<p>I’ve heard that people easily get bored at liberal arts colleges since they are generally situated in remote areas and there are not many students.</p>
<p>Are there any liberal arts college students here who can comment on this? I’d love to attend a LAC, but I don’t want to get bored after a year.</p>
<p>Not all LACs are in the middle of nowhere…Rhodes is in the heart of Memphis, TN. There are a few others located in urban locales and shouldn’t be hard to find on college navigator or your search site of choice.</p>
<p>If you go to an LAC in or near a city, you’ll have plenty of things to do to keep you from being bored… Swarthmore, Vassar, Haverford, Bryn Mawr or Barnard (if you’re female).</p>
<p>Occidental is right in Los Angeles</p>
<p>(btw, I still don’t understand why Obama went there. Any clue?)</p>
<p>Why wouldn’t Obama go to Occidental???</p>
<p>It just seems random.</p>
<p>I would be curious to find out how Obama’s college application process went. Like which schools he applied to etc.</p>
<p>I’m afraid they will be too small. Even the Claremont Consortium in California has a total student population of 5,000, I was hoping for at least 10k. </p>
<p>Washington and Lee looks like a really cool school, but I think they only have a little less than 2,000 there. </p>
<p>Oh well. I guess I’m just a big school person.</p>
<p>I’m the same way. Some of the LACs seemed great but I can’t get past the small size… I know that I would go crazy for some reason</p>
<p>I think I read somewhere that Obama had applied to Swarthmore and was rejected. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t an A student in high school… he was probably lucky to get into Occidental.</p>
<p>obama lived in hawii… so cali schools were probably best for him</p>
<p>to get home from the ivies would take ALONG time haha… im just guessing</p>
<p>you’re right, Obama got rejected from Swarthmore ahaha</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/595730-obama-rejected-swarthmore.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/595730-obama-rejected-swarthmore.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>D always said the same thing. Refused to apply to any LACs as a result. I encouraged her to apply to at least one. The whole time she was like, “I would never want to be at a college smaller than my high school, it’s boring, nothing to do, I’ll know everyone after the first month, blah blah blah…” I heard it all. </p>
<p>We visited. She met some people, talked with some professors, hung out a bit, did a little due diligence, etc. After awhile she kinda warmed up to the idea. Ultimately she decided to attend. </p>
<p>Now all I hear her saying is, “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to go to a bigger school than this, my profs are great, everyone’s so nice, I love it here, blah blah blah…”</p>
<p>Truth is, they aren’t for everyone, but make sure you give one or two a serious look before you just dismiss the idea. Most are pretty small, but the actual experience is often very different than what is imagined beforehand. It’s not like high school at all, and unless you’re just naturally predisposed to it somehow, there’s rarely enough downtime to sit around contemplating boredom.</p>
<p>LACs in rural areas, yes, are boring.</p>
<p>I’m at Wesleyan, a slightly larger LAC in an area that is kind of urban and def. not completely isolated, but not particularly hopping either. I’m a rising senior, and I’ve never felt bored or constrained by the school. There are always SO many things going on on campus – plays, movies, dance performances, art shows, all sorts of clubs, etc. etc. etc. I find that I can never get to do everything I want to! </p>
<p>Although some LACs might have less going on, the sense I get is that in general students at LACs create vibrant campus communities to balance the smaller/potentially more isolated nature. It would probably be worth talking to students that go to the schools you are particularly interested in to get a better sense of how students at those specific schools spend their time. </p>
<p>Also, as others have said, looking at LACs in/near cities is another option (some other options: Macalester, Reed, Lewis+Clark, Goucher).</p>
<p>Do you want to enjoy city life during college or do you want to know your profs, learn in an intimate setting and enjoy a powerful alumni network for life?</p>
<p>That’s not a facetious question. Judging by the fact that NYU is the #1 dream school in the US, many envision city life as key to college. Though I think many get to NYU and realize they can’t afford the city…</p>
<p>IMO, boredom relates first to the strength of one’s social network, and only secondarily to the stuff there is around to do.</p>
<p>There are many people living and working in New York City who feel miserable and isolated because, despite all the stuff there is to do, they have trouble finding kindred spirits, sifting among the masses, to do all these many activities with. Outside of the workplace, they don’t constantly see/interact with the same people all the time, so it can be hard to form meaningful social relationships.</p>
<p>Small schools can potentially score big on the first point. The LACs tend to differentiate themselves by appealing most strongly to somewhat different personality types. If you fit well with the predominant campus culture, then you may find yourself within a group that has prescreened itself, to an extent, to have more in common with you than would otherwise be the case. Plus the small size means you must interact with the same people more frequently, which can lead to actually knowing them better. When you combine this, the potential is there to form a strong social network. Which is the most important factor in whether you are bored.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if it turns out you don’t fit well, and don’t happen to like the people you necessarily see repeatedly, you can also be more miserable there, because there are fewer places to turn to socially.</p>
<p>At a larger school often one must take some further measures to make them functionally smaller, to find a group of like-minded individuals. By joining the right clubs, living units (fraternities, coops) etc). It may be harder to find one’s niche, but there is more room to maneuver if you find you don’t like who you’ve fallen in with.</p>
<p>But, given equal social networks, obviously having more stuff to do is better than having less stuff to do. Provided the environment in which all these activities occur does not significantly detract from the college experience.</p>
<p>Schools vary significantly in the range of activities offered on their campuses, and the range of activities offered in the surrounding community.</p>
<p>Perhaps ironically, we’ve found here that when the external community is the hugely predominant focus of activities, the quality of campus life can suffer severely, perhaps terminally. Such places can offer the most to do, superficially, but then one might not really feel they have much connection to their school.
Additionally, the external communities may be optimized for working professionals with money, not college students without money.</p>
<p>Holy Cross is larger LAC(2800 students) located near Boston with a Division1 sports program that generates school pride on weekends. Other LAC’s like Colgate and Bucknell also have Div1 sports but are located in rural areas.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I enjoyed reading this.</p>
<p>monydad nailed it</p>
<p>S adores his small rural LAC because he is involved in so many compus-based activities, has made so many friends and has close personal relationships with all of his profs. His is a perfect fit with his school. If you don’t find a good ‘fit’, you won’t have the rest of the city to escape into (nor a huge campus in which to find other social groups), so rural LACs require more attention to fit than other LACs, or other universities. if the fit is good, then boredom isn’t an issue at all (and there’s always study abroad if you want a change of scene…all the LACs offer this.)</p>