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Canadian
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Posted: Sat May 19th, 2007 02:29 am |
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Beloit sounds terrific in many ways.
I would appreciate someone writing about the outdoors programs, what there is to do in Wisconsin (especially in the winter), and whether their club is active and includes cheap equipment rentals. Also athletics, please. The level of the athletics is not important; what matters to my S is the amount of participation in club and IM sports.
Thanks!
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sat May 19th, 2007 08:21 pm |
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Canadian,
My daughter, a Beloit student, just about died laughing when I read her your question. Beloit students are not really outdoorsy types, and she's never heard of any formal outdoors program. Winter activities tend towards quick dashes between buildings and huddling around cups of hot cocoa bemoaning the weather. There is some participation in sports, but I wouldn't call it a sports-oriented school either.  Sorry.
It's really a shame your son wouldn't consider Earlham. They have a FANTASTIC outdoors program - they even have a high ropes course right on campus (I'm not aware of another school that does), as well as 800 or so acres of hiking trails, a climbing club, etc. I believe there is even a minor in outdoor education at Earlham. Wish there was a way you could get him to take a peek. Of course, I'm not sure Earlham is particularly big on sports either. But they do have a lot of outdoors activities there.
Not sure if your son has considered it, but Dickinson College in PA. might also be worth a look. I'd compare it to Whitman in terms of the student body being more athletic and active. Hobart & William Smith in upstate NY might also be worth a look for your son.
Last edited on Sat May 19th, 2007 08:25 pm by CarolynLawrence
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outwest
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| Location: | CA |
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Posted: Sat May 19th, 2007 08:59 pm |
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| Hmm...Earlham, eh?
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Canadian
Member
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Posted: Sat May 19th, 2007 09:42 pm |
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Carolyn,
Thank you so much!
Funny thing.........An Earlham soccer coach just sent S a letter informally recruiting him! (The only school who has done this) Our only formal contact with the school was at the CTCL conference, so I found this quite interesting.
I will show him your comments for sure.
And, do you have the feeling that Earlham is a campus where the students have fun? S is funny and quite social and would like to party considerably more than he gets an opportunity to do here!
Re visits: I'm always ready to take off, but the question is, When? Not worth travelling far when the schools are out of session. I think the overnights were by far the most important part of his visits. In the fall, S will be busy (I hope) applying, and he has also picked an extremely rigorous schedule for himself.
Any out-of-the-box ideas for us? Otherwise, I think I will encourage him to apply to a few more schools and then send him to the "accepted students" weekends if he gets in.
Hobart & Smith is on our radar (looks like a gorgeous campus), and I will check out Dickenson.
I have some other questions re engineering, but will start a new thread for that.
Thanks again!
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun May 20th, 2007 12:57 am |
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Canadian wrote: And, do you have the feeling that Earlham is a campus where the students have fun? S is funny and quite social and would like to party considerably more than he gets an opportunity to do here!
Officially, Earlham is a dry campus. However, that doesn't seem to stop Earlham kids from having fun and partying. My daughter spent a few weeks at Earlham for their Explore-A-College summer program and had lots of talks with current students. They had plenty of stories about crazy parties and wild times around a campfire in the back woods of Earlham's campus. So, I always describe Earlham as more "pleasingly damp" rather than "dry and boring." I have a good friend whose son just finished his freshman year at Earlham, and I know she feels he did more than his share of partying - so, if your son gets interested, let me know and I'll put you in touch so your son can talk to her son.Last edited on Sun May 20th, 2007 01:11 am by CarolynLawrence
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Canadian
Member
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Posted: Sun May 20th, 2007 06:47 am |
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| Thanks, Carolyn. Hopefully I can run all this by my son soon.
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Asdad
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Posted: Sun May 20th, 2007 11:46 am |
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Ditto on the outdoor activities at Beloit. My D gave a similar response. The weather limits a lot.
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Canadian
Member
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Posted: Wed May 23rd, 2007 07:49 am |
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| S is busy filling out Earlham's soccer recuitment form. He doesn't know if he will apply, but he sure likes being recruited!
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Wed May 23rd, 2007 03:48 pm |
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My thought process is that kids should try not to close doors too quickly. You never know how things may change between now and the time application deadlines roll around next fall. It's good to keep as many options open as possible for the time being.
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frankie
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 12:47 am |
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On the Beloit website it says that there is a floor that allows smoking in almost all of the dorms. Is that true? Are there so many students there who smoke that makes the smoking floors necessary? And is it bothersome to the students on the other non-smoking floors?
Thanks
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Descartes
Super Moderator
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 01:08 am |
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frankie, I have moved your original thread into this one as it seemed more appropriate. We're trying to limit the clutter in this forum by restricting to college name headers as much as possible
Thanks. Someone here probably will know the answer to your question.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 04:59 am |
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Hi Frankie,
My daughter is a sophomore at Beloit and really dislikes being around smokers, so I asked her opinion.
First, she pointed out that we saw smokers at almost all of the colleges we visited. She doesn't feel that there are more smokers at Beloit than at most other colleges (none of her friends smokes). She reminded me that Beloit pays very close attention to meeting student requests when it comes to roommate requests and asking to be in a smoke free environment. She lives in a smoke free dorm by the way. All public areas are also smoke free zones at Beloit- to smoke, students have to head outside, although on the floors where smoking is allowed students are allowed to smoke in their rooms (she thinks they can't smoke in common areas). She says there is one dorm on campus in particular that she wouldn't recommend for smokers -- Peat, but that other than that she has not run into clouds of smoke in any dorm, and doesn't feel it is a problem or issue.
One of the nice things about Beloit is that the housing department does a good job of taking student preferences into account, so if you indicate that you don't want to be in a dorm with a smoking floor on your housing questionnaire, you won't be. My daughter asked to live in the sub free dorm last year, but mainly because she had heard that it was the easiest way for freshmen to get a single room, which she did (and kept this year). She decided to ask to live in the substance free dorm, but mainly because she heard that was the easiest way for freshman to get a single, which she did (and kept this year).
Hope this helps answer your question. According to my daughter, yes, there are people who smoke at Beloit, but she hasn't found it to be a major issue, and, as I said, she hates smokers.
PS if you strongly prefer a school where smoking is prohibited in all dorms, two that I know of that I believe have totally smoke free dorms are Earlham and St. Olaf.
Last edited on Sun Jan 6th, 2008 05:04 am by CarolynLawrence
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frankie
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 04:22 pm |
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| thanks for all the info
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Asdad
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Posted: Wed Jan 9th, 2008 03:22 pm |
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My D spent her first three years in the same room in Peet - also known as "Party Peet". She does not smoke. She claims that Peet gets a bad reputation because of all of the smokers, but the rules are changing, so the smoking should be curtailed. Her friends from Peet are still some of her very good friends. It can get wild on the weekends, but she adapted.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Thu Jan 10th, 2008 05:45 am |
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| Nice to "see" you AsDad. I am sad that we didn't get to meet in the flesh before you daughter graduates. But, it is always good to see you here.
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Sat Apr 5th, 2008 10:18 pm |
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As part of a midwest college tour, my son and I visited Beloit last Monday. We were seeing it at its worst, as far as appearance. Last week it was under a lovely blanket of snow. Next week there will be signs of spring. This week, mud and rain. Nevertheless it's an attractive little campus, with red brick buildings spread around what, I assume, will soon be an attractive green campus. It's set on a bluff above the Rock River, which was roiling and swiftly flowing with snow melt.
Everyone we met there, without exception, was friendly and apparently happy. A cheerful guide, a senior, showed us around the campus, proudly pointing out the two theaters, the two on-campus anthropology museums (it has an excellent anthro department), and the new science building set to open this fall. My son was not particularly interested in those sights, but he loved the fact that the campus is compact and welcoming. Our tour guide, as well as our two charming lunch hosts, spoke convincingly about the faculty's dedication to students. My son also perked up when one of our lunch hosts, a history and poli sci major, described her classes. I could imagine my son enjoying all four of them, especially a constitutional law class.
The school touts the small class sizes, with ten to fifteen students being the norm. This must be the truth-- there doesn't appear to be anywhere on campus to hold a big class. As we toured, we walked past several classes in session, and I don't think I saw a class with more than about twelve students. My son did sit in on a "big" class, a medieval civilization class with fully 22 students in it. Despite the enormous size, he quite enjoyed it.
Our lunch host said that at Beloit the fraternity and sorority members are not the typical loutish drunks, and this seemed plausible. My son deliberately chose to visit schools that don't have much of a Greek presence. So, apparently, do all Beloit students. Our host is the president of her sorority, and she related that her biggest problem in recruiting potential sisters is convincing students that they want to join a sorority.
Besides the tiny fraternity/sorority presence, there are a number of other theme residences at Beloit, including a science fiction/fantasy house. I asked our tour guide if she knew anyone who plays D&D, and she replied that there is a 24 hour a day game at the SF/Fantasy house. My son pricked up his ears hearing about this D&D dorm!
My son is shy and gets lost easily. After our lunch, he rushed out to go to a scheduled appointment at the learning center. He got directions, but since he holds World and Olympic titles in Getting Lost (as do I) I figured he'd probably need to ask directions; that would let him make contact with more students. I walked out of the cafeteria a couple of minutes later, to see him deep in conversation with a student. The two of them strode off in the direction of the learning center, still chatting. I found out later that the student had noticed my son seemed lost and walked up to him to help. I don't know exactly what the talked about, but my son has the kid's email address now, so I guess it went well
After all our appointments and tours, as we walked out to our car, my son looked down at me with a glowing face. "I love this place," he said. I agree that it's a perfect fit for him. The great thing is that he'll has a pretty good chance to be admitted. We may find other schools he likes as well or better, but we've got a solid safety, and there's a good chance he'll end up going to Beloit.
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Descartes
Super Moderator
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Posted: Sun Apr 6th, 2008 08:32 pm |
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CardinalFang wrote: It has an excellent anthro department
Top 10 baccalaureate schools for producing anthropology doctorates (from my own calculations based on NSF stats, for years 1996-2005)
Docs/1000 grads
Bryn Mawr College 14.0
Beloit College 8.5
Grinnell College 8.4
College of the Atlantic 7.4
Reed College 6.4
University of Chicago 5.9
Pomona College 5.6
Wesleyan University 4.7
Harvard University 4.6
Vassar College 4.5
Last edited on Sun Apr 6th, 2008 08:34 pm by Descartes
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Sun Apr 6th, 2008 08:51 pm |
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CardinalFang wrote:
The school touts the small class sizes, with ten to fifteen students being the norm. This must be the truth-- there doesn't appear to be anywhere on campus to hold a big class. As we toured, we walked past several classes in session, and I don't think I saw a class with more than about twelve students. My son did sit in on a "big" class, a medieval civilization class with fully 22 students in it. Despite the enormous size, he quite enjoyed it.
My daughter, a sophomore, has never had a class larger than 20 students at Beloit. The two classes that were 20 students were intro. to psychology and biology. This semester, her largest class has 15 students.
As at many smaller colleges, there typically aren't a ton of sections of individual classes, so sometimes sections at the most popular times (which apparently is any time after 12 noon) fill up quickly. Teachers do tend to be good about accomodating extra students, however. The only time my daughter couldn't get a class she wanted was when she was unwilling to take the 8 am section.
One of the really nice things about her experience at Beloit is that in high school she was the type of "good kid" that was neither a problem for teachers or an academic superstar. As a result, teachers liked her, but no one really singled her out for extra attention. At Beloit, she is treated like a superstar and friend by many of her teachers, who seek her out when they hear of opportunities they think she'd benefit from. The growth in her self-confidence from these relationships is wonderful to see. I know this is true at many other small colleges, not just Beloit, but it sure makes us feel like we're getting out money's worth at Beloit.
Last edited on Sun Apr 6th, 2008 08:56 pm by CarolynLawrence
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Sun Apr 6th, 2008 08:55 pm |
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| Luckily for Fang Jr, he has a couple of admission advantages at Beloit. He's a boy not from the Midwest, and he won't be asking for aid.
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Asdad
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Posted: Sun Apr 6th, 2008 11:17 pm |
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I have been to three parents' days, and at every one, someone complains to the president that their S/D is in a class of about 30 or so students.
There are a few. They are the lower level classes like Biology that are popular. As the student moves up, all of the classes are small.
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