Yes! Especially coming in from the west. I had the same reaction!
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Just received confirmation from a current undergraduate: A red door at Wesleyan signifies senior housing. And once I realized that, they seemed to be everywhere:
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FWIW, I did get checked last July when I went into an Apple Store to buy a laptop and asked for the education discount. (I pulled up his registration confirmation on my phone and that was sufficient.)
(I also got the education store gift card promo they often run during “back to school” that gets bundled in with the discount: $150 which I used for a pair of AirPods, for me 
)
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Yes in-person all bets are off. But I avoid apple stores like the plague. I always buy custom configurations anyway which they rarely if ever have in stock, so ordering is easier.
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Just moving this reply from the Visit thread where I discussed our weekend visits to WUSTL and Vassar.
And yes, I completely agree with this! I actually made this point to S24 along the way. Even relatively wealthy LACs like Vassar are not going to be able to compete with the wealthiest universities like WUSTL when it comes to facilities, breadth and depth of majors, and so on–they don’t have the scale. But their appeal is in the closeness of the student and professor relationships (in classes, research, and so on), the extremely loyal alums (who tend to also look out for other LAC kids) . . . really all that community stuff Vassar was hitting.
That stuff maybe does not lend itself to a quick admitted student day experience, however. So perhaps you have to know that is what you want independently from this particular experience.
That said, WUSTL did hit hard that they think they can offer at least a lot of the LAC experience too. I am not sure I 100% believe that, but they do set up their South 40 experience with that sort of thing in mind, they actually have a comparable student to faculty ratio (7:1 reported for WUSTL, actually 8:1 for Vassar), lots of small classes (65.8% of classes with under 20 students, compared to 71.3% at Vassar) . . . .
I still think if you want the real thing you should choose an actual LAC. But for people who think that might be a little limiting over four years, colleges like WUSTL might feel like a safer bet.
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There is absolutely NO doubt in my mind that WUSTL does a fantastic job with its students. I really tried to get my kids to take a serious look at it.
But I am always cautious about student/faculty ratios as a quick proxy for faculty mentoring. Several things play into this - for example, hiring a ton of adjuncts can reduce student/faculty ratio (WUSTL does not do this, just saying). Or, at PhD-granting universities, where the faculty must divide their attention between grad students (who often require intense 1-on-1 mentoring) and undergrads … My wife’s grad advisor (different school) did a good job of integrating undergrad researchers into his work; my advisor (also different school) somewhat less committed to this. Great with his grad students. Undergrads were an afterthought.
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Totally agree. For perhaps obvious reasons there isn’t a great metric for this, and I think at most universities in particular it will tend to really depend on things like each department’s culture/norms.
I more trust an LAC to actively minimize the profs not into undergrad teaching. Not necessarily 100% success, but I am more confident it will be the dominant experience.
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I’m going to suggest that if you want a college with a really serious focus on undergraduate education, the regional publics are your best bet.
But they don’t get any love on CC (and, of course, are generally horrifically underfunded by their states’ legislatures).
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What are regional publics? Meaning not a state’s flagship? Thanks.
MTSU (MIddle Tenn State), WKU (Western Kentrucky) but it could be the non flagships - Lamar in Texas as an example.
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Yeah, they are critical colleges for educating lots of people, and yet often are underfunded in comparison to their actual role in supporting the state’s economic health and development. Might have something to do with where the sociopolitical elite are usually sending their kids . . . .
There is no hard definition. US News draws the line between National and Regional universities (which necessarily offer graduate programs or else they would be colleges) based on whether they offer many PhD programs (national) or almost all just Masters (regional). But functionally, some publics have focused PhD programs that mostly serve a certain region of a state, in which case they are arguably just as regional.
And then some people will lump in anything with a “compass” name (so West X, East X, North X, South X, Central X, or so on), but in some states at least some of those actually draw statewide, and some might actually have at least some programs with a national draw.
So the lines can be blurry, which is fine.
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Back in the Day, they may have been called, “teachers colleges” which has a kind of nostalgic ring to it.
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Thing #2 is interested in forestry, and we want him to learn about career paths, income, and outcomes as early as possible. Even though he is only a sophomore he has already visited U of Idaho and Colorado State, and done a summer chemistry program at Michigan Tech (he is scheduled to go to a forestry/conservation program at MI Tech this coming summer).
Stayed same: He liked his MI Tech chem program, and likes its location relative to their experimental forest, but the campus was run down. We live in MI so, MI Tech would be in-state tuition, and the school would feed jobs in the Midwest.
Moved up: U of Idaho impressed us because the campus was pretty nice, but more importantly, a professor spent around 45 minutes outlining the program, describing different career paths and answering our questions.
Dropped off list: Colorado State was a strong contender before visiting because it has a strong forestry program, the campus is beautiful, and Fort Collins is a nice place to live. It dropped off the list because during the presentation they emphasized “social justice”, DEI, and fighting climate change, and there was little mention of specific coursework or career paths. Also, years ago the university built an environmental science college around the original forestry program, and none of the students on the guest panel were forestry majors. Being in CO we expected the school to be “crunchy”, but this was a bridge too far.
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Well, forestry, conservation and environmentalism certainly sound like a natural progression. Can’t blame the university for trying to attract students.
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It’s still that way. Automatic rolling admissions based only on metrics. HS GPA + ACT/SAT + number of college prep classes. Acceptances in less than an hour and transparent automatic merit aid. They also offer a non-automatic test-optional pathway. S24 was accepted to Iowa State with merit aid within one minute of hitting send on his application.
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Right you are. It appeared to us, however, that within the Warner College of Natural Resources forestry was crowded out by other majors like eco-tourism, sustainability, and “Human Dimensions of Natural Resources” (the social and political aspects of conservation). At some universities the forestry programs focus on timber production and/or conservation, and at others conservation, environmental science, and activism are the the main focus; CSU fell into the latter group.
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Have you looked at Oregon State? They used to have a forestry program. My D was looking at it several years ago.
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Oregon State is a highly ranked program that seems to offer many career paths, both public and private. We need to do more homework on Corvallis, OR.
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What is timber conservation all about?
Not trying to change your mind about CSU, but to clarify for others, the two majors you mention are 2/9. The others in the Warner College of Natural Resources are:
Geology
Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology
Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
Natural Resources Management
Restoration Ecology
Ecosystem Science and Sustainability
Watershed Science and Sustainability
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