<p>i like the northeast, the westcoast, the east coast, the southwest, alaska, hawaii, the northwest, etc. and i dont not like anything ive never been too, which is everything other than maine (which i like) and missouri (which i dont like). I also like australia, new zealand, all of europe, south america, certain places in africa and most places in asia, all of oceania, and possibly antarctica.</p>
<p>how about unc asheville-grainy town-beautiful mountains, lots of outdoor activities</p>
<p>If you crave lots of sunlight, I would say ix-nay on the (coastal) Pacific NW schools. You won't be seeing much sun in Seattle or Portland from October 1st thru April 1st - in other words, almost the entire school year. Whitman can stay in as a "reachy" option, though, since it has an entirely different climate.</p>
<p>you should consider Moravian or lehigh to your list very liberal, great party schools</p>
<p>Lehigh is also very traditional and conservative though. </p>
<p>Also, as you seem to prefer small schools, I would take off the larger state universities.</p>
<p>if you want outdoorsy look at kalamazoo's landsea program.
<a href="http://www.kzoo.edu/landsea/%5B/url%5D">http://www.kzoo.edu/landsea/</a></p>
<p>thats so cool! i cant wait to do fun things like that in college!</p>
<p>i need further convincing for the banishment of:</p>
<p>Sarah Lawrence - i dont mind the male/female ratio, what about bronxville, NY?
U Wisconsin/Madison - i heard theres a great books program/class but cant find any information about it
U Redlands (Johnston Center) - noone knows anything about this
Bard - fiske says its outdoorsy, you guys say its not? hudson, NY
Beloit - some love it/some hate it
Bennington - i dont mind artsy in theory, how does it differ from hampshire?
Kalamazoo - this one does sound cool, a reach though with my gpa
Earlham - richmond, IN?
Eckerd - no complaints about st. petersburg, FL
Hendrix - arkansas?!!
Lawrence - appleton, WI?
Willamette - sounds mainstream, i dont know. salem, OR</p>
<p>Sarah Lawrence is on the border between Bronxville and Yonkers. The town of Bronxville is the classic definition of preppy, and is not accommodating to college students in the slightest (think: overpriced boutiques). Yonkers is working-class and big-box stores. Not accommodating to college students for completely different reasons. Though I think SLC is a great school, I do not think its location is promising. Its one redeeming value is proximity to NYC.</p>
<p>Outside magazine's list (a little something for everybody):
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA CRUZ
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER
MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE
WARREN WILSON COLLEGE
MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
HUMBOLDT STATE UNIVERSITY
COLORADO COLLEGE
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA
BOWDOIN COLLEGE
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII
SOUTHERN OREGON UNIVERSITY
PRESCOTT COLLEGE
WILLIAMS COLLEGE
EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE
ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE Santa Fe, New Mexico
SHELDON JACKSON COLLEGE
BREVARD COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO
FORT LEWIS COLLEGE
ALASKA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA-DULUTH
CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY San Luis Obispo, California
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI Coral Gables, Florida
go to article mentioned earlier for particulars</p>
<p>I think many posters overlooked the "40th percentile GPA - the bad 40th."</p>
<p>Eliminate Bennington and Connecticut College, too much of a reach. Don't bother with Lehigh either. Don't add Middlebury, Dartmouth, Cornell, Bowdoin, Stanford or Williams from the Outside magazine list above.</p>
<p>Depends what type of "outdoorsy" you're looking for. There's a big difference between outdoors in Arizona and outdoors in Vermont!</p>
<p>"you should consider Moravian or lehigh to your list very liberal, great party schools"</p>
<p>Moravian isn't particularly liberal.</p>
<p>"North America's forty best colleges where you can hit the books and the backcountry. Ranked on a combination of academics and adventurous opportunities... <a href="http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200309/200309_college_towns_1.html%5B/url%5D">http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200309/200309_college_towns_1.html</a>"</p>
<p>It's great to see that Duluth made that list; the University of Minnesota Duluth (and the adjacent College of St. Scholastica) can be great options. Duluth is beautiful. You can fly into Duluth or it is an easy easy drive up 35W from Minneapolis/St Paul, which has direct incoming flightsd from just about everywhere - easier to fly into than Duluth. The rocky cliffs on the shores of Lake Superior are so beautiful; There is a lot of hiking, skiing, kayaking, and there are trails for four-wheeling or dirt biking. Many liberal and outdoorsy kids.</p>
<p>Duluth admits about 79% of applicants and Scholastica 87%; they are nice safeties. (Scholastica sounds like it would be conservative but it really isn't a "political" campus.) Also near Duluth (about an hour away) and on Lake Superior is Northland College, the "Environmental Liberal Arts College" in Ashland Wisconsin. There are free bikes throughout the campus; just grab one and use it when you need it, and leave it for the next person to ride to their next class. They admit 75% of applicants.</p>
<p>With your range of interests, if you are still thinking you may not have enough safety schools, you should consider the schools in Duluth. UMD has a really wide variety of majors and lots of nice housing available. FWIW, I think Scholastica is at about 70% female, probably partly related to their great nursing program - they are adding a football team starting this fall partly to attract more males...</p>
<p>I was going to say, I see you like to surf and unfortunately there is no surfing in Duluth, but I was wrong - I knew people surfed on Lake Erie in Cleveland so I checked to see if they surf Lake Superior in Duluth and they do: <a href="http://superiorsurfclub.com/faq.html%5B/url%5D">http://superiorsurfclub.com/faq.html</a>
Although I think they must be nuts...</p>
<p>bennington is a reach?!! i guess that narrows down my list to just evergreen state and prescott. </p>
<p>btw, ive never actually been surfing in my life. but im sure i would love it.</p>
<p>Burlington is actually not a city (medium sized town of ~38,000), and UVM attracts a very outdoors-oriented student body. I think the best fit on your list is Pitzer though.</p>
<p>how accepting of out of staters is UVM? the only way it will get back on to my 'maybe' list is if its a safety.</p>
<p>UVM is very accepting of out of state students, considering that 72% of its students are out of staters (I'm a Vermonter, so feel free to ask any question about the state that you would like.)</p>
<p>I found this info in an old college confidential thread. The Eco League is a consortium of colleges and universities that share missions based on environmental responsibility and social change.</p>
<p>They include
* Alaska Pacific University (Anchorage, AK)
* College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, ME)
* Green Mountain College (Poultney, VT)
* Northland College (Ashland, WI)
* Prescott College (Prescott, AZ) </p>
<p>See the Eco League web site <a href="http://www.ecoleague.org%5B/url%5D">www.ecoleague.org</a></p>
<p>Also, "Eco League exchanges are open to students who are enrolled in any academic area at a member school. Students can spend up to two non-consecutive semesters (or their trimester or quarter equivalents) as visiting students at other Eco League institutions without being considered transfer students." Sounds fun. You could spend time in three of these:
"Arizona" "Alaska" "Maine or Vermont" by enrolling in one and taking classes for a semester at two of the others.</p>
<p>wow wicked. college of the atlantic sounded awesome but i didnt want to commit to 4 years of ecology/biology. +1 for prescott.</p>
<p>about UVM, since its about 5x larger than any of the other schools on my list, what differences can i expect? large classes? lecture classes? minimal teacher-student interaction? etc?</p>
<p>Reed .</p>
<p>UVM's reputation is fairly outdoorsy & left-wing, I don't know if that's accurate or not. I know a few people whose kids had UVM as their safety, they ended up going there and loved it. Champlain is nearby, too - much smaller.</p>
<p>I'd check their website <a href="http://www.uvm.edu%5B/url%5D">www.uvm.edu</a> for more details on the school.</p>