Yes, SCEA to Princeton will preclude your ability to apply ED to schools like Brown and Columbia, but you’d still be able to apply ED2 to schools like UChicago, Pomona, and Wesleyan.
As to the Barnard/Columbia issue, how do you feel about Columbia’s Core? I would focus on whether or not you think you’d enjoy the core curriculum and how it would fit with your educational interests (I suspect well). Likewise, I would recommend that you like into Princeton’s Hume Sequence and Yale’s Directed Studies (their respective intensive humanities core). How do you feel about Brown’s Open Curriculum?
I think I know what the OP means. I think she is speculating about the prestige bubble that a large uni imparts on the sum of its constituent colleges. Would Barnard be a part of that matrix where every undergraduate swells with pride at a discovery made by some obscure professor at a lab facility that has nothing to do with them? I think the answer is, “Yes., as much as you like.” My sister went to Barnard back when it was the only alternative for women who wanted to attend Columbia and to the extent that she criss-crossed Broadway for classes and co-ed extra-curriculars, she certainly felt she was a part of the larger university. I don’t think that has changed all that much.
If you are really planning to be a serious philosophy student I think it might be an advantage to attend a university, one with a strong faculty in that field. And one that lets qualified undergraduates take graduate -level courses.
The reason I think this is a million years ago, when I was in college, I shared a house with a philosophy graduate student. This university had a top philosophy department at the time. We both liked to stop in on a particular coffee house on campus, and when I saw him there I would often share a table with him. Several times he was joined by a fellow philosophy grad student, and they would spend a lot of time debating various philosophical points. But on several occasions they were also joined by an undergraduate from my school. Who was joining in their debates, and evidently taking some of the same classes. And when he wasn’t there they discussed that he was actually quite good.
Even at a larger university philosophy probably is not going to be a huge major. and a larger department, with graduate courses, will likely offer more courses of relevance.
FWIW the university was Cornell which I did not mention previously in this thread since you wanted an urban campus. If you’ve now abandoned that criteria, Ithaca is beautiful. It is far from urban, but it is a large school so there is relatively a lot to do there, compared to the small schools in rural areas.
If at the end of the day you have too many schools and need to reduce the list,
one UK parent poster eliminated all schools that did not have direct flights from UK to the relevant city. I personally was not a fan of this approach, since one isn’t flying back and forth very often anyway. But if there really is nothing left to distinguish and the list must be thinned, why not. I think he said Boston, New York, and Washington DC (did anyone mention Georgetown?) were particularly flight-friendly and attracted the most UK students.
Based on your reaction to Amherst, I’d think about eliminating Middlebury, Williams and Bowdoin.
I also agree with somebody upthread that given your interests, a mid-sized university or a LAC that is in a consortium might fit you better than a relatively rural, more isolated LAC.
So maybe dig into Tufts a bit more. Pomona has the consortium so you’d have plenty of curricular options and a critical mass of fellow students with diverse intellectual interests, so I’d think about that option a bit more too.
JHU might be a bit pre-professional for you and the surrounding area is not exactly charming, despite Baltimore’s nickname (“Charm City”).
Does Chicago still have EDII? Because if Princeton is your favorite and you don’t get in SCEA, when I first encountered your thread, I immediately thought “Chicago.” IMO, it’s where fun goes to live, if you’re intellectually minded.
If you were to end up at Barnard vs. Columbia, I’m sure you’d have a great experience, BTW.
Re: Pomona (and Scripps, etc.) - in addition to substantial undergrad offerings in philosophy, there is also graduate level coursework available through Claremont Graduate University which is part of the Consortium as well. http://bulletin.cgu.edu/content.php?catoid=2&navoid=87
Sorry it took me so long to reply; I’ve just been swamped with end of years.
@calmom By uni I was referring to Columbia U, specifically Columbia College. The main thing I was referring to is the core curriculum, which I absolutely love.
@arwarw I guess my favourite thing about Princeton was the perfect balance they had between research and undergraduate education because I got the sense that they respected undergrads opinions and ability as much as professors. I also love the Hume Sequence, the residential college system (although not as much as Yale’s), the eating clubs seemed cool, the architecture of the campus was absolutely breathtaking, and the local town was student focused and comfortable yet you had access to New York and Philadelphia. I also really connected with the students. I had an amazing conversation with one guy about Fitzgerald and a British girl who was also from London who told me about how she adapted to life pond side.
@LoveTheBard I love the idea of the Columbia Core, but probably slightly prefer Princeton’s Hume Sequence and Yale’s DS.
I did like Mount Holyoke - really liked it, actually - and as soon as I visited I immediately knew I was definitely applying. Liking it so much has given me a lot of confidence in applying to Princeton SCEA or UChicago/Reed EA since as long as I get into MHC I’ll be fine. I would be perfectly happy going there.
@OutOfKantrol – thanks for the explanation. Your comment is confusing because Columbia College is not synonomous with Columbia University An American would not use the word “uni” in any case-- instead, on campus, the University might be referred to a CU.
There are 4 undergraduate colleges – CC, SEAS, GS, & Barnard. Students at all 4 have CU ID’s and access to CU facilities & services. All degrees are issued by CU, and the university wide commencement ceremony includes all schools.
It sounds like your top choices are elsewhere so it really doesn’t matter. It’s just that I think the phrase “full university experience” would be interpreted to include the shared campus life of all schools, not just the curriculum of one.
Referring to CC as “uni” is the equivalent of referring to New York City as “state”. Hence my confusion.
@calmom Sorry for the confusion and thanks for clearing it all up. I try to refer to it as ‘college’ or ‘school’ but sometimes I forget and my inner Brit slips out. It’s hard because in the UK a lot of people refer to sixth form (grades 11 & 12) as college and everyone around me is calling it uni, but I guess I need to work hard on breaking the habit.
@LoveTheBard I visited UChicago on my trip and absolutely loved it. I have already started my application. As for Pomona, I’m not sure whether I’ll be visiting or not. I already have 6 reaches (I’ve decided to definitely apply to Swarthmore) so is 7 too much? Also I’m not sure if I could handle the heat. But if I did visit I’d visit either at the beginning of September or October half term.
Well, it would have been equally confusing if you had written “full college experience” – given that the University is made up of multiple colleges, of which Columbia College is only one. (I might point out that the same holds true at Oxford – which adds to the confusion by having one of its many colleges named “University College” — but I assume that no one would speculate that their admission to Trinity College could somehow lead to them missing out on the “full”(Oxford) uni experience).
If you had written “full Columbia experience” I might have been more likely to assume you were referring to the core-- since students do often use “Columbia” to mean CC rather than CU.
So it doen’t really matter whether you use the term “uni” vs. “college” – it’s just that your post suggested that you may not have understood that Barnard is one of the undergraduate colleges of CU.
I was wondering what your thoughts were on Jesuit schools, specifically Georgetown, Notre Dame, and Boston College. I’m definitely an atheist and a militant one at that. Would I be fine being vocal about these beliefs? One of the three areas of philosophy I’m currently most interested in is the philosophy of religion (the other two being applied ethics and political philosophy) and I’m considering minoring in either religious studies or English, so a Jesuit school would - I assume - be very strong in the academic areas I’m most interested in pursuing to a high level.
Also here’s one for irony: I started off this thread saying I wasn’t at all interested in rural colleges, and now three of my top choices are Carleton, Kenyon, and Grinnell, with Hamilton right up there too.
It’s OK to change your mind as you learn about options & possibilities. Being open minded is a sign of intelligence, you know
As to Georgetown – plenty Jews and Muslims, along with lots of atheists, attend Georgetown. That said, there are crosses in the classrooms and it IS a Jesuit institution. If you’re willing to respect the history and the culture which founded the school, it’s willing to accept your disbelief.
Boston College and Georgetown would definitely be good choices for Classics/Humanities/Religious
Studies.
Jesuits tend to be more on the liberal side of the Catholic Church (Pope Francis is certainly more liberal than his predecessor) and they enjoy good intellectual discussions. As the Jesuits were founded to counter the Protestant Reformation, the members of the order are well-versed in multiple viewpoints.
Notre Dame is not Jesuit (Holy Cross order?) and might tend slightly towards the conservative side. Given that it is in Indiana, that is to be expected, although I would think the school itself is less conservative than the typical demographics of the state. Be warned that you might need to learn to love American football if you should decide to go there…
I was a firm agnostic/secular humanist when I applied to and matriculated in college, and I applied to Georgetown, Holy Cross & Boston College with no reservation. Beyond their academic reputations, what also appealed to me was the absence of a Greek system (or in Georgetown’s case, a prominent Greek system), which I was thoroughly not into. I wound up going to Holy Cross and never found the religion thing to be an issue. I fulfilled my religious studies requirement by taking a course in Islam, which was actually really interesting. The philosophy departments at Jesuit schools tend to be strong and I found that to be the case at HC as well. I do think the atmosphere at Notre Dame would be more conservatively Catholic, so would keep that in consideration. Good luck to you!
@OutofKantrol, Application lists often evolve over the course of researching and visiting schools. My son started off targeting urban, suburban and small town schools and ended up with several rural schools at the top of his list. Something about the insularity and serenity of Williams, Kenyon and Hamilton really spoke to him. We didn’t get to Grinnell or Carleton, but I would imagine that the ambience is similar. (Cornell’s setting is, to me, also profoundly beautiful, but that’s another category all together.)
I do, however, think it’s important to visit rural colleges, as there are individual nuances that differentiate the experience and it’s are hard to grasp how rural is rural until you’re actually on campus. For example, Williamstown is a tiny town (a village really) but it’s a town with a handful of shops and restaurants, which differentiates Williams’ environment from that of Kenyon and Hamilton. The influence of the Williamstown Theater Festival, the Clark Museum and MassMoCa also helped make Williamstown seem bigger.
Agree about Williams. It is small and sophisticated. The entire Berkshires region is a magnet for artsy, intellectual people who come from Boston and NY for weekends and summers. Many people who live in the region year-round have decamped from Boston or NY.
While I don’t think that as an atheist you’d have a problem at any of those schools, I’m not sure that you would find the intellectual community you crave. Georgetown is fairly pre-professional and its student body very much full of go-getter ivy wannabes. Jesuit schools tend to be more liberal than Catholic schools like Boston College and Notre Dame.
You’ve got so many great schools on your list already – don’t muddy the waters.
