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| Kenyon College |
I apologize for the delay in getting this post up. Traveling home after a long day of tours and then returning to work resulted in things being a little behind schedule.
Our final day of the Ohio Six tour included visits to
Denison University and
Kenyon College.
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| Denison College |
My impression of Denison is that it is a wonderful and vibrant place that is also nimble enough to make changes when they are needed. Case in point, they have launched 7 new majors recently, 5 within just the past year. These include relevant modern day interdisciplinary majors like: Data Analytics, Non Fiction Writing, and Financial Economics. They also just broke ground on a new performing arts center, a gift from Michael Eisner, of Disney fame (and also Denison Class of 1964). As part of our information session, a quote was shared that Andrew Delbanco made about the purpose of college being to help people become reflective citizen. Denison sees this as its mission and they seem to be doing a very nice job. For some context, the Robin Williams character in Dead Poets Society was
based on a real life Denison professor.
Denison is small - the average class size is under 18 and the entire campus has about 2,250 students. It is a relationships based school, with strong career services, and an ideal location with a small town that is situated only about half an hour from a major metropolitan area (Columbus). Maybe more than any school in recent memory, Denison's President, Adam Weinberg, is fully integrated into campus life for both faculty and students. Our tour guide sends him texts. He has memorized the student body and can address most of them by first name. Another panelist emailed him to talk about his career path and a face to face meeting was arranged.
They admitted that the decisions garnered by Denison don't always make sense. They aren't solely driven by test scores or GPA. Instead, they say they are seeking the kind of students you'd want your own kids to date or be friends with. They do have Early Decision and the odds of admission are significantly higher through this path (as is true at many schools, so not a huge surprise there).
The physical campus is situated on a hill, so if you aren't a person who enjoys walking uphill, that might be a detractor. But otherwise, for students seeking a dynamic and friendly small liberal arts college, this is one to investigate.
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| Middle Path at Kenyon |
Our final stop on the tour was Kenyon College. Kenyon is a good home for quirky kids who don't necessarily stick to just one 'subgroup' socially. Their fraternity brothers are also artists. Their athletes might also be in the orchestra. Those who are not intellectually curious need not apply and yet those who constantly obsess to get perfect grades will probably not be happy here either because grade grubbing isn't looked upon highly. This helps the applicant pool be self selecting and they are perfectly fine with that. Many of their overlap peer schools are located on the East Coast. In fact, when I myself was walking around the campus physical plant reminded me very much of Middlebury in Vermont - expansive quads with mainly historic academic and residential buildings. There is also a dirt walkway called the middle path going down the center of campus connected the school to the nearby small town (with a post office, bookstore, and food establishments).
Only about 11-12% of students at Kenyon are from Ohio, so their is a national presence on campus. Their flagship program is often considered to be English/Writing but, as with most super high quality liberal arts schools, I'm not sure you can really go wrong in any discipline.
Thank you so much to the Ohio Six for hosting me (and my other school counselor colleagues). I learned so much and will now be able to better advise my students about this Ohio college options.
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