<p>One point that I hoped to make in the above post, but I ran out of time, is that students have to be particularly careful when considering small colleges with unusually strong cultures, typically ultra conservative or ultra liberal, because matriculation is tantamount to “marrying” into a family with a very defined & strong personality; if you later decide that you don’t like it, don’t fit or want out, it can be quite unpleasant. Consider a student at Bob Jones University who decides to question and then challenge and then rebel against the conservative religious dogma–it would not be a pretty picture. The same can happen at small colleges on the other end of the spectrum as well.</p>