Good colleges for me?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hmmm I am pretty sure that I will be applying to Brown ED, but I need backups in case it doesn't work out. Unfortunately, all of my "backups" are even more selective or nearly as selective as Brown, so, lovely. I need other suggestions.</p>

<p>I have a 1510 old SAT, 790 720 700 SAT IIs, taking the ACT this April, "homeschooler", taken college classes full time for past few years (year round with summer and January courses) and I have a 4.0 GPA and have a ton of extracurricular type things up the wazoo. (Political activism, lots of tutoring, teaching classes for homeschooling groups, etc). I want to go abroad this summer and have some cool architecture type plans with that.</p>

<p>I love classics and architecture. I would love to study Latin and Greek and Sanskrit in college, but I think that would be more of a hobby for me; my dream would be to design sustainable and eco-friendly homes and such.</p>

<p>I love rural life and small cities. I hate dead beat cities though and industrial places. I LOVE the northeast, but for some reason I can't stand Pennsylvania, so Haverford and Swarthmore and such are not too appealing to me. Location would be pretty important for me, though; I definitely want to be in a very liberal, progressive environment. </p>

<p>I also really like Wesleyan, Yale, and Williams, just to give people an idea of the sort of places I'm attracted to. I've looked a lot into foreign universities, too, and I would be really really realllllly happy at a European university that fit all this criteria.</p>

<p>I also don't like Vassar or Georgetown or other colleges that have discriminatory policies towards homeschoolers.</p>

<p>Okay, college suggestions would be great. I'm totally happy with alternative type schools, but Hampshire college is too close to home and I'm pretty sure that Marlboro and Bennington would just be too small. I think 1,000-8,000 students would be ideal. </p>

<p>I'm also a middle class white female. Not sure if that's relevant at all, but I figured that someone would probably want to know, so. Yay.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Occidental (CA), Bard (NY), New College (a branch of USoFL), Evergreen State (WA) have similar, progressive, activist atmospheres and are somewhat easier to get into than Wesleyan or Brown.</p>

3

<p>For some reason I'm just not attracted at all to Bard. :-/ Thanks for the suggestions, are there any other similar schools not in the west coast or south? Haha I'm so picky.</p>

<p>I love Oberlin, but Ohio...meh. And Carleton and Macalester, but again, Minnesota... :-/</p>

4

<p>Bates. But, there again, you're edging into hard-to-get-into territory.</p>

5

<p>Something about Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby all turn me off. I don't even know what it is. :-/</p>

6

<p>what about Middlebury?</p>

7

<p>Ha, fids, you're hard to please. If you don't like Minnesota, you probably won't like Iowa either, but Grinnell is worth looking into. Are all-women's schools an option?</p>

8

<p>Well, none are as cool as Wesleyan ;). But, the secret to the Maine colleges is not to think of them as the same school. Bates is very different from Colby. Bowdoin is slightly more pretentious than the other two (kind of Amherst <em>lite</em>.) One other place you might want to look into is, Wagner College. It is one of the strangest LACs I've ever seen. Technically, it's in New York City, but it's the Staten Island part of NYC which means it's really more Jersey suburb in feel than anything. The campus is quite pretty. It's private and so, the students are upper middle class--but, not preppy; most are probably from the City and environs. I can't imagine it would that difficult to get into.</p>

9

<p>cornell has a great school of architecture, but it's not easy to get into.</p>

10

<p>I actually am really attracted to Grinnell for some odd reason. Haha, I might apply there. And I am hard to please.</p>

<p>I might apply to Cornell. It's sort of...big. And not liberal enough!</p>

11

<p>And all women schools would only be an option if I could take classes at neighboring schools with guys. :-/ Smith and Mt Holyoke are too close, though.</p>

12

<p>Definitely look at Grinnell. If possible, I'd visit though, because I thought it had a particular feel to it that some people might like/dislike. It is a nice place though, really liberal, I don't think they have an architecture program, but the bio program there good, and sounds kind of different from other schools.</p>

13

<p>hey johnwesley, usually i respect/agree with your posts (on other boards... i rarely post here), but could you clarify how bowdoin is "amherst<em>lite</em>"? there are so many people here at bowdoin, myself included, who absolutely <em>hated</em> amherst, which makes me wonder if your chosen description is really that accurate.</p>

14

<p>Rabo, the thing about me is that I fall in love with wherever I am. I despise everywhere in theory, but I've never been to a place that wasn't the greatest place I've ever been to. I should visit it, though, don't know when I'd get the time to go to Iowa.</p>

15

<p>Skidmore would be a good "safety" for you, considering your stats. And Sarah Lawrence and Colgate.</p>

16

<p>Apply to Dartmouth ED next year. Dartmouth is where its at</p>

17

<p>Don't apply to Colgate. Based on this and other threads, you wouldn't like it.</p>

18

<p>I thought about Skidmore. A girl I hate goes to Colgate, and Sarah Lawrence might be a little too New Yorky and female-centered? :-/ </p>

<p>I kind of like Dartmouth. But I'm definitely going for Brown ED.</p>

19

<p>Skidmore would be a pretty safe bet for you.</p>

20

<p>Allison - You're right to admonish me. Bowdoin actually preceded Amherst in existence by about 27 years. In fact, before Maine was made a separate state it was a part of Massachusetts which for a while made Bowdoin the third oldest college in the Bay State, after Harvard and Williams. But, therein lies part of my point. Both Amherst and Bowdoin are steeped in old Yankee tradition; put two of their older alumni together in the same room and they will debate endlessly over which poets best represented New England tradition: Wordsworth and Hawthorne (Bowdoin) or Dickinson and Frost (though neither of them actually graduated from Amherst, both Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost are amply represented by campus landmarks) and until quite recently both competed for the same middle-of-the-road, English, Biology or History majors. The size and composition of the two schools are remakably similar. If anything, Amherst is probably a bit more diverse these days thanks to the great job its feeder schools (some of the better known New England boarding schools) have done in recruiting gays, blacks and women.</p>