want to major in economics and math and then hope to attend graduate school to pursue a Ph.D in economics. Again both schools seem to have very good math and economics departments and very good graduate school placement rates. To add further to their similarities, both schools are ranked exactly the same on the US World and News Report, but on the Forbes list F&M is like 50 rankings higher than Dickinson. While i haven’t gotten into either school or even know my financial aid package, I want to know more about these schools and their distinguishing factors. So if you could, would you please share your experiences, thoughts, or ideas on these very similar schools.
where do you see yourself as a better fit? go with that! if you get into both than you need to choose. that said f and m seems to be a lot less generous with $$$ and the price tag is way out of line(IMO)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/an-inside-look-at-financial-aid-offers-from-private-franklin-and-marshall-college/2014/12/29/6c43586c-8d2c-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html
may I suggest muhlenberg college for your list? and no matter what school you choose…do yourself a favor and ignore the rankings!(they have zero connection to your success or happiness)
According to IPEDS data, here are the average net prices paid by middle income ($48001-$75K/year) families to attend several Pennsylvania LACs:
$15091 Bryn Mawr
$15612 Haverford
$16744 Dickinson
$18755 Gettysburg
$19167 F&M
$20535 Juniata
$21611 Muhlenberg
YMMV. Run the online net price calculator for each school that interests you. Your own relative net prices may not track with the averages.
tk21769 you should read the article. but since we do not know how much money the OP family has it is hard to say. but, F and M has also been pushing other schools to follow in their footsteps , to make it easier for them to do what they are doing. F and M list price is beyond crazy.
@zobroward Almost all of the very selective LACs/small private universities in Pennsylvania have similar list prices. Dickinson, Gettysburg, Bucknell, Haverford, Muhlenberg, etc. - not more than a few thousand dollars difference among the group. Yes, current list prices are beyond expensive. When I started college in Sept. 1966, Bucknell’s total (including tuition, fees, room, and board) was $2600. Now it’s over $60,000.
I looked at both with my D (she ended up choosing another excellent LAC in PA) and we liked the two colleges very much. She is a science person and gave an edge to F&M because she felt they were a bit better in her area of interest. In general she felt that F&M was a bit preppier and she liked the campus (although we were there on a very rainy day) while Dickinson seemed to stress a “global education” including travel abroad. And it sounds silly but she didn’t like the road that went through Dickinson’s campus – but that really is a terribly minor thing.
Overall they are two great schools and you can’t possibly made a bad choice. She has acquaintances from HS who are Dickinson and F&M and they are all very happy at their respective college. I’d wait and 1) see where you get in 2) see how the finances turn out and 3) try to re-visit each school (my D was able to shadow a student for a day/attend classes at her top two LAC choices) before deciding.
F&M is stronger in sciences, but I would give Dickinson the edge on Econ & Math. Dickinson has a nice focus on helping liberal arts students find jobs post-graduation, too, that is unusual in the LAC world. My advice is if you get in go to accepted student visits before making up your mind. Also, have you run net price calculators for both? What did they show?
What about it?
For the middle income range I cited, the F&M net price cited by the Washington Post seems to be lower than the IPEDS average price. “Student F” has a parental AGI of $69,241 (a bit above the national median family income). F&M’s EFC is $6200. “Student I” has a parental AGI of $72,576. F&M’s EFC is $8795. In neither case does F&M’s aid package include very heavy “self help” elements (loans, work study). These seem to me to be very generous aid packages.
tk21769 a family making 200,000-250000 a year can not afford f and m .
kidzncatz the list maybe the same but the other schools are much more generous.
My family’s household income is around $45,000 and I have ran net price calculators on both schools. According to the NPCs I should expect to pay $7,800 for F&M and $8,900 for Dickinson, which I would assume is reasonable. Since the in-state costs at PA State Schools or State Affiliated Schools range from $15,000 for Temple to $27.000 for Penn State and U Pitt.
Also, from what I hear from these forums F&M has better grad school placement rates then Dickinson, so is it better to attend a school that has better placement rates and facilities, but a slightly lesser faculty quality or a school that has better faculty and departments (especially the math department)?
@zobroward I think it depends on the family’s income and assets as to which college offers the best aid packages or is the best “deal”. For our family (low income), F & M has one of the better packages per NPC. For wealthier families, maybe not. In my opinion, familes making $200,000 or more really shouldn’t be expecting much in the way of financial aid. Merit aid, possibly, if the school chooses to offer it, but need-based aid, no.
They’re both equal as far as grad school placement goes. Of course, what will matter most is not the school (between these two, grad schools won’t make a huge difference) but your perfomance there, which will be affected by fit and support services.
kidzncatz…financial aid maybe not but merit yes. just because a person’s family is mid to upper middle class does not mean they can afford that much a year or anything close. colleges are so out of control with what they charge. but each student is an individual and until they correct what they charge (I will not hold my breath) they need to be like a car dealer and offer incentives and discounts. I think franklin and marshall and schools like them are being greedy and use helping lower income students as a smoke screen. they have done the math and have figured that they can admit and get enough full pay students to matriculate. they do lose many potential amazing students but they crunched the numbers. their loss is another schools gain.(it is their right) but , they are not righteous.
Sorry… but there are plenty of families in the income level and lower who CAN afford it, especially those who saved when their kids were young. Your posts showing your own bitterness toward college costs (and possibly toward your parents who didn’t save and/or won’t pay out of current income) is derailing the OP’s thread.
OP, you seem inclined toward F&M. Somehow you have the impression it is the stronger school (although I don’t think that is true). I have never seen evidence that F&M has stronger grad school placement than Dickinson, and really think Dickinson is stronger in your majors. But you should go to whichever school you are most comfortable at and can afford. Just don’t try to justify it in saying that F&M is a better school, because it honestly probably isn’t. Neither school requires test scores any more, but when they did, Dickinson’s scores were higher than F&M’s.
No doubt, some can’t. However, as the above-cited Washington Post article indicates, some can.
Consider “Student G” in that article. This student’s Parental Adjusted Gross Income is $213,421. His/her EFC is $57,901. S/he decided to attend F&M. Presumably, his/her family thought they could afford it.
For 2012-13, F&M awarded nearly $35M in institutional grant aid.
For the same year, Muhlenberg College awarded about $25M in institutional grant aid.
The two schools enroll approximately the same number of undergraduates.
For 2012-13 F&M claimed to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need.
Muhlenberg claimed to meet 91.8%, on average. So in both total volume of grant aid, and in average coverage of need, F&M appears to be much more generous (based on Common Data Set figures). However, Muhlenberg does award much more merit aid than F&M. For 2012-13, F&M only awarded 1 merit scholarship (worth $2500). Muhlenberg awarded 191 (averaging $9858).
Typically the richer, higher-ranked, more selective colleges do tend to emphasize need-based rather than merit aid. For a very well-qualified, low- to middle-income student, it may make sense to focus on need-based aid. For a higher income student who needs a discount, pursuing merit aid is the way to go.
I can’t speak to the relative strength of each school’s economics department, but there isn’t much question in my mind that F&M is stronger in math. Dickinson’s advanced course offerings are quite limited (two classes per semester on average) and virtually no Dickinson alums go on to graduate school in mathematics and statistics (only two PhD completions in the last 20 years). F&M’s advanced offerings are somewhat limited as well (three or four classes per semester), but are at least sufficient to provide some student choice. There is some recent history of PhD completions, as well (two in 2012 alone and eight in the last decade).
Just curious where you are getting the stats on # of students going on to grad school from each college (source?).
The completions data is published by the National Science Foundation through its webCASPAR portal. That few students are heading to graduate school in a field where actively pursuing Masters degrees is relatively uncommon is merely an assumption–though a pretty safe one–given the lack of PhD completions.
The webCASPAR site has National Science Foundation data on the number of alumni who complete PhDs in various disciplines.
https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/webcaspar/index.jsp?subHeader=WebCASPARHome
For example, the following are the numbers of alumni from several Pennsylvania LACs who earned PhDs in economics from 2003-2010:
7 Bryn Mawr
6 F&M
5 Haverford
5 Dickinson
Here are the numbers I found for mathematics & statistics:
14 Bryn Mawr
14 Haverford
8 F&M
2 Dickinson
1 Muhlenberg
Some individual college sites have data on their recent graduates’ activities.
Try Googling for “after graduation [COLLEGE NAME]”, or some such.