<p>I'm trying to narrow my college list, and I wanted to choose 2-3 of these four:</p>
<p>Cornell
Georgetown
Rice
Swarthmore</p>
<p>I'm planning to major in English, and I need full coverage in terms of finances. I might minor in International Relations.</p>
<p>Can you guys give me a 2-3 pick (in order and with reasons) of
1. Competitiveness for Admission
2. Their English program
3. Financial Aid
4. Extracurriculars/Student Life/other things I should keep in mind</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Swarthmore has the best English dept. and probably the toughest to get into. Rice is the easiest to get into. Not sure about financial aid. Cornell has big greek scene and Georgetown parties BIG on the weekends. Swarthmore is more chill. Not sure about Rice.</p>
<p>country day, What makes you think that Swarthmore's English department is better than the other's? </p>
<p>To the OP: I know that Swarthmore's financial aid is generally excellent--it's mainly need-based, though, with a few merit-based scholarships given to students who live close to the college. Swarthmore was very affordable for my family, and that was an important factor in my decision. Swarthmore's acceptance rate is low, but I think that because Swarthmore is so small (about 1,500 students), the admissions office takes great care in picking people who they think are good fits for the college. A few of my friends last year got into Columbia and Yale and lots of other prestigious schools but not Swarthmore, probably because they aren't the type of people they're really looking for.</p>
<p>I don't know much about Swarthmore's English department. There are lots of extracurricular things to do, and if you can't find something you want to do, you can always start a club or something. The college also provides funds for you to start a club and it provides funding for many clubs that request it. Swarthmore also provides funding for students who want to pursue community service projects. Swarthmore tends to be very liberal and a lot of students are involved in activism. You often see chalk writing on the pathways that urge you to consider gay issues or mental health issues or whatever events are going on. The town of Swarthmore isn't really any fun, though. Most of the college life is on campus, although there is proximity to Philadelphia. Generally social life is relegated to academics.</p>
<p>English dept. at Swarthmore is considered among the best for lacs.</p>
<p>All 4 colleges are excellent schools. Because you are interested in International Relations you should refer to another thread on College Search and Selection called "Top 200 Universities in the World" published by a publication in Great Britain.</p>
<p>Cornell is ranked 15
Rice is 78
Georgetown is 110
Swarthmore not mentioned (as all other LAC's)</p>
<p>Um, excuse me, what makes you think Rice is the easiest to get into?</p>
<p>They're all rather hard, and frankly I think Georgetown or Cornell are the easier ones to get into. But let's not get into a flame war about that. They're all difficult schools to get into.</p>
<p>Junine, let me start off by saying that I commend you for narrowing down your choice of colleges based on their departmental programs, and I totally understand you on that, but remember that rarely do people stick with their intended majors once they enter into college. You might take a science course and think, hey, I actually kind of like biology. Or maybe you go to hear a famous professor talk about 20th century presidents and become more interested in history. </p>
<p>You don't know what's going to happen, and I don't want you to limit yourself because one college may have (supposedly) a better, superior English program than other, when all of your colleges are in the top 30 schools in the country and your classmates at these schools will all be as bright and motivated as yourself.</p>
<p>I highly recommend that you visit each college campus to get a feel for its environment, student body, facilities, classes, professors, etc. in order to get a better idea and perhaps envision yourself there, next year, and for all four of your undergraduate years. Of course, provided that this is financially feasible for you. The least you can do, if you can't visit the campus itself, is to maybe talk to current students, professors, admissions officers by email or try to find alumni who live near you and talk to them and ask questions.</p>
<p>Each of these colleges are different and unique from one another. Rice has a residential college system (think Harry Potter houses) and thus no Greek life. It's across the street from Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical district, and situated in downtown Houston, the country's 4th largest city and home to the largest number of Fortune 500 companies (sorry NYC, you lucked out this year). It has a 5:1 student-faculty ratio. It is completely undergraduate-oriented, and very LAC-like, with less than 3,000 undergrads (even smaller than Dartmouth!). Rice baseball consistently has gone to the College World Series for the past several years. Rice also gives out quite generous financial aid and awards merit scholarships (something I don't believe Cornell or Georgetown does, but Swarthmore might, you'll have to look into that). Its Shepherd School of Music is one of the best in the country, and its School of Architecture is #2 behind Cornell. And don't get me started on the awesome traditions and parties that Rice has each year (like NOD and Beer Bike). I can go on and on, but I don't want to make this too long. Maybe you're not overly concerned with the whether Rice has an architecture school, for example, but my point is that you should really research each school more thoroughly to help you decide for yourself whether or not it's worth applying to. Princeton Review rated Rice as #1 best value for a private college, while Kiplinger rated it #5 for the same category. PR also gave Rice a #2 ranking in Best Quality of Life, among others (that you can look up on the website, as I can't remember off the top of my head).</p>
<p>Cornell is in icy Ithaca, does have Greek life, and is known for ice hockey. It's got many different departments and schools, from agriculture to hotel management. Georgetown is quite popular because of its NCAA basketball team and most famous for its prestigious School of Foreign Service (and its alumni). Swarthmore has a consortium with schools including Haverford and Bryn Mawr, allowing you to take classes from other colleges as well.</p>
<p>(I'm a Rice student, so I don't know as much about the other schools and can't go into as much detail, but I think you get the idea.)</p>
<p>Knowledge of all these little things can be accomplished by research, powered by interest to really get to know each school well. Use that knowledge to convey that interest to admissions officers through your essays and applications to show them that you really did your homework and feel that you are a match for the school, and vice versa.</p>
<p>You should spend your time researching the unique aspects of each college (aside from departmental and program offerings) because if you really think about it, you will get an excellent education at any of those schools above that you mentioned. Do not solely exclude one or more schools from your list because they may have a "lesser" English department (ps- contrary to the perception that Rice is only good for engineers and premeds, it also has very strong humanities departments).</p>
<p>country day, what does it even mean when an English department at one school is better than that at another? And who says that Swarthmore's English dept. is considered among the best for liberal arts colleges?</p>
<p>Usually, "best English Dept." = "most liberal English Dept." I gotta agree with dchow here. A case could be made for Swarthmore's English Dept. being "better" than that of, say, Marlboro College's, because its faculty has more awards, more publications, and perhaps graduated from schools that are more difficult to get into. But to say that there's something to be learned in the English Dept. at Swarthmore that the English profs at Rice, Georgetown, and Cornell can't quite get their arms around is stretching it quite a bit.</p>
<p>I actually agree that Rice is the easiest to get into. Cornell and Georgetown draw a lot of super competitive applicants the West Coast and the Northeast, whereas 50% of Rice students are from Texas. It's really hard for a white female English major to get into Swarthmore but that school is not much fun anyway.</p>
<p>Are students from Texas somehow dumber than those from the West Coast or Northeast?</p>
<p>Don't overlook Cornell's humanities for its science and engineering. English is strong at Cornell, especially if you're interested in creative writing. E.B White, Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, MH Abrams (Norton Anthology of English Lit), Vladimir Nabokov, Pearl S. Buck, all studied or taught at Cornell. </p>
<p>In my opinion bigger = better. English and humanties classes aren't overcrowded like science classes. You'll still enjoy small classes but you'll have a much larger selection, in more departments.</p>
<p>You realize just how big Texas is, right? </p>
<p>And gellino, that is quite rude and offensive. What's your problem? Maybe you should try to be a lot more judgmental because of course people in one region can be categorically stated as "dumber" than those in another? What an idiot. People here--and I refer to Rice, not the general population of Texas--are just as bright as those in the Northeast and West Coast top schools, and I'm from the Northeast myself. Everyone here is actually quite brilliant--there are a lot of kids here who've also got into Ivies and comparable schools (Duke and Stanford) but still chose to come here. </p>
<p>President Leebron is working on expanding geographic diversity, but yes, Rice is a popular school for Texans to apply to (please spare me the stereotypes, I've actually not heard a single person here with a Texan accent). This is Houston we're talking about, not some hicktown in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>Rice's acceptance rate is 24%, Georgetown 22%, and Cornell's 25%. More or less the same, it's not significantly "easier" to get into one school over the other. (Funny how Georgetown is more selective than the other two but couldn't crack into the top 20 rankings, huh?) I've got friends here at Rice who've been accepted to both Georgetown and Cornell but still chose to come here, and I'm sure the same situation occurs at the other schools as well.</p>
<p>hotasice you need to chill.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies!</p>
<p>Yeah, I understand I shouldn't be narrowing it down ONLY on department, but it is a pretty big factor that I am considering. I'm nearly 150% sure I want to go into English - then again who knows - that's life.</p>
<p>Hmm Swarthmore sounds pretty interesting - I'm really into activism and it's really great that they provide funds for clubs (which is something that my high school would NEVER do).</p>
<p>About Rice, if 50% are from Texas, does that mean it's generally harder for out of state students to be accepted? Or is that sort of a coincidence?</p>
<p>What exactly is this 'greek scene'? Is it just the whole fraternity/sorority thing with the Alpha Beta etc. names?</p>
<p>Hmm in terms for Cornell, I guess I'm going to have to research a bit more, since I'm not planning to go into creative writing.</p>
<p>Well I'm having the same kind of problems you are in deciding. </p>
<p>If you are absolutely sure you want to do English then Georgetown is not the best choice. Georgetown is great for International Relations, but to do that you need to apply to the school of foreign service and you can't "minor". However once you get into Georgetown it is easy to switch between the different schools in the university if you decide that you want to do something different.</p>
<p>I'm from Texas and I want to leave, that's the only reason I haven't looked at Rice. It is an excellent school however and it is in a great area of Houston. Rice, however, is known for the fields of nanotechnology, artificial heart research, structural chemical analysis, and space science. So I don't know how that fits into English :)</p>
<p>If I were you, I would definitely look at Swarthmore very seriously. I heard it has a great English department.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is the location of the school. Georgetown is in DC so an education in International Relations is invaluable. And Rice is close to the largest Medical Center in the country.</p>
<p>hotasice, while I do not speak for gellino, I think he/she was being sarcastic and actually quite funny. I think you were misinterpreting what was said.</p>
<p>Just a couple of minor points:</p>
<p>a) Swarthmore was the highest rated and one of only two undergrad only colleges listed as having superb international relations preparation. It is the #1 producer of Political Science PhDs per 100 graduates of all colleges and universities in the United States. It is a specific goal of the college to include an international component in the curriculum of virtually every department. So you will encounter courses with an international tilt in the English depart, the sociology department, the dance department, the poli sci department, and so forth.</p>
<p>In English, Swarthmore was tied with Yale for the #1 per capita producer of PhDs in the country.</p>
<p>Swatties think the Poli Sci and English Departments are bit too big and, therefore, tend to cater somewhat to the students in the Honors track. I guess everything is relative. There were 45 Economic majors and 28 English majors graduating from Swarthmore last spring.</p>
<p>b) IMO, Swarthmore and Rice are two top colleges on you list from an academic standpoint. Both schools have rigorous academics as the foundation of their identities. Houston and an old neighborhood in Philadelphia are very, very different environments to spend four years of your life - climate, transportation, access to NYC, style of life, and so forth. You decide.</p>
<p>c) Georgetown is a good solid Catholic university that benefits enormously from a highly desireable location at the nation's capital. Washington DC is a great city for young people.</p>
<p>d) Cornell is an excellent all-purpose university in a fairly isolated rural setting -- the only one of your choices that is not located in a major urban area and the only one that has particularly harsh winter weather.</p>
<p>None of these schools are easy to get into for any student.
BTW, Swarthmore's acceptance rate (inc. the waitlistees) this year was 16%.</p>
<p>"Rice's acceptance rate is 24%, Georgetown 22%, and Cornell's 25%"</p>
<p>Cornell's acceptance rate is 21%.</p>
<p>Edit: choose the college that is the best fit. I wouldn't recommend choosing a college based on one department's ranking, the criteria that should be applicable for graduate school applicants, not undergraduate applicants. Look at each school's academic programs, courses, location, student body, culture, campus, size, weather, the overall vibe and then decide.</p>
<p>The four schools are extremely different in overall experience. I'm not going to elaborate on each school individually because i believe that's already been sufficiently covered (bias alert: as a current Georgetown undergrad i can speak to Gtown specifically if you'd like). All four are amazing schools that you would be splitting hairs when choosing the best academic one. What you should be looking at is the culture and fit of the four and how does that match up to what your looking for. You've got an enormous research university in the middle of nowhere upstate new york, a catholic university in Washington DC, possibly one of the most overlooked academic powerhouses in the country down in houston, and the strongest small LAC in suburban PA all extremely different. Get a feel for what you want, don't focus too too much on finding the school with the best english program.</p>
<p>PS To the person that said for IR you should look at the International Rankings, that's a very misinformed statement. To have Georgetown ranked 110 and Swarthmore not on the list, then to conclude that this somehow represents IR faculties is ludicrous. Those rankings are generally based off of scientific research (hence Cornell's impressive score), with a big bias towards large research universities. If you really want IR specific rankings I can provide them.</p>
<p>Your PS was in reference to my post. I, in no way, wanted to say that the International Rankings implied anything about the IR faculties at these 4 schools. I just thought it was interesting to consider a more global perspective on ranking of schools rather than only US.</p>