Macalester College Top Questions

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Macalester classes are characterized by their small sizes, most are about a dozen students. WIth about 1950 students total, there is a strong sense of community as you may easily recognize nearly everybody on campus. Although you do lose anonymity, I believe the small size and the requirement to live on campus for two years establishes a strong school identity. When people hear that you go to Macalester, if they've heard of it, they know it is a very left leaning top tier school, far more than most institutions. Although students may have minor complaints, the administration really takes out grievancs to heart, which I believe is reflected by the schools retention rate of about 97{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c}.

The best thing about Mac is the class sizes are almost all under 20-25 students. You really get to know your professors, whom actually take an interest in your learning progression. Also students are always having intellectual discussions outside of class, which is a huge plus! 2000 undergrads is a good number in that you see familiar faces all the time, yet can still meet new people every day. When people hear I'm going to Macalester it's usually, "Oh that must be expensive" or "I've never heard of it." Little do they know about the massive financial aid students here get. Mac is sort of a hidden gem in the twin cities in the shadow of the U of M and St Thomas. Kind of why I love it. School pride is kind of lacking, but everyone here is here because they want to be here. You won't find many apathetic students. Students here have strong stances on issues, yet are open minded. We may not have massive crowds for the football games, but hey, its a LAC and that's expected.

MAC is an excellent school, situated on a beautiful campus, in a SAFE residential neighborhood, in the Twin Cities. The school is a good size for a liberal arts college. There is a lot of school pride, everyone is proud to be here. The most frequent student complaints are the res life staff (NOT RES LIFE ITSELF), and the administrative decisions financially.

Macalester is a small liberal arts school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is chock full of smart people from around the world, and as a result the campus is pretty much friendly to everything. There is a suprising diversity on campus given the small amount of kids there, and everyone seems to find a group that they can belong in. As such, the school has a very high quality of life. There is not a lot of school pride about Macalester's athletics, somthing that many would like to change but find it tough with so many international kids and ones who just plain don't care about sports.

Macalester is an awesome school academic wise. The classes are small and student-professor accessibility and relationship are second to none. It is an extremely liberal environment and this may come as a shock to some at first. The population is not too small and not too large. It is a very king and friendly community. When I tell people here at home that I go to Macalester, they ask where is that....when i say in Minnesota, they repeat "Where is that?"...lol. The Twin Cities area is awesome and has alot of activities. Macalester is a really really good school.

The location of the school is probably on of Macalester's greatest attributes. Situated in a beautiful old neighborhood in Saint Paul there is great access to public transportation into the downtowns of the Twin Cities and other interesting areas. It is also right along Grand Ave which has a number of great resturuants and coffee shops. As far as school pride their is very little and not a great sense of place like on other liberal arts campuses. The administration is very proud of its internationalism and their are a lot of international students and that is great and a really interesting element of the school but it often appears to be its major selling point and a recruiting tool.

Small, but a feeling of home. If you can find your right niche, you'll be fine.

The best thing about Mac is how much it makes you think. Having taken classes at large universities numerous times, I can tell you straight up that there I usually end up memorizing facts and theories and hardly put myself into any of my work; it's different at Mac. You learn to really think, about everything, and you carry those lessons inside and out beyond our little bubble - your whole perspective of the world changes. It's hard sometimes, but I've never regretted it once. While the school is wonderful the way it is, many of us, myself included, wish the school were bigger. It's just tiny. It feels huge when you get here, but that changes rather quickly. But it wouldn't be Mac if it had 10,000 students I suppose. If not larger, I wish we had more venues by which to interact with student from the many other schools in the area - I especially wish freshmen and sophomores had this, as they live on campus. Most people honestly just don't even know what Mac is. Which used to irritate me, but really, it's their loss - having been around a top ten school most of my life and switching to this environment, I know for a fact that Mac deserves just as much if not more praise than some of the big-namers. The cities have a good number of colleges, so I'd say you're in a "semi-college town." It's still a city (two, to boot), but there are a lot of students around, and the local businesses know that. Grand Ave is especially great for students and local residents alike. Mac's administration has its heart in the right place. Like any administration, though, it tends to be populated by older people, and thus things tend to change less quickly than the fiery students want them to. I'd have to say, though, that we have a relatively open and open-minded administration that will listen to what we have to say, even if they won't always act on it.

Macalester can sometimes get clicky and you especially notice this since it's such a small school. There are definitely those girls who you thought wouldn't be at college anymore, who make fun of people and are exclusive, but they go to good colleges too. At the same time, you can find your own group of really nice people who genuinely care about others and the world around them. Everyone kind of knows each other and it can get annoying at times. A lot of people know other people's business even though they may not even know those people personally.