Applying for history will help because few students choose to apply for that major. You can add a journalism, communication, or businedd minor fairly easily.
Do you have a budget?
Will you need merit aid (your parents can’t afford their efc)?
McGill: apply for liberal arts, very flexible degree, almost a safety. (A minor is required).
You will easily find reaches I think
Look into Skidmore - Saratoga Springs is a cool town. No Greek Life, no big sports. Low reach for history.
Connecticut College is in a big Port city, seems to offer thr fit you’re looking for.
St Olaf offers a dance major or minor as well as The Great Conversation or American Conversation which should be of interest. About 45mn South of Minneapolis st Paul.
In the Cities itself, Macalester. One of my favorite city neighborhoods, everything easily walkable or just hop onto a bike or public transportation and you’re in the heart of a major metropolis.
I would second Elon - excellent J program and markets heavily to the northern states, so you’ll find lots of students from NY, NJ, CT, etc. Syracuse is also and excellent option (may need to get stats up a bit for Syracuse, but you’re looking good for Elon).
UNC-CH also has an excellent J school, but you’d have to increase your stats substantially to considered for admission as an out of state student there. Their J program is also very competitive and I believe they recently switched the requirement and now students have to apply to admitted to that program.
I hear what you’re saying about the culture at some of the larger southern schools (I live in the south, btw) - BUT you can find your niche at any school, you just have to put in the time. If you do decide to venture further south than NC, UofSC could be a good option or University of Tennessee, or even UNC Charlotte.
And interestingly, as a NC natives, my kids find Elon far too conservative and preppy! It is not their scene at all. They also find it too close to home. They like Guilford (LAC) in Greensboro more (although it is struggling right now). It’s a little more liberal, hippy, artsy which is their vibe, but I don’t think it would be a good fit for @bridg3tnic. There’s a lot of love on CC for Elon, though.
UNC is worth a look, too. There is a big controversy right now over Nikole Hannah-Jones and tenure, and I can understand that that may turn off a lot of potential students. But by far the majority of the university faculty and student body are for offering her tenure. It’s just that the UNC Board of Governors which admins the whole UNC system (including NC State, UNC-Charlotte, App State, etc, etc) are a bunch of Republican political appointees that our Democratic Governor hasn’t been able to switch out yet. And they are who appoint the UNC Board of Trustees. It’s kind of a messed up system. If you can get past that the people that you interact with daily would not necessarily be the frats-n-football crowd unless you wanted it to be. UNC is sometimes compared to Berkeley.
Yeah, I have an incoming Freshman for Elon, so we’re not real sure what the atmosphere on campus will be. My son picked it because of the size and their emphasis on experiential learning and study abroad. We are from NC but my son would not be considered either conservative or preppy. Just being a private university, I expect there will be more wealthy kids/families there, which could feed the preppy stereotype, not sure.
And I don’t won’t to burst any bubbles, but UNC would likely be a reach school, especially for an out of state student. It’s still worth apply ng if interested, but since OP was looking for safety and match schools, just wanted to mention as no matter your stats, it’s highly competitive
That’s not to talk bad about Elon, more about my weird kids. They are very artsy in vibe and outlook, non-sporty, lots of vintage & black clothing, Doc Martins, etc. I’ve been to Elon for some activities for their school over the years and it’s a pretty campus. Hope he finds his groove and flourishes there. I did really like their job placement center when I was there several years ago. And the profs I interacted with were great.
Also the recent open letter published by the student body president, urging students, staff & professors of color not to attend UNC (based on issues other than the Nikole Hannah-Jones controversy). Some parents on the FB pages are grumbling about not sending their kids to UNC because of these issues but I doubt they will pull that trigger this late in the game. If they do, there will be some celebrating over on the UNC waitlist threads. No shortage of students willing to overlook the controversy.
UNC has many fantastic qualities but as a parent of an alumni, I had concerns, at least the first year, about the quality of the education that so many contend is the holy grail of higher learning. They lacked professors for classes, having to borrow instructors from unrelated disciplines to teach subjects such as English, and even getting into required classes was a struggle (which is still a huge issue there). Once she was admitted to the business school, everything went smoothly but I had some doubts in the beginning. I eventually learned that these are problems that plague many large public universities that take hits from decreases in public funds - but it was nonetheless surprising to me, given UNC’s caliber.
I couldn’t get either of my kids to consider Elon, although both applied at my urging and were accepted. It was mostly due to size and location. I personally love Elon. You can tell that they care about each and every student and that students are going to get a hands-on education there. Several of my daughters’ friends have gone there and talk about personal emails from professors checking on them when they were sick, and dinners at professor’s homes.
@dracarys2020 I have visited Elon several times for junior preview days, tours and accepted students days over the years and never got an overwhelmingly preppy or conservative vibe. The students we interacted with just seemed like very intelligent, engaging, garden-variety young people. I’m sure there is a mixture of wealthy and non-wealthy students (fwiw, I saw an extreme amount of wealth while my daughter was at UNC - I’m talking private jet level wealth).
