<p>For a long time my dream school has been Skidmore in Saratoga, NY. I love the artsy vibe, the culture of activism, the drug scene, the woodsy environment. The emphasis on creativity in academics really appeals to me.</p>
<p>Lately I've fallen out of love with the school. I know a lot of students leave unhappy. The kids have a reputation for being pretentious, catty, apathetic. Saratoga is in the middle of nowhere, a vacation town for rich white people. 2400 kids is only a little bit bigger than my high school.</p>
<p>I grew up in a small, predominately white town in Connecticut and my fear is that for college I'm just relocating to another isolated bubble of rich white kids. </p>
<p>It's appearing to me that maybe my interests lay in a bigger institution, with a closer proximity to a city. Diversity is really important to me, I want to go to a school with a rich and varied student body. I want to be in a location with lots of opportunities and things to do, and I also want a rigorous, reputable education comparable to the academics at Skidmore.</p>
<p>What other schools should I look at?
I have a 3.6 and a 2080.
Trying to stay around New England / the east coast.</p>
<p>LACs can be bubbles. Actually, I think all colleges function in bubbles to tell you the truth. Where else would be you surrounded by people your same age engaging in the same or similar activities 24/7. OK, maybe Google, but that is a bubble too. The question is, do you like what’s in the bubble, and is there somewhere to go when you want to get out of the bubble.</p>
<p>If you are female, the women’s colleges, such as Mt Holyoke, offer diversity and Smith and MHC have the advantage of being in the 5 college consortium which expands your bubble a bit. Bryn Mawr has Haverford, Swarthmore and Penn to expand the bubble and is very close to Philly. Smith is the largest of the womens colleges.</p>
<p>Goucher is pretty much spot on for what you are looking for in an LAC. What the student body lacks in diversity is made up for in proximity to Baltimore. Clark in Worcester is another good option.</p>
<p>Bard and Sarah Lawrence are two LACs that seem like they would have a similar vibe as Skidmore. SLC has the advantage of being right outside NYC. </p>
<p>Your options expand considerably if you move off the East Coast. Macalester is right in Minneapolis. Guilford is in Greensboro, N.C. Rhodes is in Nashville. Oberlin, while in a small town, is a very active and vibrant campus and not too far from Cleveland.</p>
<p>If you decide you want something bigger, there are a number of small universities you might be interested in: University of Rochester (a lovely urban location in a small city), Fordham and the New School in NYC, Emerson in Boston, Brandeis just out side of Boston, and Emory in Atlanta. Emory also has the Oxford College option where you do 2 years in an LAC setting and then move to the main Emory campus.</p>
<p>Take a look at Northeastern. It is pretty different than Skidmore but relatively diverse, in an interesting city and probably an academic match.</p>
<p>LeftOfPisa gave some great options and illustrated how difficult it will be to meet your requirements on the east coast. I think you’ll have to give one or two things up- either location/town or region. E.g Vassar might be an option but it’s location is nothing to write home about.</p>
<p>Bard and SLC will probably be too similar to Skidmore. Some kids love Bard, some kids don’t, it is a pretty particular place.</p>
<p>Grinnell is a great option but it is even more in the middle of nowhere and might be a bit of a reach for a 3.6 GPA.</p>
<p>Occidental would be a great match but it is about as far from the east coast as you can get- Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Fordham-Lincoln Center is small, and you might have qualms about the Jesuit orientation, but it’s smack in the center of Manhattan and you are a statistical match for it. Although most people associate them with performing arts (which they excel at), they have a traditional liberal arts curriculum. Even the actors and dancers have Math, Science, and Foreign Language requirements.</p>
<p>Some ideas offhand would be: Fordham (either Rose Hill which would give you a larger traditional campus in the Bronx with about 5,600 undergrads or the Lincoln Center campus which has a small campus right in in Manhattan but under 1,800 undergraduate students ), BU,Northeastern, GW, and American. Further away you can look into UMiami and Tulane.</p>
<p>what about a little bigger school to burst the bubble? URochester. Dang, I was gonna say Brandeis and Emory, but @LeftofPisa beat me to it. UMiami. Clemson Honors. American. I’d say GWU, but then there’s the CT phenomenon. Wake Forest. William & Mary. Denison. URichmond. </p>
<p>Surprised no one’s mentioned Hampshire. It’s part of a college consortium (Smith, Amherst, U Mass Amherst, maybe one more I can’t remember) which would expand your number of student, very liberal, creative school with lots of options academically.</p>
I would strongly recommend you look at Brandeis. The campus is not as rustic as Skidmore but also does not have the traditional quad such as Cornell or Tufts look. There are lots of creative opportunities and options and Boston and all the city and all the colleges there right next door and sounds like a good fit but by no means would it be a safety.