Sarah Tork: Fill & Download for Free

I've actually thought about this question a lot in my life. All my impressions come from decades ago, but I'll tell you anyway.My older sister went to Lawrence and graduated in 1981. She double majored in piano performance and history. She went there for the conservatory and added the history major later.She was my favorite sister and I visited her about twice a year. Lawrence was an absolute blast.When I was choosing colleges, I thought about Lawrence, but I didn't want to follow too closely in Mary's footsteps. I wasn't a musician, either. I ended up going to Carleton.I was so looking forward to it. It was more rural than Lawrence, lots of woods and farms. That's what I wanted, plus it had higher admission standards.But I was disappointed. Carleton could not live up to my memories of Lawrence. It's a really different place.The atmosphere was completely different. There's no conservatory, no theater scene. It was just study, study all the time. People prided themselves on how many hours they spent in the library. Eight, ten, twelve. Boring.Lawrentians had fun. They had Trivia Week. They had Beach Day. They had music and plays and creative people. So much of it.Carleton had very serious people. Competitive people. On beautiful sunny weekends, they were in the library.Yes, people went to the diner and a bar (there was one bar students went to), but only after studying for hours and hours. Then they went home and studied more. There was no trivia and not much silliness. It was like the students were too worried about their status to be silly. Too worried about being the best and smartest and proving it.My sister studied a lot, too. But there wasn't the same grind attitude. Carleton was grim. Lawrence was not grim.Lawrence has fraternities and sororities. Carleton doesn't.I had some good classes and good professors.But I was miserable and I wanted more to life than sitting in the library immersed in books. I liked that there were good professors and smart students, but it was a stultifying atmosphere for me.Lawrence has great professors and smart people, too. I had a couple of friends who went there.I transferred out and I was much happier where I ended up, at a state university.Carleton's most famous alumnus is Peter Tork of the Monkees. But guess what— he didn't like it much, either. He dropped out after one or two years and went to Greenwich Village.I knew many students who left. Our reasons were similar. In fact, at that time Carleton had the highest attrition rate among a certain group of colleges, but I don't remember which group. Maybe in the whole country?If all you're looking for is academic rigor, maybe Carleton is the school for you.Another difference is that Northfield smells like Malt-O-Meal and Appleton smelled like paper mills. Lawrence really stunk some days. Malt-O-Meal isn't so bad.The Malt-O-Meal plant is still there. I think there are still paper mills in Appleton, but I don't know if they still stink.