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Inside Scoop

Quick Stats

School Slang
  • Baldspot: Carleton’s central lawn. Watch for flying Frisbees.
  • The Carl: Carleton’s alternative newspaper.
  • Caucus: Student Web site with dirt about professors, beer, sex, and activities.
  • CBL: Carleton Beirut League. Plays every Wednesday night.
  • The Chiefs: Carleton’s club hockey team.
  • The CLAP: Carleton’s other alternative newspaper.
  • Comps: Senior Final Comprehensive Exams/Papers.
  • Dacie Moses: House devoted to cookie baking.
  • DVD Fest: Film festival, sponsored by Apple Computers, showcasing films made by dorm floors and student houses.
  • East: East Dining Hall.
  • Ebony: Student dance troupe that puts on a show every term. Known for sexy dancing.
  • Hill of Three Oaks: The place to party in the spring.
  • Huck: A long Frisbee throw.
  • The Hue: Goodhue Hall.
  • KRLX: The student-run radio station.
  • Laissez-Faire: Annual Capitalist party. Pay to see people eat dog food and make out with each other.
  • The Libe: The library.
  • Marriott: Carleton’s food supplier.
  • Minnesota Nice: The extreme and aggravating kindness found in all Minnesotans.
  • NNB: Carleton’s daily bulletin about events and announcements.
  • Oles: St. Olaf students. Usually blond, Norwegian, and not smart.
  • Prospies: Prospective high school students looking at Carleton.
  • Rotblatt: America’s longest kegger/softball game.
  • The Rueb: The Rueb ‘N’ Stein.
  • S/Cr/Nc: “Scrunch.” Carleton students can select up to five classes to take Satisfactory/Credit/No credit instead of taking letter grades. Perfect for Organic Chemistry.
  • Schiller: The bust of the German philosopher brought out at large events by his secret masked guardians.
  • The Shocker: Look at hand, place ring finger under thumb.
  • Snacky/Snack Shack: The Snack Bar.
  • Townies: Northfield residents.
  • Traying: Sledding down snow-covered hills on dining hall trays.
  • Wednesday Knights: Official mascot for the CBL.
  • Writing Requirement: On top of the huge workload, Carleton also makes you turn in a writing portfolio at the end of sophomore year. Otherwise known as the “hated writing portfolio.”
  • Yellow Bikes: On-their-last-legs bikes painted yellow that serve as communal campus transportation.
Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming To School
  • How awful the weather really is
  • How smart everyone here is
  • How to write a good paper
  • The intensity of classes
  • The train that wakes everyone up at 1:30 a.m., 4:30 a.m., and 7:30 a.m.
  • To bring a laptop
  • To bring ice skates
  • To bring more long underwear than you think you could ever possibly need
  • Who Schiller is
Tips to Succeed
  • Ask for help—people are more than happy to help you
  • Ask Russ for help in the CMC
  • Be sociable with your floor
  • Befriend smart people on the first day of class
  • Do extracurriculars—they relieve stress
  • Get distribution credits out of the way as early as possible
  • Go abroad—it’s a great break from Carleton
  • Go out at least once a week—once again, relieves stress
  • Participate in class
  • Take deep breaths
  • Talk with professors
  • Work in groups
See how you stack up against students who were accepted to this school . . .And calculate your chances!Register to get started

Carleton Student ReviewsWhat's This?

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Inside Scoop at Carleton College

thecitricacid

Physics '12

5.0
A+

All Kinds of Excellent

The student body is full of the most interesting, fun, intelligent people I've ever met. Everyone has something that they're really passionate about, so the range of clubs and extracurriculars is impressive for such a small school. Carleton has a trimester system, which makes it easy to study abroad for a term and still complete everything you need to graduate on time. One of the school's best features is the Arb, a vast expanse of forest and restored prairie that lets you escape everything and enjoy nature at any time.

Oct 17, 2011

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Inside Scoop at Carleton College

fierkej

Psychology '12

4.2
A-

Student-Run Orgs for Student Fun

Carleton students are really good at balancing their academic lives with their non-academic ones. School can be intense, especially with the trimester system, but there are a lot of fun and sort of off-kilter ways to blow off steam. For example, about 1/3 of the school participates in Ebony II, a student-choreographed dance performance that happens every term. Most Carls are also heavily involved in extra-curriculars, most notably our national champion women's and men's frisbee teams, one of our seven a cappella groups, or one of our many theater organizations. We have also in recent years developed a really good stand-up group that performs twice a term. Probably my favorite thing about Carleton activities is that there is a lot of room for student directed activities. If you want to start something, you can do it, and most activities are entirely student-run.

Oct 12, 2011

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Inside Scoop at Carleton College

troykaj

Mathematics '13

5.0
A+

What *Doesn't* Set It Apart?

1. Students can go to Dacie Moses House to bake cookies, any time of day, for free. 2. Every term there's a silent dance party in the library: the playlist is distributed ahead of time, and everyone listens to it at the same time with headphones on their mp3 players. In the library. 3. Carleton is extremely challenging academically, but this of course does not set it apart from other schools. What sets it apart is that nobody is trying to do better than everyone else. Each person is trying to learn, work hard, and do their best, without the pressure to compete with others that is so pervasive at many other top schools. 4. Best of all, Carleton has a truly amazing atmosphere that you will never find anywhere else. There's just something literally unique and indescribable about it that I love.

Oct 12, 2011

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User rating for Carleton College - Inside Scoop is 4.6 out of 5 based on 4 user reviews.

Facts

Traditions
  • Halloween Concert: Every Halloween, the Carleton orchestra puts on a concert in the Chapel. The entire orchestra and conductor dress up in costumes, and after the concert there’s a costume contest for the audience. The president makes a “surprise” visit, dressed in an elaborate, carefully-crafted costume, and proceeds to perform as a guest conductor or tell scary stories. Schiller usually makes an appearance.
  • Mai Fete: Every Wednesday night during Spring Term, there is a party thrown by the seniors on Mai Fete Island on Lyman Lakes. These parties can be fun because there’s a bonfire and free beer, but seniors tend to get on power trips and try to boss people around on the island.
  • Midnight Breakfast: The night before exams start, professors and deans serve a midnight breakfast to over-stressed students. They do this to try and give students a study break, but the poor quality of the food, namely eating bad sausage links, leads to more harm than good. It’s not fun to have to leave an exam ten minutes in because of—ahem—stomach problems.
  • Mid-Winter Ball: Really the only significant social event in the winter, Mid-Winter Ball gives Carls an excuse to wear fancy clothes and try to ballroom dance.
  • Rotblatt: Carleton’s famous all-day softball game/kegger, which is curiously named for ‘70s Chicago White Sox relief pitcher Marvin Rotblatt. This event occurs during the second half of Spring Term, with an additional inning added onto the game for every year Carleton has been in existence. At daybreak, the president of the college throws out the first pitch, the Carleton Knightengales sing the national anthem, the kegs are tapped, and Carls spend a day of fun in the sun hitting—or attempting to hit—softballs with a bat in one hand and a beer in the other.
  • Schiller: The bust of Friedrich von Schiller is one of the most recognizable symbols of Carleton tradition. Schiller’s bust is held by a mysterious group of Carleton students who bring him out at big campus events. During the events, such as a concert or convocation, the lights completely go out, and a spotlight focuses on a masked Carl holding the bust high over his or her head as they yell, “Schiller!” Chaos ensues. The masked guardian runs off to a waiting vehicle, boat, or helicopter manned by other guardians as students attempt to run down the coveted bust and commandeer it. The bust passes down from Carl to Carl, either through a network of friends or from outright abduction. Trying to capture the bust can be a very violent procedure as Schiller’s guardians will protect the bust by any means necessary. It’s every Carl’s goal to have Schiller at some point in their college career, but it’s only the rare few that actually have the dream realized.
  • Screw Your Roommate: During fall term, roommates get a chance to set each other up on blind dates. This event is usually reserved for freshmen that finally decide to take the plunge and talk to the opposite sex. Screw Your Roommate dates can be extremely awkward, but they can also be a blast. This is the most dreaded event of the year for a lot of Carls, but for a select few it’s the most anticipated.
  • Spring Concert: Known as “Arb Fest” to non-Carls, Spring Concert occurs during the waning weeks of Spring Term. Held outside by the Hill of Three Oaks, Carleton brings in a number of bands for an all-day outdoor music festival. Bands include a Carleton student band, a few local musicians, one lower-tier nationally recognized group, and one upper-tier nationally recognized group. Spring Concert is always blessed by warm weather and sunshine (knock on wood), and makes for one of the most anticipated events in the Carleton year.
Urban Legends
  • Girls take off their shirts when “Like a Prayer” comes on
  • Playboy ranked Carleton the ugliest school in America
  • That the administration will someday open up Carleton’s network of underground tunnels for pedestrian use
  • The Chiefs (Carleton’s club hockey team) inspired the movie Slap Shot

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How do we get our information? Find out here or report an error here. The statistics on our site are from the National Center for Education Statistics IPEDS database.
We update this information twice annually, most recently in May 2012, but it may not be the most recent information available for a particular school.
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