college of wooster Archives - College Bound Advantage

Mar 20

Ohio’s Beautiful College Campus Buildings – A Photo Anthology to Music – Enjoy Part 1!

By Jay Young | Ohio's Campus Buildings | No Comments

At College Bound Advantage, it’s time to celebrate the start of spring, and along with it, hiking season! After completing nearly 60 visits to Ohio’s college campuses, we selected some of the most beautiful photographs to share in a photo anthology and partnered it to the song, Silver Lakes by Wes Hutchinson. Enjoy the richness that is higher education in our state of Ohio! Hats off to Carlos Velez for his work! Click Here:

About the Author: After touring 60 of the best colleges in Ohio, Dr. Jay, a prior faculty member and dean, founded College Bound Advantage (CBA); a Columbus Ohio college consulting firm. CBA specializes in helping families optimize college selection around 15 “fit factors.” College Bound Advantage serves all of Ohio including Cleveland, Akron, and Cincinnati metro areas.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

Dec 09

Trying to do it all: Small liberal arts colleges with professional programs

By Jay Young | Small Liberal Arts Colleges with Professional Programs | No Comments

If you have been following our blogs, you will recall that we spent some time looking at the unique attributes of Ohio’s “Big 5 Liberal Arts Colleges” – colleges that specialize in a broad, often interdisciplinary, curriculum integrating the arts, sciences, humanities, and social sciences. We also looked at a set of Ohio’s private colleges that excel at offering professional programs such as nursing, business, engineering, pharmacy, and others.

Now that we have defined the poles of the liberal arts vs. professional program continuum in terms of Ohio’s private colleges, let’s look at some colleges that have retained their commitment to an integrated liberal arts curriculum while offering some professional programs as well. Simply put, professional programs at these institutions may not be as aggressively resourced; may involve fewer faculty; may achieve fewer accreditations, and may be less central to the academic structure and ethos of the institution. However, many offer students a solid professional education along with the advantages of a more diverse and interdisciplinary curriculum. At these schools, there is more intentionality around developing the “whole person” and a bit less around developing the “competent professional.” Many students and families prefer this more balanced approach to professional education.

As we continue our hike, let’s take a look at a few of these colleges.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

Sep 12

Ohio’s Big 5 Liberal Arts Colleges: The College of Wooster

By Jay Young | Ohio's liberal arts colleges | No Comments

The College of Wooster is a private liberal arts college with around 2,000 students, located in Wooster, Ohio. It is recognized as one of Ohio’s renowned “Big 5” liberal arts colleges. Founded in 1866 by the Presbyterian Church, the College of Wooster is best known for its emphasis on mentored undergraduate research. Wooster has an Independent Study (IS) program, in which all students work one-on-one with a faculty advisor to complete a 50-100 page written thesis (or other project) during their senior year. The project, which began in 1947, is presented and orally defended. Students are prepared for the IS with academic experiences in each of their first three years. Successful students are rewarded with a diploma, lots of pride, and a Tootsie Roll (not kidding).

Wooster was named a member of Loren Pope’s, “Colleges that Change Lives” and is consistently ranked as a top liberal arts college in the country. Admission is competitive and only 30% of Wooster’s students are from Ohio

Students say that Wooster is “non-competitive” and “non-pretentious.” While students work hard for grades, the attitude is one of collaboration and support versus competition. Students also refer to Wooster as a “hello” campus as students consistently greet each other on campus.

In terms of academics, History, Biology, Communication Studies, and English are the largest majors and are all strong, but check out Anthropology and Archaeology. Many students transfer into these majors after sampling a course or two.

Check out our video compilation of photos taken on our last visit to the College of Wooster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAzvHFZ28nw

About the Author: After touring 60 of the best colleges in Ohio, Dr. Jay, a prior faculty member and dean, founded College Bound Advantage (CBA); a Columbus Ohio college consulting firm. CBA specializes in helping families optimize college selection around 15 “fit factors.” College Bound Advantage serves all of Ohio including Cleveland, Akron, and Cincinnati metro areas.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

Sep 12

Ohio’s Big 5 Liberal Arts Colleges: Ohio Wesleyan University

By Jay Young | Ohio's liberal arts colleges | No Comments

Established in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) is a member of the Ohio “Big 5” liberal arts colleges that includes OWU as well as Kenyon College, College of Wooster, Oberlin University, and Denison University. They are also one of Loren Pope’s College’s That Change Lives.

With around 1,700 students from around the country and beyond (46 states and 43 countries represented), this selective university offers 90 majors, 23 varsity sports (NCAA Division III), and 100 clubs and organizations.

Academics are strong and focus on the liberal arts, although, unlike the other members of the “Big 5” a few professional programs, such as Education (with licensure), Business Administration, and Accounting snuck in. The Sciences, Arts, and languages are all strong. They even offer the only “Planetary Science” undergraduate program in the state.

With so much to offer, I still have to warn you that they are one of the most haunted campuses in the country and even sport their own student paranormal society.

Check out our video compilation of photos taken on our last visit to Ohio Wesleyan University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExpBRG4ARDM

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

Sep 08

Ohio’s “Big 5” Liberal Arts Institutions

By Jay Young | Ohio's liberal arts colleges | No Comments

In case you didn’t know, Ohio is home to five of the finest “Liberal Arts” colleges in the country. Collectively, they form the “Five Colleges of Ohio,” a consortium of Ohio liberal arts colleges which includes Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, The College of Wooster, and Denison University.

In their purest form, Liberal Arts institutions only offer degrees in the Arts and Sciences, with a particular affinity for the humanities (subjects such as philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history, and language that focus on how people process and document the human experience) and the sciences. What they don’t do is offer academic majors in the professions. So, in a pure liberal arts institution you won’t typically see degree programs in business, engineering, social work, education (with licensure), nursing, and the like. These institutions tend to be small, selective, undergraduate-focused, liberal, teaching institutions with big endowments (savings accounts), and a broad reach (recruit well beyond Ohio’s borders). They value an interdisciplinary approach to education so tend to organize their curriculum to encourage breadth over depth and connections over silos. They work hard to develop a student’s critical thinking and verbal and written communication skills. In most cases, over 50% of graduates move on to graduate school within a few years of completing their undergraduate work.

These are fine institutions, but not a good fit for everyone for a number of reasons. I’ll have a lot more to say on that further down the trail! Thanks for hiking with us.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/