Rank these Eastern colleges... 1-5 please

Lafalum84
Fri, 18 May 2007 21:55:12 +0000

My son looked at and applied to both PC and Stonehill. Was accepted at both - got ZERO merit aid from PC, $18k/year at Stonehill. Was offered a spot in Stonehill’s Honors program, when we attended a program for Stonehill Scholars there were a lot of kids there - with your child’s stats I’d say their chances of significant merit aid are very high at Stonehill. (At our hs, PC has a rep for giving almost no merit money). PC may be better known, but my son definitely liked Stonehill better. It’s in a small town, while PC is a nice self-contained campus but in a sketchy neighborhood. During the entire tour, the PC people kept talking about how great PC was because “you can take the bus to the Providence Place Mall for free!” Not a big draw for my son. Stonehill seems to really take the needs of the students in mind whenever they build a building or a program. Also, you said to ignore USNews (yay! good for you!) but Stonehill has been ranked 1st on their regional Northern college list for years, and is really moving up academically.

My son actually turned down both of these schools to attend another small LAC. A neighbor has 2 kids, one at Stonehill and one at Fairfield, both are quite happy.