I took a break from sending Three Quick Questions to colleges in January. I didn’t expect to get any responses or goodwill sending admissions offices unsolicited requests while they’re in the thick of reading all those applications. But March seemed like a good time to resume, and it looks like I was right—I have two new ones today.

The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

This response is from Seth Costello at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Hope College?

The first tradition that comes to mind is The Pull, it's a 3 hour long tug-of-war between the Freshman and Sophomores each year. The rope is a couple hundred feet long and is laid across the black river in Holland. The Tradition is the longest college tradition in America and is an awesome feat to witness each year. Although in terms of program, Hope prides itself on the model of our liberal arts that saturates each student in a wide array of diverse classes that provide a perfect base to use later on in life or to help an undecided student find a major. Each student will be required to take a few more elective classes to further their broad education.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Hope?

I wouldn't say that we have perfect and even more, imperfect students. I think the person that tends to flourish at Hope is a student that values relationships. At Hope we pride ourselves on the culture and community of our people, we love creating new, long lasting relationships. So no matter if you are a student with high grades or not, you have the opportunity to flourish through the relationships that you make while being here.

When people come to visit Holland, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

There are many great places to be, obviously the beach during the warmer months is a great attraction and only about 7 minutes away. But anything downtown no matter the time of year is a great place to visit. Downtown offers so many shopping, restaurant, boutique and service shops to explore, plus the people downtown are such a joy to have in your company.

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Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Hope College. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]