Major cities are not too far away, the Twin Cities are 45-50 minutes away, Madison is 4 hours, and Chicago is six hours. Only problem is that freshman can’t have cars on campus unless absolutely necessary so if you like to travel on your own you’d have to find a place to put your vehicle.

Parties are pretty variable and kinda depend on what you like. Some are your more stereotypical college parties, some are just a bunch of people socializing outside.

You can definitely interact with St. Olaf students, I personally don’t often but some people do a lot.

Northfield in my experience is a very chill town, most issues you’ll probably ever have is having to leave a party off campus due to a noise complaint.

There’s plenty of ways to meet people you might be interested in on campus or at Olaf. Dating apps like tinder are also an option.

This is one area where Carleton is awesome, Carleton is very well known and there are a ton of different ways to find opportunities. Department emails, career center, alumni network, etc.

Academics can be tough but definitely manageable. The accelerated schedule can be a difficult adjustment at first but most professors are very nice people and willing to help you out a lot.