Apr 30, 2015
We are continuing our series on looking at colleges outside your
comfort zone by taking a virtual tour of public colleges and
universities in the Great Lakes region. Show notes for today's
episode are available at http://nycollegechat.org/28. In our last
episode, we started our virtual tour of colleges by focusing in on
the five states in Great Lakes region: Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
Ohio, and Wisconsin. We looked at public universities—both the
flagship state public universities and other public universities in
those states. In this episode, we will continue our look into the
Great Lakes states by switching our focus to private colleges and
universities. Again, we want to make it clear that there is no
statistical basis for the colleges we are going to name in each
region. No college has asked us to name it, and no college has paid
us anything to name it. These are entirely our own choices. To be
sure, some of the colleges we will name will require that your
child have very good high school grades and college admission test
scores to get in. Others will be a bit easier, especially if a
college is looking for out-of-state students to enhance its student
body’s geographic diversity. But, because each student’s profile of
grades and test scores and extracurricular activities and
outside-of-school experiences is his or her own unique package, it
will be up to you to look at your child’s high school record to see
which colleges might be appropriate. Two general notes: First, when
we talk about the colleges and universities in this episode, we are
going to be talking about the main campus—that is, the one that
most people associate with that institution—in those cases where an
institution has more than one campus. Second, because enrollment
figures are not necessarily comparable when reported by various
colleges, you should use the figures we provide here just as an
approximation of the actual campus enrollment—but one that is good
enough to let you know whether your child would feel comfortable
there. 1. Private Colleges and Universities The Great Lakes states
have a wide array of private higher education institutions—from
small liberal arts colleges to larger universities, including some
of our country’s finest. Let’s start with a renowned private
university, with a reputation for serious students: the University
of Chicago. The University of Chicago enrolls about 5,000
undergraduates in the College, which is dedicated to providing a
comprehensive liberal arts education for its students through
discussion and debate in the classroom. Along with the required
Core Curriculum of humanities, arts, natural sciences and math,
social sciences, and foreign language, undergraduates can major in
one of over 50 majors. The University seems committed to making
itself affordable to students who need financial aid, but your
child would need truly excellent high school grades and college
admission test scores to be admitted. Not far north from Chicago in
suburban Evanston, Illinois, is the main campus of Northwestern
University, well known for decades for its theater program, its
Medill School of Journalism, and, more recently, for its
competitive graduate business school. A member of the Big Ten
athletic conference (like the flagship public universities in the
Great Lakes states), Northwestern offers a traditional college
atmosphere in a beautiful setting on Lake Michigan. With its 8,000
full-time undergraduate students (and just as many graduate
students), Northwestern is certainly not small, but it is not
nearly as large as its public colleagues. Like other good private
universities, its tuition is high, and your child will need very
good high school grades and college admission test scores to get
in. Moving over into northern Indiana next to South Bend and just
90 miles from the city of Chicago is probably the best-known
Catholic university in the U.S.: the University of Notre Dame.
Because of its excellent national reputation, it draws its
approximately 9,000 undergraduates and its graduate students as
well from across the globe. Notre Dame’s undergraduate students
study in 65 majors in four colleges (arts and letters, science,
engineering, and business). As befits a university that is “at once
rigorously intellectual, unapologetically moral in orientation, and
firmly embracing of a service ethos,” according to Notre Dame’s
website, about 80 percent of students do some voluntary
service-learning experiences. Notre Dame has an impressive 96
percent graduation rate—which means that students who start are
highly likely to graduate, which is not true for many colleges,
unfortunately. And we all know Notre Dame has a history of great
football teams (can you say Fighting Irish?). By the way, we should
note that about 80 percent of Notre Dame’s students are Catholic,
in case that makes a difference either way to your child. As we
have been saying, your child will need very good high school grades
and college admission test scores to get in. Let’s look at two
small private colleges in Ohio, both of which have long histories
and great reputations: Kenyon College and Oberlin College. Kenyon,
located in the tiny town of Gambier, near Columbus, enrolls about
1,600 undergraduate students, drawn nationally and internationally.
It offers 35 traditional liberal arts and sciences majors and
prides itself on its small class size, typically about 15 students.
One of Kenyon’s claims to fame is its support for the founding in
1939 of the literary magazine The Kenyon Review, by poet and critic
John Crowe Ransom, who was recruited by Kenyon’s president for that
purpose. Another is being named as one of the most beautiful
campuses in the world, according to a group of architects
interviewed by Forbes. Another is the 34 NCAA (Division III)
swimming and diving championships its men have won in the past 36
years. Another is its good theater program, with alumni/alumnae
like Paul Newman and Allison Janney. Oberlin College, located in
Oberlin, near Cleveland, enrolls about 2,300 undergraduates in its
College of Arts and Sciences and about 600 undergraduates (and a
tiny number of graduate students) in its highly respected
Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating
conservatory in the U.S. (since 1865). Offering 47 liberal arts and
sciences majors and eight music majors in the Conservatory, Oberlin
also prides itself on its small class size, with about 75 percent
of its classes having fewer than 20 students. Oberlin has a proud
history as the first higher education institution in the U.S. to
adopt a policy to admit African-American students (1835) and the
first coeducational college to award bachelor's degrees to women
(1841). Your child would need very good high school grades and
college admission test scores to be admitted to either Kenyon or
Oberlin. A Look at 13 Interesting Choices. is a nonprofit
organization that was founded after the publication of a book
entitled Colleges That Change Lives, by Loren Pope, a retired New
York Times education editor. Updated several times since it was
first published, there are now 44 colleges and universities
profiled in the book and on the organization’s website. Those that
are included are not necessarily famous institutions, but they all
care deeply about individual students and strive to make the
college into a community to support students. Many of the
institutions have engaging and experiential aspects to their
programs—such as internships, international and intercultural
programs, and service-learning projects. Most of the institutions
are smaller colleges and universities that have proved to be
successful at developing students both personally and academically
so that they can succeed in life after their undergraduate college
years. Interestingly, 14 of the 44 institutions on the list are
located in the Great Lakes states. You should read about them in
the book or on the website, because you will want your child to
attend one of them if you do. Here are the ones in the Great Lakes
states: In Ohio: Ohio Wesleyan University, Denison University, the
College of Wooster, Antioch College, and Hiram College In Illinois:
Knox College and Wheaton College In Wisconsin: Lawrence University
and Beloit College In Michigan: Kalamazoo College, Hillsdale
College, and Hope College In Indiana: Earlham College and Wabash
College (one of the handful of U.S. colleges that still admits only
men) Because these institutions are relatively small and thus are
not particularly well known outside of their geographic region, it
is my feeling that out-of-state students with a good high school
record might have a decent chance of being accepted. 2. Colleges
with a Special Academic Focus In an earlier episode of
NYCollegeChat, we talked about colleges that have a special
academic focus, like the arts or business or engineering. In our
two-episode tour of the Great Lakes region, we have already
mentioned two institutions that have well-known schools of music as
part of the institution: the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana
University Bloomington and the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin
College. But the Great Lakes region also is home to one of our
nation’s finest art colleges: the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago (SAIC), located adjacent to the world-famous art museum in
downtown Chicago. SAIC draws 3,200 students globally into
undergraduate and graduate studies in a wide variety of art and
design majors, including all of the visual arts plus fashion
design, art history, arts administration, architecture, film and
animation, art education and art therapy, and more—along with a
full array of liberal arts courses. As with all colleges
specializing in the arts—whether visual arts, music, or
dance—applications require a portfolio of student work. So, only
talented students need apply. The Great Lakes region also is home
to one of the relatively few institutions more or less dedicated to
the study of engineering: the Milwaukee School of Engineering
(MSOE) in Wisconsin. MSOE offers 12 undergraduate engineering
majors and four graduate engineering majors. In addition, MSOE
offers majors in business, mathematics, and nursing. With an
undergraduate enrollment of about 2,500 students, the typical class
size is 21 students and typical lab size is 11 students. Its
admissions guidelines concerning high school grades and college
admission test scores seem quite reasonable, especially for an
engineering school, which is typically very hard to be admitted to.
Listen to the podcast to find out about… College life in the middle
of a city vs. college life in the middle of nowhere Questions
colleges should answer for you, like what their safety statistics
are Questions you might want to raise about sensitivity to and
accommodations for religious or cultural differences among students
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