Rank these Eastern colleges... 1-5 please

My_Sweet_Babboo
Sat, 19 May 2007 16:03:19 +0000

We visited four of the schools on your list. Providence was eliminated because the campus and location were not too appealing (although Providence has a lot to offer) and the religious presence seemed much stronger than at other catholic schools we visited and for my non-catholic son it was a deal breaker.

He was accepted at Marist, Fairfield and Stonehill.

We expected far more merit and need based aid at Marist than was given, and son decided he wanted to be in New England anyway, so Marist was eliminated.

Fairfield and Stonehill surprised us. I can’t speak to merit aid, but both schools met 100% of need (with very generous grants), and with a second child already in college the need was substantial.

In the end, son decided that he didn’t want to stay in the suburbs for another four years with students that “look just like me”. And despite my pleas that he really, really consider Stonehill, he opted for university life in Boston instead. And just my luck, it came with the worst FinAid package of all.

I do know that Stonehill considers Providence its #1 competitor. So maybe applying to both schools, and making sure they both know it, might shake that money tree a little bit more.

And if I had to rank:


Rochester
Fairfield-Providence-Stonehill
Marist