<p>I'm a junior in high school and I'm starting to narrow down my list of colleges to visit. I'm looking at both LACs and regular Universities and I'm finding it really difficult to compare the two. Here's my list of colleges. In your opinion (please try to put all biases aside), what are the best colleges on the list, academically? What do you know about each one (academically and socially)? I know they're very different, but each school on this list attracts me for different reasons. </p>
<p>Here's the list: (In no particular order)
Swarthmore College(PA)
Amherst College(MA)
Washington University in St. Louis<br>
Brown University(RI)
Barnard College (NY)
Carnegie Mellon University(PA)
University of Pennsylvania
Wesleyan University(CT)
Wellesley College(MA)
University of Chicago
Johns Hopkins University(MD)
Columbia University(NY)</p>
<p>I'm thinking about majoring in Psychology, Comparative Literature, English, maybe Philosophy, possibly Linguistics, etc. </p>
<p>I don't want to major in Creative Writing but I do want to go to a school with a strong writing program, so that's something to keep in mind. </p>
<p>I believe CMU is one of the few universities who actually have a creative writing program (in this case, a major). I don't know a whole lot about LACs, but those are the brand-name ones. You're looking at elite U's and LACs; you can expect that they'll all have something good for you. =)</p>
<p>In other news, linguistics is a good major.</p>
<p>Hopkins is arguably the best on the list for those interests, especially writing. Amherst is very strong in philosophy.</p>
<p>As kyledavid said, though, they're all great. A few differences:</p>
<p>1) Core (Chicago, Columbia) vs. distribution reqs (Hopkins) vs. open (Brown, Amherst)
2) Urban (Barnard, Columbia) vs. suburban (Swarthmore, Wellesley) vs. rural (Amherst)
3) Large (Penn, Columbia) vs. medium (Wesleyan) vs. small (Swarthmore, Amherst)
4) New York (Barnard, Columbia) vs. Philadelphia (Swarthmore, Penn) vs. Boston (Wellesley)....all have cross-enrollment consortiums
5) Merit scholarships (WUStL, CMU) vs. financial aid (Penn, Brown)
6) "Intellectual" (Chicago, Swarthmore) vs. pre-professional (Penn, WUStL)</p>
<p>I'm not really so enthusiastic about the core, so I'm thinking about scratching Columbia from the list. I don't mind requirements, though. I definitely need an urban/suburban campus. For some reason, I thought that Amherst was in a small city because it's part of the 5 college consortium.</p>
<p>As to sizes, I love small colleges but I love the opportunities and libraries at bigger colleges, so there are plus and minuses to each. Barnard's like the nice combination of all that but it's in New York and I don't know how I feel about staying here for college- I haven't decided yet. I like "intellectual" atmospheres more, but I feel like I would get more out of a pre-professional enviroment with respect to getting a job afterwards and stuff. </p>
<p>I've heard that Hopkins is really good for writing, but I don't want to major in it, and I've heard that Hopkins is really cut-throat partly because of the pre-med students. I don't have a problem with competition, but I like it more when the competition comes from within, rather than from everyone else around you.</p>
<p>If you'd like, I can explain what draws me to each college. It would be a long post, though, so I'll only do it if someone asks me for it.</p>
<p>Start going to visit some of these schools. Philly is only two hours away by car or train or Chinatown bus. Penn and Swarthmore are on the same train line from downtown Philly with stations on both campuses. Spend a morning doing the admissions tour at one, the afternoon at the other. You could see almost every college on your list with day trips from NYC.</p>
<p>Yeah... I can't edit it now, but Amherst is off the list. Too rural for me. I was under the impression that because you could take classes at 4 other colleges from that school that it had to be near a city. Yeah, I know, screwed up logic, but... lol Oh, and UChicago's off the list, too. It seems way too psychotically cutthroat to be any fun. </p>
<p>Is Brown as hippy as it's said to be? Wesleyan seems like a hippy school (from looking at the website and the Princeton Review). Is it? I'm not really hippy, so I'd scratch it off the list if it was. </p>
<p>So here's the revised list (for now):
Swarthmore College(PA)
Washington University in St. Louis
Barnard College (NY)
Carnegie Mellon University(PA)
University of Pennsylvania
Wellesley College(MA)
Johns Hopkins University(MD)</p>
<p>And what about Carleton? Do you think it could be a good fit? I don't know much about it, but it seems interesting...</p>
<p>Swarthmore College(PA) - too rigorous academically, not fun socially</p>
<p>Washington University in St. Louis - socially low key</p>
<p>Barnard College (NY) - academically like a LAC, socially kind of off (weird relationship with Columbia, students love it or hate it)</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon University(PA) - socially strange (sciency or super arty), not a strong community</p>
<p>University of Pennsylvania - academically more a university, socially fun</p>
<p>Wellesley College(MA) - academically very LAC-like, socially nt sure (I'm a guy)</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins University(MD) - cutthroat academically, socially 10% of campus has fun (hopkins 500) but many many unhappy students</p>
<p>To be honest, on my personal list the only schools I would include are Penn and WashU (maybe). I don't know much about the rankings of creative writing programs, but for the other majors any strong LAC or University should serve you well. Personally I like schools that aren't cutthroat, with incredibly bright students to like to have fun. Because of that I've personally always been drawn to places like Brown, Stanford, Dartmouth, Pomona, Princeton, Northwestern, etc. </p>
<p>My advice is check out the Fiske guide to colleges at your local bookstore. In my experience its spot on.</p>
<p>Thanks, KyleDavid. I'm trying not to. I took out Columbia because I knew about its core and I didn't like it, UChicago was out because it's in the midwest (=cold), it seems to be really, really competitive and unhappy, and the combination of all that makes it unappealing. Amherst was taken out because it's in the woods. </p>
<p>I don't remember why I took the rest of them out. I'll look at them again. I know that I took a few off the list because they don't offer Comparative Literature (not all the schools on my newer list offer it, either, but they have other things that draw me to the school) and I think I might seriously consider going into that.</p>
<p>I disagree with your assessment of Chicago, but I do agree that the cold and core would probably make it a bad match. Carleton can also get pretty cold.</p>
<p>I would definitely keep Swat. It has a great location- a quiet campus but close to a major city. It has cross-enrollment with Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Penn, so you should have plenty of classes to choose from. </p>
<p>For comp lit, be sure to check out colleges with strong language programs. Most comp lit majors require a knowledge of at least one or two other languages.</p>
<p>Tufts seems like a great fit. Brandeis, Holy Cross, Northwestern, Georgetown, Emory, and Haverford might fit as well.</p>
<p>Amherst is not in the woods, UChicago is not unhappy, and most of the schools you listed are in extremely cold places. Perhaps you'd like Stanford? I'd suggest you visit a few schools; your perceptions seem all wrong.</p>
<p>Carleton can get cold, too, so yeah, I'm still thinking about that one, but it seems like the community is warm, which really matters to me. </p>
<p>I'm keeping Swat. And Penn. Those are my two favorite schools on the list.</p>
<p>I don't know what schools have strong language programs. I speak 5 languages fluently and I understand like 2-3 other languages well enough to read in them, so I'm okay as far as comp lit's concerned. </p>
<p>I'll look into Tufts! I don't want to go to Brandeis for a few reasons, I can't go to Holy Cross because I come from a Jewish school and that wouldn't really fly with my parents, I looked at Northwestern and there was a reason why I didn't like it but I can't remember what it was. I may look into Georgetown. I always thought it was more of a political science type of school, though. Emory's in the south and I don't really want to go there. And Havorford's a little too small for me. I just divided the number of students by 4 and there are like 200 kids in each "grade." I want a small college, but that's just too small.</p>
<p>If community is the critical factor (plus great undergrad programs) I would check out Brown, Vassar, and Tufts. I would also keep Amherst. To be honest the most "warm and fuzzy" schools tend to be the LACs so I would seriously consider many of them.</p>
<p>Amherst really isn't in the woods. In my opinion Chicago is incredibly unhappy, and this is from spending time there and knowing more than a few alums.</p>
<p>Definitely check out Barnard for creative writing. Great faculty, and they pride themselves on turning out women writers. And, NYC can't be beaten for the writers who come through giving readings. There is no linguistics department, however. If by linguistics you mean learning languages, there would be few places that offer more than the combination of Columbia and Barnard. (Barnard students have access to Columbia classes.)</p>
<p>I think Vassar is worth checking out. You might also look at Skidmore.</p>
<p>
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Wesleyan seems like a hippy school (from looking at the website and the Princeton Review). Is it? I'm not really hippy, so I'd scratch it off the list if it was.
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</p>
<p>I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents as a current Wes student:</p>
<p>It depends on what you mean by "hippy." A lot of Wes students certainly aren't "mainstream" (though there are more like that than you might think), but HOW we are out of the mainstream varies a lot. Yes, there are long-skirt-wearing-peace-and-love-promoting-eviroment-loving-pot-smoking hippy types, but there are also alt-rock loving hipsters, D&D players, artsy-types, cinemaphiles, etc. etc. And most students are just people who are somewhat quirky and/or intellectual (kind of like how many people think of Carelton or Swarthmore students).</p>
<p>Anyway, Psyc and English are two of our biggest & strongest majors, and I've found the community to be very warm and friendly, so I'd suggest you don't automatically dismiss it just because you don't think of yourself as hippy...plenty of people here don't, either!</p>
<p>I took Wesleyan off the list because they don't offer Comp Lit and pot is prevalent there. Well, I mainly took it off because of the comp lit, and I didn't see anything about the school that would redeem the fact that it didn't offer that. </p>
<p>I've heard a lot of negative things about Brown and although I know you shouldn't listen to everything you hear, I don't know... Like, I heard it's very pot-obsessed and if it's not hippy then it's eurotrashy, and stuff. It's a little too open for me, anyway, in terms of requirements and stuff. Like, one good thing about loose requirements is that you get some sort of direction if you get confused or something, and Brown doesn't really have that.</p>