We visited in April, 2022; we live in the PNW and S23 is happily at Whitman now, a choice that was boosted by its close proximity to us (around a 4+ hour drive), and the robust Whitman alumni network in the PNW. So the ease of getting back and forth, the future networking opportunities, and Whitman also being terrific ultimately took St. Olaf off the table for S23 (especially as he wants to stay in the PNW after graduation). If Olaf was in the PNW? For him it would have been very tough to decide between the two schools.
We both appreciated Olaf tremendously, met great folks there, and I could see my student thriving at the college and happy in Northfield along with Carleton there, too; I tell people all the time to put Olaf on their list!
We went into this trip with S23 excited to visit Carleton (his #1 choice), and lukewarm on visiting St. Olaf and Macalester but thought it would be a good idea to visit both since they were close by. Presenting in the order we visited:
St. Olaf: WOW. We had a terrific guide who was engaging, thoughtful, and took the time to reflect and answer all of our questions as we walked. They spoke about different students’ experiences and perspectives in addition to their own. When S and I had a question about Great Conversations and the role of religion at Olaf while we were coming to the end of our time, he offered to stay and wait for us to finish our final information session so that we could chat further.
Campus was terrific, and we were visiting on an absolutely frigid day (an unseasonable storm was blowing through), and from a Mom perspective I noticed how every building we entered and walked through was full of natural light from the large windows (and two and three story windows were quite common in many buildings). There were nooks to gather in nearly every building to study or chat in front of windows, and I felt that if I was stuck inside in a freezing Midwest winter, I wouldn’t be stuck inside dim rooms - the natural light indoors was a tonic.
Perhaps a small thing, but as we went through the dining hall our guide explained that backpacks are left outside the hall as the expectation is that students eat and talk together, not do their work during meals. And when we came back through to eat lunch in the dining hall later we certainly saw that: 95% of the kids were deep in conversation, chatting and laughing and there wasn’t a laptop in sight.
My kid really enjoyed St. Olaf and could see themselves in that community.
- Adding a bit of clarifying info to this as someone asked me about it later:
When S and I had a question about Great Conversations and the role of religion at Olaf while we were coming to the end of our time, he offered to stay and wait for us to finish our final information session so that we could chat further.
We are not religious ourselves, and while I had read a great deal about how ~45% of students at Olaf are not affiliated with any religion, it was important to me to both suss out if there was any sort of social division between students who are religious and those that aren’t, and while I knew (on paper) that the branch of Lutherans at Olaf was one that had both women and LGBT pastors, I wanted to ensure that there wasn’t any quiet bigotry. We are not anti-religion! But we will not financially support any institution e.g. in which their religion “tolerates” LGBT folks or reproductive health care, but also says those people are going to hell.
Our tour guide was gay (and not religious), and thanked me for asking the question about bigotry and “tolerance,” and we went on to have a really lovely and detailed conversation about faith and religion at Olaf and I left our discussion confident that Olaf would be a terrific place for my student.
