Yeah, Swarthmore is not urban. It’s suburban, though the city is easily reachable by train. Carleton is a good 45min to the city. The Burbs start around 10-15 minutes away.
Hi @Publisher I didn’t know whether to PM you or continue in the forum, but my second paragraph might have some benefit to OP. Anyway, I didn’t mean to pick on YOU, and I’m sure you didn’t mean to give offense. One of the things that I think is going on in our country, which can go overboard but is generally good, is we’re starting to examine the way things are worded because there are many instances in which the wording can carry a residual prejudice; even if the speaker doesn’t have any prejudice themselves and didn’t intend any prejudice at all, a listener with a bias can hear that as a confirmation/legitimization of their bias. So I wasn’t intending to call you out individually, but instead to debunk a potential bias. I’m sorry if it came across personally, I didn’t mean it that way.
Here’s why I was touchy about your wording: when my D and I were telling the list of schools that she was thinking of applying to, when some people heard Barnard, they immediately lept to the conclusion that she was only applying there as a backdoor to getting into Columbia. We heard that many times from older people who aren’t in the know. But nothing could be farther from the truth! My D would never have applied to Columbia - zero interest in the mandated core because it reduced her ability to take other courses she was interested in. But Barnard, wow, for us it was Columbia + …all the rigor and intellectualism of Columbia, less the negatives of Columbia, plus the positives of Barnard. Given that Barnard is slightly easier to get into than Columbia (median ACT of 31-34 vs 33-35, and 15% admit rate vs 5.8% for class of 2021), I think there are still some potential applicants who also think Barnard is a good back-door into Columbia, but based on the comments of several of my D’s friends who go there, I think Barnard does a good job of weeding out those applicants and instead accepting kids who view Barnard the same way my D does, as a more desirable option for them.
My kid was the same. Columbia turned her right off with the core, mostly, but she liked Barnard a lot.
I didn’t say Swat was urban – it’s suburban. But its strong intellectual vibe makes it (still) a top option for the OP, in my opinion.
Regarding Carleton’s distance to the Twin Cities, it depends on where you’re going. To the middle of downtown Minneapolis, it’s about 45 mins, according to Maps on my phone. Mario Andretti and lucky with the lights, maybe 35. lol
You can get to the city, then, in about 30-35 – the south side.
Regarding Pomona and Scripps, I’d call them big small town/suburban. If I referred to them as rural, I was using the term relative to LA. 
I did not know the size of Middletown relative to Poughkeepsie. The result being what it is, Wesleyan could make sense too. And yeah, I think V and W are very close peers.
If intellectual vibe and big city/urban are OP’s two main preferences, then I think we’re looking at Chicago and Columbia, maybe Reed. Allowing for smaller cities or fairly close proximity to cities allows us to add a slew of quality LACs, Princeton, etc. I would name Princeton before Yale or Harvard, in terms of intellectualism, because of the senior thesis requirement – a huge intellectual exercise. They all have their wall street/pre-professional sides too, but i think that thesis requirement gives P the edge in intellectualism. As the Core gives Columbia the edge over H and Y as well. Again, in my opinion.
That is not to say that a kid couldn’t design and receive a highly intellectual education at H or Y. The Core and the thesis simply mean that everyone at Columbia and Princeton must take part in highly intellectual classes/work.
The vibe is still different. The area around Northfield is not very populated. I like this tool to get a sense of how many people live in an area: https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm
10 miles from Carleton College, the population is 32,940. 20 miles, and you’re at 183,715.
10 miles from Swarthmore College, the population is 1,042,542. 20 miles, and you’re at 3.4 million.
10 miles from Pomona College, the population is 904,242. 20 miles, and you’re at 3.3 million (and still not in LA, lol).
10 miles from Wellesley College, the population is 689,823. 20 miles, and you’re at 2.8 million.
10 miles from Wesleyan University, the population is 264,483. 20 miles, and you’re at 1.2 million.
10 miles from Vassar College, the population is 196,612. 20 miles, and you’re at 493,265.
I tossed in an urban LAC, Reed, for comparative measure.
10 miles- 1.044 million. 20 miles- 1.8 million
Not trying to advocate that Pomona and Swarthmore are urban- they’re not. But the overall area vibe is different from Carleton. More people live within 10 miles of rural Williams College or Kenyon College than Carleton College. It’s especially quiet and detached.
@prezbucky your statement about the core creating an intellectual vibe contrasting with my opinion that it limits intellectual freedom is what makes the world go around! So funny how radically different people can view things but it’s a good contrast for OP to see that X exists and she has to determine the impact of X for herself.
My only other comment is that I’m well familiar with Poughkeepsie and Middletown, and IMO there’s just not much there if you’re an urban kid. Contrast that to Amherst that’s also rural but is a college town, I think an urban kid would be fine there because there are so many college kids there. FWIW Poughkeepsie is on a commuter rail line to NYC but it’s almost a 2 hour ride.
I think it’s that the Columbia core – and maybe i need to double-check it – is so rich in the humanities. That’s why i’m thinking it adds to the overall intellectual level of the school.
Now, at most schools, you do have to take some humanities courses, but Columbia seems to have chosen some “classic” courses. And the fact all the kids have to take those means more shared learning experiences, which means – if they are bored – they’ll have something to talk about. 
Yeah, i realize small cities are a stretch, maybe, if a kid wants to go to school in a real urban center. But at least there’s some concrete, buildings in the town, a mall, restaurants, a lack of cows, etc.
It would be very misleading to say that Carleton is more isolated than Williams. If you expanded that 10 mi. radius to 15 or so you get into suburban Minneapolis, then quite quickly into Minneapolis proper.
Agree. Amherst is a very usable, walkable town with multiple restaurants, coffee shops, clothing stores, parks and bars.
Poughkeepsie, on the other hand, has very little in the way of that stuff near Vassar campus. I’m from NYC and went to Vassar and I took that train (+ taxi to and from station - it really added up costwise) as often as I could, I really found nothing in P’town to do at all. Especially without a car.
I’ve been to Amherst many times and, IMO, if you combine it with Northampton, you have the makings of an interesting afternoon off campus. The caveat is that a good many of the best restaurants are located in malls and for that, you need a car. Middletown has malls, too, but it also has a mile long Main Street that is only steps away from the college.
There is also the “grit factor”, in case the OP prefers his cities with a bit of socio-economic diversity. Middletown and Poughkeepsie have it and Amherst/Northampton do not.
Hm, I didn’t think Middletown has all that much grit and it has some pretty parts with the river and decent hiking nearby. Poughkeepsie, though, seems pretty run down to me in the downtown area, with a lot of franchise type businesses on the drive into downtown. It’s a real shame because it’s on the Hudson and has so much potential. I hope this is helpful to the OP since she might not have much time to visit the area, but she should also look at what other people say, as this is just my opinion.
^On the whole, Middletown has had better luck with urban renewal and I have to give Wesleyan credit for putting its money where it mouth is in terms of attracting businesses to downtown and sponsoring after-school programs/
@prezbucky - just to add into the mix, Barnard does have a senior thesis (or project) requirement – whereas although Columbia has the core, I think that a senior thesis remains as an option in some majors. I’ll leave it to you to figure out where you land on the Columbia vs. Barnard comparison – you seem to have opined that a senior thesis gives the edge on intellectualism… but again, that’s your opinion, not mine.
(My daughter really did dig in and enjoy her senior thesis experience - and it was fun in the end when pitched in at the end of term to help with the task of returning the 100-some-odd books stacked in her apartment room back to their respective libraries at Columbia and Barnard… they all had different homes which gave me a flavor of the resource available to all students there – but it wasn’t a factor that influence my daughter’s choice. I think my daughter would have preferred a more open curriculum if it had been an option for her)
Back to @nostalgicwisdom’s post #104. The international statistics figures from Amherst and Williams are even worse than I referenced before. International admissions are about 4 to 5% of the total international application pool, and that covers the whole world – including heavy hitters like Canada, China, India. I would think you would find similar rates at other small LACs, even lower if they categorize undocumented residents as internationals.
If the OP really aspires to an LAC then she needs to cast a super wide net, racheting down what she wants and focusing on what the colleges want.
After looking at the UK enrollment figures from several selective LACs, my suggestions would be apply to as many as you can handle competently, including schools in rural area and in the midwest and south, apply ED, develop and showcase strong ECs. The women’s colleges, especially the less selective ones like Smith, Holyoke and Bryn Mawr stay on the list. Visit before applying if at all possible.
I’d also encourage her to re-look on mid-sized – roughly 8,000 to 15,000 undergraduates – privates (aside from the Ivies) where the critical mass of international admits would be larger. I think in light of the steep challenge of LAC admissions for a non-ethnically diverse (I’m guessing there) UK citizen, the mid-sized group should be given another look. They’re still very selective, but the raw numbers of UK admits would, I think, be more favorable. (Someone else will have to research the statistics.)
To recap some that have already been suggested plus a few more:, Brandeis, Boston College, Carnegie Melon, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Miami of Ohio, Northwestern, Richmond, Rochester, Syracuse, Tufts, Tulane, William & Mary, Vanderbilt, WUSTL
Some of these may be more egalitarian than intellectually elite and some have big sports and/or Greek presences, but they all attract bright, high achieving students and draw from the same faculty pool as more selective schools.
I think Boston College has a strong classics department, and with OP’s scores would probably be admitted to their honors program.
“The problem with setting out reach/match/safety for OP is that she is not likely to get what she is seeking at anything but the reach schools.”
IMO, NCF is intellectual in it’s own way and so is Reed. Neither are super-reachy.
Oh, and New Haven has the best pizza in the world.
BTW, have you looked at the Liberal Arts courses in the UK or Trinity College Dublin?
If you think you can get into Oxford, then don’t give that up. Why don’t you study abroad in the U.S. for a semester? The idea of studying of studying for 4 years in the U.S. may sound appealing in writing, but it’s not for everyone.
@ab2002 reminded me: Emory! That’s another good medium sized add-on.
apologies if this was mentioned already but Johns Hopkins might be worth the view…they just received a $75 million (!) grant to the philosophy dept and it will likely become one of the best in the world https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-wall-street-legends-bet-on-philosophy-majors-is-a-good-investment-2018-01-18
BTW, for philosophy, the second post by @bclintonk is worth a read:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/553704-top-philosophy-departments.html