I’m hoping to take my daughter to Indiana and Ohio next month to visit some schools.
She will be undecided, probably, but is interested in History, Spanish, other foreign languages, language studies, Cultural Anthropology (even if just a minor), and maybe English.
She will be a h.s. senior and currently has a 3.4 uw GPA (4.2 W) and 31 ACT (awaiting test results from her second test from June 13, so could change…) She will end up having taken 9 AP classes by graduation.
The schools in question are:
Ohio University
Bowling Green State (think she could get a scholarship making this cheaper than her in-state options for IL)
Ball State
(Indiana U is more than we want to pay - I know someone’s going to mention IU-B - I would, too, it’s great for LAS)
We picked these schools based on academic options for majors/minors, and cost, as well as student body size. She does not want a big, huge school like Ohio State or MI State, etc.
How are these schools for Liberal Arts and Humanities? Small enough class sizes?
We also hope to see: Ohio Wesleyan, College of Wooster, maybe Ohio Northern (seems a little remote). I’d like to see her at a small LAC, but she seems to like the public schools better so far - and - well, it’s her life and her education, :). But I’d like to see her at a place that, even if it’s a second or third-tier public, she can still get a good education from it.
Good schools. I wonder if she might like MiamiU? I know they offer merit aid but I don’t know the cutlines on that. Also I don’t know if she might consider UDayton for History and English. They have the big three european languages but not much else.
I had Miami in her original list - it’s the same price as IU-B actually, but H and I would be more willing to pay that for a school like Miami, because it’s smaller and seems more focused on academics… I also think she may get some kind of merit there…
However, D met a girl from her high school, two years older, who goes to Miami and said it had an overall “conservative” vibe, and now D is not interested. I’m not sure what was meant by “conservative” here - politically? preppy? mainstream? If it’s just the latter, well, my D is that already. She is very liberal, though, and also does not want a huge Greek presence (in case she doesn’t want to join, she doesn’t want to feel left out of social events.)
I was also curious about Butler in Indianapolis, because their academics align so well with what she wants to study. But have read it is dominated socially by Greek life. It’s hard to tell how much is true or just reputation/myth?
It seems you are most interested in universities within a college town type of atmosphere. Bowling Green might offer her good opportunities for scholarships and their honors program. They consider the highest GPA weighted or unweighted and her ACT scores are quite good for BGSU. I don’t believe they offer anthropology, however, you can check directly with the school. BG is less expensive for an OOS student than many other Ohio publics so it’s about $2000 cheaper per year than OU before scholarships. If you are in the area you can check out Ohio Northern as well they are pretty close to one another. It has a nice campus, however, as you mention it is pretty isolated.
OU has a beautiful campus and is known for being a university that students enjoy attending. They are a step ahead of BG academically in terms of the students who matriculate, however, I doubt that is going to affect the quality of education your child will receive. They are more expensive but at least this year are offering the OU guarantee which is guaranteeing tuition, room and board will not change for the 4 years of your child’s undergraduate education.
Miami has been mentioned. Denison University tends to be a very good LAC that offers good aid and is more small town than rural. Granville is very nice community. They offer a variety of language programs and an anthropology minor within their sociology dept.
Some folks used to refer to Ohio U as the Harvard of the Midwest. Most of them probably were from Athens OH, but Ohio U is nevertheless a very fine college.
Everything I’ve read and heard - without having visited the school yet - indicates that Ohio U would be the public that suits her best. I wish it were closer - 7 hours from us - but the OU website says they run an airport bus during breaks to Columbus airport.
Anyway, I’m happy to hear the academics are considered good.
She liked Illinois State, too, when we visited, but they don’t offer as many majors in LAS as Ohio and Ball State.
Definitely will make sure she sees OU next month.
Does anyone know what the OOS student population would be like there? I assume it’s mostly Ohio kids, but are there any kids from neighboring states?
I’m very familiar with Hanover as I applied there myself, back in the day, and my nephew recently applied there. He decided not to go for the same reason I had - too isolated and for some reason I cannot understand, there is still not much at all in the town. Everything is in Madison, the next town over, which is a 15 minute drive away. D hasn’t seen it, but I know her, she would hate the town’s slim offerings.
The school academically, though, does fit her criteria and I’ve heard good things about it.
As of the time of this post, HIST 1210 has a lecture with 88 students enrolled out of a capacity of 112, with six discussions with enrollment of 5 to 25 and capacity 10 to 25. HIST 3451 has a lecture with 9 students enrolled out of a capacity of 24. The enrollment numbers may not necessarily include all incoming frosh and transfers, depending on when the school schedules registration for incoming frosh and transfers.
Low cost LAC-type schools in your region include Truman State (though relatively large for a LAC-type school) and University of Minnesota - Morris. Perhaps she can consider those?
We’ve looked at Beloit, and she wants to go back and take another look - it was winter when we visited, and we couldn’t see much of the outside, and too cold to walk around town.
We have looked at IL Wesleyan as well and may look at Knox. We are in IL, actually, but I’m trying to expand her horizon a bit.
U of MN-Morris is on her list, but it seems rather remote. We may also take a look at Ripon College in WI and Lawrence.
I have no problem finding LACS that sound suitable for her. And I think she’d get some merit aid from some of them.
But we’re trying to find a public for her, where she’d be happy enough and engaged - and that would be as affordable as an LAC with merit - because the only school she’s become excited by so far has been a mid-sized public in our state, IL State. It was actually the first public school we toured, and I just have a feeling she’s going to favor the publics over the small private schools.
Like I said before, she also does not want a huge school with more than 20k students. Her sister went to U of Iowa and she thought that was too big and spread out. She wants a smaller, more intimate campus. (Iowa would also be more expensive as we’re OOS.)
We are also considering UW-Eau Claire, maybe UMN-Duluth.
She might really like Denison. Small town, but very close to Columbus (especially convenient to Easton, where a lot of kids go. Also on the airport side of town). With her stats, merit aid would be likely, I’d think.
I think BGSU is an under appreciated gem. She might not like the rural aspect.
And I guess my main concern about the publics I mentioned, was the caliber of their LAS offerings. And I think I know the answer already - that they’re going to be just fine - but I’d like to hear from people who are familiar with the schools, or know of them and their reputation. Searching online doesn’t yield much info on this.
Ok, I will have to look into Denison - too many people keep mentioning it! Thanks. We may stop by there…
Good to know about BGSU as well. By “rural aspect” do you mean location? BG, the town, seems to have adequate enough offerings… but again, wed have to see it, I guess.
The town might be fine. It has 30,000 people. One of the things about many Ohio college towns is that once you get out of town, it becomes very rural, very quickly. As you say, you’ll just have to see.
My favorite college that D did not care for in last year’s tours was Earlham. I loved it, thought the people were great, felt there was an exciting vibe going on there. They are trying to increase the size of each year’s class by about 50 or so for the next several years, and I think there are significant merit aid opportunities there. They’ve just opened a beautiful new arts building, and there was a lot of campus construction going on when we were there.
From the interstate we approached from the east, through the grittier part of Richmond. D was tired, and seeing that part of town first didn’t set her up for a positive experience on that day. Silly as it sounds, going in from the northern/western side which is much prettier might have resulted in a more successful visit.
My sons attended a Quaker school, and a number of faculty members were Earlham alumni/ae. It seems to provide a very positive experience in terms of both education, and a global, service-oriented perspective.
I dated a boy in my hometown who went to Earlham, back in the late 80s. He loved Earlham, did not care for Richmond, though. I’ve never seen the campus or town, myself. I’m thinking of stopping at Earlham with her, but I predict she also won’t be impressed with Richmond. The town seems to be a big factor for her. It doesn’t have to be big, or even a suburb, but it apparently needs to look nice and have things that appeal to her, and she wants to be able to walk to town from campus.
Eastern IL U is one school I’ve suggested because it’s smaller and seems to focus on LAS, and it’s one of the cheapest in-state schools.
We drive through Charleston often, and right by the campus’s entrance, on the way to see my parents in southern Indiana. We stopped last summer to walk around. Beautiful campus, well kept… and the town is, too, but like Hanover, there is just not much in town for college students. So, she said, no way.
But, one of the selling points for her at IL State and IL Wesleyan was uptown Normal IL, which she loved. And it’s pretty small, but there’s just a lot of businesses and things geared toward the students.