I’m wondering what are all the various ways we distinguish colleges from one another. Some conventional ways are: location/geography, urban vs. rural setting, GPA, test scores, acceptance rate, size, student-faculty ratio, specific programs/departments, athletics, Greek Life, financial aid. Maybe access to outdoor recreation.
But in this forum people have also talked about … more qualitative characteristics, like how easy-going or competitive the environment is. Or conservative vs liberal. What are some other qualities that people have used to characterize a school and its student population?
Hoping we can brainstorm a long list to start with, w/o being too critical.
For many, it will be cost. Some seek merit but I think that’s a wrong approach - because some full pay are cheaper than others with merit.
Some use food. My son picked based on a dorm and having palm trees (which I suppose can go to weather)
Geography - where do students come from - some schools are national while @Bill_Marsh just compared two schools as being predominantly NY to Boston. Religion, Gender disparity
Some characteristics that I have seen some families list as important are:
Climate (whether not humid or getting sufficient sun)…so related to location, but different
Academic distribution/major requirements (wanting few or good breadth or avoiding certain classes or getting credit for certain APs, etc)
Particular activities (does not have to be through the school), whether that’s Irish dancing or a type of orchestra, or…
Liberal arts college vs. research universities, sometimes with families being as specific as mentioning an institution is an R1 school
Racial diversity of school (whether seeking a “diverse” student body, or mentioning an HBCU, or PWI)
I’ve heard of students caring about the relative location of a Chick-fil-a or boba tea or other desired place.
For some people, the school colors can be important.
The architecture/visual aspect of campus
The size of the campus (compact vs. more spread out)
Existence and extent of shops/restaurants, etc, right off campus
Distance from airport
Safety of campus and nearby areas
And here are two threads that talk about things that ended up being important for some folks (though these two threads happen to be more about parents who disagreed with their kids on something, but other posters sometime took the kids’ sides):
“Vibe” with a particular focus on college’s that stood for something could be another. For example, UChicago’s focus on life of the mind and Socratic method. RPI’s “Why not change the world?” that sort of imbues everything you hear/see from students and professors. Haverford’s honor code. St. John’s College Great Books curriculum. Brown’s open curriculum (this one doesn’t quite feel unique to me, personally, but I know a lot of people really value it.) Georgetown and the other Jesuit’s "cura personalis” care of the whole person.
I would say housing is a big criteria and also whether it is a “commuter” school. Do students live in dorms for the first year? All 4 years? Or is it not required for anyone?
D24. Warm weather state, a collaborative environment and access to tons of different restaurants/food cultures
D26 Cold weather state, collborative environment where kids are not stressed and known to be happy and care free.
Neither of my kids wanted intense, pressure filled, cut throat, pre-professional schools, and no greek life - an inclusive student body with a reputation for “kindness” and “nice kids”.
Is “intense pressure filled” somehow measurable? Or is it just based on anecdotes? How can one effectively avoid those kinds of schools? (I think my kid would really like to avoid those too!)
Does anyone want to go to a pressure filled school?
I do think it’s subjective, by major….and by kid. Some say a Chicago or CMU are intense - and others say not. Every kid is different. Certainly some have reputations - and those reps carry into what people believe as well.
How might one measure “vibe” so it’s just not anecdotal?
Every school seems to say they are “for” something, don’t they? Each has type of philosophy of education they avow. I’m not saying this to argue — I’m wondering how one can really know.
If someone says Univ X has a really chill vibe, for example, how can we really know before applying and going there?
This is where I think the search process has to confirm if there’s a real difference or if it’s just marketing. For example, when my D26 looked at Vassar, she couldn’t figure out what it was that made them stand out. How are they different? She wasn’t sure and was happy to cut them. So this type of “vibe” (as it differs from other definitions of “vibe”) has to be something that the student can clearly discern.
This is a long-winded way of saying, “You’ll know it when you see it.”
One interesting word that my daughter has used in her search process is “competitive”. I think it can mean a lot of things, but her definition was a student body that wanted more. They all pushed themselves to do more. Is that pressure filled? It’s all self-imposed pressure, so I’d say so.
My daughter sat in on classes, ate in the dining hall, talked to lots of students, watched the interactions between students, and between students and profs. We toured 15 schools and my D felt there were two that tied for the most unhappy and stressed out looking students. Both schools had most students sitting in the dining halls alone with their noses in their laptops too. Not a lot of smiles. It was also not exam time. She applied to neither.
Odd - when I was walking the Gainesville campus on a work trip, I noticed a ton of that - but - it was off campus restaurants I was walking by. I figured, they are like me, I go to places and park myself for a few hours - to get quiet. I didn’t tie that to stress or anything but I suppos it could be.
Kind of to answer my own question… I wonder if there can be some indirect evidence of a chill vibe (for example), like drop out rate or level of participation in non-required activities like intramural sports and clubs. Not sure what evidence would support a “collaborative environment” though…
It would be interesting if someone did a survey of students to see where they are the happiest, the least stressed, and/or the most satisfied.
Unigo too, although Niche surveys more students and sorts the answers into categories. Unigo has personal comments from actual students. Princeton Review can be helpful too. I used all of the college sites when I was helping my student, but College Confidebtial is the only one where I could interact with other people and the only one where I stuck around.
Other things I’d add are study abroad/international culture as things some care about. What percentage of students study abroad? What percentage of students are international and what range of places are they from?
Similarly, some schools have more volunteering and outside community engagement than others which can be a factor for some.
Related to the competitive vs cooperative theme some mentioned earlier, my D26 was trying to assess how much students like learning for the sake of learning/gaining knowledge as opposed to focus on grades and career. Things that tipped in favor of this were things like a place where being undecided early is normal or even encouraged so that students explore across offerings, a highly interdisciplinary approach to curriculum and learning philosophy which encourages learning different perspectives on an issue, less pre-professional school dominance of the culture, many students who go to grad school for things other than law, business and medicine, thriving humanities departments and discussion based classes, clubs that tend to be open rather than exclusive (I think her thinking there is that the exclusive club culture tends to coincide with a scarcity mindset of hoarding opportunities for the few, which she sees as the same folks obsessing over getting all As and comparing themselves to others rather than focusing on the learning in a collaborative way).
For wealthy private schools, a consideration was how do they use their wealth on student experience across the board. Even though we are not low income, D26 was interested in if they have philosophy and programs to equalize opportunity and experience for lower income students as much as possible? For example, funding to pay and house students for unpaid summer internships. Supplies and resources for interviewing and internships (including interview clothing). Support for break trips and supplemental opportunities for students on financial aid. Meal plan philosophy that is inclusive. In essence are they spending money to make low income students experience more like better off students or not focusing resources on that and creating an environment that isolates them.
Approaches to student physical fitness and well being. This only came up a few times, but one school’s requirements were a total turn off and part of what got the school off the list, while another’s was incredibly thought out and D26 felt could set her up with knowledge and an approach to physical fitness that could be useful throughout adult life.
Can you say more on why this doesn’t feel unique to you? Is it just that Brown is not the only school in the country that has an open curriculum or something more? My understanding has always been that very few colleges have an open curriculum, so it is a feature that can significantly narrow the field, at least it was back in the dark ages when I went to college.
Just that it seems like there are quite a few colleges that offer it and it’s potentially something easy to offer. But you’re certainly right that there aren’t that many colleges that really provide that level of openness in a curriculum. It always felt like something potentially easy to offer - just remove the restrictions to take specific classes. But perhaps I’m too quick to not call it unique.