Need some college input

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Ridgerunner said:
I am given to understand that the “largest Catholic university” in the U.S. is Texas A&M. Yes, it’s a state school, but there are more Catholic students there than in any other university in the U.S. I understand it has terrific Catholic organizations.

And one expects that a person can study physics there.
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That is a very good call, both on the science side and the religious side. A lot of schools are either one or the other, and it’s nice to get both in the same package.

The financial side needs to be looked at, though. I weep at the thought of out-of-state tuition for state schools, but I believe there are sometimes good scholarships for strong out-of-state candidates.
 
1990Domer said:
I think there is an A&M alum here…
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There are several. I am one of them.

A&M is awesome. And yes, it has a very strong Catholic center/parish for students. It turns out many seminarians and religious vocations. St Mary’s.

A&M as a whole is conservative, it is totally acceptable to be a practicing Christian, and has rock solid academics. I’ll hold the Aggie network up against ND’s too.

We were at A&M for my class reunion a couple of years ago (we won’t mention which # it was) and it was over a Labor Day weekend, so all the beginning of school “join our club” booths were out. There were bible study booths, Aggie Catholic booth, Baptist booth, prayer group booth… And on and on. My husband just says, “I wish I could have gone here.”

It is NOT hostile to faith life, in fact tons of people go to church every weekend, Catholic or not. Oh, and the Coalition For Life (founder of the 40 Days for Life) came from… Yes, Texas A&M students. And yes PP no longer operates there thanks to them!
 
1ke said:
It is NOT hostile to faith life, in fact tons of people go to church every weekend, Catholic or not. Oh, and the Coalition For Life (founder of the 40 Days for Life) came from… Yes, Texas A&M students. And yes PP no longer operates there thanks to them!
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Wow. That is really impressive.

I’m keeping a mental note of colleges I’d want my girls to consider.
 
The_Murray said:
Just about to finish up 2 years at my local community college and was looking to transfer to a 4 year school.

I have guaranteed admission to the University of Virginia, The College of William and Mary, and Virginia Tech. However, after living in Richmond’s VCU area for the past 2 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t want to go to a secular school. Joining Catholic groups and being involved is great and all but I really desire a strong overall Catholic culture. Thus why I’m here.

I have a perfect GPA and stellar scores, acceptance isn’t really an issue; with that said here are the short list of my schools.

-Georgetown University (seems far too secular, but has stellar academics)
-**Ave Maria University **( seems to be lacking the academic prestige I’m looking for but definitely has the culture I desire)
-St. Anselm College (I know absolutely nothing about its catholic culture -or even its existence. Just familiar with its academics).
-The College of The Holy Cross (from what I’ve read it has a vibrant Liberal Catholic Culture along with stellar academics)

Also, I’m majoring in Physics but I’m not too concerned about wether or not the school is science oriented as I plan on going directly to graduate school (just in case anybody had that question). And price; I worked on an oil rig for a couple years prior to attending community college, I have money. I’m far more concerned with finding a school with a strong academic and Catholic culture than worrying about price or school academic focus.

So… Any advice! I don’t know too much about the culture of many of these schools so it’d be great if somebody had some info to fill me in. The websites make it seem like they’re all vibrantly Catholic, but I get the feeling that just aint so (see georgetown).

I’m not just relegated to these school’s either, just the short list I came up with through some basic research.
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I haven’t caught up with the thread, but a few notes:
  1. Georgetown is as Catholic as you want it to be. There are shenanigans, but also a lot of good people–if you are looking for good people. The same is true of all of the big name Catholic colleges I know of. (There may be some small liberal arts ones that that rule doesn’t apply to.)
  2. At some colleges, it might be possible for you to be a lab assistant for a professor. I know of one TX science professor (not in your area) who happily uses bright undergraduates. That could be very good for your graduate application.
  3. I’ve heard good things about Western Washington. (Weird, I know.) Rutgers, too.
  4. The South can be a wholesome and bracing environment for Catholics.
  5. St. Louis (the city) has a very strong Catholic culture, I hear, and there’s a lot of good stuff at SLU.
  6. I know a lot of good things about the Newman Center in Pittsburgh, although my information may be old.
Any of those might be good options. Those are leads, rather than recommendations.

Good luck!
 
1990Domer said:
I think there is an A&M alum here…

However, being a Catholic university means that the religion penetrates all that happens there. At ND, there were chapels in every dorm. Masses every evening. Prayer before class began, University celebrations that started and ended with Mass, religious icons, the Grotto and the Basilica. Finally, the library mural and beloved Golden Dome with Notre Dame du Lac looking down on her son. The Catholic faith surrounds you from the moment you step on campus.
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Notre Dame is one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever seen.

South Bend is super depressing though, isn’t it?
 
All this Notre Dame talk just makes me more and more depressed 😦

Anyway, as somebody mentioned above, I am looking for a school that has Catholicism engrained deeply into every aspect of campus life (like ave maria or Notre Dame). From what you all have posted, that’s not Georgetown or Holy Cross.

If I were to go to a secular state school I’d probably just go to William and Mary as they have a pretty active Catholic population, and If I were to go to a secular private school I’d probably go to Cornell (New York rich Catholics :rolleyes:).

I would say from what people have posted Notre Dame is the winner; Alas… ND’s transfer policy.

It’s depressing hearing about Holy Cross, I thought I’d found a good bet.
And I’d never really looked into BC but it sounds like that’s a bad bet also.

How does Church affiliation with these schools anyway? It sounds like the Bishops don’t exercise much control over them anymore if they’re allowing all this worldly filth to penetrate the schools. I’ve read somewhere the Church was considering revoking affiliation with Georgetown?! Why? I thought they had control over Georgetown. Why not clean up the house a bit? I think it’s been demonstrated through Notre Dame that a -semi- conservative university adhering to catholic values does not harm its academics.
 
The_Murray said:
All this Notre Dame talk just makes me more and more depressed 😦

Anyway, as somebody mentioned above, I am looking for a school that has Catholicism engrained deeply into every aspect of campus life (like ave maria or Notre Dame). From what you all have posted, that’s not Georgetown or Holy Cross.

If I were to go to a secular state school I’d probably just go to William and Mary as they have a pretty active Catholic population, and If I were to go to a secular private school I’d probably go to Cornell (New York rich Catholics :rolleyes:).

I would say from what people have posted Notre Dame is the winner; Alas… ND’s transfer policy.

It’s depressing hearing about Holy Cross, I thought I’d found a good bet.
And I’d never really looked into BC but it sounds like that’s a bad bet also.

How does Church affiliation with these schools anyway? It sounds like the Bishops don’t exercise much control over them anymore if they’re allowing all this worldly filth to penetrate the schools. I’ve read somewhere the Church was considering revoking affiliation with Georgetown?! Why? I thought they had control over Georgetown. Why not clean up the house a bit? I think it’s been demonstrated through Notre Dame that a -semi- conservative university adhering to catholic values does not harm its academics.
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Well, do the bishops write a lot of checks to Georgetown?

He who pays the piper calls the tune.
 
Looking at colleges with my daughter who is a junior in HS and we have all been impressed with the Jesuit Universities. Look into:

Loyola at Chicago
Gonzaga
Xavier
Boston College
Marquette
Creighton

We all loved Loyola.
 
Xantippe said:
Well, do the bishops write a lot of checks to Georgetown?

He who pays the piper calls the tune.
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I thought the piper would be the Catholic Church. I thought the Church owned the univ.
My lack of understanding pertaining to Catholic education is immense.
 
I am pretty dubious about a lot of “Catholic” universities nowadays.

I will also confess to being a 'regionalist". I consider myself a southerner, and live in the Bible Belt. I’m very familiar with Bible Belt religion, its merits and flaws.

One quick story. My son went to a Jesuit University, but became disgusted with the dissident professors. After a year and a half, he transferred to Missouri State University so, in his words “…I won’t have to listen to anti-Catholicism in the classroom anymore.”

And he didn’t, either.

It certainly isn’t as if Mo State is a Catholic university. It isn’t. But it’s in the Bible Belt and notwithstanding a lot of the students were Southern Baptists or evangelicals of some sort, there were nevertheless a fair number of Catholic students from St.Louis. Why the latter? Because Mo State is fairly inexpensive.

Later he went to Ave Maria School of Law, and found it a very Catholic institution. He’ll be grateful forever, he says, that he attended Ave Maria.

So, things are often not quite what they seem or how they’re billed. Who is the greater threat to one’s faith, a nominally Catholic school full of dissidents or a state school full of southern fundamentalists?. Without hesitation, I would say the former.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I am pretty dubious about a lot of “Catholic” universities nowadays.

I will also confess to being a 'regionalist". I consider myself a southerner, and live in the Bible Belt. I’m very familiar with Bible Belt religion, its merits and flaws.

One quick story. My son went to a Jesuit University, but became disgusted with the dissident professors. After a year and a half, he transferred to Missouri State University so, in his words “…I won’t have to listen to anti-Catholicism in the classroom anymore.”

And he didn’t, either.

It certainly isn’t as if Mo State is a Catholic university. It isn’t. But it’s in the Bible Belt and notwithstanding a lot of the students were Southern Baptists or evangelicals of some sort, there were nevertheless a fair number of Catholic students from St.Louis. Why the latter? Because Mo State is fairly inexpensive.

Later he went to Ave Maria School of Law, and found it a very Catholic institution. He’ll be grateful forever, he says, that he attended Ave Maria.

So, things are often not quite what they seem or how they’re billed. Who is the greater threat to one’s faith, a nominally Catholic school full of dissidents or a state school full of southern fundamentalists?. Without hesitation, I would say the former.
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I personally would take secular anti-catholicism over fundamentalist, evangelical anti-catholicism any day. I’ve dealt too much with the latter; nothing is worse than a raging, bigoted, madman who thinks they’re sent by God. Secular anti-catholicism is normally pretty pseudo-history based with a hint of modern social policy; a lot more easy to deal with (get out the history books). Theistic anti-Catholicism, especially within the confines of evangelical Christianity, has more components. They blend pseudo-history, purposeful ignorance towards Catholic teaching and pseudo-theology with the ‘absolute truth’ that they are sent by God to warn Catholics of hell fire.

I hope to avoid both 😉 Looks like another +1 for Ave Maria as well.
 
Norte Dame is the ultimate school for Catholics, IMO, but I have a family member who is attending Georgetown and says it’s a wonderful Catholic university. Beautiful campus too.
 
runwaymodel said:
Norte Dame is the ultimate school for Catholics, IMO, but I have a family member who is attending Georgetown and says it’s a wonderful Catholic university. Beautiful campus too.
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How I would love to go to Norte Dame!! I currently graduated from a small university with a BA in criminology yet I kinda changed my mind and want to go the engineering route!!😊 I believe great things are happening in this vast field. Only thing is the money so I’m considering the military route. I’ve always wanted to serve and I hear they can pay for school. I hope to do a little here a litter there while being active duty. We shall see how it goes.
 
runwaymodel said:
Norte Dame is the ultimate school for Catholics, IMO, but I have a family member who is attending Georgetown and says it’s a wonderful Catholic university. Beautiful campus too.
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More crying that I can’t go to notre dame 😦

But that’s very uplifting hearing about your family member that goes to Georgetown. We’ve been bashing Georgetown for the past 2 pages :rotfl:
When you say it’s a “wonderful Catholic university” am I to assume you mean the Catholic atmosphere / culture is wonderful? Or just the university? I hope it’s the former 😉
 
The_Murray said:
More crying that I can’t go to notre dame 😦

But that’s very uplifting hearing about your family member that goes to Georgetown. We’ve been bashing Georgetown for the past 2 pages :rotfl:
When you say it’s a “wonderful Catholic university” am I to assume you mean the Catholic atmosphere / culture is wonderful? Or just the university? I hope it’s the former 😉
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Yeah I was really surprised to hear others talking about Georgetown like that. Not only is the school stellar in terms of academics, but the atmosphere is pretty conservative (it is in DC) and from what I was told, it’s like the oldest Catholic university in the US. 👍
 
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