Marist College

Campus ministry here is interfaith though and there are groups for students of most faiths: Jewish, Catholic, other Christian denominations, and even a secular community service group which you're always welcome to join.

The teachers are generally nice and friendly, but keep in mind that you can't just clump all of them into one category. It really depends on the individual.

The student body isn't too diverse even if the school would like to think so. However, alot of the kids are really friendly so even if you are among the approx. 10% of minorities you really wouldn't feel left out at all.

Some people complain about the cliques being similar to high school...but that's not Marist, it's life. There will always be snotty people and jerks abounding the world and Marist is no exception. For the most part, my experience here has been great and you will find a group with which you fit in with.

The campus itself is beautiful (right by the Hudson river) but not without substance. The library is pretty huge and resourceful: it has a free writing center and career services for anyone who needs help with a paper or getting experience for their field. As for the surrounding town of Poughkeepsie, there's not much to do but shopping down strip malls or going to bars.

The food here is pretty good...for college food that is. I thought I would never in my life get tired of pizza but I did. You don't have to eat pizza every night if you don't want to. To be fair, they have a pretty big variety of food (international, pasta, grill, vegan, etc.) but don't expect anything to beat mom's cooking.

One of the bad things I heard from here is that the school's registration process is really annoying; i.e., you're lucky if you get all of the courses you requested. I'm a first semester freshman so I wouldn't know because the school makes up your freshman fall schedule for you just to ease the transition.

Security also feels unecessarily tight. They make you swipe your id card in front of officers in order to enter the dorms between 3pm and 6am and can easily bust you for underage drinking, possession, or being in the presence of (yes, the presence, as in there but not actually drinking) of alcohol; which you aren't supposed to be doing in the first place if you're underage.

For a small liberal arts school I can say you really are getting pretty good bang for the buck; so if you like a small yet challenging college environment, Marist is probably the way to go. Sure, there may be the occasional crazy drinking, the a-hole jock, hard grading professor or just general tough life circumstance; but college is the time and place for everything and again; Marist, "an *independent* liberal arts school with a Catholic tradition" is no exception.