Carleton College--Minnesota

Sayles-Hill Campus Center

Looking back on my college search from its conclusion, I see how little I knew when I began. I knew I wanted a small liberal arts college. I knew I wanted a school with few or no graduate students so that the focus of the college, and specifically the professors, would be on the undergraduates. I knew I wanted a chance to develop a close relationship with my professors and to be involved in research. I knew I wanted a school of high academic quality, but I also knew I wanted to keep my distance from the Ivies. I knew I wanted to stay out of the city and to avoid party schools. I knew I wanted to be surrounded by intelligent classmates.

It might sound like I had a good idea of what I wanted, and I certainly believed I did. As it turns out, I was not emphasizing the most important thing enough: the people. From the second I began playing “ghost” with three fellow prospees on the shuttle from the Minneapolis airport to Carleton, I knew I could see myself going to school with these people. I met them at the airport at 10:30 in the morning, and one more joined our group when we got to campus. We had lunch together, walked around the art gallery together, and we met up with another group of five at the rec center. We hung out there for a couple hours, caught the 3:30 tour as a group, and met some new friends and played more “ghost” at admissions before dinner. With assigned seating, we were separated for dinner, but we met up again to sit together at the musical performance. After meeting our student hosts for the night, we all went to the s’mores and Arb walk event from 9-10. Only we met some more Carleton students and didn’t leave until 10:45, and when we did, we went to Sayles to play pool, play foosball, and watch hockey until 12:45. I spent almost all of 14 hours with these people I had just met from all over the country. From Georgia (2), Tennessee, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Maryland, North Carolina, and Massachusetts (2) there were ten of us who got along incredibly well. And we also met prospees from other places – Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas Hawai’i and Costa Rica to name a few.

The next day at Carleton, I had breakfast with my host, a freshman, who was eating with a senior and a sophomore. I went on an Arb tour in the morning before weekly convocation – I heard a Harvard professor speak about the merits of a liberal arts education. I attended a fascinating Latin class and the students were all too happy to invite me to lunch with them afterwards. Since Carleton is not a very well known school here – to my knowledge I am the first to apply there from Severn – I will try to give a sense of how strong it is academically. I met three fellow prospees who were choosing between Carleton and Brown (all three leaning toward Carleton), two prospees who got into Yale, a current student who got into Princeton, a current student who had transferred from UVA, and so on. All were thinking they would prefer a small liberal arts college with a laid-back atmosphere to an Ivy League school. Smart, but friendly and down to Earth. There because they want to be there; there because they want to learn. There because they recognize the benefits of a liberal arts education; there because they appreciate being well-rounded.

Let me tell you a little about the college itself now. Carleton College has about 2,000 students (about 50-50 males-females), as does St. Olaf, the other college in Northfield, a small Minnesota town of about 19,000. The weather may not be ideal. Snow typically begins in October/November and continues to March/April. It was 72°F on Monday, April 11^th, but snowing at the airport Friday the 15^th, after my flight was delayed 3 hours due to the high winds. It is, however, somewhat surprisingly sunny at Carleton. The school runs on a trimester system, which I find appealing because the normal workload is then 9 classes a year as opposed to 8.  There is no grade inflation. The professors hold the students to high standards, and the students have to work to meet them. The students say they most appreciate such things as small classes, the willingness of professors to work with them, and office hours to talk to the professors. Because of the 880 acre Cowling Arboretum, there is more than a half-acre of land for every student at Carleton. In addition to a half-acre of land, there are 1.9 frisbees per capita at the college.

If I may, I would like to offer some advice to those applying to college. Find what is important to you. Look for that in a college. This is a personal decision. Listen to what other people tell you, but listen to yourself a whole lot more. College counseling is there to support you making your own decision. Same for your parents. For me, they did a great job with that. Try not to let other people influence you. You are responsible for feeling what is right for you. It is your job to find what is important, whether you are looking for a specific size, location, philosophy, etc. It is your job to visit the schools, meet the people, envision yourself there. This question was asked when I visited Colgate: “How do you know if it’s the right school?” The answer given: “You just know. It’s a gut feeling. You’ll know it when you feel it.” And that could not have been a better answer. I thought I liked Carleton. And then I visited. And I felt the feeling all 28 hours. The students gave me that feeling. The prospees gave me that feeling. The professors gave me that feeling. The dean of admissions gave me that feeling. The president gave me that feeling. The dorm room gave me that feeling. The food gave me that feeling. Find out what you want out of college. There will be a number of schools that can provide that. Apply to them (not too many). Visit them. You will not get that feeling everywhere. For me it was just Carleton.

And a second piece of advice – plan on changing in college. Don’t pick out a college for the sole reason that it has something you want to study now. Who knows for how long you will want to study that? Find a school that will make you happy no matter what you are studying. I know my brother planned on studying engineering in college. Then he got there and studied economics. Lafayette didn’t have as strong an economics program, but he was happy because he liked the school not solely for their strong engineering. And he went on to be a member of Lafayette’s national champion Fed Challenge team.

I hope I’ve managed to share a couple useful things about my experience, about the process in general, and about Carleton. I hope some of my excitement and enthusiasm has come through. I am writing this shortly after making my decision, and I feel really good about it. I hope that each of you finds a college that speaks to you like Carleton has to me.  If you have any questions about Carleton or about anything I said here, please feel free to ask me. Even if you just want to know how to play “ghost.” If you ever want to visit and I might be there at that time, please let me know.

Tanner (2011)