Hidden Gem College List

Midwestmomofboys
Sun, 15 May 2016 21:28:53 +0000

Since there is some interest here about merit from some of these schools, I will add that schools like Lawrence University and Beloit in WI, Kalamazoo in MI, Knox in Illinois, Earlham in IN, and Wooster in Ohio are all schools with strong faculty and programs and give good merit awards. Many of them have a lower “list” price to start with, for both tuition and room and board, than schools back east or in Ohio, like Kenyon and Oberlin, so with merit awards, can be significantly more affordable for families not eligible for financial aid but still looking for a small school, with strong faculty.

As an academic family, in researching for our kids, we looked at where faculty got their Ph.D from as a short hand for the strength of the faculty. To do that, it is useful to know something about various academic fields, since it is not intuitive that Rutgers and Pitt are top philosophy programs or that Cincinnati is a top classical archaeology program. When you look at faculty training at the top “cluster” of LACs, as well as mid-range LACs, the differences are not as significant as you might expect. Anecdotally, perhaps the best class my kid sat in on during 15+ college visits was at Knox, where a Harvard trained prof mesmerized the entire class and my kid said the discussion was active and intelligent. In contrast, at one NESCAC school, he felt the class discussion and instruction was below his public high school. The point is not that Knox is better than NESCAC, but that families should have an open mind when researching and visiting. And of course, like tours, a single class or faculty member should not be the basis for assuming that the entire institution is similar.

This “hidden gem” list, like CTCL, is a useful way to publicize that there are many schools where students can flourish and succeed beyond those which carry the US News rankings stamp of approval.