Help with decision - Macalester or Carleton? (Pol Sci) - just got off waitlist

Youdon_tsay
Tue, 26 May 2020 03:13:07 +0000

Thanks, @coffeeat3 !

Sorry that I didn’t notice that you had too few posts to PM, @winterwren . I don’t want to write too much publicly. Ds1 got into both schools and had visited both the summer before senior year. Once his acceptances were in, he did an overnight at Carleton in April and just fell in love. Those were his people. I’m bummed that y’all won’t have a chance to get on campus, because I think people just know once they are there whether it’s the place for them. He started environmental science and changed to poli sci. He is in grad school now and hasn’t used his degree in the typical poli sci sense, but he got a great education and is loyal to Carleton and thinks it’s the best place in the world.

DS1’s second year, I took ds2 to move in ds1 so that ds2 could tour Carleton and Macalester because he also was interested in poli sci. He didn’t apply to Carleton, because he’s been following his brother his whole life, but I was sure he would love Mac. That was a big no. I couldn’t even tell you what he didn’t like about the physical campus, but he didn’t care for it. Our info session was just us with the counselor, and it went really poorly. She couldn’t satisfactorily answer his most important question – Why should a kid interested in political science pick Macalester over, say, DC schools? – and we left thinking maybe they had oversold themselves. Again, I hate to say too much publicly, but the admissions counselor practically said that they see themselves as a regional school, not a natl one, which left me wondering why they were marketing to kids in our SW state if they saw themselves as a regional school. It was really a pretty softball question. I think we just got a not-great admissions counselor, and there was no coming back from that. He ended up at one of those DC schools with a double major, one of those being Government.

Having said that, one of his HS friends did go to Mac, majored in poli sci and loved it. Since graduating, he has taken what many would consider the more traditional route that your ds might like – aide for a state politico back home, more recently advance work on presidential campaigns. DS1 did study abroad with some Mac kids who he is still friends with to this day and even spent a weekend with them senior year to attend Mac’s spring concert.

They are both great schools. I think the sense you have of how they differ is pretty spot on so it’s a matter of which of those things appeals to your ds. Good luck, and let us know what he decides!