We visited 3 years ago when we started doing visits for my son. We liked Wes but did not like the town very much. Plus, we thought our tour guide was a bit too quirky for her own good, but we always try not to downgrade a school just due to a bad tour guide! Neither kid applied there as they ended up liking other schools better.
@PurpleTitan Maybe Brixton in the 70s.
@purpletitan Sorry, I really don’t know LA very well. I have never been to USC.
I lived in London for many years and grew up in LA. The area around USC isn’t great, but it’s not dangerous. I don’t really worry about that kind of thing though. New Haven doesn’t stop anyone from going to Yale. It’s not going to be any worse than living in London, and if anything, with tons of campus police, I imagine it’s quite safe.
Kids need to keep their wits about them, no matter where they are.
@valent2016 as to your Bowdoin vs. USC question. There are very, very big differences between USC and Bowdoin on all fronts, save, probably, “quantitative/objective” quality of education and students. (ie. both are going to have good teachers, bad teachers with similar education backgrounds and a similar quality student body in terms of test scores.)
As to the rest of it, you almost couldn’t pick two more different schools. (And this is from a long time NE swamp yankee with a kid at USC.)
Beyond the obvious differences of Super-Urban/Rural-ish:SoCal vibe/Maine-NE vibe:Weather:18,000/1800 undergrad etc. there is the difference between access to research and lots of graduate studies stuff (USC) and access to professor/adminstration personal education/development resources (Bowdoin)
The education vibe between the two will be completely different.
As far as jobs/network etc. there is no way Bowdoin, with 1800 undergrads, can compete with the USC alumni network, esp if a kid is proactive at making contacts and wants to end up on the West Coast or in international business.
Bowdoin’s ave. class of 450 is 10% international
USC’s ave class of 4,000 is 25% international
Bowdoin’s ave. class of 450 is probably 60% Northeast US (NE, PA, NY, NJ etc.)
USC is going to be probably 50% CA and Westcoast (USC claims 375000 living alums, 50% in CA.)
Just from a sheer numbers game, if network and job opportunities are important USC is one of the best choices out there, but most of those jobs/connections will be on the west coast (with a lot of international/asian opportunities as well.)
But really, the experience between Bowdoin and SC will be so different I can’t actually imagine a kid that would not have a strong preference for one over the other based on “life style.”
It’s the difference between a beautiful solitary walk through an erupting fire of fall foliage and ubering to the beach for a sunset romp.
The difference between zipping up the Canada Goose over the polartech for a snowy stomp to class and slathering on sunscreen and dodging skateboarders as you race to class.
The difference between a professor knowing your first name after a year at school, even if you’ve only had one class with them and a semi-recognized nod from your current teacher as you cross campus.
Both will afford a kid a great education, but they are really, really different schools.
PurpleTitan -
I would hope you would expand on this. Certainly the Dorsife Honors Programs seem to promote the “Life of the Mind” and are not pre-professional.
@Zinhead: From a student review (online, so take it for what it is), according to that kid, even the kids in the honors college are pre-professional and focused on getting ahead in life, not discussing ideas and such.
@zinhead @PurpleTitan there are 40,000 students + in UG and grad school with profs, TAs, Deans, etc. in the USC area. There are 200 home-coming king Anderson Cooper wannabes and 200 Velina Houston japanophile experimental theater wannabes. There are 200 Sean Rad wannabes and 200 (ok, way more) George Lucas wannabes, Renee Bolingers, Sabela Grimes you name it.
The reality is ANY decent sized university with strong pre-pro schools (which is just about any decent sized US uni out there) will have the gamut from Super-Whartonized biz hustler to navel-dust-gazing future-Proust-of-America stars. The difference in most is environment and interpersonal fit. If the fjords and bays and sweeping vistas of incoming storms or wind-swept peaks of the Berkshires or Green Mountains, coupled with the calm, introspective stoic quiet conservatism of East Coast intellectual depth is what will get your mind digging deep, Bowdoin or Williams or Colby is the place. If bright sunlight, the crush of hodge-podge urbanization, the blender of pacific rim immigration and go-go future-tech thinking is what cranks your cerebral cortex, then USC or UCLA or Cal or Occidental or USD or UWash might be your ticket. (and there are 500 other choices in between.)
All are full of the best and brightest - and most craven and self-centered. It’s a matter of style much more than substance.
Must admit I haven’t read every post so if I am repeating info , my apologies. Based on the colleges you mentioned in your original post, I would fly into Boston and rent a cottage/airbnb for a week or so in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. That would place you a hour and forty-five minutes from Boston and all its colleges. Bates and Bowdoin are two hours away. You could easily do Holy Cross in Worcester or any Vermont school and of course Dartmouth or even Brown. It would give you a basecamp and daytrips can be easier. The area is very pretty (lakes and mountains) and lots to do on days off. Then drive to Wesleyan, Vassar and Haverford. Spend a day in NYC to break up trip. Haverford to Chicago is an 11 hour drive and having done it a several times, it is boring, so you may want to stop for the night. My son goes to school in Chicago and it is a wonderful city and really friendly but does have high crime rate. Don’t be afraid, just be aware. Good luck and enjoy your adventure with your kids!
@CaliDad2020 , that was poetry. Can you please write something just for me? Now I have to go look up all those people I have never heard of.
Hey @valent2016 dunno if you hit “post comment” before you finished or if there was a technical difficulty (or maybe that’s the CC equivalent of shaking your head in shock and dismay?!) Let me know if you had a question. I’ve only been to Bowdoin/Brunswick a few times, but know USC and some of the other schools on your list pretty well.
@CaliDad2020 …Ooops …sorry…not sure what happened with my post …just wanted to say …a big thank you for the very vivid description of the two schools
That was awesome.
@CaliDad2020 Also wanted to say that something I picked up at this and a few other threads is how active / loyal USC alums seem to be …wondering what drives that for such a big school …
- Success in football.
- A lot of the local elite went to SC and then stay in SoCal so that creates a network and critical mass. Just like most of the movers and shakers in Louisiana are LSU grads.
Thank you @ PurpleTitan
USC has an alumni club in England. Perhaps one of them is a recent grad and can give you their opinion about the college and the transition back to working in the UK.
https://alumni.usc.edu/alumni-clubs-groups/
All the colleges youare looking at will have very active alumni networks. USC is bigger though, so bigger network. More grads.