Marist College

What you are shown in the tour is very different than what marist is actually like. First the pros: it's pretty, and the professors do try and help a bit. Cons: it's just an extension of high school. There were very few classes offered in my major, and most of those were only offered to juniors and seniors, which means that I spent a lot of money for a semester of electives. The same 3-4 professors also teach all of the classes. The social scene is fine if you like to smoke weed and party every day. Most of the people are fake and act like they are still in high school, and because the surrounding city is awful you are essentially trapped on campus if you don't have a car. They don't even have a shuttle to the train station, grocery store or mall. No shuttles at all. Don't waste your money. I have transferred to another school and have already learned more in 3 weeks than I did in two years at Marist.

2nd Year Male -- Class 1924

Campus Aesthetics: A, Education Quality: F

Marist is an alright school, however I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. First off, the social life sucks. Poughkeepsie, to be honest, is a complete shit-hole. Every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the majority of the campus crams into taxis filled with 10+ kids and heads over to one of three awful bars. It's the same thing every. damn. weekend. If the bar scene is your thing, then you'll love it, but I got sick of it REAL quick. Which meant most weekends were spent in my dorm alone.

The campus itself is safe, and very beautiful at that. The walk over the Hudson is something you should do at least once, as the view is amazing. However, if you're like me, a pretty view gets old after a couple days, and you're left realizing how small the campus actually feels. They try to do activities like weekly movies in the SAC, but as I mentioned previously, most people spend their weekends elsewhere.

The academics is fine. I am a com major, and the workload is extremely imaginable. 90% of it is busywork like forum entries and the other 10% is papers. So it gets pretty boring after a while, but it's not hard to maintain a solid GPA, which is always nice. The teachers are pretty helpful for the most part, I always felt my questions were answered sufficiently.

The worst thing outside of the social scene for me was the priority points system. This is the points system that controls your housing and schedule making, and it's idiotic. Housing and scheduling are super important, and the system they have in place now leaves most underclassmen scrambling to get settled. It's so bad, that they're actively trying to get rid of it. So it might not end up being an issue for future students, but it's annoying now.

Dorm-life is typical, noting really noteworthy about it. The student body is small, so things feel super high school sometimes, which is frustrating. For guys at least, everyone seems like they're either a frat dude/party animal (or are desperately trying to be one) or an introvert that only cares about getting good grades. To summarize, Marist is an eh school that isn't worth its exorbitant price. If you're in love with it, give it a shot I guess, but I would look elsewhere for incoming freshman.

1st Year Male -- Class 1922

Campus Aesthetics: A, Individual Value: F

This school cares more about its landscaping and trying to become well known than it does about its students. Overpriced and not worth the time. I would choose to go somewhere else in a heartbeat and have been looking at schools to transfer to since getting here.

1st Year Female -- Class 2019

Campus Aesthetics: A+, Surrounding City: F