My daughter’s BFF from high school goes to a small liberal arts school in a rural area (about 1800 kids). She spent a week with her friend on campus during their January session. A few things she noticed that were markedly different from her experience at UCLA:
- her friend plays a sport, but is also in an acapella group and another club. She has friends across many groups and doesn’t only hang out with her sports team. That said, her sports team held a formal while my daughter was there and she learned it’s very common for the teams to do this and host other social events (functioning almost like a Greek org)
- The main cafeteria feels a lot like high school. You can see that the theater kids hang together, the sports kids hang together, etc.
- within just a few days, she was recognized while walking around campus. Kids said hi to her or nodded her way. Her friend said people immediately recognized her as a new face on campus and wanted to know her story
- The gossip machine moves super fast—everyone knew the next day who’d had too much fun at the formal the night before, and it was a topic of conversation throughout the day
- they were able to visit the ceramics studio belonging to her friend’s professor on a whim bc they were able to text him easily and he was like “yes, of course!”
- Their Uber driver was the same woman to and from the Albany airport—a real character who chatted my daughter up the whole time.
All in all, my daughter was charmed by the small town life and college experience. But she said she preferred her own experience at a huge university. She likes the energy, diversity and variety of opportunities she has, but totally gets why her friend is loving her experience at a small school.
It seems like your son is a great fit for a small school and will enjoy the familiar faces, quirks and personalities.