The ability to take classes at the other 5 Claremont Colleges is huge. Harvey Mudd has great engineering, math, physics and other specialized sciences. Claremont McKenna has great business classes (in the past I've heard they are better than Harvard). Pitzer and Scripps have top social science classes and Pomona is obviously top notch in all liberal arts and just a great education in general. Certainly the options for classes are like being in small college while delivering university level opportunities.
Are you originally from CT?
Yep, Vandy is on the list. His school band is going to Nashville in the spring so he will get to visit while down there.
Warmer weather, good private school alternatives to Pook: Vandy, Wake, Davidson, Emory, Tulane, Stanford?
Duke is in a really crappy area. Campus is beautiful, but take one step off and you're in some rough neighborhoods. Durham is actually going through a gentrification in the downtown area, but the majority of it is still not somewhere you want to spend much time. Raleigh is much nicer, but the downtown area can get a little dicey at times which is pretty much the case for any large city. Chapel hill is definitely the gem of the triangle.
Yes - my first 5 years of life were in Bristol and the next 8 years in Coventry and the final four years in Windsor at Loomis Chaffee before I sent sail to Pomona College in Claremont.
What is it like to be that far away from home for college?
It was pretty easy for me because I went to Loomis as a boarding student so I was already used to being without my folks around all the time and knowing how to study, etc. I was also really independent to begin with. When I was 17 I flew out to LA by myself to make the final decision between Oxi and Pomona. It was a big challenge for a lot of people around me. My roommate didn't make it through the year.
Speaking of Stanford and UVA, the valedictorian of my son's class applied to Stanford because both of her parents went there. Even with the legacy she still didn't get in and she ended up going to UVA. Also, two daughters of a good friend of mine are both at UVA and they love it.
Have to say I was disappointed in Vandy when we visited. UVa on the other hand was a favorite.
IIRC Stanford is the most difficult undergrad acceptance in the country, i.e., it's the most selective. And it's beautiful and awesome. If your kid gets in there, s/he goes. Period.
Yeah, I doubt Vandy will make the final cut when it comes time to filling out applications but that will depend on how he likes his visit there. The problem with out-of-state state schools is that the financial aid package is usually not as good as the top private schools with big endowments. My older son got into some good state school schools but he ended up at an Ivy because it was both cheaper and a better option. UVa was not one of the schools he applied to, however, so it might be better for financial aid than the ones he did apply to (Illinois, Purdue, Ga Tech, Penn State). If the younger one was to apply to an out of state school, the ones that are currently under consideration are Washington and UNC with Pitt as a wildcard due to its BS/MD program. I think Pitt is known for better financial aid than most. But it isn't a great school overall so, if he decides to drop the MD idea, he may have to transfer out of there, which sucks.
Yeah, the problem is, you don't know how a kid will respond until they get into the situation. I guess, if he really thinks he will like it, you give it a shot and transfer if it doesn't work out.
So UNC and Arby's comes up in the same thread giving me the opportunity to post that I have a ticket from the Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert I attended last night at the Diana Wortham Theatre in Asheville.
Pitt, like a lot of other similar schools, can be great choices for specific kids. The main thing I learned with child #1 is that you have to base an evaluation of the academics on the fields that the kid is potentially interested in and not some generic all encompassing rating. Some schools are pretty good overall but great in a few things and those could be the things that matter to the kid. But you can't get too focused either as they may change their major (mine did) so you have to look at all the potential majors they are interested in. I knew child #1 was going into an engineering field but I knew that he might change his mind on which one exactly when he got there. So we compiled a list of schools that were strong in the major he thought he wanted and narrowed it down based on the schools that were good in engineering in general, just in case. Child #2 is proving to be tougher as he thinks he wants pre-med but he doesn't know what to major in exactly. Maybe physics, maybe something like kinesiology or exercise science, maybe something completely different.
Another question about Pomona. I found some data on political leanings of various colleges and there is also information out there about free speech policies. It looks like Pomona is more balanced than most schools. Did you find that to be true?
Not compared to Stanford.
Believe it or not, when you include international students, there are more at Duke than Stanford. They are both very high, mind you, but Duke actually has more.Not compared to Stanford.
I loathe the idea of a trip to Houston this summer but Rice is compelling enough to justify a visit. And we do have Stony Brook on the list. I wish we lived in a state with better state schools but Stony Brook is still decent and, yes, WAY cheaper. Stony Brook also has a BS/MD program and their med school is rated slightly higher than UConn's which is already pretty high.
Beware of class size and course availability at Stony Brook. IIRC from my research, they had well above average class size, and below average 4-year graduation rates, reportedly due in large part to the difficulty enrolling in the courses required to graduate.