My family is currently staying at DePauw for a wedding and so we took our senior in high school student on a campus walk and it’s like a ghost town here. Literally no foot traffic. We have another student enrolled at Denison and it’s packed with students this weekend. Curious where all the students are this weekend? Do they normally go home on the weekends? This school was a contender for our child but this worries us. Any insight is appreciated!
Have you checked the school’s online academic calendar? Perhaps the college didn’t start yet or gave the long weekend off?
School already started but they are off on Monday for Labor Day.
Even at Purdue lots of kids went home for long weekends and my sense is that DePauw mostly draws from IN and IL.
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Denison had classes on Labor Day so that is why everyone was around. Most regional schools like DePauw tend to empty out on long weekends no differently than Fall Break. You are going to find that dynamic at small and large colleges around the country. Probably IU in Bloomington was also pretty empty.
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Correction - DePauw isn’t a “regional school”, it’s a National Liberal Arts College, despite having “University” in its name. Like many of the lesser known LACs, its students are mostly from the region, though some 40% are either international or from states that are more distant. It is 100% residential and has a lot of activities, as well. I’m not certain why it was dead over this weekend, though.
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Regional schools, to me, are public or private schools, large or small that draw primarily from their region. I have a student at a similar private school in that region, and it emptied out over Labor Day weekend because many kids live close by and went home for the weekend.
University of Kentucky with a zillion students cleared out over Labor Day weekend.
I had a child who attended a mid size LAC college in the Northeast that drew heavily from the area. It completely emptied out for any short break.
I don’t think it is a negative at all, just the way things are.
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