<p>Both boys at private schools, one an Ivy the other a top 20 LAC.
We (and more importantly they) feel generally happy with both but,
Could have lived without the ‘request for donations to the parents’ fund’ letters which arrived about 2 weeks after we paid a total of about $47,000 for one semester. Didn’t help that from one of the schools the letter was sent out by a parent/alum who is a well known movie director/producer…I am thrilled to be able to send the kids to school loan free, as I did not have the same luxury…but we are certainly feeling it. It seems to have slowed down but at one point every other week it seemed there was an opportunity to spend money on something else. </p>
<p>The tuitions are outrageous as it is. The son at the Ivy only has about 7 1/2 months of school in total. Enough already.</p>
<p>Weighing in on Rice (D is a senior)- The experience has been close to perfect. Every now and then she misses “big time” sports- enjoyed going to the Rice-Texas game to see a “real” marching band and Bevo. Her only other complaint is that the pre-med kids are obsessed with grades and it’s all they talk about at meals (she is a musi).</p>
<p>“-- My D’s core Humanities course really didn’t work well – very high school, and thus disappointing.”</p>
<p>I used to teach that one at Chicago, and that’s exactly the way I felt about it. In fact, I encouraged two of my students to buy themselves good sleeping bags, a copy of Janson’s History of Art and head to France, and write back. And they did. They got a great humanities education. (Ended up graduating eventually, one at Chicago, and one elsewhere.)</p>
<p>The all or nothing aspect to the drinking - this may not be unique to Dartmouth. D does not drink, and did pledge a sorority, but is still not happy about the fact that drinking is either heavy drinking or NO drinking (although she did see more moderate drinking in the sorority setting)."</p>
<p>Statistically, this is the same at my alma mater as well. Over half the students binge (in past two weeks), 30% are heavy (near daily) drinkers. There is a significant (quarter) of abstainers. Moderate drinkers are a quickly vanishing breed.</p>
<p>Yeah, CMU food is in a different league entirely. My son spent one summer there and decided he just couldn’t hack it for four years. He’s vegetarian and the only options he had for lunch and dinner were self-made PBJ sandwiches or penne in a mediocre marinara sauce. </p>
<p>So he went from the place with food in Princeton Review’s worst 10 list to the place that had the #1 rated food at that time. He also prefers a more balanced male/female ratio. So I guess we can see where his priorities are! He was accepted to CMU but couldn’t bring himself to commit to it.</p>
<p>lizschup,
I can’t help about tickets. I only found out yesterday I was going this weekend. S’s frat is having some awards dinner on Friday – probably what prompted the call from him asking us to come. I’m not quite sure what else we are going to do other than the football game. I KNOW he doesn’t want to go shopping with me or see an art museum, etc. If there is a game 6 of the WS, we will watch that since we are both baseball fans and sports is the one thing we can manage to have multi-sentence conversations about.</p>
<p>Oh, he will happily natter on about what he is learning in his advanced EE courses, but I haven’t a clue as to what he is talking about. But he still has that little kid idea that if he knows something, his parents must know it too. I’m glad he thinks I’m knowledgeable enough to follow. I’ve been lucky that neither of my kids has gone through a “my parents are so dumb” stage.</p>
<p>Sorry, this is very OT. You other guys, go on and never mind me. This is proving to be an interesting thread. Very cathartic</p>
<p>Wracking my brains for Smith - can there be such a thing as too much advising? I think my d. would have preferred sometimes to discover the new and unexpected by herself (even though, as it turns out, her advising steered her into the new and unexpected.) She should have joined the coop house a semester earlier (the 19 of them all cook for each other, it saves about a thousand a year, and, this being the college of Julia Child, they try hard!) Drinking, however, is just not an issue.</p>
<p>Moving it an hour closer to Boston or NYC? (this was unexpected - originally, she wanted a very rural place.) But not a lot to complain about - in addition to the superb academics, they gave her a grant the first year to work in Cambodia, Thailand, and India, a summer internship with the local opera company the second summer, paid research assistantship for her first two years (which will result in a major publication), a year in Florence, Italy, with fantastic faculty (and she is now fluent), and is looking toward a paid humanities fellowship her senior year.</p>
<p>As I continue reading this thread I have realized that my complaint really does not lie with the college ( in all fairness). There are plenty of activities on and off campus for non-drinkers to choose AND from what my d has said the University has been trying to regulate the drinking. She knows of a lot of students who have been written up for having alchohol in their dorm or drinking in public. I guess it is to be expected at any large University that a number of students will overindulge ( heck, many did it in high school) but it can still get old.
On a positive note, she just met with her advisor to plan next semesters classes and was very pleased with his preparation and advisement. Overall, she’s a happy camper.</p>
<p>Mini - I doubt you taught this particular Hum course, unless you are a lot younger than you write. It is one of the “hip” sequences – very anthropology/new historicist in orientation – and it couldn’t have been more than five years old.</p>
<p>Stanford advising: This was a problem when my sister was there 25 years ago. Improving undergraduate advising was a key part of a program to improve undergraduate education that Don Kennedy sponsored when he was President there. A few weeks ago, I attended an information session that included two recent graduates, and it had been a problem for them, too. The University has been “working on this” for a long, long time.</p>
<p>Dartmouth- I do wish that we had thought more about the “Greek culture” that is so pervasive at Dartmouth. Most social life revolves around the frat parties on campus. We didn’t think that it would be a big deal, but it has turned out to be just that. My D did not pledge a sorority this year (she is a sophomore) and feels a little bit out of the “scene”.</p>
<p>Wesleyan – S complained about poor faculty advising but I do know that upperclassmen have been helpful re: challenging classes, good teachers, etc.
S also complains about frosh meal plan since he often is far (or otherwise occupied) from dining halls during lunch and dinner – turns out to be very $$$. Also, private music lessons cost $700/semester which also is $$$$. Also hafto be careful with personal property – cell phone was stolen first month there. I wish there was easier access to New Haven train station. S LOVES Wes.</p>
<p>S2 graduated Northwestern. I thought many of the dorms were dark, dirty and dingy – also some classroom buildings. S2 didn’t care in the least.</p>
<p>Well, I had wanted to abide by the “one thing” rule, but now that several of you have mentioned the drinking issue, I’ll add that to my Dartmouth post. S hasn’t complained about it (nor the calendar–that was my complaint) but I did feel sad when he called on a Sat. night and was alone in his room studying. He is in a subfree dorm, and consequently I was surprised to hear that his roommate and others around are not in the least subfree. We should get all of our non-drinking Dartmouth kids together!</p>
<p>My understanding about substance-free dorms is that the dorms are substance-free, not the residents. </p>
<p>My virtual niece is a freshman in such a dorm at Amherst, and she is loving it, precisely because there are people to do substance-free things with on Saturday night (mainly, apparently, watching TV or playing poker).</p>
<p>“Non-drinking Dartmouth kids” – there’s an indication that the world does change, however slowly!</p>
<p>Yes, there are some non-drinking Dart kids, even a few in the Greek system. Burlmom, according to my D (who should be a sociology major, but isn’t), the 09s are much less “ragey” than other classes - sorry GFG - much less ragey than the 10s. She attributes a number of idiosyncrasies of the 09s to their “less rageyness”.
She is OK with being the non-drinker, she has gone to some of the big parties, etc. Her problem, I think, is with the dichotomy - drink to excess or moral outrage. Last year on her sub-free floor, there were a number of kids who were sub-free (some who weren’t as well), so she did make several friends.</p>
<p>University of Colorado at Boulder; very few negative things to report. D is frustrated by her extremely unorganized microbiology TA, and says that the whole group of TAs in that department has the same bad rep. Says the dorm food can get very repetitious and she makes herself a lot of salads and sandwiches at their “to go” station. Like any major “State U”, there is a party culture, but fortunately, there are lots of things to do if it isn’t your scene. And her football team isn’t doing very well.</p>
<p>On the plus side, the campus is gorgeous, kids are friendly, and there are lots of ways to get involved on campus. Plus, there’s a great bus system that takes them to Denver and to DIA if they need it. D likes most of her classes and is probably going to be an assistant TA next spring in the sociology department (unpaid position, but a good foot in the door). We thought that was great for a freshman! And ski season is just right around the corner . . .</p>
<p>right
my D was in sub free for three years( not at Dartmouth)
the first year because we thought it might be quieter than a regular dorm
the 2nd and 3rd years because that where her friends were
( and by picking a “theme” dorm you have more control over getting a room on campus)
They took it very seriously - I couldn’t even make clam speghetti( with wine)- I had to go to the Chinese house</p>
<p>But that isn’t complaining- I think it is good they have options for dorms</p>
<p>Yes, I did understand the distinction between the dorm being subfree, not necessarily the residents, but one hoped…</p>
<p>As far as the dichotomy, I do hope that doesn’t describe Dartmouth since S rejected a very good school with a GREAT scholarship precisely because he felt the social scene there offered only the two extremes. When he visited Dart as a hs senior, it seemed then to offer a wider array of other social attitudes.</p>
<p>Re the all-or-nothing drinking scene… I’m wondering if that is a characteristic of rural/suburban colleges vs. urban? I’m not there but I did ask my d. about drinking/partying in her dorm, and she said that there were a couple of girls on her floor who overdid it, but for the most part things are pretty quiet. I know that my d. is a moderate, social drinker – a glass of wine with dinner at a restaurant, an occasional beer – but she doesn’t like the heavy drinking. My impression is that she is rarely (if ever) carded in a restaurant if wine is ordered with the meail. Obviously in NYC there are plenty of alternatives to campus social-life.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my impression is that there really isn’t a sense of the campus being the social center – my d. seems to do her weekend socializing in Greenwich Village, hanging out with friends from NYU. I don’t know if it is just her or if it is common, but if she mentions to me that she is going to a show or a party, then it just is as likely to be lower Manhattan as anywhere near campus. And the time she went to a baseball game, it was Yankee stadium. (Then she tells me that she isn’t making very many new, close friends at her college… and I asked, “how can they get to know you if you’re never there?”… to which she replied, “good point”). </p>
<p>She can get deeply discounted or even free tickets to all sorts of events from her college, so that’s cool, too – though they have to wait in line at a ridiculously early hour for the free tickets. </p>
<p>So I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing – but its why I was thinking that college life in an urban center might tend to be very different.</p>
<p>CalMom, I don’t think it has to do with urban vs. rural. I can name several schools that are in urban areas where the drinking culture is just as rampant, and several schools in rural areas where you won’t find a huge party scene. However, I do think that women’s colleges overall tend to have less of a party culture than co-ed schools, and I suspect that accounts for <em>most</em> of your daughter’s experience at her school.</p>
<p>By the way, my daughter is also in a substance free dorm (by choice). At her school, at least, what JHS holds true: it is the dorm itself that is substance free, but not all of the residents live a substance free life. She is very happy with her choice.</p>