Lafayette vs Whitman, St Olaf or Lawrence

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I asked ChatGPT to tell me which school my son is considering he should go to.

This is part of the description that I got -

Student personality (this is underrated)

From both data and student discussions:

  • Whitman → independent, outdoorsy, intellectually curious

  • St. Olaf → collaborative, slightly more structured, strong community

  • Lawrence → creative, quirky, arts-oriented

  • Lafayette → ambitious, career-focused, more traditional college feel

We have been to all of them, but the trip to Lafayette was a while ago. We had a wonderful tour guide on that visit, but after my son was worried that she wasn’t representative of the vibe of the school.

The virtual admitted student sessions he did attend didn’t allow the students to talk much, so shed no light on what the student body would be like.

Online the description of the school is preppy and social life revolving around Greek life, which he’s not interested in. The ChatGPT descriptions make Lafayette seem less comfortable for him than the others.

Lafayette is the most prestigious and cheapest of the options for us because of a scholarship, but will it be the right choice for my son who’s looking for a more collaborative atmosphere feel and interested in developing a mentor relation with professors.

He is not 100% sure, but is interested in majoring in Environmental Science and is planning to go to grad school.

Would appreciate if someone could let me know if a high stats but mellow west coast kid who’s into habitat restoration, Americana music, and knitting would find his people there?

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Society has officially gone to hell in a handbasket.

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I’m linking this longer post that I wrote about Whitman this past week with multiple links for another family. (My student is a junior there, and they were a fairly high stats outdoorsy high school kid, and we are from the PNW.)

If your son is planning on majoring in Environmental Science Whitman would be terrific for him, particularly the Semester in the West. Please see the information I’ve linked to in the embedded post.

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I don’t disagree with this opinion. But was trying to get a sense of the consensus of opinions available through online sources.

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I’ll say this - it’s the highest ranked in US News. Whitman will be the most prestigious in the NW. St. Olaf will be the most known in the MW and I think the most beloved on the College Confidential. Lawrence - I always read about with Arts and Physics.

I work with a money management firm as a trustee for a friend’s daughter’s account who passed in 9/11. The firm was founded by a Laf grad and many work there. All are very nice and they are team oriented. I can’t speak for the school - but they don’t have a b school - and often that’s where competitiveness will come from. So I think the school would be fine.

Why not reach out to a student ambassador and have your student have a chat with them? Surely, the school can give you contact info or you can reach out on linkedin (not you but your student) and have a frank chat.

I don’t see prestige an issue - these schools are all fine, would all be known regionally as most LACs and four kids could easily make four different choices. My guess is these four don’t normally cross shop one another although for a merit seeker they could.

Good luck

UL Lafayette Admissions | Meet our Student Ambassadors

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So I don’t think Lafayette will be missing out in terms of collaboration and ability to get to know professors. A little more preppy and traditional than some of his other options? Yes, that maybe. But that isn’t inconsistent with it still being an LAC where collaboration and close relationships with professors is the norm.

That said, I would personally put zero weight on Lafayette being more “prestigious”. Your son loving his experience, both academically and non-academically, and doing well is going to dominate his outcomes. If Lafayette isn’t a good choice for that, institutional “prestige” isn’t going to somehow compensate.

But it is also important to go to a comfortably affordable college. That doesn’t necessarily have to mean the lowest cost option, but if the other options would cost enough more to make them uncomfortable for your family, that is a serious issue.

So different colleges do this differently. Whitman is interesting in the sense you can do some sort of environment-focused studies in a number of ways. They have a pretty traditional Environmental Studies major, but also a combined major in Biology-Environmental Studies, Environmental Humanities, Forestry & Environmental Management, Geology, and Oceanography (a joint 3+2 program with the University of Washington, at Whitman you do either Biology/Pre-Oceanography or Geology/Pre-Oceanography). That’s a CRAZY number of options for an LAC, point being this is a real area of strength for Whitman, and I do think it attracts a lot of kids with that general sort of interest.

Lawrence is also very solid in that it has both Environmental Science and Environmental Studies and also Forestry & Environmental Studies and Geosciences. Again, I do think this spills over into the student mix.

Lafayette has all of Environmental Science, Environmental Studies, and Geology. I think maybe a smaller percentage of Lafayette students do something like this than at a place like Lawrence, further less of a percentage than at Whitman. But on the other hand, it is a significantly larger school, so there are still a decent number in total terms.

Finally, St Olaf is then a strong natural sciences school generally, but it only has Environmental Studies as a formal major. You can do that with one of three focuses, however, one of which is Natural Sciences, so I would see that as fine for Environmental Science. But still, this is maybe not as much of a specialty area for them. But it is even larger than Lafayette, so that again closes the gap in total terms.

Long story short, none of these are bad choices. But ignoring cost, and just being blunt, you basically seem to me to be describing someone who is an obvious fit for Whitman. Lawrence would then be my next choice. Then for Lafayette versus St Olaf, I think St Olaf is a little more academicky (like I would expect a higher percentage of kids to go on to non-engineering grad programs), Lafayette a little more pre-professional, understanding there will in fact be some academicky kids at Lafayette.

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Thanks for this reply. Super helpful!

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Some miscellaneous stuff:

  • If weather is important to you, St. Olaf and Lawrence will have markedly colder winters than Whitman and Lafayette. The flip side to that is, winter sports are popular in Minnesota and Wisconsin, which is the silver lining for those willing to take advantage of the opportunities.
  • St. Olaf is close, but not too close, to the Twin Cities and all they offer (Vikings… ewww). // Lawrence is in Appleton, home to my wise and awesome grandmother, and about 20 minutes from Green Bay (Packers!!!) and about 90 minutes from Milwaukee. So for urban feel/adventures, it’s more of a hike from Lawrence. The Bratwurst Capital of America, Sheboygan, is up the coast from, and slightly closer than, Milwaukee. Great cheese is ubiquitous.
  • Easton (Lafayette) would be similar to Appleton in that it too is a small city (or a big small town…) situated a heavy hour from a major city. Culinarily, of course, it’s more about cheesesteaks, schmitters, and pizza in the greater Philly area.
  • I don’t know much about rural Washington other than that it’s said by many to be beautiful.

These are all fine schools. I’d choose according to fit (make sure you consider courses and majors offered, at least) and affordability/cost.

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Just adding the details that St Olaf (in Northfield, MN) is about 45 minutes from the Twin Cities (including the airport).

And Lafayette (Easton, PA) is actually right on the NJ border. So while it is like 1.5 hours from Philly, assuming no traffic, it is actually a bit closer to NYC (and closer to EWR than PHL), again subject to traffic.

I think for people interested in possible next-step careers in NYC, this is a notable plus to Lafayette. I sense this is likely not speaking to the OP’s kid, but that is part of why it has the mix/focus/branding/etc. it has.

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One difference of these four - and perhaps why you said maybe a smaller % at Laf do environmental science - which doesn’t make it bad - but they are the only of these four to have an engineering department and I think it’s got a significant presence.

If you believe niche.com data, MechE is the 3rd largest with over 50 kids and CivE has more than 20, the 10th most common. Environmental doesn’t show in the top 10.

I was expecting to see Environmental Studies in Whitman’s top 10 as it’s known to be an outdoorsy vibe - but it wasn’t either.

OP should think about travel, distance from home (some get home sick) and more.

But if their gut told them Lafayette, it seems a splendid choice. Most feedback we get on here is that it’s wonderful.

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NCES is probably a little more reliable for this specific purpose, understanding it varies year to year, not least at small colleges.

OK, so here is Lafayette, and these are graduating primary majors in the last NCES cohort:

Out of 599 total:

Environmental Science 4

Environmental Studies 9

Geology 7

That adds up to 20/599, or 3.33%.

Engineering total was 142, incidentally (23.7%), so yes that is a significant factor in their student mix.

OK, now Whitman, with 299 total:

Environmental Biology 9

Environmental Studies 4

Geology 5

Geological and Earth Sciences/Geosciences, Other 5 (I am going to guess this is where the pre-Oceanography kids might show up)

That’s 23/299 so far (7.69%), and I feel like we are likely missing the Environmental Humanities kids (that’s a very unusual major and I am not sure what NCES category it maps onto).

Again, just one year, but that feels about right to me. Lafayette isn’t that far off in total, but it is a bigger school so it is under half the percentage (and again we may be missing a few).

I note this is an example of how when a college like Whitman divides up a general area into lots of different possible specific majors, it may not be that helpful to look at a “top majors” list.

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Piggybacking on your point that “Top Major” doesn’t reflect the actual breadth, and why “Environmental Studies” doesn’t appear to be a top major at Whitman at first glance, as the way it’s reported in places like niche just doesn’t reflect the way E.S. is done there.

I’m a current Whitman parent (my kid is not an environmental studies major, but they are doing a double major in two sciences).

At Whitman there are a lot of students that do either a double major or a combined major with Environmental Studies being one of the pair, and that format isn’t often captured by the larger aggregating websites.

For example, in 2024:

  • Anthropology-Env Studies: 5
  • Economics-Env Studies: 1
  • History-Env Studies: 2
  • Politics-Env Studies: 8
  • Sociology-Env Studies: 8
  • Art-Env Studies: 1
  • Environmental Humanities: 4
  • Biology-Env Studies: 9
  • Chemistry-Env Studies: 1
  • Geology-Env Studies: 4

Which comes to 43 out of 352 graduates.

More info here:

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I have a junior at Lafayette majoring in their newly accredited “Integrative Engineering” with the Environment and Energy concentration, with a minor in Environmental Science. We have seen very accessible professors and plenty of collaboration and research opportunities. The professors have been great. My student is not at all interested in Greek life and has a lot of quirky friends. We use the Newark airport for getting to and from. The students are mostly from the East Coast but Lafayette is trying to expand its geographic reach.

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Thanks for all the response in this thread. It has helped me appreciate that he has so many fantastic, affordable choices for college. I think he will have amazing opportunities and experiences at whichever one he chooses.

When I brought up factors that might make Lafayette less of a good a fit, he pushed back saying he is sure that he could find his people. So, I’m not sure which school he will choose.

The posts with real students/ parents experiences have been extremely valuable.

Right now, I think that Lafayette and Lawrence are his 2 top contenders. His hesitation about Whitman is that it is so far from a big city. And, for St. Olaf, though he loves the sense of community he felt on campus and the amazing study abroad options, they don’t seem to be as strong in Environmental Sciences/Geosciences as the others.

He’ll let me know on Friday where to put down the deposit.

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Honestly, he is probably not wrong! And I do tend to think that the thoughtful kids empowered to make their own decisions much more often than not make good decisions, even when we as parents may not have made the same decision for them.

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My D graduated from Laf a few years ago. We always felt it was a LAC where everyone could find their people. D thrived there and found her nerdy, theater type people.

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I think Lafayette having ABET engineering is an important consideration. I know a student who entered (a different college) with a plan to be an environmental science major, but her academic advisor encouraged her to take some intro classes on the civil engineering track, and she surprised herself by loving them. So she is now graduating with a civil engineering degree with an environmental emphasis. In comparison with her friends who stayed with the Environmental Science major, she has had many more job offers and at better pay. A civil engineering major can be just a great flexible major for a smart kid with environmental interests.

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