If you Google “most beautiful college campuses”, Elon will be ranked as #1. Better yet, the pictures on the Internet don’t do my top choice school justice. The brick, pristine buildings can be found all over campus, as can various columns, fountains, lakes, and shady oak trees. The air smells like spring, even in November, and the ambiance of Elon is magical.
Besides the overall atmosphere of the college, the weather is fantastic all year round. The mountains are an hour to the west and the beach an hour to the east, so Burlington experiences the lesser of both extremes. If you like the snowy weather or the heat, Elon is definitely not for you.
However, its inhabitants cherish the mild weather. According to one senior at Elon, “it reaches 91 degrees at its hottest and 40 degrees at its coolest. I think it snowed two times in the past four years.”
Elon is located in the heart of North Carolina, and is in driving range of Duke, UNC, North Carolina State, Wake Forest, and a bunch of other smaller schools. Many Elon students head thirty minutes out to Greensboro and meet with other college students.
For a budding university, the programs at Elon are exceptional, particularly the communication school. 20% of students are some sort of communication majors and are able to immediately delve into the opportunities the school offers.
At enrollment around 5,000 undergraduates, students are simply not a number. Classes are capped at 30, and there are no TA’s. Personal attention is easy to receive, and the professors know every person in their classes by name.
Accepted high school students that come to Elon are typically super involved with community service and other types of extracurricular activities. During my visit, an admissions officer told me that there is a larger emphasis placed upon extracurricular activities rather than SAT or ACT scores.
At Elon, there are over 200 clubs and organizations to join, and Greek Life is prevalent. Small chapter houses are an option for members to live in during their senior year, but the other resident housing is much nicer.
What’s really interesting about Elon is how selective it is becoming. In 2009, the acceptance rate was 59%, compared to 2010’s acceptance rate of 48%. This number is steadily dropping as the private school begins to receive acclaim on various aspects of its college life.
Beyond the school itself, the students are truly friendly; I took a class at 8am, and college students were dressed, awake, and chatty. At 8am. For those that do not know, this is very uncommon.
What the school does lack in is a diverse student population; Elon is similar to Hills in our limited diversity and socio-economic status. They are currently making an effort to bring in more people of color and ethnicity, along with athletes capable of playing at a D1 level.
Even with its smaller issues, Elon is still a wonderful place to spend four years for the ultimate college experience. 90% of students return each year, and anyone that goes to Elon can tell you how much they love it there. And it’s only a nine-hour drive!
