<p>Has he considered Sarah Lawrence?</p>
<p>no - he didn’t like the reviews (“for loners, socially awkward people, unfriendly neighborhood…”) - he thought it was a bit too quirky…</p>
<p>Ahh, Oberlin is hardly boring! Rural, yes, but in a gorgeous town, very active student body, many many activitites going on all the time.
Why not schedule a visit?! I think all of your questions will be answered by that!</p>
<p>Re #22: loners and socially awkward people at Sarah Lawrence?!? Wow, that’s nothing like the alums and current students I know. And nothing like when I observed when there. </p>
<p>Quirky? Yes, definitely. :)</p>
<p>NYU grad alum and Oberlin undergrad alum - these two are night and day. If you like small classes with profs that invite you to their house for dinner, Oberlin. My experience with NYU was limited prof contact, office hours only, no personal attn (at all) - my profs (business school) were off consulting after class, afterall they were right in nyc. Also, at Oberlin, when there wasn’t a course in something I was interested in, I did a private reading with a prof. and created a syllabus. That was easily do-able.</p>
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<p>NYU is huge. As the largest private university in the USA, certainly it can offer more classes than a small LAC. As for resources and opportunities, that depends on how you define and measure these things.</p>
<p>NYU’s endowment is about $2.1 billion, which would rank it in the nation’s top 25. However, that works out to less than $40K per student, and it’s in a very high cost location. Grinnell, Pomona, Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore all have endowments greater than $500K per student. </p>
<p>Other LAC endowments per student (derived from Wikipedia data):</p>
<p>Vassar … $347K
Macalester … $274K
Whitman … $205K
Colorado College … $199K
Oberlin … $193K
Wesleyan … $178K
Bard … $150M
Bates … $106K
Sarah Lawrence … $48K</p>
<p>Of course, economies of scale come into play. And NYU has all the resources of NYC at hand.</p>
<p>For an undecided major, I’d suggest to apply for EA wherever they accept EA, ED would be too restrictive.</p>
<p>“Doesn’t NYU have more resources, classes, & opportunities than a small LAC?”</p>
<p>Yes, but how many can one person take advantage of? Ultimately, you can only take 4-5 classes/semester and there are 8 semesters. You can only do one internship at a time or attend one performance at a time. While it’s possible that your S’s interests are so esoteric that only a city will be able to meet his needs, most kids at LACs are willing to try stuff they never did before because their friends are doing it and that’s one of the dozen things on offer that night (as opposed to the 60 things on offer in New York City on any given evening). </p>
<p>Another consideration- neither a pro nor con - If you are attending a large school in a large urban area, you can get away from your classmates and from school entirely. Most LACs, and especially the rural LACs, tend to be more inwardly focused. Kids don’t leave campus every weekend or vanish into the city after school. For kids who want a lot of community, that’s wonderful. For others, it’s claustrophobic.</p>
<p>^“Doesn’t NYU have more resources, classes, & opportunities than a small LAC?”</p>
<p>As a large, research university, yes, it does have more opportunities. There is a much broader array of programs and courses than you’d find at a LAC. The professors are generally more “famous” in their respective fields. NYU is (obviously) in NYC, which has an infinite amount of exciting internships and jobs that can’t be found anywhere else. What you’re giving up though, to a certain degree, is the small class environment generally considered be more conducive to intellectual stimulation and growth. Personally, I don’t see the relationship between small/large class sizes as inferior/superior to one another. They’re simply different. If you want cozy relationships with your professors, you can have them at NYU, but you’re going to have to work for it a little more than you’d have to at Vassar/Oberlin. Introductory classes are large (as is the case at most schools, even small ones), but more advanced classes are just as small as those at LACs. So maybe Intro to Bio isn’t going to be 15 kids… but does it really matter?</p>
<p>M’s Mom: Many NYU students are able to manage their 4-5 course load per semester, while balancing multiple internships/jobs and still can find time to do cultural things and party. You’d be hard pressed to find the same opportunities in Poughkeepsie, NY or Oberlin, OH.</p>
<p>Just want to comment that Vassar has very few distribution requirements so if he wants to explore, that is the place to do it. Vassar also has a strong music program and a gorgeous music building. Poughkeepsie is about 1.5 hours from NYC and Hartford/New Haven but there are many things to do in the immediate area. Also, Vassar is in a suburban part of Poughkeepsie with a little area of shops and restaurants right next to the campus.</p>
<p>Vassar is #1 on his list for the reasons above.</p>
<p>“…there are many things to do in the immediate area.”</p>
<p>Like what??? Especially without a car.</p>
<p>I’m not being argumentative here, I really want to know. My son was considering Wesleyan vs. Vassar maybe for ED, might be financially impossible but I was looking on CC anyway, the uncontradicted sentiment in the comparison theads I read here was that Poughkeepsie was horrible/ near useless and Middletown was (somewhat) better than it. I saw Middletown, that is not an impressive statement. The term “Vassar bubble” came up several times, it almost seemed like the kids felt somewhat trapped within its walls, to a degree, with, for all practical purposes, nowhere to go.</p>
<p>"Also, Vassar is in a suburban part of Poughkeepsie with a little area of shops and restaurants right next to the campus. "</p>
<p>I’ve been there, from what I saw “little” would be the operative term here, what I saw extends, what, two blocks? Or is there more.</p>
<p>I like the comment “inwardly focussed” for Oberlin especially…I went into Cleveland maybe twice because 1) nothing much there to see seriously, 2) lots to see/do on campus. Just being close to a city doesn’t mean you want to go there. Having money makes NYC fun…unfortunately I never had much $$ when I lived in NYC. :(</p>
<p>If you exit Vassar on the opposite side of campus, there are shopping malls, strip mall, etc…not sure that’s a plus, but the few shops you see when entering the campus aren’t the only ones nearby. And yes, you would need a car to get there (although there may be a bus-we didn’t check the bus routes.)</p>
<p>NYYankees, I wasn’t suggesting that someone couldn’t handle several activities at once. I’m just saying that infinite variety is often unnecessary and over-rated as a criteria.</p>
<p>“Just being close to a city doesn’t mean you want to go there.”</p>
<p>Also being close to a city doesn’t mean you CAN go there, if you don’t have a car. Which is also on point IMO.</p>
<p>With no car, D1 went into Cleveland herself a number of times, it took a long time and she felt highly limited by the weekend bus schedules for the return trip back to campus, she said. The bus schedules may have gotten even worse since then, if I understood things people have posted correctly. One can connect at the airport to Cleveland trains but they don’t go everyplace necessarily.</p>
<p>Later on, with a car, D2 went off campus more frequently, not just to Cleveland but to surrounding areas. It was nice to have access to a few multiplex cinemas, for one thing. She went into Cleveland for shows and concerts, IIRC. And to interview for a part-time job that unfortunately she didn’t get. If she did get it, she would have been leaving campus quite more frequently, and it would only have been practical to get there with a car.</p>
<p>So what you’ve got here are almost two ends of the spectrum. On the one hand two “bubble” situations, much more intimate situations, but offering limited places to go, a limited set of courses, etc. At least these are large for LACs, that helps a bit. But still, no consortium, no easy access to somplace good besides the campus. And on the other hand, one of the most amorphous situations around, with no intimacy whatsoever, no campus, all of NYC , however this is best enjoyed if one has $$, as D2 found the hard way.</p>
<p>Despite the differences these are all attractive places for a certain type of student; NYC-oriented hipsters to name but one contingent. But such person should be able to “pick one’s poison” from among the assets and liabilities of each situation which are nearly opposite.</p>
<p>Myself, I would be looking for a third, and intermediate alternative. My son, on the op=ther hand, liked Vassar a lot. Does not want “no campus” and does not want to be so far from home, that cuts out the other two.</p>
<p>NYC has plenty of free & discounted entertainment (street musicians, museums…). Washington Square Park is it’s campus. There is certainly a lot to do there that doesn’t require $$.</p>
<p>IMO, most kids would wind up spending a ton more $$ in NYC than at these campus-based schools. At the latter, people will hang out on campus and in the dorms. In the former nobody did that per report I got on one school, everyone went out. And most of the tiime when they go out it costs.</p>
<p>That’s the report I got anyway, YMMV and all that.</p>
<p>Various perspectives here:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1001631-going-college-nyc-expensive.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1001631-going-college-nyc-expensive.html</a></p>
<p>Amandakayak’s first comment is right on the money. Only thing to add is that the advising and personal attention situation is worse for undergrads as there are many undergrads across NYU’s multiple divisions and every NYU CAS graduate I’ve met…including those who graduated a few years ago has complained about the quality of advising and class size. On the other hand, if you’re fine with the expense, being proactive about searching out all the information yourself and taking advantage of NYU’s strengths and its presence in NYC…it can be a great place to get an education. </p>
<p>As for my own experience at Oberlin, largest class size I’ve had was around 45…and that’s very large by Oberlin standards. Most classes averaged between 15-20 and the smallest class I ever had was 2 including myself…and the class was held in a bakery owned by the Prof’s spouse. The close intimacy not only provided more intellectual stimulation, but also placed every student on notice that Profs have high standards and one cannot slack off by hiding behind other classmates or skipping out on classes as a roommate found out when the Prof of our 9 am Chinese language class actually showed up to his dorm in the late afternoon to inquire as to his absence. </p>
<p>As for whether one is bored or not, that depends on how active you choose to be in the wide variety of extracurriculars, campus events, the vibrant arts and music scene, and plenty of opportunities to be involved in political activism of various kinds provided your politics leans progressively left. </p>
<p>"NYC has plenty of free & discounted entertainment (street musicians, museums…). Washington Square Park is it’s campus. There is certainly a lot to do there that doesn’t require $$. "</p>
<p>That may be true, but since many NYU undergrads tend to skew upper/upper-middle class in one extremely expensive city, trying to avoid activities which involve spending $$ could easily lead to one’s social isolation…not a small consideration on a campus where it is so easy to feel isolated from everyone else. Since the vast majority of those high school classmates who attended NYU were scholarship students with limited means, they experienced this isolation most keenly because of the lack of money and because they commuted from home for financial reasons.</p>
<p>cobrat - You are very helpful, thank you! Does anyone else know if non-rich kids tend to become socially isolated?</p>