A small, rural, liberal arts college. Full of friendly, interesting, diverse students and equally friendly and interesting faculty. Despite it's small size, there is a niche for virtually every student at Carleton, waiting to be discovered!
Do you have any tips for prospective students?
Definitely tour the campus, and stay overnight with a current student if you're able--it really gives you a great feel of what life on campus is all about, and you should figure out pretty quickly if it's a good fit for you. As far as the application goes, Carleton's supplement to the Common App is pretty straight forward--I believe there still isn't an additional essay question. Carleton students are very diverse and multifaceted; I would advise prospective students to engage in many different activities and clubs in high school. Carleton students are also extremely intelligent and dedicated, so I would also recommend that prospective students show dedication in an activity or two (more than one year of commitment), and, of course, demonstrate intelligence through their GPA, test scores, and AP classes.
Do you find there’s enough academic rigor at your school?
Don't be fooled by the small number of classes per term (3 each trimester, 9 per year), each of your professors are aware that you only have two other classes to study for, and will assign work accordingly. This isn't to say that professors assign homework for homework's sake; with only 10 weeks each term to cover class material, the pace of most classes at Carleton is necessarily fast. The work never becomes unmanageable, but academic dedication is expected at Carleton.
Describe the dorm life at your college.
The vast majority (I believe 99%) of students live in dorms on campus, or in townhouses owned by the school, so dorm life continues to be relevant to a student's social life during your years at Carleton! Personally, I had a wonderful experience on my floor and living with my roommate. If you take even a little time filling out the roommate questionnaire, you should be paired with a fine roommate. The RAs are selected through an extensive selection process and go through rigorous training, and all of the RAs I knew of were wonderful people, and excellent at their jobs. As far as parties go the college is fairly relaxed about alcohol in the dorms, however they have a stricter policy regarding marijuana. On the weekends there are always parties in the dorms or in the school-owned townhouses off of campus.
Because Northfield isn't a huge city--the population is around 20,000--students don't typically hit up the town on a Friday or Saturday night. However, there are always things to do on campus. Comedy shows, free movies shown in the Weitz Center, bands at the Cave (the student-run pub on campus), sports games--as the saying goes, you're always missing out on something. And you're feeling the itch for a big city, the Twin Cities are only a 40 minute drive away.
A small, rural, liberal arts college. Full of friendly, interesting, diverse students and equally friendly and interesting faculty. Despite it's small size, there is a niche for virtually every student at Carleton, waiting to be discovered!
Definitely tour the campus, and stay overnight with a current student if you're able--it really gives you a great feel of what life on campus is all about, and you should figure out pretty quickly if it's a good fit for you. As far as the application goes, Carleton's supplement to the Common App is pretty straight forward--I believe there still isn't an additional essay question. Carleton students are very diverse and multifaceted; I would advise prospective students to engage in many different activities and clubs in high school. Carleton students are also extremely intelligent and dedicated, so I would also recommend that prospective students show dedication in an activity or two (more than one year of commitment), and, of course, demonstrate intelligence through their GPA, test scores, and AP classes.
Don't be fooled by the small number of classes per term (3 each trimester, 9 per year), each of your professors are aware that you only have two other classes to study for, and will assign work accordingly. This isn't to say that professors assign homework for homework's sake; with only 10 weeks each term to cover class material, the pace of most classes at Carleton is necessarily fast. The work never becomes unmanageable, but academic dedication is expected at Carleton.
The vast majority (I believe 99%) of students live in dorms on campus, or in townhouses owned by the school, so dorm life continues to be relevant to a student's social life during your years at Carleton! Personally, I had a wonderful experience on my floor and living with my roommate. If you take even a little time filling out the roommate questionnaire, you should be paired with a fine roommate. The RAs are selected through an extensive selection process and go through rigorous training, and all of the RAs I knew of were wonderful people, and excellent at their jobs. As far as parties go the college is fairly relaxed about alcohol in the dorms, however they have a stricter policy regarding marijuana. On the weekends there are always parties in the dorms or in the school-owned townhouses off of campus.
The company that runs the dining halls, Bon Appetit, does a very good job for feeding hundreds of students, three times a day. However, it can get old eating the same types of meals three times a day, seven days a week. Northfield has some great dining options when you want to eat out, most of which are in a five minute's walking distance from campus. The meal plans can be a little frustrating to deal with; although there are various combinations of the amount of meals you get per week, along with the amount of dining dollars you receive (to use at the café on campus, which sells food a la carte) all the plans cost the same amount of money per term, and if you live in a dorm on campus you have to be on a meal plan.
Because Northfield isn't a huge city--the population is around 20,000--students don't typically hit up the town on a Friday or Saturday night. However, there are always things to do on campus. Comedy shows, free movies shown in the Weitz Center, bands at the Cave (the student-run pub on campus), sports games--as the saying goes, you're always missing out on something. And you're feeling the itch for a big city, the Twin Cities are only a 40 minute drive away.