Choosing Carleton

As college application season starts ramping up, I figured “why not write a blog about how I chose Carleton”? After all, maybe some of you out there are in similar situations as I was exactly one year ago.

Finding out about Carleton

Similarly to many Carls, I wanted to go to a “small liberal arts college”. But there are so many! I narrowed my choices down by using a few factors: weather, size, programs offered, and community.

I’m from Washington, DC (check out my blog on transitioning from a big city to Northfield, MN here), which is on the warmer side of weather in the US, but I also spent a semester at a school program in Maine in the winter. Based off of my experience with these two weather types, I knew I wanted a colder climate.

Most liberal arts colleges tend to have smaller student body populations, and I decided I wanted to lean into that tight-knit community aspect. Carleton has just over 2,000 students (about 500 per class year), which I’ve found to be a great size — I see lots of my friends every day, but there’s also room to meet people in other social circles.

Going into college, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to study (and to be honest, I’m still figuring that out). At Carleton, you don’t declare a major until the end of sophomore year, which gives you a lot of flexibility to take many different classes and figure out what you like. However, I knew I was interested in environmental sciences, and Carleton has lots of cool programs with that (and there are some classes you wouldn’t think of as “nature-related” that still find a way to incorporate environmental sciences)!

Choosing Carleton

I applied early decision to Carleton after finding out about all it has to offer, visiting campus, and doing an interview with the admissions office. After receiving my acceptance, I learned even more about the community, talking to current students, alums, and others in my class year. During the last couple of months before officially starting my first year at Carleton, I was so excited to finally come to the place I’d been thinking about for so long. And it hasn’t disappointed!

For all you prospective students (and parents of prospective students) out there, I know how stressful the college application process is. It is rough. But when you finally move in and start your first year, you’ll be so happy you went through the process of choosing a good fit for you — and Carleton is the fit for me!