**Be my college matchmaker! =)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi everyone! I'm hoping some of you could help me figure out which colleges fit me best. I can't find a college search that takes into account subjective criteria and it's utterly impossible to read past all that marketing language of college brochures!</p>

<p>Warning: It's going to be looongggg…</p>

<p>What I want:
Size: 4000 – 6000 (give or take a couple thousand…)
Location: Northeast, middle-east, or west coast (not terribly important though)
No publics.</p>

<p>ACADEMICS
- Open curriculum, no core; I’m okay with some distribution requirements as long as there’s minimal English/literature and history required. Philosophy and such are fine, and math, science, and technology course requirements are no problem at all!
- Great academics and professors who love teaching & helping students
- Not a lot of red tape (easy to double major across different schools/areas, switch majors, add/drop classes, etc.)
- Strong econ, science, business, math depts.
- I want the “hand-holding” type of school with lots of assistance in getting a job, apply to grad school, choosing/switching majors, etc.</p>

<p>STUDENT BODY
- Non-cliquish & friendly student body
- SEMI-social scene that is not focused on binge drinking and/or drugs
- REAL diversity, i.e. integration and interracial mixing. I don’t care AT ALL about the % of non-whites, as long as those groups don’t self-segregate and race isn’t really a factor at all at the said college. </p>

<p>JOB/GRAD SCHOOL
- Decent amt. of recruiting, name recognition
- Great job placement in business, technology, science fields
- Lots of grads accepted to business or med school</p>

<p>OTHER
- Nice, safe campus located near a city
- Dorms with private or semi-private bathrooms, including for FRESHMEN.</p>

<p>Nice pluses, but not as important as above criteria
- Merit aid
- No grade deflation
- No senior thesis/capstone/project
- Academic calendar is not by quarter or trimester. Typical 2 semester system is fine, but I would LOVE something more along the lines of 1 or 2 courses at a time. </p>

<p>Thanks for reading through this and please give me some suggestions that fit most of my criteria (I know there probably isn't a single college that will fit all of them!)</p>

2

<p>how about cornell college? as far as i know 1 or only 2 schools in the US to offer one course at a time... instead of taking 4 courses a semster, their school year is divided into 9 blocks... you take 1 course only in 8 of the blocks, leaving u with a nice 3 week chunk to relax, work, travel etc...</p>

<p>they are a bit smaller than u are looking for( 1200 students), and i have no experience there so i cant say how much hand holding there is...</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cornellcollege.edu/about_cornell/fast_facts.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cornellcollege.edu/about_cornell/fast_facts.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>the other school that uses OCAAT is Colorado College, which is slightly larger at almost 2000... their website is <a href="http://www.coloradocollege.edu/index.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.coloradocollege.edu/index.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

3

<p>on second thought, neither of those fits ur other requirents.. but take a look and see... let me know!</p>

4

<p>Okay, so...middle-sized privates, minimal core, strong academics, diverse....</p>

<p>Amherst comes to mind. It's slightly smaller than your aim, but it's also part of a consortium and neighbors several other colleges. This allows students the best of both worlds - small intimate classes and close advising, but also lots of people in the area to meet. </p>

<p>I also recommend Pomona. Same situation, basically.</p>

5

<p>Others to look at with minimal or no cores include: Brown, Vassar, Smith, Wesleyan, Grinnell...</p>

<p>There aren't many of medium size that I know of.</p>

6

<p>Difficult to find undergraduate business with the other characteristics you are looking for. Try Villanova. On the west coast there's University of Santa Clara. Lehigh is not close to a city, but worth consideration. It's also very difficult to get a private or semi-private bath as a freshman. Some schools have them (like Rice), but there is never any guarantee. Rice is strong in math and science but has no undergraduate business. Most of the ivies don't have undergraduate business, either.</p>

7

<p>Brown, Dartmouth, Pomona, Amherst, Stanford, Princeton, Yale are your schools. Brown is probably the best fit, good luck!</p>

8

<p>Rochester's medium sized with a minimal core, right?</p>

9

<p>Duke and Tufts seem to fit most of your criteria.</p>

10

<p>Undergrad business isn't important at all. Why do it when econ from an top school will get you better access to elite jobs anyway?</p>

11

<p><a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/index.jsp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/index.jsp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

12

<p>The OP probably wouldn't like Lehigh. It's a great school, but not very diverse, and drinking is HUGE.</p>

<p>And yes, Meesh, Rochester has a minimal core requirement. The OP would probably like it on most counts, but I don't think "hand-holding" really exists there....that's more likely to be found at LACs.</p>

13

<p>upenn, uchicago, cmu, tufts, brown(sci math?), jhu(core?), princeton, </p>

<p>warning: dont go to columbia</p>

<p>oh, how can i forget. cornell</p>

14

<p>Yeah Columbia isn't for you! Brown is the best bet I think.</p>

15

<p>Oberlin? 2800 people. I don't think there's business, though.</p>

16

<p>Yeah, that's true, worldchanger. But it's an idea, nonetheless.</p>

17

<p>good luck finding private bathrooms</p>

18

<p>Even though it doesn't meet a lot of your criteria, I'll mention Hamilton College because it has an open curriculum and is easier to get into than a lot of the others people have suggested.</p>

19

<p>Wow, thanks everyone for all the replies! =D</p>

<p>Does anyone know the amount of "handholding" in the colleges worldchanger mentioned? (Brown, Vassar, Smith, Wesleyan, Grinnell, Amherst, Pomona...That was very helpful by the way!) And at the other colleges as well? Also, which colleges tend to make it easier to major across schools?</p>

20

<p>Oh and slipper, does that mean a strong econ dept. would be just as good as a strong business dept.? So should I focus more on the amount of recruiting? </p>

<p>Booklet is there more colleges w/ a similar calendar? I'll be sure to check out the two you mentioned though! ;)</p>

<p>Can anyone elaborate on Hamilton?</p>