Liberal Arts Schools and Close-knit Communities

collegemom3717
Sun, 25 Oct 2015 14:06:10 +0000

people rarely use their own knowledge as a way to sabotage others (like what happens at many other top-notch schools)

.

This idea floats about in the ether, and is worth looking at straight on. Does anybody here know- first hand or directly- of students using knowledge (or anything else) to sabotage others at any of the top LACs? fwiw, I don’t- but my sample size is a few hundred enrolled students across 20 or so LACs, and that may not be representative.

The students that I know at Harvard, Princeton, JHU and other schools with the reputation of having competitive student bodies say that there is fierce competition but not sabotage (I have heard the most rumors about JHU, but nobody has given me a first-hand example)- but again, I don’t know enough students at those schools to say that with anything but anecdotal confidence.

As to your original question, OP,

Is this hospitality and close-knit community a thing that EVERY LAC has or is it just certain ones

the LACs are both more similar and more different than you might think. Given their size they are pretty much all strong communities, with a ‘feel’ or vibe that is likely to suit you- or not. That’s why visiting for yourself is so, so important.

The feedback you got about Bates being ‘pretentious and unaccepting’ is a great example: the students and 1 professor that I know/know of there are the opposite of ‘pretentious and unaccepting’ (and the raves I have heard about that professor are pretty amazing)- but that was clearly the experience of the person/people you know. Remember that sometimes what seems pretentious to one person doesn’t to another, and also that it is the rare place with no pretentious or unwelcoming people in it (I know at least 2 current Bowdoin students who are definitely pretentious- smart, nice, friendly, but definitely pretentious! One of them, now an upperclassman, started out pretentious and has become notably less so- there is a lot of evolving that goes on in college). The only important question is: how does the place feel to you?

Stanford, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, USC and Brown are all too big to have an LAC-type community feel, but they all have ways of breaking a big population down. Yale’s housing system is an obvious example. I will say that of all the ones we looked at Cornell came across as the most individualistic? socially fragmented? not sure how to describe it… of the schools on your list

IMO, Reed, Colby, Colorado, Kenyon, Occidental, Stanford, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, USC and Brown is a rather idiosyncratic list. Spend a little time with Fiske, (and cruise uni go and niche, but be aware that the quality & accuracy of their info is pretty variable) and get a better sense of the schools.