<p>Given your listed preferences, are you truly sure about: Yale (New Haven, even with recent urban renewal, is quite far removed from descriptors like quaint and nice), Alfred (you may find the academics a bit weaker than many of your other choices), and Colby (diversity there not generally a strong point)?</p>
<p>Your pretty sure choices actually look more consistent with what youre searching for, Carleton and Amherst in particular.</p>
<p>1190- maybe you're right... Yale I definatly want (I have other reasons for watning to go there), and Colby (got to visit, and LOVED it!). Perhaps not Alfred, though... Hm. Well, I'm changing tactics. I've tried to categorize all the schools on my (new, expanded! Its so much easier to add than to remove places...) list into 5 categories, and thought of how many of each I want on my final list. Should be easier to work that way than with all of them in a big heap.</p>
<p>New list! (*= I'm pretty sure I want to keep it)</p>
<p>Safety (want 1-2):
Alfred
Clark
Wittenberg
Eckerd
U Tulsa</p>
<p>Lower Match (want 2-3):
Beloit
Denison
Lawrence*
Knox
Earlham</p>
<p>Higher Match (these 2 are both good):
Macalester
Whitman</p>
<p>Lower Reach (3 is good):
Carleton
Colby
Grinnell</p>
<p>Higher Reach (want 5-6):
Brown
Middlebury
Williams
Yale*
Amherst*
Swarthmore</p>
<p>Get rid of Wittenberg. Every very intelligent person I've ever known who's gone there has felt completely stifled in there. I don't have details as to why, but I just know the pattern. Also, I've been there during the school year, and everything about it was lackluster, from the campus to the buildings to the library to the students I met.</p>
<p>Why not Dartmouth? Seems like an extremely good fit. There are many misconceptions about Dartmouth, most of them not true.</p>
<p>Ok, I guess Wittenberg can go. The thing I like the most about it is that they have a $10,000-15,000 scholarship for IB diploma graduates (which I'll be), but I guess that's not a good enough reason to apply. I certainly don't want to go somewhere lackluster!</p>
<p>I was considering Dartmouth before, but decided to drop it after visiting. I thought I'd love the place- everything about it sounds great. Something about it just didn't appeal to me. Maybe I should re-think it, though? This is all so confusing!</p>
<p>I would re-think it! I think once you get in and go on accepted students days you get a much more real vision of a campus...</p>
<p>Just a tale (or, to be more precise) a fact from the front: At my daughter's suburban Chicago high school, four students who were rejected from Carleton got into Brown this year. Go figure.</p>
<p>If you loved Colby I think you would also love Middlebury. The student body is not very diverse but otherwise it meets your requirements in every way. My daughter also grew up as an expatriate and has found Middlebury a very good fit. I think the superb foreign language programs draw a student body with a certain global perspective. Middlebury is also known for its English Department. The town of Middlebury is sleepy but gorgeous as is the surrounding countryside. It's just 40 minutes to Burlington which is handy for shopping and the airport. Jet Blue would take you down to New York cheaply for flights home and elsewhere. I could go on and on but basically I just encourage you to check it out more thoroughly.</p>
<p>Eckerd is not in a quaint little town. St. Pete has plenty of strip malls. When I visited in the late 70's the campus felt very "cement-blockish" without many trees. I would only go there if you really like the beach or there is some program they offer that you want.</p>
<p>Of your 6 top schools you seem like a better fit for Williams, Amherst, and Middlebury than the others. I'm surprised Yale is on your list since New Haven is hardly quaint. Swarthmore is in a suburb of Philly. Brown is in Providence which is a pretty good sized city.</p>
<p>There was a recent thread talking about Univ of Tulsa. Whistle Pig had nice things to say about it. <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=378639&highlight=Tulsa%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=378639&highlight=Tulsa</a></p>