Knox verses Cornell College

amtc
Sun, 01 Dec 2013 10:46:21 +0000

A few things regarding Knox (my daughter never applied to any of your other schools), first, it’s one of the best Creative Writing programs around so that should be a strong consideration and their graduate school placement is also exceptional. Second, I’m surprised by your thoughts that it wasn’t as close knit as Cornell. Knox is one of the most accepting, tight colleges I have ever seen. Within the first month of orientation/classes my daughter had been to three professors homes for a meal (mostly with other college Freshman) and has continued visiting professors for the last year and a half (she’s currently a Sophomore). My daughter is pretty shy and yet she is so involved now with so many activities because of the friendly, close environment of the school. Even more impressive is the connection to the college President that most students have, she’s always around and participating in student activities and she knows many of the kids by name. Finally, academically, Knox is incredibly flexible with classes and majors, allowing independent study and “create your own” type classes and majors, if that’s of any interest to you.

One more great Knox attribute is their emphasis on community service, they even have a minor in it. Their themed house arrangements are unique in that any group of students who want to live together can create a theme to present to the student government board (or whatever it’s called) and should they be accepted they are assigned a townhouse or suite to live in together but must create two events, one for the school and one for the town, each term based on their theme. For example, if you and your friends decide to create a Health and Nutrition themed house, then each term you could create a “No Smoking Day” with educational info and such for the school and then a “Fitness Activity Day” for the elementary school kids (not a great example but hopefully you get the gist).

The part of Galesburg closest to the campus is a wonderful little village with lots of fabulous restaurants and some cute craft-type stores. It’s not really thriving but it is holding it’s own. If you’re not a big box-store kind of person (we’re not), then there’s great mom-and-pop shops to get things; if you are a big-box store person then a short drive away is Wal-Mart and Target and Staples, and all those megastores. There are areas that are less safe than others but it’s rare that anything bad happens.

The only negative I can imagine about Cornell is that people outside of one or two states will think you went to Cornell University so you might spend some time correcting them for the rest of your life! If you thought Cornell had a great cafeteria wait until you see Grinell. Warren Buffet gave them so much money that they don’t know what to do with that they have waiters walking around the cafeteria offering lamb chops to students. (We visited but my daughter hated it so she didn’t apply.)

Good luck, it’s nice to know you’ve been accepted somewhere and that you’re going to college.