I know she doesn’t want a religious college but I’d encourage her to look at Fordham Lincoln Center campus. I think she would like the vibe there, academics are strong, and they have non binding EA.
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I know you said not the south…but if you think Charleston and Richmond are OK, you really should look in Atlanta. Emory comes to mind. Excellent school. Atlanta is very cosmopolitan, and has everything one could imagine an urban area would have.
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Emory is like American - it’s not urban, it’s suburban - but it does have a few restaurants right off campus across from the bookstore. I agree it’s a great school and Emory would be fine (a tough admit) - but Ga Tech and State plus Kennesaw would be “urban” whereas Emory is a 10 minute uber ride away from downtown.
Check out Colorado College in downtown Colorado Springs. Great location bordering a smaller urban location with Denver an hour to the north!
I’m going to do another shout out for University of Vermont. Burlington is quite the lively urban setting. Once borders open up, it’s also not a long trip to Montreal. UVM is a pretty liberal campus with a variety of points of view presented.
We know a number of folks who have attended and have totally loved it there. Lots of choices of majors, and also lots of outdoor activities to do in addition to college based things.
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I live outside of Boulder, where CU is… Big school, medium size town but with lots of other attached towns so feels bigger. VERY liberal area, beautiful campus and… Well everything around. Walkable. Good psych program (I teach psych at the local community College). Much to offer!! DU is in Denver and a lovely campus. We visited another school in Burlington but UVM seemed like a smaller scale of CU in a similar town. I’d highly recommend visiting a few because nothing replaces being on the campus and feeling what that’s like.
We love the Northwest and U Washington seems beautiful, great city. Willamette in Salem, Oregon might be worth a look. Not huge anything but all together might fit and nearish to Portland.
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With a 4.0 unweighted and plenty of AP classes she’ll be as well fitted as anyone!
My daughter ended up on the Psychology/Neurosciences track and has had good professors, a wide range of courses, effective advising - and been able to pick up relevant internships in NY and suburbs.
NYU is completely in line with her numbers. If she’s interested in Barnard and Columbia Univ she definitely should visit and apply.
Yes, acceptance rate is low with an already self-selecting applicant pool - but specially Barnard is very much looking beyond just numbers!
We’re in VT and I’m so relieved my S23 has decided UVM could be a possibility, since that may be where he ends up. He wants NYU too, but likely similar SAT and lower GPA since a 4.0 in our school is something like 98-100. He wants music and culture based on a few short visits to Montreal and Boston. I would say Burlington is not a high fashion city! And limited for culture and diversity. But beautiful and so much easier to get around in. And liberal on fire lol. Coming from LA has your daughter considered weather? Long winters here and in Montreal.
My son read that McGill doesn’t have many student dorms, but I will have to confirm. He’s not ready for a full city experience! His brother didn’t care about location but ended up with the best deal at BU, so we’ll learn from his experience starting there this fall.
If NYU is her first choice, I’d say that Boston U and Northeastern are the closest to the NYU kind of location and experience.
and GW. Well to me
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What size school, is Greek life important, is there any flexibility on location in South, would she consider mid-size cities?
Some options:
Case Western
University of Pittsburgh
University of Richmond
Bryn Mawr (Wikipedia has as non-denominational since 1893)
Would your junior consider one of the other Loyola campuses like Loyola University Maryland or Loyola University New Orleans?
The poster doesn’t want religious affiliation or the south. Loyola NOLA is both. Loyola MD is religious.
Boston Univesity, McGill or University of Toronto, GW or Georgetown. Georgetown is catholic in theory but is a progressive liberal student body - the religion aspect most likely won’t be an issue. It isn’t like NOtre Dame. Interesting that people are recommending U of Arizona. I don’t really view Tucson as urban - and my d is considering applying there but despite Arizona going blue in last election I am concerned about the student body being too conservative to seriously consider it…
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Tucson is city of more than 500K people, a much larger metro area, and is decidedly liberal. In many conservative states, you have liberal areas.
The college is in a busy location, surrounded by hotels and businesses and a short street car ride from downtown.
Perhaps it’s just me that sees it meets the OPs needs - and for smart kids, its cheap. They have a ton of midwest and Northeast kids as well.
There’s not too many cities with over 500K people and metro areas of over 1 million - that when you’re in the heart of the city, you wouldn’t consider urban.
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McGill houses 4000 first year students on campus. There is no housing for later years unless you are an RA.
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NYU’s median SAT this last admission cycle was 1520 with almost 100,000 applicants so we weren’t super confident about her chances even though her GPA is excellent. She’ll for sure be applying, but given that she has no real hooks (maybe geographic but there’s are some very competitive public high schools in our city so not sure), we wanted a list with some good targets she’d be excited about.
One of my favorite cities in North America is Ottawa. As the Capitol of Canada, it is an international city with tons of embassies. It has a vibrant arts scene although it has been diminished by Covid as is the case everywhere. The city itself is very walkable with beautiful parks and scenic pathways along the Ottawa River.
The University of Ottawa is a first rate college. It is similar in size to NYU on the undergraduate level and like NYU, it is located in the heart of the city. It’s worth a look.
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This sounds amazing and I never would have thought of it! These are exactly the sorts of suggestions I had hoped for in posting!