Whether the school is on a semester or quarter system. If you have two kids and one each in a semester and quarter system, it creates havoc for scheduling vacations and get togethers.
I have two kids, both on semesters, and their schedules are off just enough that scheduling is impossible.
This deserves its own thread.
You guys seem to have hit most of the cost- and academic-related concerns, so I’ll add these:
- Curricular style. What if a kid really would like an open curriculum but hasn't researched it, and doesn't even apply to schools like Brown and Amherst? Or wants the structure and guidance of a core, and is unaware of UChicago and Columbia, St. John's College, etc.? Knowing whether you want a fairly standard, a core, or an open curriculum -- and then researching schools to that end before applying -- could prevent academic discomfort.
- Weather. You may think you can handle a Minnesota winter, or the Texas/Deep South humidity, or very little variability (southern California), or all that rain (Pac NW), but can you?
Better question: can weather get you down? because if it can/has, that might make it harder to get up for that early class.
- Things to do on campus/around town or city.
Are you ok with (just) dorm parties, or do you require going out in order to satisfy your social urges? If so, you’ll want to make sure there are cool things to do on campus and in the surrounding environment.
- I believe someone has already mentioned this, but: dorms/food... because you will be living there for most of four years. Sleep and food are important.
I always ask about on-campus housing options (really important in overcrowded So Cal) and four-year graduation rate.
Carleton has the best teaching in the country, imbo.
That said, there are good and bad teachers at every college and ways to generally avoid the bad ones. Students don’t get to know professors magically at any school. If the kid isn’t going to office hours or meeting up with the prof outside of class, they aren’t getting to know the prof. So many CCers think it magically happens just by going to a LAC or being in smaller classes. It doesn’t. My D is at a large flagship and makes an effort. After one semester at school, she had no problems whatsoever finding 4 profs to write her enthusiastic recommendations for programs. One wasn’t even her prof, but she connected with him at an event, told him about her interests in his field, and then he worked with her 1 on 1 every week after that. She just invited another prof (again, not her prof) that she met at another event for coffee.
There is no magic to pretty much any of it. It’s the kid much more than the school.
I’m an LAC grad, so I’m biased, but I was also a teaching assistant (taught 1-2 sections per semester/quarter) at large public universities. I’ve had great experiences at both, and I have fond memories of the very bright students I taught at public unis (one was a flagship, and the other was second to the flagship).
There is no war–or shouldn’t be–between cozy LAC and large university. However, I do agree with RustyTrowel’s general observations. It’s not that each LAC is superior to a university in terms of teaching, but if a student is primarily interested in receiving a rigorous education; a reading-, writing-, and discussion-heavy education; and a broad education, then perhaps the LAC is a wiser choice for an applicant, or at least it should be considered. (LACs educate only 2% of the college-attending population; they are indeed often overlooked of not even thought about). If one chooses the flagship, fine. That’s a great choice, too, though I would recommend working a bit harder to research class offerings, as well as the professors who teach those courses, in order to ensure that one is receiving that rigorous education.
I also like RT’s suggestion that there should be a ranking system for education quality, though how that could be accomplished, I do not know. Probably surveys. The Princeton Review guide, though by no means scientific (this is the book that includes ranks for categories like “Best Dorms” and “Happiest Students”), does use student survey information to give some indication of education quality, questionable though it might be. The results would surprise most people. Ivies do not do well in terms of professors’ teaching quality or accessibility. Public universities do not fare much better (there are exceptions). LACs? I’ll let you take a wild guess. 
Again, I’ve had great experiences, as a student and educator, at various levels: community college, small LAC, large public universities. The only environment I haven’t had the pleasure to experience as a student or teacher is the larger private university.
Other majors that you never heard about or considered. Maybe your calling is life is to be a Soil Scientist.
@Hapworth: I think that you danced around the main issues: Large private universities & Honors Colleges at large public universities.
Also, with respect to writing, has anyone addressed writing centers on campus ?
It’s funny that you mention this since, at least from my observations, the CC forums seem to have a disproportionate number of people that so firmly believe that sports are such an overrated factor for the general population to the point where those CC members overcompensate and end up underrating that factor when applied to their own circumstances.
While I’ve always been a sports fan, I didn’t choose my alma mater based on the fact that it has Big Ten sports… but nearly two decades after graduating, it’s definitely a nice residual benefit of my college years (and that’s even though my alma mater has been pretty terrible in both football and basketball recently). Every week, I still spend a few hours “with” my old school watching ESPN or another national TV network that creates a constant and regular connection that simply doesn’t exist for people that didn’t go to one of the Power Five conference schools.
There seems to be a bit of a perception on CC that a big time sports school (outside of a handful of exceptions like Stanford, Duke and Northwestern) can’t really co-exist with a prestigious or intellectual atmosphere. However, I’ve worked in multiple “prestige” environments (including large law firms, consulting and tech) and I can’t recall a time that I’ve ever had a discussion about, say, philosophy with my co-workers… but we definitely talked about Big Ten football every week.
^Just a random thought in response to Frank the Tank:
It is interesting how both colleges and other communities, like work environments, develop their own cultures.
Yes, certain colleges may have more of certain types of conversations (son, husband, and I all sought colleges that “matched” us that way), yet you can find like-minded peers anywhere for those conversations. It just sometimes involves fewer people and sometimes more. That is the reason for looking for “fit” if all other college choice factors are equal.
I attended an undergraduate college where great conversations went on in dorms and dining halls as well as classrooms. Later, I earned an advanced certificate in my field from a university where the majority of students in my classes seemed not to care and to be almost anti-intellectual… but I did find two other people like me. You find your peers!
But prestige snobbery does not necessarily entirely account for the overall presence or absence of an intellectual environment. I work in a public school district that has developed a very thoughtful culture among the staff. The majority of these teachers went to local colleges: Molloy, CW Post, Adelphi, Hofstra, St. John’s in Queens… not always the hardest admissions… yet the teachers and administrators are always reading, doing action research, and talking about matters intellectual. It is just the culture. (Yes, we do discuss “philosophy”!) And the culture of intellectual engagement carries over to the elementary school students, which is so wonderful!
I have attended three college/university programs and worked in five public school districts. Cultures do differ.
P.S. I agree there is nothing wrong with talking about sports, TV shows, music groups, etc… whether just for fun or to have “intellectual”conversations about them, which is perfectly possible! I agree that enjoyment of sports and learning are not mutually exclusive. One can enjoy intelligent conversations without being an insufferable cultural snob.
Wouldn’t the type of program also correlate to the intellectual flavor or lack thereof? Many post graduate programs are explicitly preprofessional and attended by students whose reason for attending is explicitly to upgrade their job seeking credentials.
I’m college faculty, so some of the stuff my kids know to look for is quite inside-baseball, but IMO quite telling:
- []The level of access students have to full-time faculty
[]Related to that but separate, the possibility of getting undergraduate research experience (which is useful for not just those planning on grad school)
[]The proportion of tenure-track faculty (which is different—nearly always lower—than the proportion of full-time faculty
[]Whether librarians are considered faculty or staff (the former is better)
[]Especially but not only for STEM kids, quality of undergraduate/teaching lab facilities
[]Graduation rate (not the simple graduation rate, rather the 4- and 6-year graduation rates when compared to the predicted rate given the demographic makeup of the student body)
[]Whether it’s a non-smoking campus
[]To go along with the weather comments upthread, the average wintertime sunlight exposure
[]The school’s diversity index (best, I think, when compared to local county and state diversity indices)
[]Endowment per student
Also, it can be hard to find, but if available I like to read the most recent accreditation reports (both the self-study and the external reviewers’ reports). They tend to be bland (and long—you can really only do this one with colleges on a kid’s shortlist), but there are nuggets of important information you learn to recognize.
@FranktheTank I went to large state U in Florida that used to be known for parties and football. Still is sort of. There were some very smart people on campus, not including me
Anyways, I have always said that going there was such a help to my career because every single time I interviewed for a job or worked on a project where my resume was reviewed I was asked about my time spent at school.
People were always happy to talk about the football team, the weather, beach, golfing year round, parties, the sun, how great it must have been in the winter etc. It always led to a great conversation starter and I never felt anyone thought I was a dunce for going south to study. Quite the opposite!
Having a name brand on your resume is very helpful, even if it’s not the Harvard/Yale/Stamfords of the world.
We don’t really like Greek life either. For us our metric was less than 20% of Greek life, preferably no Greek orgs on campus.
Some people say that if you get more tha 30% greek life on a campus, then there really isn’t anything else to do there. That’s an exaggeration, clearly, but it does indicate something about the culture of the place.
There are many schools without Greek orgs–
Vassar
Mt. Holyoke
Haverford
Bryn Mawr
Hampshire
Reed
Earlham
Agnes Scott
Smith
Beloit
UChicago
Macalester
Lewis & Clarke
the Claremont Colleges I believe don’t have any
Mills
etc.
Another great source of info is “niche” – Google NAME OF SCHOOL and NICHE then scroll down. You can see how students describe themselves in just a few words.
We avoided all schools that said “work hard play hard” or variations on that theme.
Just noting that Beloit does have greek life. Like several midwest CTCL schools – Knox, Lawrence, Wooster – greek life exists but is described as “non traditional.”
Kalamazoo is another school to add to the list without greek life.
@Dustyfeathers UChicago actually has some greek life. Not much, and it certainly does not dominate the place.
I’d forgotten about Chicago too – I have a grad student who was in greek life at Chicago.
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2016/6/1/snapshot-uchicago-greek-life-demographics-growth-r/ describes fraternities and sororities at University of Chicago. The article claims that 19.6% of undergraduates participate.