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Here is a very unscientific method of picking colleges to investigate further:

(1) Get three or four course catalogs from some "top" colleges.

(2) Look in the back of those catalogs where they usually list the faculty biographies.

(3) Scan the list of professors quickly---looking only at the name of the college where she/he got their BA, BS or AB (Don't look at where they got their MA or PhD.)

Keep going though several pages in several catalogs. Soon you will notice some kind of pattern. Perhaps you might notice that the name of a certain small college keeps on coming up time after time---completely out of proportion to what you might expect for a college of that size.

You might think to yourself, "Hmmm.... here are all these hotshot professors at this top college----and just look at how many of them went to little ol' _______ College for their undergraduate degree!"

If you spend even 20 minutes doing this, I guarantee you will find several colleges you barely ever heard of before that you just might want to find out some more about.

Not scientific... NOT a good way to pick the college that YOU should necessarily apply to.... but still very interesting.

By Themabrklyn (Themabrklyn) on Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 05:38 pm: Edit

Along those same lines, find out what big-name professors are at your prospective school. Then look in the course guide to see if they actually teach courses. You may be surprised.
--Dave

By Soozievt (Soozievt) on Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 07:15 pm: Edit

I once had a babysitter (for my kids) and she was going to go to Slippery Rock College in PA and we live in VT and so I was curious how she had heard of this school. She said with a straight face that she liked the name of it. I was floored.

Susan

By Constellation35 (Constellation35) on Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 07:23 pm: Edit

When I was younger I wanted to go to Brown because I thought it was cool it was a color and a college! Actually...I wanted to go there till I was 15 because of that...

By Gadad (Gadad) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 11:11 am: Edit

Morgantruce,
It would seem to me that that's a good way of selecting a college if you aspire to be a professor. I'm sure there are a lot of MIT engineers, Wharton business grads, and Johns Hopkins doctors who are making far too much money to consider joining a university faculty! BTW, at my alma mater - Wake Forest - I found a number of students who were primarily attracted by the name itself. Forests are apparently popular. Brown's name lends itself to a cool mascot - the Brown Bears - but pretty bland school colors.

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 11:19 am: Edit

There was one professor that used to come to school in a limo, don't know if he got tired of being ostentatious or if he retired.
Several scientists who are in our circle with Ph.ds from Ivys, actually like working with students hard as it may be to beleive for some.
They certainly don't need to, as they have their own post doc research groups on campus, but money isn't their primary motivation.
IT is true that big name profs don't always teach undergrads, and then not every year, but many of them do still teach.

Nothing surprises me on criteria people use to pick schools a house or a mate.
My sister picked a ballet school out of the phone book, because they used a classical photo in their ad, she thought that meant they took it more seriously. ( Than PNB where my daughter went, I don't even think they had a graphic, just the name)

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 12:59 pm: Edit

My daughter makes me laugh because her number one "non-negotiable" requirement a college is that there has to be a metroplex theater close by.

By Thedad (Thedad) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 01:40 pm: Edit

EmeraldK...oy vey. My D was just up to Seattle to see PNB over the weekend, a gift courtesy of her Favorite Aunt, the one who works at Lakeside.

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 01:51 pm: Edit

I remember judging co-ops ( preschool) by the quality of their potlucks ( only partially tongue in cheek)
My oldest daughters co-op had a wide variety of cuisines from the international UW grad students to a woman who had a local chain of restaurants. ( we put her on the steering commitee ASAP nothing like fresh scones with orange butter in the morning)
Another local co-op I visited was serving soda crackers with velveeta for morning snack- I crossed that one off the list immediately!

By Mominva (Mominva) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 01:53 pm: Edit

My son looked at tour site for his favorite bands. He only looked at schools which were close enough to tour venues!!

By Txtaximom (Txtaximom) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 02:01 pm: Edit

Exactly MominVA! My son also looked at what kind of bands come to play at various schools to get some sense of what is popular. He wants to be able to enjoy himself when he is not in class or studying, too. It wasn't his sole criterion, but it did matter.

By Gadad (Gadad) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 06:25 pm: Edit

I had a student once who threw a dart at a dartboard. No kidding.

By Patient (Patient) on Monday, February 09, 2004 - 11:21 pm: Edit

Carolyn, have you read Harvard Schmarvard? Jay Mathews talks about his daughter's 5 factors in choosing a college. 3 were the usual (urban, small size, flexibility in choosing majors); the fourth and fifth were, "Good access to Starbucks" and, "if I don't see anyone on campus who looks like James van der Beek, I'm not going there".

By Gabushida (Gabushida) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 06:36 am: Edit

One of my factors (although it wasnt absolute) was that it had to experience an appreciable winter so I can continue snowboarding and skiing :D

Yay Cornell for being what I wanted in every other way AND having 3 ski places within 30 minuts :b

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 08:04 am: Edit

I really didn't intend this to evolve into a clearinghouse for bizzare methods of picking colleges, although some of the ones mentioned are very funny. You never know where a thread goes...

If any of you have a few spare minutes, you will be surprised at what you find when you scan a few dozen faculty bios for undergraduate degree. The college names that "stick out" in larger numbers are not what most people would expect.

It's a fun thing to do if you have some course catalogs on your shelf---or in that cascading pile of "fire hazard" over there.


----
You needn't report the size of your sample or even the particular catalog(s) you used. That would imply some scientific method at work----which there is NOT!

By Themabrklyn (Themabrklyn) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 03:56 pm: Edit

There have to be at least two locations where I could see DMB from the college I choose. For example, Reed is an amazing choice--it is close to the Gorge, Seattle, and Portland.
--Dave

By Massdad (Massdad) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 08:38 pm: Edit

Actually, my input to my D in choosing a college was this:

- Where did I want to go for a parent's weekend?

This can be an enriching criterion, as I suddenly encouraged her to look at schools in Florida and Washington DC. Conversely, I wanted her to take Yale off the list - who wants to go to New Haven for a weekend????

Parents, think about it. You gotta have a little fun, too, while paying those bills.

By Choff (Choff) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 10:25 pm: Edit

Oh my, this is interesting. Maybe my son wasn't the only one off the beat. Prior to his junior year, at our first couple of college visits, his main question was if there was a 7-11 nearby so he could get his Slurpies... I hope we're by that question for the next round of visits.

By Momx4 (Momx4) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 10:41 pm: Edit

LOL Massdad! As soon as S#3 got into Brown, DH and I said we would go to Providence on a Fri night, take S out to dinner and then go on to Newport to spend the weekend. S has been at Brown a year and a half now, and workaholic DH and I have still never made it for that weekend in Newport! We recently "recommitted" to do it this spring. I won't hold my breath.

By Kissy (Kissy) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 08:53 am: Edit

Yesterday, I learned that a friend of S's chose his school because he loves the bathroom tile in the dorm.

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 09:05 am: Edit

well heck thats how I chose my house!! ( jk although I didn't even consider some house because I couldn't get past the bright 60's style lino in the kitchen)

We are going down to Portland next week- well I and the 13 yr old. We don't make it down for parents weekend in November cause that is the thick of soccer playoff season, but next week is midwinter break. Hopefully it will be more like pre-spring and not winter.
We take the train, which is a toss up whether faster than driving but it is much less stressful. ( unless you get stuck infront of some Dale Chihuly flunky bitching about her boss on her cell the whole way)
and to bring this back on topic, the fact that you don't need a car to either get around Portland or to get to and from was a factor in my daughter's decision. She doesn't mind driving, but she didn't want the expense or hassle of a car if she didn't have to

By Massdad (Massdad) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 12:38 pm: Edit

The truth is that ALL the approaches described above are probably OK for picking colleges. Given that most schools in the US give a pretty good education, and given that we don't have access to the kind if information that would allow us to make a more informed decision, a pseudorandom approach may not be all that bad.

Besides, since kids change academic majors (not to mention interests, life goals etc) in college so much, a good environment is probably as important as any academic factor.

Momx, Providence is not such a bad town itself. There's some great dining there. Folks even drive down from Boston to eat in Providence.

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 01:17 pm: Edit

Morgantruce - I tried your idea on the web sites of Stanford and Harvard but it doesn't work too well because most of the faculty bio's just list where they received their Phd.'s, not their undergraduate courses.

On the other hand, I thought it might be fun to revisit the list of famous people who did not go to Ivy league schools:

Jack Kemp - Occidental College
Jesse Jackson - North Carolina A&T State U
Thurgood Marshall Howard
Richard Nixon Whittier
Sam Nunn Emory
Dan Quale DePauw
Clarence Thomas, Holy Cross
Roberta Flack, Howard
Francis Ford Coppola Hofstra U
Spike Lee Morehouse
Roy Lichtenstein Ohio State
John Mathis Cal State San Francisco
Meatloaf - Amherst
ARthur Miller - U of Mich.
STeven Spielberg - Cal State Long Beach
John Tesh North Carolina State U
Denzel Washington Fordham
Spencer Tracey - Ripon
Harrison Ford - Ripon
Woody Harrelson - Hanover College
Hal Holbrook, Denison U
Shelley Long - Northwestern
Carroll O'Conner - U of Montana
Phylicia Rashad, Howard U
Christopher Reeve - Cornell
Glenn Close - William and Mary
Kevin Cotner - Cal State Fullerton
Colleen Dewhurst - Lawrence
James Earl Jones - U Mich
Brad Pitt, U of Missouri at Columbia
Sinbad - U of Denver
Sylvester Stallone U of Miami
John Malkovich, Illinois State U
Paul Newman Kenyon
Tom Brokaw - U of South Dakota
Johnny Carson - U of North Dakota
Katie Couric - U of Virginia
Phil Donahue Notre Dame
Kathie Lee Gifford - Oral Roberts
Bryant Gumbel Bates College
Arsenio Hall - KEnt State
Ricki Lake - Ithaca
Jay Leno - Emerson
David Letterman - Ball State U
Bob Newhart - Loyola of Chicago
Deborah Norville, U of GEorgia
Jane Pauley - Indiana U
Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers) - Rollins College
Willard Scott - American
Jerry Seinfeld - CUNY Queens
Jerry Springer TUlane U
Paula Zahn STephens College
Dave Barry - Haverford
Helen Gurley Brown - Woodbury U
Julia Child - Smith
Tom Clancy - Loyola MAryland
Ann Compton Hollins
Annie Dillard Holins
Robert Ebert - U of Illinois Urbana
Nikki Giovanni - Fisk
John Grisham - Missippi State U
John IRving - U of New Hampshire
Garrison Keillor - U of Minnestoa
STephen King - U of Maine Orono
P.J. O'Rourke - Miam U - Ohio
George Will - Trinity College
Tom Wolfe - Washington and Lee
Barbara Bush - Smith
Peter Coors (of Coors brewing) U of Denver
Michael Eisner - Denison U
Milton Friedman - Rutgers
Jocelyn Elders - Philander Smith College
Alan Greenspan NYU
Hugh Hefner - U of Illinois
Lee Iococa - Lehigh
Robert Jarvik (inventor of artificial heart) Syracuse
Murray Lender (bagels) Quinnipiac
Monica Lewinsky - Lewis & Clark
Rush Limbaugh - Southeast Missouri State U
Jacqueline Kennedy Onaissis - George Washington
Carl Sagan _ U of Chicago
B. F. Skinner Hamilton College
Howard Stern - Boston U


Just goes to show that there is life beyond where you go to college.

By Morgantruce (Morgantruce) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 02:04 pm: Edit

Carolyn,
I'm not too surprised that Harvard isn't listing the professor's undergraduate schools----Harvard would not like what you might infer from such a listing! THAT was the whole point of this thread.

That list of "celebrities" is fun to read. I find myself saying "Yeah! Makes sense...." for each one.

By Momx4 (Momx4) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 08:30 pm: Edit

Carolyn, wasn't there a story about Steven Spielberg being rejected by a particular highly selective film school, then after he became famous he donated a lot of money to the school that wouldn't admit him? I think it was USC but I'm not sure, it could have been UCLA. It just goes to show, even the most talented students get rejected. I bet the adcoms will never live that one down.

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 09:59 pm: Edit

It was actually both UCLA and USC
He ended up at Cal state long beach but dropped out senior year.
He eventually finished up and recieved his degree ( 33 yrs later)

By Momx4 (Momx4) on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 10:00 pm: Edit

Thanks for the correct info Emeraldkity- I knew it was something like that but didnt remember the details

By Thekev (Thekev) on Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 06:41 pm: Edit

not to be a smart alec, but you listed christopher reeves as not an ivy grad but he went to cornell, an ivy. Nonetheless, that's a great and refreshing list!

By Sac (Sac) on Friday, February 13, 2004 - 02:16 pm: Edit

I chose my first college because I was too scared to go across the country to the Ivy I got into. Also, my parents said someone's son "loves it there" and, besides, I could always transfer. Other than that, all I learned about it was from a newspaper article headlined something along the lines of: "Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll."

A friend of mine chose not to attend the same college because the climate would make her hair frizz.

Now, based on these clues: Which college was it?

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Friday, February 13, 2004 - 02:29 pm: Edit

Thekev - sorry, I started to include ivy grads but then decided not to but I forgot to delete Reeves.

Just to be fair, if anyone is interested, here are some famous ivy league graduates:

Conan O'Brien Harvard
Stone Phillips Yale
Joan Rivers Barnard (well, almost an ivy)
Erica Jong (Barnard)
E. Howard Hunt (Watergate conspirator) Brown
Donald Trump, U of Penn.
Jodie Foster Yale
John F. Kennedy Jr Brown
Sara Gilbert Yale
Dean Cain Princeton
Al Franken Harvard


And I'm sure there are some others.

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Friday, February 13, 2004 - 02:41 pm: Edit

And, here's another goofy-but-fun list of unusual traditions at various colleges --- maybe these will entice some students into giving a school a second glance:

Allegheny College (PA) First year women are not considered a coed until they are kissed by an upperclassman on the 13th plank of an old bridge on campus. Freshmen men usually steal the plank.

Bates (Maine) - On St. Patrick's Day, students cut a hole in the ice in the campus pond and jump in.

Brigham Young - At 8 a.m., as students file to the first class, the first four measures of "Come, Come Ye Saints" is played from the bell tower; the national anthem is played twice a day.

Cal Tech - on Ditch Day, seniors lock their dorm rooms in humorous, whimsical, and electronically clever ways and skip class. Underclassmen must break into the rooms and fetch the reward.

U of Connecticut - Oozeball is the name of the annual mud volleyball tournament.

Eckerd College - the school has no football team and no homecoming; instead they celebrate "homely coming" when guys dress up in women's clothing and a contest is held to select the most outrageous.

Hollins - On Tinker Day, bells ring, classes are cancelled and students dress up outrageously to climb Tinker mountain where they perform skits, eat "tinker cake" and seniors serve lunch to all present.

Knox College - Flunk day is held each spring when classes are suddenly cancelled without warning by the administration. The school year also starts with "pump handle" when all faculty and students meet on the quad for a group handshake.

Valparaiso U (IN) - Valparaiso is the birthplace of Orville Redenbacher so the school has a big popcorn celebration each year, complete with a parade with floats related to popcorn.

College of Wooster (Ohio) - When seniors complete their senior thesis, they are given a tootsy roll as a reward. Many seniors have their's framed.

By Massdad (Massdad) on Friday, February 13, 2004 - 04:38 pm: Edit

FWIW, Conan graduated from my D's HS. He visited not long ago and hosted a funny QA session for the students.

By Muzicgal04 (Muzicgal04) on Friday, February 13, 2004 - 05:24 pm: Edit

Carolyn, you missed Kofi Anon and Tim O'brian, both graduates of Macalester College

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 05:10 pm: Edit

Thanks Muzicgal - It seems to me that there were some others from Macalester that are interesting but I can't recall them off-hand. Macalester has always struck me as a great school to go to if you want to be an individual who tracks your own path to success.