Your Perfect/Ideal College is...

juillet
Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:06:13 +0000

I’m in graduate school, but looking back my ideal college would’ve been like this:

LOCATION
Warm climate with mild winters; on or nearby a beach. In a small suburban town that’s easy to navigate without a car and with great, inexpensive public transit into a nearby large city like DC – a clean city with lots of history and the potential for a lot of internships of different types. The small town the college is in would have a good number of spots to eat or have fun – movie theaters, skating rinks, supermarket close by to campus, etc.

CAMPUS
Large, expansive campus with thousands of students (15,000+) but set up sort of like Harvard or Emory – an undergraduate college with a medium-sized number of undergrads (4,000-6,000) and many graduate programs. Campus has a lot of amenities, like convenience stores and several cafeterias scattered all over campus. It’s an actual, real campus, not a collection of buildings like NYU.

Dorms would ALL be suite-style, with each student getting his or her own small bedroom and sharing a bathroom, kitchen, and common area with 5-20 other students. The cheaper suites would be 4-5 bedrooms arranged together with one bathroom, with 4-5 of these arrangements on a hall, with that whole hall (16-25 people) sharing a large kitchen and common area. The more expensive suites would have 4 bedrooms arranged around a kitchen and 1-2 bathrooms, as well as a common area, sort of like an apartment. Students would be highly encouraged to live on campus, but not required.

STUDENT BODY
Mostly traditional age student body (18-22) but with a small, thriving nontraditional student program. Very racially/ethnically diverse with a sizable percentage of international students (~15%). Students are generally politically moderate to liberal, and they work hard, play hard. Weekend starts on Thursday night Lots of official student groups; large and powerful SGA; active minority student groups and LGBT student groups. Students are cohesive and people feel like they know most people on campus. All lifestyles welcome :D

ACADEMICS
It is a research-high university (“R2” under the old system), meaning that there is more focus on undergrad programs than at a research/VH (old “R1”) and professors have a medium teaching load. All professors teach undergraduate classes, and teaching assistants responsible for whole classes by themselves are only 3rd-year and beyond graduate students. (Sucks more for us than for you guys). First and second year grad students can only be recitation/lab leaders or graders. Undergrads have many opportunities to get involved with research in labs with professors and graduate students. Not an extremely prestigious school; this uni is probably in lower tier 1/upper tier 2 somewhere in the 30-50 rank. Well-respected. Classes are medium-sized; first year lectures in popular subjects can reach enrollments of 75-100 but there are plenty of upper-level seminar classes with small enrollments. Undergrad college has an honors program.

Strengths would be psychology (I’m biased), sociology, public health undergrad major, biology, and engineering, and “critical” modern foreign languages like Korean and Arabic.

Special programs at the school include a wide range of study abroad programs to every imaginable place (50+% of undergraduates study abroad); a BS/MD program; 5-year BA/MA or BS/MS programs in several fields; a strong pre-med program and a good internship placement program.

ADMISSIONS/FINANCIAL AID
The school would be selective, with approximately 30-45% of applicants gaining admission each year. SAT mid 25% range would be 570-700, and the average high school GPA would be around 3.5. Admissions are need-blind for U.S. applicants and certain international applicants. Admission would use affirmative action responsibly – underqualified students would not be allowed in regardless, but race could be considered a factor in admissions to maintain diversity of the campus.

Financial aid would be generous, with large endowments going to scholarships. There would be some full merit-based scholarships available to upper-middle-income students, and some full need/merit-based scholarships available to lower-income students. Everyone would receive some sort of financial aid, dependent partially on need and partially on merit. Loans would be minimized so no student leaves school owing more than $15,000 (~$4,000/year)

OTHER
Division I athletics school; football games are huge and homecoming is an event nearly everyone gets involved in.

After-graduation placement is highly organized, utilizing an extensive alumni network. Centralized office for placing students in graduate programs and/or careers would be efficient and helpful, sponsoring one-on-one counseling with students beginning in their junior year to help them find jobs or graduate programs that appeal to them. Less than 20% of the graduating class would leave not having anything lined up for the next year.