Madison is not a large city (about 250,000 souls), but there’s plenty of concrete. The University of Wisconsin has a number of highly regarded programs, Psychology among them. And if she decided to major in something else, it’s extremely likely that UW offers it.
There is also some green space and a few freshwater lakes on/bordering campus, so if she needed respite from the urban(ish) jungle, it’s available.
UT-Austin is similar in size and quality, but OOS admission is extremely difficult. It would probably be easier for her to get into UW. UW suffers in the USNews ranking, but it is quite well known globally and very well regarded, as it has the third-highest research budget among all US schools, behind only Johns Hopkins and Michigan.
My oldest (and now my youngest) went to Rutgers. It’s urban/suburban, pretty liberal, very diverse, big ten football, and a very easy train ride to Manhattan and Philly.
I hear what you’re saying. The issue here is that the criteria (specific cities, politics, religious affiliation) combined with the prospective applicant’s test scores/GPA suggest a very narrow band of disparate schools. Going strictly by the criteria:
U Washington, Reed, Lewis&Clark, Hunter, New School, Barnard, NYU, Northeastern, BU, GW and American spring to mind. I might have missed one or two. Everything else is either religiously affiliated, in a location not specified by the OP, not really urban (like a Wellesley or Brandeis), it doesn’t have the major under consideration (Emerson), it’s too much of a reach (Columbia) or it is frankly not worthy of consideration for a kid with better options coming from 2,000 miles away.
And it’s not like all of these 11 will be good fits despite meeting the criteria. If someone’s dream school is NYU, Reed is not gonna be a fit. In order to create a list, something will likely need to give to include more schools:
-more cities (to include schools like URochester, urban Big Ten flagships, McGill, Toronto, etc), -greater clarity from the applicant regarding what they hope to experience both daily and over the course of a year from an urban environment (to include or exclude more suburban areas or other cites)
-including the most liberal religious affiliated schools in target cities (Loyola)
-opening up to going to liberal urban campuses in the south or LA
I say again Arizona and UVM for urban and liberal. in south Vandy but a stretch. Kennesaw State. American is not urban. It’s very suburban but a 15 minute walk to Tenley Town to take the train to urban. GW is urban. VCU is another. College of Charleston is very urban, easy to get into with merit, and many Northeasterners.
I guess it would help to know what the student wants from Urban too. State Capital for internships and newspapers? Denver, Madison, Tallahassee, Austin. Just to be near concerts and sports and theater? Boulder is an easy bus ride to Denver, and the Boston suburban schools have access to all things city. There is a big difference between Oberlin small town and Grinnell small town.
To me, if a school has 40k students, that’s urban. Penn State is going to have theater and sports and concerts and stores to shop in.
Absolutely. When I hear “urban” what is most important is to understand how the student anticipates interacting with the area off campus and how frequently. Internship options? Perhaps someone wants a couple of walkable entertainment districts nearby that aren’t necessarily overrun with classmates. Or the chance to go to museums, performing arts or sporting events off campus a certain number of times per year. Maybe they’re happy with a small restaurant/bar district near campus and the bigger city 30 minutes by train or bus. Or maybe they want a true urban experience where you step out of an academic building into a concrete jungle like NYU. Or maybe, because they’re 17-18, they’re in love with the vague notion of urban but don’t really know what they want from it.
I went to school in St Louis. I visited a lot of friends all over the country during school in LA, NY, Boston, Chicago, NOLA, remote college towns, etc. I’ve lived in London, NYC and Chicago and have family in LA and the Bay Area. One thing I’ve noticed that is almost universally true is that people settle in to habits after a few months and don’t really consume the culture of the area. Especially as college students with more limited budgets, time commitments for academics, school activities, sleep and mundane aspects of day to day living. People go to the same bars, restaurants, coffee shops a short walk from campus life over and over. That is 90% of their off campus experience. And only 20% of their experience is outside of school related things anyway. It could be in the Village, Back Bay, Madison, or Pittsburgh, but it’s pretty much the same stuff with a different name. They may go to world class museum X during college…once.
If someone wants to avoid the fishbowl of a small town where the school basically is the town…I get that. But there are hugely diminishing returns when you go from Pittsburgh to NYC as it relates to off campus college experience. The buzz from the electricity of the tier one cities tends to wear off by the end of first year and then you’re left with 6 more semesters.
This is one she has been looking into but it seems extremely spendy to me considering that the academics don’t get great rankings. But if she really really wants to be in NYC, this may be her best bet (and she may get into Barnard or NYU, but looking at their admission stats for last cycle, those seem like high reaches for her or really anyone).
I agree with you wholeheartedly on this. We relocated from LA to SLC 1.5 years ago and in her 17 year old mind, she loves the energy of a big city, even though she very rarely visited the parts of LA that were more big city and almost never left Santa Monica to explore the culture that LA offers. I actually think she would likely do best at a big state flagship university but just working convincing her to add some of those to her list!
I fully agree this results in a very narrow band of disparate schools. I am working on getting her to broaden her criteria. Mostly was hoping to see if anyone had ideas I might not have considered because it really does not net a lot of schools and some of them are very large, some tiny, and as you said, some that are going to be lesser in quality academically than our local LAC and state university.
So again, you have College of Charleston - which is urban, in a liberal city, with tons of Northeasterners - it’s one of the hot cities in the country right now and the school is smack downtown (tourist area so lots of shops, etc.).
Mizzou - won’t be liberal.
Milwaukee - so Marquette - Jesuit.
SLC is on there - the U. I know you want out.
Austin - UT - OOS - near impossible
Miami - but the U isn’t in the city.
Seattle - UW - and liberal.
Philly - Temple/Drexel and lots of LACs nearby
Not on the fashion list but UVM would be an outstanding choice - Vermont is liberal on fire and Burlington is a cool city - and close to Montreal.
I love it! I’ll have to send this to her – the neighborhood mentioned in SLC is our neighborhood. I would love to be able to talk her into College of Charleston (I love Charleston!). I’ll see if this article might help expand her ideas of places. I also think UVM would be such a great fit for her, I’m just up against Gen Z fashion influencers who are apparently flocking to NYC.
I kept saying Arizona - but people were pooh poohing me. I thought that fit. With a 4.0, tuition is dirt cheap. Tucson and the school are liberal, and what an overall great city, with fantastic scenery (the mountains, not the girls, although I’m sure the boys would say they have that too).
While you have no budget constraints, why spend if you needn’t.
Charleston is cheap too with merit. If you stand out as a student, you can be a Fellow - as my daughter is. Her tuition is covered - and the city is just super - it’s basically a public LAC, about 10K kids. It’s not the higest in pedigree but…
You might look at FSU - Tallahassee leans left - and the school is amongst the city as well. Even if she doesn’t get an OOS waiver, tuition is reasonable - and you have no constraints.
One more - but about 3 miles from downtown in a liberal haven amongst - well, conservatives - UNC Asheville- it’s a very cool town and easy to get from the school to downtown. It’s the public LAC of the UNC system.
Check out Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond. It’s a very urban campus and lots of fashion going on. They have a great arts school (VCUArts) that includes fashion majors of various stripes. My D22 loved Richmond and the artsy vibe there. She’s a big lover of vintage fashion and there were a lot of vintage places in Richmond adjacent to the VCU campus. We walked around the campus and city for half a day when it was still locked down and VCU got bumped up on her list just because she thought it was so funky and cool. She would definitely get merit there and could get some really good $$.
She was a hard no when I suggested Arizona and anywhere in FL, unfortunately. I am one hundred percent with you on why spend if you don’t need to, but I think at 17 it’s just very hard to grasp. I do wonder if there’s any way I could sell her on the merits of Asheville! I think that would be an incredible place for her and a vibe she’d love. It’s really hard because so much for her gen does seem to hinge on brand recognition.
Agreed. I put in #43. VA conservative but Richmond gives u access to DC as well.
I think if you can take some trips with your daughter she might change her time on some places.
As it sounds like she’ll be a liberal arts major of some sort…ie not job preparing and possibly grad school, if you would like to hold a budget, and that’s up to you, then have that chat now. The 17 year olds run us over but it’s time to set the rules.
At U of A as an example, she’d get $35k off the $38k tuition, and the Honors dorm is unreal.
The irony is that if she wasn’t in Utah already, the U would meet many of her location requirements. But if you are prepared to pay OOS fees, UW Seattle seems like a good option.
VA is blue in the urban areas and red in the rural areas. Richmond is pretty liberal I believe. Looks like Virginia and Richmond have voted for the Democrat in all the recent elections.
CC just keeps automatically linking U Richmond when you type Richmond, but I don’t think anyone was suggesting that college. I suggested VCU. (Not sure why it doesn’t automatically get linked?) https://www.vcu.edu/