Randolph College

Date: Jan 26 2014
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
I applied to Randolph College as an international student. While the tuition and fees seemed high at first (around $40,000), the financial aid package I and every single one of my friends (US and international) received was very generous. So first piece of advice: don't get scared by the original sticker price. You will never end up paying close to that.

I'm impressed by the diversity of the student body. For a small population, there are students from many states and countries. There are up to 15% international students and I love the fact that everyone has many different cultural backgrounds to bring and share. And several times a year, we organize an international dinner that is absolutely amazing. I learned how to make sushis, curry preparations, naans, crepes, and baklavas just by cooking in the same kitchen as other students.

The professors I have had so far are devoted to their job and many have long and flexible office hours, which I like to use for one-on-one questions after lectures, advice on homework, and to spot summer research opportunities. Randolph has an on-campus summer research program that gives you a pretty nice stipend and the opportunity to present your work at a national conference afterwards. I have participated in two summer research programs and got to go to San Francisco and Washington D.C., all paid for by the College. It was a great experience. I got to meet grad school professors and people working in the industry who said were impressed with the quality of my presentation.

The lectures are of good quality, but by far the most challenging aspect of my time at Randolph has been to keep up with the high amount of required reading and paper redaction. The professors' expectations are quite high, but I received some help from the on-campus "writing lab" students, mostly during my first year at Randolph, which allowed me to improve the quality of my writing over time.

During my free time, I'm a NCAA D3 athlete for tennis, I help out at the campus organic garden (which has chickens and honeybees!), and I really like to use the campus bike share program to ride from campus to downtown Lynchburg through the Blackwater Creek Trail, an old re-purposed train track that runs through the forest and has tons of off-trail dirt paths.

All-in-all, my experience has been outstanding. Randolph got a lot more to offer than what met my eye when I first got in. The college is also in a growing phase, which tells me the value of my diploma will only grow as the years go by. Our President told the campus a few weeks ago that, according to an article in the Washington Post, we are one of the only liberal arts colleges in the nation that beats the current trend by having an increase in enrollment.