College of Charleston Top Questions

For the most part, yes. Birds of a feather, i suppose.

-People think that CofC is a joke school. I will not say that the school should be invited to the Ivy League, but I will say that people have the liberty to choose their paths at CofC. If someone wants to be challenged they can choose a challenging course load. The same holds true for slackers. Slackers can choose a 12 credit semester and party to their heart's desire. People have the freedom to choose what they want to do at CofC. -People think that CofC students are southern, fratty, conservative people. This is not the case at all. I'd say that the campus is divided 50:50, southerners to northerners/westerners. As such, the student body is far more diverse than people assume. -People think that CofC students are party animals that don't do any work. On the contrary...CofC students are amazing in that they are party animals that get their work done. I have gone out for a long night of drinking, and gone to the library after getting 4 hours of sleep and worked on a paper. Whenever I did this I would see someone who I was drinking with at the bar...they were doing their work hungover just like me. -People think that CofC girls are gorgeous. They are right. The girls are knockouts and they are plentiful.

pretty acurate

Some of it it's true. Specially the dress up part. Guys wear patterned shorts, khakis, dressy shoes. Girls try their best to fit into the "southernbelle" stereotype.

the summers and weekends can be more laid back because you can study on the beach or take the afternoon off. however, cofc is equally stressful as any other college would be depending on your course load. Charleston has plenty of opportunity for distraction, and several kids i know dropped out (i don't know what the usual drop out rate is). Although it is quite possible to get wasted 5-7 times a weeks it is still and academic school. the population is ridiculously good looking!

Actually CofC is one of the most affordable 4 yr colleges in the nation, so no not all students are rich and snobby. In the atmosphere down there though, there does seem to be a division in appearances. You have those who are rich and dress so, or those who deperately want to be rich and dress like the rich ones do. Then you have the vast difference in the dorm kids who are lucky if they are even able to find a clean pair of pants to put on before coming to class, otherwise they all only wear thier pajamas, don't take showers, and some don't wear shoes. THere is a middle ground in between the two, but they are the minority (where I reside). You're able to dress, but don't care if you have the absolute newest fashion on the campus. Mostly it's the two extremes of people trying to "express" themselves on the very liberal campus!!! CofC does have a large range of classes to take, but the biggest problem I found was that many of them were never available. I knew before I signed up for CofC that I wanted to be a Political Science major, so I partially based my decision on the classes they offered for that major; however, once I got there they rarely made available even half of the classes I was interested in prior to joining thier college. They basically stick with the core classes like every other college, and once in a while will hit the special topic ones, but even those tend to go with popularity, so ultimately don't trust that you'll be able to take a class that they list they offer on the web site, because if it's not mainstream enough, they probably won't get around to teaching it. I did the 2x2 transfer program starting off in the community college and finishing at CofC and it surprised me when I first got there how much they talk down community colleges, but to be honest I thought I got a lot better of a core education at Tech, than I did at CofC, and it's much more affordable. The teachers at Tech seem to care about the students, whereas the teachers at CofC care about writing their own thesis for free on the college's money, thus have to teach a class to get the funding. Also the teachers along with the CofC board are way too concerned about national rankings and the prestige in a name for their college instead of staying in touch with the students and actually just being there for their education. I think they are a good school, but they have definitely lost sight of direction in whom they are operating for, and need to come back to the students' needs instead of what will boost their rankings higher.

there are a lot of girls and there is a lot of drinking - but you can get away from both of those if you want to. beach bums, i think, is a positive thing. and yes, it's accurate.

Can be applied to some, but for the most part you can find any kind of person here.

Somewhat. The campus can seem a little wasp-ish, but the campus gets more diverse every year.

Some of these stereotypes are, but not all... there are so many different kinds of people you can pretty much find someone of every stereotype here