<p>There are PLENTY of students at Hopkins who study hard, but also know how to party and have tons of fun. The two are not mutually exclusive. Smart, well-balanced kids are the rule at Hopkins</p>
<p>I consider my school, Wesleyan, very laid back. People study hard, but they aren’t competitive, and almost everyone is willing to put down the books to go see an a cappella concert or sit on the hill for an hour on a nice day.</p>
<p>Other LACs I’d suggest from my visits and/or what friends have said: Vassar, Haverford, Middlebury, Bowdoin. Off the east coast, Pomona, Carelton, Oberlin.</p>
<p>I agree with others that it would be good to know what other qualities you are looking for in a school. For example, while I’ve heard that Middlebury is laid-back, there are other ways in which it’s student body is very different than, say, Wesleyan’s.</p>
<p>“Duke and Stanford have very, very similar student bodies IMO.”</p>
<p>Not really.</p>
<p>Duke = Rejected BY HYP
Stanford = Rejected HYP</p>
<p>happymedstudent- I’m assuming you’re joking. 
If not, you’re missing that poster’s point. Out of the top schools, it can be argued that no school more closely resembles Stanford than Duke (or vice versa, since the latter is older).</p>
<p>Besides, they’re actually quite similar in numbers. Stanford has an edge in selectivity simply because it receives more [applications</a> per spot](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062735245-post11.html]applications”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062735245-post11.html).</p>
<p>Duke
SAT CR 680-770 T, 680-760 P
SAT M 690-780 T, 740-800 P
SAT W 660-760 T, 670-760 P
90% in top 10%</p>
<p>Stanford
SAT CR 650-760
SAT M 680-780
SAT W 670-760
92% in top 10%</p>
<p>Out of all the top 25 schools, Stanford is the most flexible and least numbers-oriented. Stanford probably turns away more applicants with perfect SAT scores than apply to Duke. Stanford has a much lower acceptance rate and much higher yield rate. If you don’t think selectivity is positively correlated with quality, then you’ve got another thing coming. (Is this the right idiom?)</p>
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<p>Why do people think selectivity is positively correlated with quality? I’ve had some great professors at my community college who have PhDs from Stanford and UCLA.</p>
<p>I mean quality of the student body.</p>
<p>That can still be skewed by the size and popularity of the school. SDSU and University of Michigan have similar acceptance rates.</p>
<p>True, but I said positively correlated not PERFECTLY correlated! :)</p>
<p>yep, university of chicago sucks then. what a bad school.</p>
<p>Come on, I didn’t imply that at all. Again, I never said that selectivity = quality, but simply that they are interrelated. </p>
<p>Besides, U of C is selective in its own right, though perhaps not relative to its top ten peers.</p>
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<p>Similarities between schools are about more than SAT avg and acceptance rates. The mentality of students and campus atmosphere of Stanford and Duke are very similar and probably more similar to each other than they are to any of HYP whether Stanford students all got into HYP and Duke students all got rejected by HYP or not.</p>
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<p>That’s not the impression I get from any of the JHU grads I’ve met. Actually, I would say that JHU is the exact opposite of what it seems the OP is seeking.</p>
<p>It’s pretty much common knowledge that Duke and Stanford are most similar to one another out of the top ten schools than any others.</p>
<p>“It’s pretty much common knowledge that Duke and Stanford are most similar to one another out of the top ten schools than any others.”</p>
<p>That’s what Duke students would like you to think. But appearances can be deceiving.</p>
<p>^You’re the only one who is debating this, you presumptuous prick.</p>
<p>@ eatsalot:</p>
<p>What logic courses @ dook teaches you that ad hominem attacks make sound arguments? </p>
<p>Seriously, in my short time here, I’ve learned that dook students and alums make the worst representatives in CC. Case in point: Stanford reject ring<em>of</em>fire!</p>
<p>happymedstudent, what they are trying to say is that the school’s have similar atmospheres. I’ve never been to Duke, but from what people tell me about their experiences at Duke, I would wager that Duke and Stanford are very similar in terms of campus atmosphere. I can’t say this for sure, but if I wanted to have a Stanford-esque experience, not at Stanford, I’d have to go with Duke. They both have: top academics across the board,laid-back student body, great sports, more partyish culture than ivies, not ivies, high student satisfaction, warm weather, rivalries with top public schools, more pre-professionalism than their peers, frats(but not like they dominate the campus), etc. While Duke may be less selective as Stanford, don’t for a moment think that Duke students are any dumber academically than Stanford ones. And this is coming from a Stanford student! That being said, ring<em>of</em>fire does make Duke look bad :(</p>
<p>I think there is a laid back ethos at certain elites, such as Dartmouth, Stanford and Duke. As opposed to schools where it is impossible to imagine anyone is laid back, like Yale and Swarthmore.
But don’t be deceived. Laid back people almost by definition are not admitted to these places, except as legacies and developmental admits.
Give up on the tippy-top if you are looking for laid back.</p>
<p>Laid back isn’t the same as not caring about academics. There are few people in my high school and college who would say I wasn’t a laid-back person yet I scored a perfect 1600 on the math and reading sections and got 750+ in the writing. I performed several ECs at a high level, took many AP tests and got 5’s on them, got solid grades, etc. A laid-back person is one who in my opinion, doesn’t take grades personally. Obviously it is important to do well as all the schools you mentioned are expensive, but not to the point where your grades define you. That’s what makes a school like Stanford laid-back and a school like Harvard not.</p>
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<p>Because most people assume that higher ranking schools are more rigorous, even if the professors aren’t great teachers. Also, at places like Stanford and UCLA, almost all of the professors have PhD’s from places like Stanford and UCLA.</p>