okay he did where'd he decide to go
um to Williams College in Massachusetts
uh-huh sure i'm familiar with it
and that he was he was uh trying to decide between University of Pennsylvania and Williams and it was a very difficult choice and uh
and he well he must know is he interested in law or medicine he must have a definite profession in mind
no but that's one of the reasons why he chose Williams that it has solid liberal arts
oh okay
medium size aren't they
about two thousand
is he excited
very excited yes uh i have another son who's at their chief rival Amherst College
wow i can i
uh-huh while they're east coast i mean i don't know anything about their football but there you go
well they're they're they're really very strong academic rather than you know big sports
yeah that's where where you at
we're outside of uh Washington in Maryland how about you
oh okay i'm in uh suburban Dallas
uh-huh do you have children in
no i don't i have a husband we don't have any kids yet
about all i can say is i guess about picking schools um i guess uh if you don't know what you're going to do liberal arts program is a good idea
okay um
well i i one of the the advises we've given our children is that you can always learn a job
this is true
uh but what you can't learn uh on a job is
a good solid well rounded well rounded education
right the humanities the history yeah
that's right you know the Renaissance man and uh and if you get that you can and if you do well you can you can learn a job
right right no no no
yeah but they you know if they learn the job and they can go into graduate school usually a company it will if it's worth it's weight will subsidize and
that's exactly right
that's right so the advice we gave to them was number one visit the colleges that you're thinking about describe first of all
uh-huh
this this is true
yeah
the size school that you might be interested in
and if you want to go away right
do you want to go away how far from home do you want to be
right
what do you want in a college now my son is a national level competitive swimmer
good
so he wanted to swim in school but he did not want to be in a swim factory
okay so he wouldn't have gone to something like where we're at they'd in Austin Texas University of Texas
that's right that's the University of Texas at Austin or Stanford or something like that so he didn't even consider those
right
Texas Aquatics yeah okay well that's i think the other thing is too um i know i went to a uh city high school in Chicago and a lot of the kids weren't as fortunate as say my brother and i were and economics was the choice um
uh-huh
uh-huh
sounds like your son has academically the standing to get into that type of school
he is very very strong academically yeah so we've just but you know he had to look to see what kind of environment he liked and yet he he did wind up having to make a choice he did apply to a large you know large group
uh-huh
yeah University of Penn i'm originally from Pennsylvania Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania
it's got about nine thousand undergraduate
yeah that's strong i mean that's you know and it's it's well it's a little bit i don't want to use the word wilder that's not the word i want um more diverse
yeah yeah
yeah
uh yes and it but it does have the under you know that's total undergraduate with five hundred graduate school so that the uh the college of arts and sciences is you know i guess about four thousand
at Williams or Pennsylvania at Williams at Pennsylvania well how large is Williams
at Pennsylvania
Williams is an undergraduate school only um and it's a total of two thousand
right
well that's not bad
yeah so he knew the feeling because my other son is at Amherst which is fifteen hundred and he had visited his brother at Amherst and knew that he liked the environment but he did go on college visits and he liked
which is a lot
uh-huh
that's the thing to do i mean i not having any children my husband was an Ohio State person and uh that has something like either the first or second largest
um-hum
student population like fifty thousand combined community
yes yes it's large and they both boys had decided no that they did not want that
yeah that is too much and i mean i um i can only say it's strange your son picked those kinds of college because i spent a year at Bennington in Vermont um and that was this was twenty years ago showing my age
oh it's so you
uh-huh
and did you ever eat at the Blue Bin Diner
yes oh my God where are you from well let's not talk about that
okay
no but we've been there when i'm up at Williams we've gone up there
it's um in that area i mean i just can't say enough about it
oh it's it whatever we went and he was you know impressed by the clean air and he he met the students at both schools and he liked them
well you know um my husband's an engineer and a strong liberal a strong liberal arts background with uh a graduate degree in a technical field will get him much further than say like a a strong um business administration degree than with another MBA on top of it
uh-huh
that's okay that's it the thing is if if a person really knows very early on that they want to go in a technical field than you're not then it's probably good to go to you know to apply to a school with a strong technical program
uh-huh
and they usually
yeah but they usually don't
but uh for if you're going into if you know engineering is the thing if then you've got to at least take engineering
right but they no but who does i mean i think i think all i think the majority of people just don't know no he looked at criteria such as location size of school yeah
that's right
uh-huh no he didn't apply to any school further the furthest away was Bowdoin in Maine which is about twelve hours
that's still pretty far though i mean a lot of kids just don't even want to go
yeah that was the furthest and then Kenyon in Ohio which was about six and a half hours and Williams is about seven
oh that's not too bad
yeah so well i mean he so it wasn't he you know then the University of Pennsylvania is like two hours from here by train and then Bucknell in mid state Pennsylvania
yeah he will enjoy Williams i think and is a good academic
yeah and he knew and if it came down i mean as he came he's been talking to them and and he came down and one of the things that
he said is he went to Pennsylvania this weekend and he had an absolutely marvelous time he had a great time
uh-huh
but then he said you know it was such a good time that i almost got the feeling that their emphasis is on having fun
that could very well be i mean
and he said it almost backfired i think it backfired
so he's developing his his uh internal instincts right now that's good because i mean i'm sure what he said was true that uh you well actually that's one of the reasons i went to uh Kenyon he went he made a good choice i went i
so
i well swear w e're not supposed to but i spent a year in Vermont my freshman year it was just too far away it was too different uh the level of income of lot of the students and their attitudes was just um beyond my
um-hum
yeah well
um in terms of drugs et cetera which i thought was shocking
of course that period too was probably difficult to for you but i did uh my advice to him and my husband's was that
right yeah you're right but then i went
yeah
he had to really decide what he wanted out of college he had to look at himself uh in a larger school he had to realize that if he was going to screw around it he could probably slip
and it wouldn't be caught up until it was too late where in a smaller school where especially in a Kenyon or a Williams where you see the professors around town all the time you skip class in the morning and they see you
uh-huh
and you're going to get a little bit more input than discipline yeah
that's yeah yeah and a swim coach is going to be right on top of you uh so that and he will know the professors in a small
well i don't know how to put this either in this way and then it doesn't sound like your sons would need this but i just think the other thing is with the way a lot of the youth is today i think the refinement that they get i don't mean specifically etiquette or culture but just what you're saying just a solid background
uh-huh
yeah yeah
because i just don't think at that age i just don't think that young people know what they want to do
that's right that's right and um and it's just the personal contact where if you need help
you know and um
that's right
he has i told him to look to yourself are you the kind of person that will go into a large college and if the professor says i've got office hours but you really don't feel that you know him because you're in a class of a hundred that you're really going to look him up but if it's a class of fifteen
right right lecture yeah
this is very very
and you need help you know that it's much easier to do it and especially in the large schools they have lectures
oh
and even though they may break it up into smaller groups uh Penn is known for having
they have video lectures yeah video lectures
graduate assistants teaching they have graduate assistants to teach the smaller groups
this is true and i mean that is very ironic too that your son just made the did he just make the decision today
just a he made the decision uh i'd say about uh an hour and a half ago
how funny
yeah i mean that's so funny i mean and and in fact he had just an hour before that two uh recent graduates from Kenyon spent close to two hours talking with him
well he'll
that's funny
and uh i mean and he they were really nice and but he said is that they didn't tell him anything that he didn't know but they helped confirm his decision that a smaller school was better
it was easy for him to rule out he knew what he didn't want that's exactly yeah now is your other i mean we're talking about what you think but obviously you're experiencing it uh did your other son um
yeah yeah
right now yeah
my other son is just as happy as a bed bug he the moment he knew he he decided early on that Amherst was the school he's a classical guitarist
a clam
oh wonderful
and he decided he also got into the Yale graduate school of music as an undergraduate for classical guitar but he decided he was going to go to the um
uh-huh
the smaller and the
the smaller now and then graduate school later
and they'll do fine in their studies and i'm sure they'll go on to graduate school and
well he's really my older boy's real happy and he's minoring in English
and he had thought about economics and he took a couple of courses in economics and decided that wasn't
and now he's a senior he's a senior or is this early admissions
he'll be he's finishing his sophomore year so he's double majoring
so he's
so he's yeah well sounds like you have two talented sons
well you know see the advice we give is to not limit yourself especially this you know go to a school where you're not forced to make too many irrevocable decisions your first year or two
i think and a lot of people talk about and it's not the economics i'm solely zeroed in on but i think a lot of people think a lot of people think about the tuition level and what exactly are you getting in return
yeah
and i think that a lot of people shy away from the smaller colleges colleges because of that and i think it's rather sad
well one of the things we said is that they should pick the college this was our advice too irrespective of the cost that somehow we would manage
you are wonderful parents
well we place a real high priority on education in our family
no and i agree i mean my husband and i in fact i'm taking my LSATs um i'm thirty something and taking my LSATs on June tenth
oh good that's wonderful
oh that's great
um the point being and your sons will learn this from you i'm sure that uh no matter what age you are you can learn
that's right that's exactly
and it sounds like they're going to you know they're just
