I said I wasn’t going to post again, but…
It is ridiculous to imply that Bates is unsafe because it’s in a city. First of all, 99% of students encountering criminal activity will do so on campus or in campus housing. Why? Because at these schools, the vast majority of kids live at the school. What’s at school? Booze, drugs, sex, stupid behavior, partying, and stuff that goes on after midnight that probably shouldn’t.
Anyone is free to Google each college’s Clery report, like I just did. The reports should be considered as factual, but not completely authoritative, mainly because it’s hard to know how many students actually make the effort to report crimes on campus, and if the administration culture encourages or discourages student reporting.
If those reports are to be believed, and they certainly do have a lot of interesting data which everyone should look at, they really aren’t that dissimilar from one another. Kenyon seems to be a hotbed of crime, with many reports of alcohol and drug use, and more sex related crimes than the other two. I am a little skeptical that over a three year period at Skidmore, no sexual crimes appear to have been reported. That seems really hard to believe on a campus of 2700 students, but we can’t go by anything other than the Clery report.
I’ll further add that we went to all three of those colleges and they are safe. My kid nearly attended Kenyon and I would have been happy for her to do so. Yes, crimes happen because students are people and people do stupid and reckless things. These colleges are all safe, clean, with great academics and motivated and talented kids. It is also a fact that Bates has both the highest yield rate and the highest freshman retention rate. That’s very important. Kids go out in Lewiston and they aren’t afraid to do so. There are not being robbed at gunpoint every time they leave campus.
OP has great choices here, but only one of these colleges is in a city. Like any city, common sense is required.