Note that Middlebury appears in this group as well.
Grinnell does have a higher ranking and endowment which may be a ātiebreakerā. That said, when I visited LACs with my D we all felt fit was paramount. To my D some LACs felt too artsy, others too preppy, etc. ā all of those schools were eliminated from consideration (including some schools I liked a lot). Your child has the additional component of finding a good fit team/coach which must be considered. If one of these fine LACs feels right to your S, Iād go with that. Two fine options here. Congrats to your S! If you can, let us know the final decision.
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Thank you for your response.
As a recruited athlete, I was hoping for a list of specific schools which had engaged with your son as a recruited athlete and the reason why they were dismissed from his list.
Is the focus just on schools which are recruiting your son ?
Grinnell is a fabulous academic experience - especially with its open curriculum for an undecided student. As good as it gets, bar none. Superb advising system.
Whitman is a good school and if the outdoor experience is a āmust haveā, then itās hard to beat.
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I know students who have graduated from these 2 schools, and they all had outstanding experiences. I think these 2 are more alike than different. Whitman would be much better known were it not in Walla Walla. It has a ācanāt get there from hereā location, even more so than Grinnell. The graduates of Whitman Iāve known all ended up in either Seattle or Portland, despite being from Minnesota. The grads Iāve known from Grinnell mainly ended up in Minneapolis.
This is one where I feels itās safe to choose based on vibe. Best wishes!
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OP: You need to do some research on each of these schools as Grinnell, for example, has certainly been the subject of a great deal of criticism regarding the community and the āsocial lifeā. The most prominent piece was written by a long time Grinnell professor several years ago and, after garnering a great deal of national attention, seems to have been scrubbed.
Applicants to small, isolated schools should visit each school if feasible. Encourage your son to communicate directly with current and former students if possible.
But, disregarding both negative & positive impressions of others, one really needs to fit when considering small, rural, isolated schools.
Help me out. Iām having a hard time understanding how these two are alike. Grinnell has a highly individualized and personalized open curriculum with a strong advising program in support of the individualized programming and curriculum decisions. The only core requirement is a 2 course sequence in freshman year. In contrast, Whitman has about 30 credits of distribution requirements, or about half of the course work in the first 2 years. These 2 approaches seem very different to me. But I may be missing something.
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To a student who attends Grinnell because they are trying to avoid certain subject areas, or because they want to hyper-concentrate in a specific area, yes Grinnellās open curriculum matters. But that is not a common student type, even at Grinnell. Most students at open curriculum schools such as Grinnell, Brown etc. end up taking a course load that would fulfill distribution requirements at most schools, Whitman included. And the OP made no indication that their student was even prioritizing an open-curriculum school. So for the majority of students, the academic experience at Whitman and Grinnell is more alike than different: small classes, academics-focused peers, professors for whom excellence in undergraduate teaching is priority #1.
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Grinnellās requirements are less flexible than those of some other colleges, however. For example, a student must take at least 61% of his classes outside of his major and ar leasr 26% outside of any one academic division.
How do they compare to Whitman?
If interested, the OP can check out the online course catalogs and graduation requirements for both schools.
When my D studied abroad, some of her cohort were from Whitman. She got on great with them and felt she would have enjoyed attending there.
I think the OPās child is aware that these colleges are off the beaten path. Location doesnāt seem to be the issue. OPās child could consider freshman retention rates. Grinnellās appears to be 81%, while Whitmanās appears to be 89%, according to college factual. That means that more students return to Whitman for their sophomore year than do students at Grinnell. Could be worth considering.
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I think OP sees 13 vs. 58 - and therefore, itās a very fair question to ask.
Itās the same on the national scale of, #13 Brown/Dartmouth vs. a UC Merced/Villanova - so it is understandable to have the trepidation.
A brief goggle search shows a much higher retention rate (94%) for Grinnell than noted above. Grinnell College is well known for generous financial aid & solid career counseling, but it does attract a particular type of student so it is not a good fit for all.
I used college factual because my initial search gave varied rates for Grinnell. At any rate, Iām not sure that 94% is āmuch higherā than 89%. If thatās the case, itās fairly comparable.
When I did a goggle search, the AI response wrote that two different sources showed a Grinnell College retention rate of 81% and another at 91% so I checked Grinnellās filing which showed 94%.
I checked because 81% seemed too low for a school that is quite generous with financial aidā an aspect which makes transferring less desirable in many cases.
Iām convinced you canāt trust anyoneās data.
Vassar shows 52% or so get need aid in their CDS but then put on line 2/3.
I wonder if thereās a true, real or accurate source out there - for any school.
For what it is worth, I think the LAC rankings should likely be interpreted a bit differently.
This is based off looking at things like the distribution of peer reputation scores, where last I knew, HYPSM were above all the LACs., and then there were on the order of twice as many next-tier universities on a par with the top few LACs. Basically, the national universities are a little more top heavy.
Then the LAC tie nominally at #13 is actually a tie at 13-20. For comparison purposes, it is usually better to take the midpoint of ties, so 16/17. Given the top-heavy observation above, I would suggest the LACs in the #13 tie should be seen as roughly equivalent to the national universities in the #24/25 tie, namely Emory and Georgetown.
Similarly the tie at 58-62 would be like 60. At that point I actually think that top-heaviness has largely gone away, but you start running into the problem of a lot of colleges not really comparable to a private. I think Santa Clara and George Washington are fine though.
OK, so Emory versus Santa Clara, or Georgetown versus GWāI think in some sense that gets Grinnell versus Whitman about ārightā (understanding on a fundamental level this is all pretty wrong).
And then I get why someone who saw it as Georgetown versus GW might choose Georgetown absent a cost difference or such. But Emory versus Santa Clara? I could see someone choosing Santa Clara for locational or other reasons.
Again, I am not sure any of this is really that helpful, but I do think one needs to be careful with comparing rankings on different lists.
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Simply noting what OP is likely seeing to have the trepidation - #13 vs. #58.
As a stand alone metric, I think we can all acknowledge itās pretty impactful - at least to an initial mindset or perception without digging deeper.
My D26 is also a recruited athlete and was in conversations with the coach at Whitman but has decided on Grinnell. For my daughter the coach at Grinnell was who sealed the deal for her. Aside from top academics, the 2nd most important thing for her was a coach she loved and a team where she felt like she fit in. We have visited schools up and down both coasts and in the Midwest. She understands Grinnell is in the middle of nowhere but she knows she will be so busy with school and travel for her sport that she will not be bored. From our area of the Southwest, Walla Walla was much more difficult to get to. There are more options for flights to Des Moines as well as Cedar Rapids. The other great thing about Grinnell is itās an hour from Des Moines, an hour from Iowa City and an hour from Ames. You are allowed to have a car on campus all 4 years. Having both college towns and Des Moines an easy drive away is a plus! We live in a smaller town 1.5 hours from a large city so she is used to that. Both schools are wonderful and your son cannot go wrong with either. I will say, after visiting Grinnell it is hard not to love it! I have 3 daughters and have been visiting colleges over the last 10 years so I have seen a ton! For my daughter, Grinnell passed the broken leg test which was the first time she said that to me after many college visits. Good luck to your son!
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