<p>My niece is struggling to decide which of these three great colleges to go to. She grew up in Portland, Oregon but has lived in Boston for the past couple of years. This was a big transition, as she feels constricted by the preppy culture of her private high school in Boston, but also didn't want to return to the Northwest for college. She is very social, a track champion, writes and preforms spoken word poetry, and is interested in social justice in an international context. At Georgetown, she's been accepted into the school of arts and sciences, not foreign service. Any thoughts on which of the three colleges would be the best fit?</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know anything about Macalaster, other than it being a really small school way up in cold Minnesota, and I just learned that from going to wikipedia just now. Sorry. Clearly the major disadvantages there would be the weather (unless she likes the cold) and the many inherent limitations of attending a college smaller than many high schools. </p>
<p>Wash U has a bit of a liberal-artsy feel – or, as much as it can while having a high concentration of science majors, and I’d saw more of that kind of feel than most of our peer schools. But, in terms of the community, Wash U never “feels” like a big place. It feels like a really tight community, so in that sense you can probably draw more parallels between a small LAC and WashU than you can between a small LAC and Georgetown. In terms of size, Wash U’s undergrad population is something like 20% smaller than Georgetown’s, too. </p>
<p>Since you mentioned she is interested in social justice and international studies, we have amazing opportunities in these areas. The IAS (international and area studies major, which I almost purused) is really strong and allows for a high amount of specialization in your study. Study abroad programs are popular, numerous, encouraged, and easy to access. In terms of spoken word poetry, she really needs to check out WUSlam – our on-campus spoken word poetry group. It’s REALLY good- I’ve seen them perform a few times here, and they send a team to the college national competitions, placing quite highly and winning several group awards at nationals. <a href=“http://sites.google.com/site/wuslam/[/url]”>http://sites.google.com/site/wuslam/</a></p>
<p>In terms of track, I don’t know if she’s planning to run in college, but our women’s indoor team is #3 and women’s outdoor team is #8 in Division III. </p>
<p>Wash U’s strengths really like in the across-the-board strength of academic programs, ease of studying and majoring in more than one field, student support, great living environments and beautiful campus, close-knit community feel, really really smart students with a very not-cuthroat academic environment, placement into good grad schools, and (in my opinion) a lot of really unique things to do just off campus. </p>
<p>Not to say that Macalaster and Georgetown do not have any of those characteristics, but they aren’t as defined as having all of those characteristics as does Wash U.</p>