Hello from Colgate University. I'm Nicole Erin [assumed spelling] and today I'm going to guide you through this great campus. Colgate is in the Village of Hamilton which is about 10 miles from the geographical center of the State of New York. It's location in the rolling hills of the Chenango Valley is ideal for biking and running plus Syracuse is just 45 minutes away.

Favorite thing about Colgate, you know, it's such a tight knit community, all the stores in town are catering to Colgate, the town is so beautiful and all the surrounding areas, there's great hikes you can go on.

We have Utica that is 45 minutes to the East and Syracuse which is about an hour to the West.

Colgate's 515 acre campus has more than 50 laboratories and a one of a kind visualization lab.

We just opened up a $55 million dollar science building in the Robert Ho interdisciplinary science center. It's a state of the art building, it's 3 times larger than any other academic building that we have here.

In 1827 some of the first students and faculty lent a hand hoping to build Colgate's West Hall using stone from the campus's very own quarry at the top of the university's hill. Many find Friday the 13th to be spooked but CU has deemed it Colgate due to the fact that the university was started with 13 men, with $13 and 13 prayers.

When you're not at Colgate and even when you're at Colgate you kind of wear a Colgate tee shirt and it's just kind of like a campus wide event that you just, you show your Colgate spirit on the day more than you normally would. Other alums tend to wear their tee shirts and it's kind of a really nice way to get in touch with other people and it's just you can always recognize an alum.

Colgate enrolls 2,800 undergraduate students from 46 states and 35 countries. A quarter of Colgate students identify themselves as students of color, 52 percent are women and 48 percent men. Colgate's admissions requirements are highly selective. The average incoming student carries an SAT score of 1403, an ACT of 31 and a GPA of 3.7.

We also look beyond the numbers. We look at students who are going to have an impact on our community.

Tuition and fees are about $40,000 for room and board plus additional expenses come close to $10,000. The average financial aide package is close to $38,000. Colgate offers 51 majors and 12 minors. A few of student's favorites are biology, economics, English and history.

I have this traditional ritual for the students who take the senior resource seminar at the end of the course I have the seniors come over to my house, they give me their portfolio of work and in exchange I give them a cowbell, which they ring for about 10 seconds, they scream, they yell, I do it and we all kind of use it as a wonderful [inaudible] moment to celebrate the passage of the seniors from our concentration into the world and such. And it's going very well.

Being part of Colgate's outdoor education program, each August new students can take a week long canoeing, backpacking and kayaking trip called Wilderness Adventure to the Adirondacks. Plus other course include sea kayaking, [inaudible], outdoor cooking and winter camping.

Took a Latin dance class just for the fun of it. I'm going to take scuba lessons next semester.

Colgate employs 258 full time faculty members. Ninety percent have their PhD or terminal degree.

I found that most of the faculty members love just being involved with students. I've had several professors have us over for dinner at their houses, they attend a lot of our events.

They know me personally by name, they're deeply interested in my well being even beyond the classroom and beyond our class conversations, they're sometimes even more willing to be students to students have time to meet them.

Spring breakers have Colgate to thank for their break from the books and fun in the sun. This tradition started in 1935 when Raiders swim coach brought his athletes [inaudible] to train in the pool, needless to say this week long break caught on really quickly along colleges around the country. Colgate offers residents halls, apartments, townhouses and common interest accommodations. There are nine residents halls occupied by over 90 percent of students. Housing is guaranteed for four years and acquired through your junior year.

They have approximately 165 cultural organizations on campus because roughly 96 percent of the student body remains on campus during the weekends, there's a wide variety of activities.

We have about 60 organized events per week on campus and about 100 performances added theatrical and musical on campus every year.

It's everything's really accessible, even the freshmen students which is so great.

Plus roughly 30 percent of students are involved in Greek Life with 6 fraternities and 4 sororities to pledge to at the start of the sophomore year.

I'm in a sorority, I'm Cappa Cappa Gamma and it's interesting your sophomore year because you know you get to make new friends and then you get to meet all these other people who are in your sorority and it's not all of your friends are in your sorority, you kind of have a nice balance.

The Maroon News, Colgate's campus newspaper is the oldest college weekly in the United States.

Recognize this best seller? The author of The Memory Keepers Daughter, Kim Edwards [assumed spelling] is a Colgate alum. Her hit novel has also become a TV movie.

We're a little unique for [inaudible] college, we play division 1 athletics, we have great [inaudible] system and we have a larger faculty and larger student body then most [inaudible] colleges so we keep the student faculty ratio the same as most [inaudible] colleges. We can give students an experience in the classroom and give them choice but not all [inaudible] colleges can.

At Colgate you can expect a sweet ending to your campus tour. [Inaudible] have become a tasty tradition. Perspective students consume more than 10,000 each year. Just another reason to visit this sweet school. So if you're looking for a small liberal arts university with strong traditions and school spirit, check out Colgate University. Thanks for joining us here in Hamilton New York and our tour of Colgate University. I'm Nicole Erin we'll see you real soon.

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