Congratulations on your hard work and success! All very good schools with very good reputations. A student can get a great education and have a rewarding experience at all of them. My main thought is that some of them are relatively similar in that they are small northeastern liberal arts colleges (LACs), though Oregon and LMU are West Coast schools, and larger (except in the case of Rochester). You get great, accurate evaluations of Trinity and Bates above. Here are some thoughts on some of the others.
Hamilton: Very beautiful, almost posh campus. Like Bates it is in a small town and very cold. Great academics. For Hamilton, Bates, and the other northeastern schools, my question usually is, can you get out of a warm bed early on a Wednesday morning and trudge through ice and snow with temperatures around 0 degrees (F) to go to class? And again that same evening for a study group? For many students, yes; but it’s a good question to ask yourself.
Loyola Marymount: I don’t know this one well, but unlike the others is pretty classically Los Angeles and Southern California beach culture. Weather would be grand. Does that suit you? School is more medium size, something like 6000 undergrads.
University of Oregon: Classic state public “flagship” university and classic U.S. college town. Eugene is really a great town. There are tremendous opportunities to do outdoors activities. Weather is milder and rainy. Do you see yourself at a very large university. It has about 20,000 undergrad students compared to a little under 2000 at some schools of the schools on your list. This can have advantages (lots to do, typically helps with diversity (and not just racial/ethnic but also economic, etc.), lots of resources and facilities, research opportunities) and disadvantages (very large classes (hundreds in intro classes), maybe puts more on the student to make their place, for example getting to know professors to secure desirable research opportunities etc.) Small is better for some, large for others. Just think about it in terms of YOUR personality.
Whitman College: It’s in Walla Walla, WA (A city so nice you have to say it twice). I liked the campus. It’s a great small school. I love the Pacific Northwest, and Whitman is in a beautiful part of it. There are lots of outdoor things to do. It is small and not close to too much. It does actively seek international students.
University of Rochester: This is also more of a medium-size school, more a small university than an LAC. It has about 5000-6000 students. It has a very nice riverfront campus just a little way outside of Rochester, a mid-size town. I was very impressed by campus, academic program, and students when we visited. I think it offers lots of opportunities. It will also be very cold, though there might be a little more to do because of the size of the town.
Connecticut College: It’s in a smaller CT town than Trinity. It’s nearer Long Island Sound and lots of nice, quaint coastal towns. It’s right on a river and very close to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (a service school whose students will go into the Coast Guard as officers). One note about CC and US schools. Almost 60% of university students in the US are female. Science/engineering schools still tend to be predominately male; LACs tend to be predominately female. CC used to be a women’s school and still has a large majority of female students. I could see that potentially being a surprise for an international student.
Some of these schools, really most of the LACs here, have relatively affluent student bodies. Economic diversity is
pretty limited. That could be a big issue for some, not one at all for others. How is that for you? Bates was founded by an abolitionist and accepted African American students from the beginning. It struck me as the New England LAC/school that we visited with the strongest social justice, social equality vibe. It felt less New England preppy. I liked it for my oldest, though they went another (rewarding) direction. Good luck!