Stats of Accepted Students

jelomom2003
Thu, 03 Jan 2008 23:00:58 +0000

I will see if I can get her to reply, but I will take a shot. I think that my daughter could see past the whole prestige thing and was able to evaluate the two schools for their individual merits.

Academics were definitely the most important criteria for her and she felt that the schools were equally matched (regardless of the image of Hamilton’s prestige). She was able to meet with professors at each school to confirm her feelings. In fact, during decision time, she even meet with the Dean of Students , whose own daughter ironically was at SLU. She liked the fact that SLU’s criteria for making Dean’s list was based on her own academic preformance and not on a percentage of student body as Hamilton’s is. She was disappointed to learn that Hamilton was disbanding it’s “Sophmore experience” and had nothing in the plans to replace it. Meanwhile she was impressed with SLU’s First Year Program (FYP) that has National recognition for its living learning community. Hamilton talks about a large writing requirement but she found that SLU required much the same but reinforced it with the FYP. The international programs were important to her, but I don’t think she could make distinctions at that time between the two schools

She wanted the option for a single Freshman year which was possible at SLU and not at Hamilton, the significance of the two distinct sides of campus at Hamiton greatly concerned her, Hamilton was begining a major construction and SLU had completed it’s major improvements (AMAZING student center, state of the art Science Building, remarkable bookstore and a fitness facility that is incredible). SLU was further along with it’s building safety standards, already campus wide key carding for all dorms (while visiting Hamilton just after Va Tech horror, she was able to walk directly into dorms).

Both schools seemed to share a similar friendly student body however, she felt that SLU had a more wholesome feeling. Both schools had similar social outlets. Hamilton’s frat scene was bigger while SLU encouraged Theme houses. She wanted the campus to be the center of her social life and wasn’t looking for a busy urban area, rather a pleasant setting.

Deciding on a school is very personal and I am not going to say that it was an easy one for her. I can say that after completing one semester, she has been very happy and doesn’t regret her decision for a second. I am proud that she was able to make a choice based on her feelings and criteria and not based on rankings. You are to be praised for trying to keep an open mind and not letting superficial things influence your decisions.