The Best Catholic Colleges in the U.S

[JKsoren]

JKsoren, your ongoing contempt for FUS is well noted and persistant, we get it.

Thing is, you’re pretty much the only one I’ve ever heard to say so. I spent a year with NET ministries (surely you know what that it), so I know dozens of FUS grads. None of them agree with you. None are living in cardboard boxes or momma’s couch.

It appears to me that part of your complaint is not specifically about FUS, but about not recognizing your own career goals in time. If your goal for a master’s program is to spring board into a doctoral program, your complaint is true of nearly ANY tiny specialty college. PhD programs are simply brutally hard to get into and the rep of the school you came from absolutely counts. FUS is NOT big in the larger academia “snooty scale.”

But I call utter BS on the inability of their nursing school grads to get good jobs, I know of a friend with an accounting degree there that became the head of the department in her company within 5 years of being hired. I have a Big Ten university BS in engineering and I will tell you that I might have gotten good technical training, but that accountant I just mentioned got one heck of a better overall education than I did. Literature, history, philosophy, theology. Accountants (and engineers) don’t have to take such a rigorous courseload in the secular university system that they do at FUS. It might not have been what got her the job, but I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the overall educational quality (plus some admittedly good smarts) is why her employer valued her.

Sorry, but you are way too much of a data outlier for me to find you credible. Sorry you found it such a bad fit for your own goals.

(And LOL on the otherwise unemployed steel workers as professors. You’re too much)

I think that you have confused a rational argument with a personal attack on you and other people. If I didn’t make myself clear on this point, I apologize. I am not trying to insult anyone. I do however want to warn others before they waste their money and time. That is all.

What is a “tiny specialty college”? A small college that specializes in one thing? I’m not sure what you mean.

I’ve never heard of NET ministries. My complaint has absolutely nothing to do with “recognizing my career goals on time”, I recognized my career goals in great time. Whatever you mean by that, I am not sure.

I’m not sure if we want to call it a “snooty scale” do we? I mean is Notre Dame or Princeton are just snootier than FUS? I think the FUS faculty would disagree with you just as much as I.

I’m confused. Did your friend become “the head of her department” (not sure if that really means anything) of the accounting company she works for BECAUSE she had a nursing degree from FUS?

I also seriously doubt that her knowledge of the humanities helped her in her job. Knowledge is only useful where it is applicable and there is nothing about those humanities fields you named that would necessarily empower an accountant. You might say “critical thinking” or some such but she would have that just by being human.

How do you know that they are more educated than you? I can assure you that in comparison to engineering there is nothing all THAT rigorous about the humanities. You could read a collection of the right books in your own time and easily apprehend what they say. I seriously doubt she can just go to the library and pick up an education in engineering however. It’s not a two way street I’m afraid.

Once again, I am not a “data outlier” because I am not communicating a judgement about my “personal experience with the school”. Rather I am telling people why giving money to this school for four years is really silly, especially in light of the fact that it is not the religious sanctuary that it purports to be.

I am quite serious about locals filling most of the administrative and teaching jobs at FUS and that this is TELLING. Just look at the department web pages for yourself, look at their CVs and see for yourself. Surely they are not steel workers, indeed there are no more steel worker there. They are, more often than not, from the area though. The education, nursing, and business departments all come to mind as fitting my description quite closely. How likely is it that so many unequivocally catholic ideologues came from the same small part of America? Not too good.

 

[Romanova]

The education, nursing, and business departments all come to mind as fitting my description quite closely. How likely is it that so many unequivocally catholic ideologues came from the same small part of America? Not too good.

With regard to education and nursing, at least – I think these kind of practical programs are somewhat different than other disciplines, and a well-regarded program at a small school in either of these subjects may give the graduates good employment options in its area. That was the case at my undergraduate school, which had a solid reputation in nursing, education and social work. And yes, most of the faculty in education and nursing came from the area near my college, but they were all good professors. Education and nursing are subjects that often emphasize practice, rather than philosophy, and in most areas of the country it’s very possible to find competent nurses and teachers who could teach college students about their disciplines, and do it well. It may indeed be possible to find several competent nurses and teachers/school administrators who share the same religion (which was also the case at my college). I don’t think that professors’ geographic origin alone makes them bad professors, based on my experience at my college.

Students in the three disciplines I’ve mentioned typically had no trouble finding jobs within a two-hour or so radius of the college, and students in other disciplines generally fared well too. Even though my school didn’t have a national reputation, it did have a solid local one. Now, if someone went to my undergrad school intending to get a social work job in, say, New York City, it might be more difficult since hardly anyone in NYC had heard of my college. That is the case for many small and even not-so-small colleges and universities, though, and I don’t think that a lack of national reputation necessarily means that a college is bad.

Of course, students considering a particular college should examine whether it will allow them to achieve their goals. As I said, if someone went to my school intending to get a job in New York City, that might be somewhat difficult. But if their goal was to get a decent-paying job within a 200ish-mile radius of that college, the college would more than help them reach that goal.

Then again, my college didn’t pretend to be anything than what it was – a regional Christian liberal arts college known mostly for its strong education, nursing and social work programs. It sounds like your issue with FUS is that you think it is marketing itself as something it is not.

 

[white_sheep]

I’ve always questioned whether or not the University of Dallas should really be on that list.

Maybe someone who has attended or knows someone who has can comment on its orthodoxy and catholicity.

 

[Mumbles140]

Lol…there’s no way you looked very closely at Notre Dame’s website. I cannot speak for the other two schools’ sits, but the ND site is loaded with the school’s Catholic commitment. www.nd.edu
nd.edu/faith-and-service/

I suggest you look again

I was referring solely to the home page, as that was the portion of the thread I had been following. My argument was that the home page for a lot of the larger Catholic universities do not have much about Catholicism, but they do have links from the home page to other pages that are full of information. Therefore, not having a noticeable section about ‘Catholicism’ on the home page shouldn’t be a ‘yellow flag’ as one poster noted.

 

[manualman]

JKsoren,

It appears from your post that you view a university degree purely as a career building excercise rather than an experience in overall education. If that is the case, then indeed, it does appear that FUS failed in its job with you. If they claimed to be a place that would be a shiny star on your resume when you sought advancement somewhere, you are correct that this was disinegenuous. Quite simply NO college of that size provides that function. They are about educating complete human beings. In our culture today of utilitarian ethic (of which you seem to embrace), that isn’t worth anything. In a human civilization of the sort God calls us to, it’s priceless.

A friend of mine recently got a master’s degree from a local place near here (Lewis University). It too is a smaller college with a rather small field of specialization. And just like FUS, nearly all of the back office employees and lowest level instructors are locals (gasp!). Same with Benedictine University in Lisle, IL. Neither are significantly cheaper than FUS.

Your attacks aren’t really limited to FUS itself. You appear to merely be making a general attack on the value of small colleges in general, but don’t seem to realize it.

 

[PatriceA]

With regard to education and nursing, at least – I think these kind of practical programs are somewhat different than other disciplines, and a well-regarded program at a small school in either of these subjects may give the graduates good employment options in its area. That was the case at my undergraduate school, which had a solid reputation in nursing, education and social work. And yes, most of the faculty in education and nursing came from the area near my college, but they were all good professors. Education and nursing are subjects that often emphasize practice, rather than philosophy, and in most areas of the country it’s very possible to find competent nurses and teachers who could teach college students about their disciplines, and do it well. It may indeed be possible to find several competent nurses and teachers/school administrators who share the same religion (which was also the case at my college). I don’t think that professors’ geographic origin alone makes them bad professors, based on my experience at my college.

Students in the three disciplines I’ve mentioned typically had no trouble finding jobs within a two-hour or so radius of the college, and students in other disciplines generally fared well too. Even though my school didn’t have a national reputation, it did have a solid local one. Now, if someone went to my undergrad school intending to get a social work job in, say, New York City, it might be more difficult since hardly anyone in NYC had heard of my college. That is the case for many small and even not-so-small colleges and universities, though, and I don’t think that a lack of national reputation necessarily means that a college is bad.

Of course, students considering a particular college should examine whether it will allow them to achieve their goals. As I said, if someone went to my school intending to get a job in New York City, that might be somewhat difficult. But if their goal was to get a decent-paying job within a 200ish-mile radius of that college, the college would more than help them reach that goal.

Then again, my college didn’t pretend to be anything than what it was – a regional Christian liberal arts college known mostly for its strong education, nursing and social work programs. It sounds like your issue with FUS is that you think it is marketing itself as something it is not.

Manualman has a point. You’re reasons for picking a college would be completely different from mine. I did pick the best college I was accepted to, it was great “on paper.” Great reputation, good professors, great opportunites. I was completely miserable, hated it. Transferred to a much smaller college, inferior probably by your standards and I flourished because the college offered so much more than the criteria you say we should consider for higher education. I needed that small environment, I didn’t need the prestige. That’s what I mean by a “right fit”. Not all kids flourish at the big schools or the ones with the great reputations. I have friends that went to the state school down the road with the not so great big school reputation and are thriving in their careers. I have one or two friends that went to one of the ranked top 50 schools in the nation and can’t get promoted or in one case, even get a job interview. He thought he was set because he had the degree from the big school.

As an employer, I would much rather hire a person that thrived in whatever college they choose than to just hire someone that came from a nationally ranked university or college. What a potential employee made of their opportunities is much more impressive to me than just having a fancy degree. That’s where picking the “right fit” comes in, because for some college graduates, they thrive at a college that supports their belief values inside and outside the classroom. That’s why the “right fit” is sometimes a place like FUS.

 

[JKsoren]

You are right to perceive that I regard college as a career building enterprise because that is what college in fact is. That is also largely how the rest of the world views it and to pretend that it is anything else is just hopelessly naive.

I have no idea what it means to say that small liberal arts colleges are concerned with educating “complete human beings”. What is a “complete human being”? Surely you don’t mean someone who has studied the humanities is a “complete human being” over and against someone who majored in, say, some pre-medical field? Knowledge about things does not make you a “complete human being”, being a human being makes you a human being and sanctification, I think, makes you a “complete human being” in the sense that you fulfill your God given purpose.

If you mean something like “the use of reason” well, sure, but that’s required of any intellectual endeavor whatsoever be it professional or otherwise. To say anything else is to be committed to some morally dubious notion like “Jerry is less human than Bill because Bill studied Plato”. I think we would both agree that this is not an acceptable conclusion.

I think what we are implicitly arguing about here is the value of formally studying the so-called humanities in college: philosophy, English literature, cultural studies, etc. A common view among advocates of the humanities, and many Catholics fall in this camp, is that these fields are somehow essential to having a “real education”. Like there is something wrong with you because you have never read Chaucer. This is a myth. You need not study these things to be an intelligent person and indeed there is waning interest in the pomposity of such fields because, as it turns out, studying these things are more valuable as a personal pursuit, a hobby, when compared to studying the things that you are going to need to know to make your way in the world (which is why people bother to go to college in the first place). Simply put, no one care if you read this stuff and it is not applicable to your day to day needs as a human being or as a Christian.

When Catholics criticize “spiritually dangerous colleges”, like Notre Dame or the secular universities, they are almost exclusively if not explicitly taking aim at the humanities. For instance, Jimmy Akin (and others) have a book out on the subject of dealing with various “-isms” that are contrary to the faith: feminism, multiculturalism, hedonism, relativism, etc. These problems, however, are issues that you deal with in your humanities classes like English or maybe history. You won’t hear about moral relativism in your economics or science classes because the latter is not concerned with these sorts of goofy discussions.

Thus by simply choosing to major in something worthwhile, in the sense that it is actually useful, you in large part obviate a huge portion of the common Catholic objection to getting a good education. Just don’t study that garbage and you won’t be in “danger” of being affected by it. No one really believes in all that hoopla anyway. No one save your self-important humanities professors but then their lively hood depends on attempting to make others believe that hoopla, so take their word with a grain of salt.

I am not an ethical utilitarian, but I do think that college ought to be a matter of utility and that you are in large part culpable for wasting resources if you aren’t willing to regard it as such yourself. If we aren’t concerned about utility why would we pay the money when theoretically we can learn such things entirely on our own?

I’m not sure why you assume that God has called us to any kind of civilization.

You are wrong to think that my issue is being against “small colleges”. Indeed there are many great small colleges and universities in America where you can go and get great pre-professional training, with a little humanities for fun at the same time. Harvard has something like 5000 students. Yale and Princeton, I believe, are both actually even smaller. Rice University is extremely small as well and so are the large collection of excellent liberal arts colleges: Colgate, Amherst, Swarthmore, etc. Being small has nothing to do with it.

Further it makes no sense to speak of any of the above as “specializing”. The nature of a university is that it does not specialize in one thing. If your friend got an MA at some college it wasn’t that the college specialized but that the college has a department that offers a graduate degree.

The “local phenomenon” is a dead give away that a particular college is a wast of money because it shows that the school in question is not bothering to seek out people that are actually accomplished in the fields that they teach in but rather just anyone who wants the job, probably for lower pay. You might as well just go to a local community college as opposed to those kinds of schools because that is the kind of education you are going to receive. I will point out that in the actual town of Steubenville, the locals, who are widely completely ignorant of FUSs purported spiritual mission, treat the school as just that. A local community college on a hill wherein local kids can attend, while living at home, before they transfer to Ohio State. It is only the Catholic community that blindly believes that FUS is actually a good school for no other reason than we just want it to be true so very badly. That is just wishful thinking I’m afraid.

 

[SimiSpeaks]

Does your friend like the school a lot? I have not known anyone who has gone there, but the school sounds very interesting to me. It’s definitely a much needed area for an authentic Catholic voice.

I happen to come across this thread and am blessed to be a freshmen at JPCatholic. The school is definitely a focus school with one powerful mission which everyone on campus will be happy to tell you is : Impact Culture for Christ. But how can we do it? (paraphrasing) We can not eat on bread alone. Mass is offered daily on campus as well as confession and adoration. We also recite the rosary in groups daily at 10pm. We take classes on all aspects of the Catholic faith including scripture and philosophy as well as a marriage and family course.

It was obvious to me when I walked thru the door for an open house and If your considering a degree in theology,media,business I highly recommend you come to an open house in person spend some time in the chapel and the choice for me was obvious.

 

[JKsoren]

I happen to come across this thread and am blessed to be a freshmen at JPCatholic. The school is definitely a focus school with one powerful mission which everyone on campus will be happy to tell you is : Impact Culture for Christ. But how can we do it? (paraphrasing) We can not eat on bread alone. Mass is offered daily on campus as well as confession and adoration. We also recite the rosary in groups daily at 10pm. We take classes on all aspects of the Catholic faith including scripture and philosophy as well as a marriage and family course.

It was obvious to me when I walked thru the door for an open house and If your considering a degree in theology,media,business I highly recommend you come to an open house in person spend some time in the chapel and the choice for me was obvious.

You can go to Mass daily and recite the rosary as frequently as you want at virtually any college or university. It doesn’t have to be formally sanctioned by the school for you to be a good Christian in college. Do you need to seek employment with a company that has an adoration chapel afterwards?

As far as I know there are far better places for a student to get a competitive business education.

 

[Havard]

Funny you should mention business education… Notre Dame’s ranked #1 in undergraduate b-schools this year by BusinessWeek. As a former ND finance major, I can personally attest to the quality of the program.

And hey look, I didn’t even turn into a heretic!!

 

[manualman]

You are right to perceive that I regard college as a career building enterprise because that is what college in fact is. That is also largely how the rest of the world views it and to pretend that it is anything else is just hopelessly naive.

I have no idea what it means to say that small liberal arts colleges are concerned with educating “complete human beings”. What is a “complete human being”? Surely you don’t mean someone who has studied the humanities is a “complete human being” over and against someone who majored in, say, some pre-medical field? Knowledge about things does not make you a “complete human being”, being a human being makes you a human being and sanctification, I think, makes you a “complete human being” in the sense that you fulfill your God given purpose.

If you mean something like “the use of reason” well, sure, but that’s required of any intellectual endeavor whatsoever be it professional or otherwise. To say anything else is to be committed to some morally dubious notion like “Jerry is less human than Bill because Bill studied Plato”. I think we would both agree that this is not an acceptable conclusion.

I think what we are implicitly arguing about here is the value of formally studying the so-called humanities in college: philosophy, English literature, cultural studies, etc. A common view among advocates of the humanities, and many Catholics fall in this camp, is that these fields are somehow essential to having a “real education”. Like there is something wrong with you because you have never read Chaucer. This is a myth. You need not study these things to be an intelligent person and indeed there is waning interest in the pomposity of such fields because, as it turns out, studying these things are more valuable as a personal pursuit, a hobby, when compared to studying the things that you are going to need to know to make your way in the world (which is why people bother to go to college in the first place). Simply put, no one care if you read this stuff and it is not applicable to your day to day needs as a human being or as a Christian.

Well now we’ve gotten to the crux of things. You don’t despise FUS because of what makes it specifically FUS. You despise the entire idea of a broad based, traditional liberal arts education.

I’ll agree that one does not need to study the great thinkers of western civilization to be “intelligent.” Instead, I’ll argue that one needs that to be educated. You seem content to be merely trained, like I was. If so, good for you. Go ahead and ignore the chance to climb on the shoulders of giants. But I remain convinced that, as a civilization, we are fools to let the intellectual and cultural achievements of the past be lost in favor of mere technical training in things that have immediate economic value, but do little to genuinely advance civilization.

 

[Havard]

Who says you can’t have it both ways? I took several philosophy, theology, history and literature courses and I still finished with a Bachelors in Finance and Economics.

 

[archangel04]

Will you look at that my current unviersity, Loyola University Chicago, is not even on that list, I wonder why? Oh yeah because they are always so willing to bend over for other religions, homo-sexual community, and atheist. Oh yeah this is the same school that allows palnned parent hood to be on campus. Now it makes more sence why my “catholic” university is not even one there.

 

[A_Fortiori_33]

Will you look at that my current unviersity, Loyola University Chicago, is not even on that list, I wonder why? Oh yeah because they are always so willing to bend over for other religions, homo-sexual community, and atheist. Oh yeah this is the same school that allows palnned parent hood to be on campus. Now it makes more sence why my “catholic” university is not even one there.

Would you mind if I asked where you went to high school. I’m somewhat familiar with the area.

 

[archangel04]

Would you mind if I asked where you went to high school. I’m somewhat familiar with the area.

I went to high scool in a suburb of chicago, East Aurora High school.

 

[Domer1997]

I was referring solely to the home page, as that was the portion of the thread I had been following. My argument was that the home page for a lot of the larger Catholic universities do not have much about Catholicism, but they do have links from the home page to other pages that are full of information. Therefore, not having a noticeable section about ‘Catholicism’ on the home page shouldn’t be a ‘yellow flag’ as one poster noted.

The Notre Dame main page always has a link called “Faith and Service”. Besides links to other university departments the main page only has this week’s “happenings at the university”. But, at least 9 out 10 times there are several very “Catholic” things happening that are posted on the main page. For example, right now the main page has an article on the new “Theology and Science combined program”, “The canonization of St. Andre Bessette, CSC”, “Holy Cross Harvest Food Drive for the poor”, “New book on peace complements Catholic teachings on Ethics of War”, and a “Fighting to create Opportunity” ad. So, not sure how one cannot immediately see that the university is very grounded in Catholicism in one quick look.

Give it another shot! Great school…“Our Lady’s” university! www.nd.edu

 

[Joe_5859]

I happen to come across this thread and am blessed to be a freshmen at JPCatholic. The school is definitely a focus school with one powerful mission which everyone on campus will be happy to tell you is : Impact Culture for Christ. But how can we do it? (paraphrasing) We can not eat on bread alone. Mass is offered daily on campus as well as confession and adoration. We also recite the rosary in groups daily at 10pm. We take classes on all aspects of the Catholic faith including scripture and philosophy as well as a marriage and family course.

It was obvious to me when I walked thru the door for an open house and If your considering a degree in theology,media,business I highly recommend you come to an open house in person spend some time in the chapel and the choice for me was obvious.

Thank you for sharing your firsthand experience. It’s good to hear.

 

[Joe_5859]

Manualman has a point. You’re reasons for picking a college would be completely different from mine. I did pick the best college I was accepted to, it was great “on paper.” Great reputation, good professors, great opportunites. I was completely miserable, hated it. Transferred to a much smaller college, inferior probably by your standards and I flourished because the college offered so much more than the criteria you say we should consider for higher education. I needed that small environment, I didn’t need the prestige. That’s what I mean by a “right fit”. Not all kids flourish at the big schools or the ones with the great reputations. I have friends that went to the state school down the road with the not so great big school reputation and are thriving in their careers. I have one or two friends that went to one of the ranked top 50 schools in the nation and can’t get promoted or in one case, even get a job interview. He thought he was set because he had the degree from the big school.

As an employer, I would much rather hire a person that thrived in whatever college they choose than to just hire someone that came from a nationally ranked university or college. What a potential employee made of their opportunities is much more impressive to me than just having a fancy degree. That’s where picking the “right fit” comes in, because for some college graduates, they thrive at a college that supports their belief values inside and outside the classroom. That’s why the “right fit” is sometimes a place like FUS.

I think that’s a great point. I went to a prestigious top-ranked gigantic state school for undergrad and I knew several people whose discernment on what to major in consisted of combing through the programs catalogue to find the easiest degree they could graduate with in 4 years and still have plenty of time to party. All they were there for was a bullet point on their resume.

I think we can overestimate the impact of the prestige of the school. I had a friend from high school who got his doctorate from an ivy league school and his advice to me was that it wasn’t worth it. You could get just as good of an education at a school without so much “prestige” attached to it, and for much cheaper!

 

[JKsoren]

I think that’s a great point. I went to a prestigious top-ranked gigantic state school for undergrad and I knew several people whose discernment on what to major in consisted of combing through the programs catalogue to find the easiest degree they could graduate with in 4 years and still have plenty of time to party. All they were there for was a bullet point on their resume.

I think we can overestimate the impact of the prestige of the school. I had a friend from high school who got his doctorate from an ivy league school and his advice to me was that it wasn’t worth it. You could get just as good of an education at a school without so much “prestige” attached to it, and for much cheaper!

I don’t think it’s a great point because it erroneously assumes that you have to go to a large university or college if you want to go to a good one and that this is undesirable for some people. There are lots of very small colleges and universities that are also outstanding. Just check the rankings because there are even more that are not.

What does it mean to say “I’d hire someone who went to a worse school, if they thrived, over someone who went to a better school and didn’t thrive”? What is the measure of thriving that this person would have as an indicator? Maybe they mean GPA? But high GPAs at good universities are MUCH harder to get than at bad universities. At UTEP I was the top student in my class and department. At FUS I was like a superstar. At UCLA I was just some guy in the middle struggling to be in the middle. No, due to grade inflation, I’d take a risk taker willing to get pummeled at a good university over someone who chose the safer route any day.

Maybe my point noted above wasn’t clear but going to college is supposed to be difficult. It should be a time of great growth in every conceivable way and thus there is really no problem if at first you have a hard time adjusting to your new and difficult circumstances. It is a life skill that you are going to need to learn sooner rather than later. When you’re married and start having children, as hard as it is (and it is), there is no option (not for Catholics) to put on the breaks or go to an easier marriage or trade in for a less difficult baby. When you’re in the work force you can’t just quit the moment things become unpleasant. If you did, or were inclined to doing so, you would eventually find that you will have a very difficult time making ends meet.

Everything can be hard in its own way. There are no “good for this person but not for that person colleges” if that person is aiming at the exact same goals in life. You don’t tell someone looking to buy their groceries to go to a convenient store just because it’s closer and might have a bit of food here and there. Just the same you don’t tell college bound youth to go to a bad college, if their aim is to get an education that will help them make a living, just because it is going to be easier for them to adjust to: everyone already agrees with you, has the similar backgrounds, etc. It would be giving them a snake instead of a stick indeed.

What did your friend from the ivy league get a doctorate it? I can agree with what he says and tell you that it is typically not worth your time to get a doctorate in anything insofar as there are no jobs for many fields, especially the humanities.

I however strongly disagree with the claim that you can get as good an education at “cheaper schools”. Maybe would be a better answer. If you are going to a good tier 1 public university then it does not have to be a top 10 university to get a very good education and save a lot of money at the same time: University of Florida, Texas, Penn State, Ohio State, the UC system, University of Virginia and so on, are all great universities. However there are many very bad universities that also might be cheaper and even public and then I’d say it was not a good decision. I started my college career at the University of Texas, El Paso which was cheap but also an incredibly bad school. I was very blessed to be able to transfer out of there and go to a school in which I would be challenged and given better opportunities to learn and grow,

 

[Havard]

Grades are often completely dependent on the competition. And the competition generrally does get stiffer, the higher up the rankings you go, except in the rare cases of schools with grade inflation.

E.g., one of my friends transferred from Notre Dame to a school nearly as respected as ND (a top 50 as opposed to top 25 university), and his grades went up significantly. He freely admits that the students at the new school, although bright, just weren’t of the same caliber. So he ended up in a substantially higher spot along the grading curve in all his classes.