<p>I'm looking to apply to a bunch of private liberal arts colleges, my home state school as a safety, and two jesuit colleges. I'm guessing that a student's experience at all schools of its type would be similar.
This week I visited Bryn Mawr, had a tour and interview. It was great- even though a women's college, everybody was "normal" excited about their school, and had great stories about the school. It was gorgeous, Athena was everywhere, and the traditions seemed great as well. It also has an honor code and an active Student Government Assocation.
Afterwords I rode through Haverford- same size, can cross register with BM, Penn, and Swarthmore through the "Quaker" Consortium. It has a duck pond and a cricket team was playing. Unfortunately not many students were at Hav or BM due to Fall Break.
Anyway, I had this great breakthrough: even though BM is #20 (on the stupid USNews list) and Hav is #8, they're basically the same. My uncle had been telling me that colleges were basically all the same. And that's exactly what I saw. I thought to myself, why apply to Haverford when I'm a lot more confident about Bryn Mawr? Plus, I would get to live in a women's world for four years there, where at Hav, my experience would be just a variation on the theme of private LACS. With that said, I know from talking to people Haverford is a very community minded school with a strong Honor Code- I'm sure that it must vary a lot in character from many other schools for those reasons.<br>
That's when I decided that, besides liking women's colleges, that I wanted a unique college experience that would be different from my coed public high school that's the size of a liberal arts college. A difference in educational philosophy. Therefore, I'm pretty sure I would choose a women's college or a jesuit college or a college that distinguished itself from the fold in some way that made it appealing to me. SOme fundamental difference in purpose, not just location, size, or variation of curriculum, that will make it stand out from the herd. I've just recovered from the herd mentality that led me to go crazy over getting into some exclusive, selective "top" college in order to achieve my career and educational goals. I want to go to a place that makes me feel as though they want me as much I want to go there. I want to be a part of a community, not just an example of a brand name college commodity.
As far as finding a school that fits your majors well, I'm a prospective Political Science/French double major. For the record, Bryn Mawr has an excellent French department and has a great academic reputation overall. Unfortunately, I was unable to find out much about the political science department, but I'm sure it is excellent as well. Location wise, it is also great (for my personal taste and in distance from my home) as well.
So what do you think? I'm not trying to say I'm some kind of expert (I've only been on one tour and didn't even see the students.) But I really feel as though I've had an epiphany.</p>
<p>im also looking for somethign unique in a college...
it makes sense to me</p>
<p>Welcome to the club.</p>
<p>I visited a whole bunch of schools this spring and ended up liking Brandeis over Yale, Columbia and Brown.</p>
<p>thanks for replying
even tho ivies and places like cal tech may have great name recognition, so do LACs and other great places like Boston College among people that KNOW colleges- like grad school, MBA, JD, and MD programs, as well as future employers
one day I asked my guidance counselor, who is amazing btw, what do I do if I get into my reach schools but really like some of my safety/match schools? why should I apply to reach schools if I like the safety and match schools?
my parents told me why I need to apply: to compare finaid packages
and then my gc said that if you go to a top school that you don't like, you will be less involved, probably get worse grades and be less motivated because you don't like where you're learning and living therefore have less luck with getting a job, going to grad school/professional school, and lose your love of learning, at which point you're screwed.</p>
<p>And really passionflower, when you get down to it, the quality of education at Harvard isn't even really that much higher (if at all) then across the river at BU.....</p>
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what do I do if I get into my reach schools but really like some of my safety/match schools? why should I apply to reach schools if I like the safety and match schools?
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There's certainly no harm done. There's no law that says your reaches should be your favorite colleges (although they are for almost all CCers). In fact, safeties should be the most carefully chosen colleges on your list. If you're thrilled to go to a match or safety, you've done a great job putting together a list.</p>
<p>"And really passionflower, when you get down to it, the quality of education at Harvard isn't even really that much higher (if at all) then across the river at BU....."</p>
<p>mmm... this could be debated</p>
<p>Yeah, it could, but most people arguing about Harvard's sheer superiority would be doing it as a way to justify their obsessive behaviors.</p>
<p>I've said it before, but finding a college that feels "just right" is a lot more like finding a soulmate who feels "just right" (inexplicable chemistry) than finding an auto insurance policy that feels "just right" (rational analysis of quantitative data). </p>
<p>Also, the biggest distance in the universe is between "good enough" and "juuuuust right."</p>
<p>well harvard just has alot more money to spend, and better students</p>
<p>never underestimate the educational effect of being in class with good students</p>
<p>i think it comes down to what's right for you
if you're going to be intimidated out of your mind going to harvard even if you got into it, but don't think you can handle the reality of not being the superstar of the universe AND all the dillemmas of being a college frosh, maybe Harvard is not for you. Not to mention BU gives merit aid
personally, I would like to be really involved when I go to college. I want to be active in student government, debate, music, and non hard core sports, whether intramurals or club level, even varsity if it's not a very good sports team. that said, think about going to princeton with the super duper student council president of the world, the debate national champion, all those kids who did Carnegie hall at 12. Not to mention having to deal with 1) arrogant people 2) people who will cut off their arm to get an a and are setting the curve by which you are graded 3) all those priviledged people that got in through connections 4) an air of one upmanship prevailing when the best of the best and most priviliged of the priviliged all meet- what a fine day for J Crew and love of learning. 5) if you're not a total a**hole, feeling insecure and 6) if you do have a healthy sense of self esteem not bordering on arrogance that enabled you to achieve in high school, possibly losing that self esteem 7) for any person used to comparing themselves to others (I think this is especially true for girls, imho) always always finding someone better</p>
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well harvard just has alot more money to spend, and better students</p>
<p>never underestimate the educational effect of being in class with good students
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<p>Wouldn't dream of it.... although to be fair here, its not like BU students are idiots, it still takes a lot to get into any school in the top 100 (even if its easy for you, the vast majority of high school students aren't even considering those schools).</p>
<p>Also, this is why I support affirmative-action, never underestimate the education effect of being in a class with different kinds of students.</p>
<p>^^ oh yeah, i agree with that completely</p>