LACs: Bates vs. Colby vs. Whitman

nyreader
Thu, 17 Mar 2022 11:13:15 +0000

Yes, he’s at Colby. My assessment 3/4 of the way through one year (without knowing what things would be like at Bates or Whitman):

Exceptionally happy to have a strong but liberal arts inspired CS program.

He quickly found his “people” on campus, through mostly idiosyncratic channels.

The party culture on campus IS pretty strong, though he’s been happy mostly skipping it. I don’t know if he feels he is missing out, but he’s never wanted a massive friend group. His roommates are hoping for substance free housing next year.

Like many other similar schools, Colby overenrolled last year. But given announcements about the scale of new housing being built, Colby might actually be choosing to grow and make 600+ a normal class size. Just a guess, but LOTS of new dorm space opening temp in fall / winter and permanent in a few years.

Colby uses a TON of visiting faculty. He’s actually had classes from three and they have all been wonderful. But it seems odd that the school seems to have far fewer permanent faculty than they need. I hope that changes — I don’t love the idea of incredibly high levels of faculty turnover, when thinking about picking thesis advisors or the like.