Last Friday we took our daughter to visit Sweet Briar College near Amherst, Virginia. She loved it there a lot, and they seemed to like her too. In fact, they gave us the impression that she will be accepted there. It’s a lovely campus and seems like a really neat school – good for Doe in a lot of ways. It is small – only about 700 students total. The very largest class has fewer than 40 students and 80% of the classes have fewer than 20 students. The girls all seemed lovely and nice and happy there… there were lots of things she (and we) liked about it. It just seemed like a really good ‘fit’ for Doe.
Now, neither Kevin nor I went to college right out of high school, so choosing colleges isn’t something we have any experience with. We both started college as adults, and just went to the school that happened to be where we were. Both of us started out in Community College and then transferred… completely different than this. And, neither of us knows anyone who went to such a small school, nor a same-sex school. Our friends who went to college right out of high school all went to large state schools, or to military academys. A few went to private school, but all much bigger and coed.
So, are there any Dopers who went to Sweet Briar, or to a similar school? Any regrets? What were the cons of going to such a school? The pros?
I don’t go to an all-women’s college but I do go to a very, very small school (total enrollment: a hair over 400 students). All of our classes are under 20 students - part of this is due to the nature of the program (all classes are seminar-style, all discussion). The smallness has it’s ups and downs.
The good: I definitely think that small classes is a major bonus. There are never any guarantees, but it drastically reduces the chances of being just an anonymous meaningless student to your professor. The small size of the school in general definitely helps to foster a sense of community. I know almost every student in the college at least by face, and I know almost every other sophomore by name. It’s sort of like being a member of a secret club: you know each other and you’ve got something in common that the vast majority of people don’t.
The bad: At a school the size of mine, there’s no such thing as a real secret. Gossip spreads like wildfire, and any sort of news spreads incredibly fast. Related to that, sometimes it can feel a bit smothering - probably moreso in my situation, as our campus is fairly well removed from Santa Fe proper and pretty isolated up on our own little mountain. Sometimes I feel like I just desperately need to get off-campus, and go and hang out with people who I don’t see all the time. It’s fairly simple to solve, though - hop on my bike, go into town, spend the afternoon doing homework at the public library or sitting in a coffee shop or something.
In my personal case, I think that smaller = better, college-wise. My advice to your daughter would be to do an overnight visit there. The normal campus tour, lunch in the cafeteria, talk toa few students is a great start, but if you’re trying to figure out if you’ll really be happy living there, you have to at least spend a night. (Also, not having parents there can drastically change a student’s perspective).
Best of luck.