My junior’s class is about 800 kids-as absolutely cool as Olin is, there is no way it’d even be on the radar for her socially. And while I’d like to get the beautiful flyer, I don’t want to kill any trees unnecessarily, so I’ll have to imagine how beautiful it is. I am fascinated by how the internet creates demand and interest for colleges, though.
“Olin “parents” are way over represented on CC”
We drank the Kool-Aid.
glug glug. I think Olin is the kind of place you discover if you’re invested enough in the college search process to do some real research and not just go with the names everyone knows. CC is a place where people of exactly that ilk tend to congregate. It’s kind of like going to a Grateful Dead concert and finding that there’s a way higher number of people with dreadlocks and tie-dye shirts than you’d expect in a random sample 
Also, no pressure @MotherOfDragons, but my D wouldn’t even consider Olin for about the first 9 months of her search because she was SURE it was too small. Then she visited, and the rest is history.
LOL, been away from CC for a while and just tripped over this thread.
We are one of those upper middle class NJ families exporting our kids to OOS publics. I could go on and on about what I think of the in-state publics here, and I’m an alumnus of one. Son goes to Auburn. That is always an awesome conversation with people around here. Everyone kind of knows it is somewhere down south, buy really faaaarrrrr away. Oh, not really, just 80 miles down I-85 from Atlanta. No one in NJ thinks Atlanta is a great distance. But then you say its in Alabama, then the confused look returns and they mess it up with U of A in Tuscaloosa. Oh no no no. It is a good school and he has settled in well there, and is just about over the hump of the awful first 2 years of being a Mechanical Engineering major. BTDT as a degreed Civil PE myself.
And to change the subject a bit and circle back a few pages, the son above did not get accepted to Clemson. OK but not stellar student (3.5 GPA, 1200 SAT, 24 ACT) with mega extracurriculars having to do with his intended major. Daughter who is now a Senior in HS has an application in (3.9 GPA 1260 SAT, 27 ACT) and a strong background is not holding her breath on admittance either.
“U of A in Tuscaloosa” is a plenty fine school too, @Lumpty! Good enough for my mechanical engineer from PA, especially at half the price of Penn State. (And, FWIW, he had stats that would have made him competitive for Georgia Tech if money were no object)!
Is the parent of every student at Olin on this site? Must be close if not all.
I personally know one frosh at Olin this year and know the parent of another.
So, like a 50th of the whole class, right? Weird.
@WasatchWriter: Please don’t be insulted, but you mean SEAS or GSAS, right? There are some people who try to pass off their HES affiliation or degree as Harvard College or GSAS, and it’s terrible. I want to take credits at HES myself, but HES only demands that you can do the coursework to get in, and pay the $1200 per 4 credits to attend. It does not have anything like the prestige and selectivity of Harvard College or Harvard University in their SEAS and GSAS divisions.
That said, if you ever get bored and have the time and money to blow, I would encourage everyone to do HES if the coursework’s in your ability; if your daughter isn’t a legacy, or if the legacy is on her other parent, it might be fun to make her a retroactive legacy admission, simply because it probably hasn’t been done before.
s2 goes to oberlin, I was on a business trip to ohio, I didn’t meet a single person that had heard of the school.
Sheesh, Ohioans who haven’t heard of Oberlin? Where were you, quietdesperation? Or did you mean non-Ohioans who hadn’t heard of Oberlin?
I took Ohio History in 7th grade . . . in Ohio . . . and the fact that Oberlin admitted African-American students very early on in their history was part of the curriculum. I believe that they were the first college in the country to admit African Americans.
Seriously – to me, Oberlin is VERY well known. Has been known for years as a top LAC. It’s no “hidden gem”; it’s out there.
Every now and then I’m reminded of how obscure pretty much the entire universe of LACs is to most of the general public. My colleague at work, who has a Ph.D. by the way, had never heard of Williams. I was gobsmacked.
My D went to Wellesley and I don’t think the average Joe Schmoe has heard of it at all, despite the Hillary factor. Oh well. What Joe Schmoe thinks is of no concern.
I’ll have to admit that I first heard about Oberlin in 1987. I was watching the movie North and South. The 2 lead characters played by Patrick Swayze and James Reed were at West Point. Their antagonist, named Alkanah Bent, was from Georgia and he mentioned to James Reed (character was from PA) about a school in Ohio named “Oberlin” that let African-Americans study along side everyone else.
Funny how we sometimes get to know about schools.
I’m not from OH so I had to pull out the encyclopedia (no internet or google back then) and read a little about Oberlin.
Oberlin was popular with my NYC high school. I suppose I wouldn’t have known it otherwise. Living in Ohio now it’s pretty well known, though it’s no Ohio state
It totally depends on what circles you’re traveling in. I know several people who went there, so … not a good judge.
I had a cousin (from an affluent NYC suburb) who graduated from Oberlin the same year I graduated from Penn. Otherwise, I’m not sure I would have known about it until I was much older and started learning about selective LACs in other parts of the country.
I learned of Pomona because Paul Fussell had gone there, and he was just a snob’s snob (in a good way!).
As much as I used to pride myself on knowing about all these little elite, obscure schools, I’d never heard of Williams (or more likely confused it with Wesleyan!) until I joined CC back when I was checking out private high schools for my son. And Carleton I only learned about because the older sister of his private school friends (parents were Wesleyan grads) was headed there. Same with Kenyon–sister of a classmate was admitted ED. I found out about Macalester and Grinnell after seeing a window sticker in the parking lot of my son’s HS.
NOBODY I know, apart from parents at these private schools, has heard of ANY of these OOS SLACs.
And, frankly, the vast majority of my neighbors here in suburban Philly lump Haverford and Swarthmore with all the other small private colleges in this area. (The horrors!) Frankly, I think Bryn Mawr is better known than either of them–probably because Katharine Hepburn went there!
Paul Fussell’s “The Great War and Modern Memory” is one of the most tremendous books on war that I’ve ever read.
His “Class” is a classic too (and funny as hell).
For my oldest, who’s at MIT, it’s almost always, “Wow, he must be really smart.” For my middle son, it’s usually, “So you mean Penn State?” (No, I mean Univ. of Pennsylvania-different schools entirely)