<p>Hi everyone! I am a college junior in the midst of my college search. One of the most important things for me is that the college I go to is very diverse but also open: I do not want a college that is very homogenous, or a college that is diverse but extremely clique-y (all asians will hang out with asians, jocks with jocks, etc.) Anyone have any suggestions for a college well-known (or from personal experience) for its openness, friendliness, and diversity?</p>
<p>I would prefer schools that are not rural or in a tiny town, that do not have less than 2,000 students or more than 20,000 (or have lots of large lecture classes), and that have very strong academics (my stats qualify me to be an easy admit for schools like Penn State University, or Boston University).</p>
<p>If you’re a junior in college, I doubt lecture classes will be a big deal, seeing as you’ll probably have moved on to your much smaller, major specific courses. How much can you afford? Merit aid is limited for transfers.</p>
<p>Seems like I can’t edit the original post. I am a junior in high school, my apologies. Let’s ignore cost for the moment, but schools that either offer high quality financial aid OR merit aid would be preferred, but I wouldn’t eliminate other schools.</p>
<p>If you want to see class sizes, look for the on-line class schedules on the college web sites. Look particularly at the types of courses you are interested in. Note that if you intend to major in something popular like biology or economics, you will likely find the larger courses at any given school.</p>
<p>For the cost aspect, you can check the net price calculators at the college web sites to get need based financial aid estimates.</p>
<p>What you are looking for may be at Greek-Free schools which often (but not always) have more of a mix-it-up student culture than Greek-dominant schools. Here are a few that come to mind:</p>
<p>Vassar College
Bowdoin College
Skidmore College
Clark University
Bates College
Kalamazoo College
Williams College</p>
<p>when you say you want a diverse non cliquey school. what does that mean? do you need a certain number of friends from different ethnic backgrounds (do you have a stated % you need of each?)</p>
<p>Thanks everyone so far!
Zobroward, the people of different backgrounds don’t need to be a specific percentage, I would like to know more what colleges come to mind when one thinks of “open” or “diverse”, or which colleges definitely DON’T come to mind.
I say this because I don’t want to worry about any rigid social structures like in high school where only certain people hang out with each other and I would like to meet people from a variety of backgrounds (although I’m sure that happens everywhere).</p>
<p>I would be very careful about using “frat-free” as a surrogate marker for diversity or openness. Sports teams have a way of mimicking frat culture even though they may not be dues-paying houses. At several of the colleges mentioned, they run most of parties and make up as much as 40 per cent of the student body.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that U of Miami and USC have pretty diverse student bodies. Not sure if they are cliquey or not and USC might be a little big for your taste.</p>