<p>Thanks for the tip on the Barnes Foundation.</p>
<p>If I can get my daughter to tell me when she has to be back at Swarthmore in September, I might just have to call and make a reservation. Wife and daughter would love it.</p>
<p>I'm guessing that the Rodin Museum makes for a lovely afternoon as well.</p>
<p>if after your Mid-Atlantic tour small schools are still in the running. . . I'd add Carleton and Macalester to your Grinnell visit.</p>
<p>I agree with reidm.</p>
<p>And think about Scripps if you stay west.</p>
<p>You might want to visit Whitman (almost as a practice run) before you come east. The similarities between Whitman and Haverford are quite remarkable, and you might have a benchmark to compare.</p>
<p>If you decide that you can visit New England, be sure to consider Brown. It sounds ideal for you based on what you listed: a school focused on undergraduates with strength in sciences and art (can take classes at RISD).</p>
<p>Well-since you are going to be at Niagara Falls, you are only a hop skip and a jump away from the University of Rochester (approx 1.5 hours east of Niagara Falls) The school really meets your needs in a lot of ways. Undergrad. around 5,000-well respected research univ.- good feeder into Med school and has its own medical school. The major drawback of Rochester is the weather as it gets a lot of snow in the winter. U of R has Brain & Cognitive Science as well as neuroscience major. If your driving route from Philadelphia area to Niagara Falls is via NYS thruway, you can also check out Cornell (but may be too big) and Colgate. But based on your "desires", Univ. of Rochester is a good school to consider. They are also generous with merit $. Have fun in your travels.</p>
<p>If you are headed to Niagara Falls you might check out U of Rochester. Medicine and research opportunities.</p>
<p>Closer to your home are you considering the UDub?</p>
<p>GWU and Gtown have med schools if you do get to DC for the museums.</p>
<p>Well we crossed Marny. Great minds think alike!</p>
<p>We all hope you have a wonderful time exploring. I think you should ditch the whole idea of Niagara Falls (rent the movie). Sorry to be blunt, but it is a jarring distance from a college tour when there is great scenery on the road to colleges in New England. We did Niagara a couple summers ago..and it is grand and Canada has done a great job making the Niagara River attractive to see....but the town is terribly commercial, and I do mean terrible a la Dollywood, a place you no doubt will also skip. If scenic is called for...go to the Wyeth Museum a little bit away from Swarthmore and see one of America's jewel collections in rolling green hills. Then go to New England and drive the coastal route to Brown, and drive up to Brunswick, Maine making some stops along the way...to see Bowdoin, a school with zero frats and excellent grad school placement and a wonderful ambiance. Bowdoin, Middlebury, Williams, Amherst etc are so used to kids on college tours that they hand out directions to each other's campuses in their college information lobbies.<br>
Maine is spectacular in the summers and would equal Niagara for eye dazzling without the Wax Museums and such. Vermont is also very scenic, and Middlebury would also be something to consider...in its perfect small Vermont town setting.
If you go to DC..no problem with the art museum. The National Gallery of Art has two buildings on the same square as the Smithsonian. However, the treasure of Virginia for scenic is Montecello in Charlottesville. Albemarle County is heavenly.</p>
<p>For more info on visiting Phila. area colleges, check out onebigcampus.com. It may help you out with your plans.</p>
<p>Also concur with checking out UPenn to give you an idea of a larger, urban school with super academics.</p>
<p>Besides the Phila. Museum of Art, you can look into the Barnes Foundation and the Brandywine River Museum, where the Wyeth art is housed. Many other smaller art museums in downtown Philly too.
Good luck with all of it!</p>
<p>Wow, thanks so much for all the great suggestions! I really appreciate them. :)<br>
So far I have (college wise): JHU, TCNJ, UPenn, Columbia, URochester, Williams, Midd, Bowdoin, Amherst, Georgetown, GWU, St. Mary's, Muhlenberg...I think that's it. I have a lot of research to do! </p>
<p>HMM..it seems I may have to talk to my parents about this Niagara falls thing. I complained about it a little, but it seemed they were dead set on it. My mom said, "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity! Niagara is beautiful! We must go see it!" The fact that it's like 6 hours away from Pennsylvania didn't seem to bother her. </p>
<p>momrath: I'm pretty openminded when it comes to art. I used to think I disliked Van Gogh, but when I went to an exhibition of his work at the Portland Art Museum I was floored. I like the Impressionists' work a lot. Weird abstract art is not really my cup of tea, though. </p>
<p>Iderochi: Yes, we are driving everywhere. My parents are crazy that way.</p>
<p>Question: SO...exactly what is the Barnes Foundation? An art museum?</p>
<p>I'll second the Shenendoah National Park. It's amazingly beautiful. Take that from DC down to UVA (throw UVA on your list), and maybe UVA to W&M. It is, hands down, the prettiest area of the East Coast I've seen.</p>
<p>University of Rochester, one of the better Neuroscience programs out there including their Brain and cog. science major....ummm I visited Rochester en route to Niagara Falls ;) You should too, it'll be fun and it's not "way out there " you fly to Rochester Int'l and then take a quick train ride up to niagara (like a half hour train ride, or 1 hour drive) Rochester also seems like a good fit, u may have to adjust to the weather tho, i dont know how Washington is, hot? cold? anything like Cali? But seriously UR is a prestigious school, up there with all the others you had on ur list, and is definitely not out of the way...</p>
<p>Princeton is a good choice since i live in this area..I wouldnt really recommend TCNJ it really isnt that competitive of a school, and it is farther away. NYU/Columbia is a simple train ride from the DInky station in princeton tho, so you may want to consider that.</p>
<p>OK. Niagra Falls wouldn't be my first choice for sight-seeing, but parents are parents and there's no arguing with 'em sometimes, so....</p>
<p>Here's a feasible itinerary. If you are staying with friends near Princeton, you could fly into either Philadelphia or Newark airports -- Princeton is about halfway in between these two in terms of travel time. </p>
<p>All of the Phila. schools (Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and UPENN) are easy to see as they are quite close. They also provide a nice overview of colleges with a big urban university, a very selective co-ed LAC, an historically-male LAC, and a woman's LAC). Also in Phila are some worthwhile art stops: the Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum which is practically next door. The Barnes Foundation is a small museum not too far from Haverford with a fabulous collection of Van Gogh, Cezanne, impressionists, etc.</p>
<p>From Phila, you could swing up to Buffalo/Niagra driving up through Scranton, Binghamton, Syracuse and across the NY Thruway (about six hours). On this leg, you would go by the University of Rochester which is a very common "safety" for someone with your stats and a school that would probably give you nice merit aid. Good school, strong in the sciences. Lousy location. Horrible winters.</p>
<p>From Buffalo, you could come back east across the NY Thruway to Albany and over the mountain to Williamstown to see Williams. Comparable to Swarthmore. Strong art department. More sports, preppy, drinking oriented. Very rural, but an absolutely gorgeous summer visit including the Clarke Art Institute. On this leg, you would also drive by Colgate and Hamilton, both of which would be "safety" LACs for you.</p>
<p>From Williamstown, you could head south back towards Phila. This would put you in very close proximity to Wesleyan and Vassar, two LACs which would be reasonable schools for you based on your criteria, but slightly easier to get into than Williams and Swarthmore. This route would put you past New York City if you want to visit Columbia, Barnard, or do some of the fabulous museum stuff in NYC.</p>
<p>Note, that you could also do a side trip to southern New England from this leg if you wanted to visit the 5-college area (Holyoke, Amherst, Smith), Boston, or Conn/RI.</p>
<p>Once back near Phila, Washington DC is a pretty easy side trip. It's only about two hours from Phila by car.</p>
<p>BTW, I think you've got a nice package for your application. The class rank will make you a strong candidate. And, with the interest in art, you can present a personality that stands out from the pack in terms of the stereotype "math Asian" applicant. I would recommend looking at the percentage of Asian-Americans at each school you consider. This will give you an idea on the degree to which you would fit into the dominant campus culture.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Barnes Foundation houses an extraordinary number of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces, including 181 works by Renoir, 69 by C</p>
<p>Muchas gracias, interesteddad! Your itenerary resembles the one my parents have set up...we're visiting the Philly schools first, then NJ, then NYC, then DC, then Niagara. I think. I don't know, my parents keep changing their minds.</p>
<p>Okay, that settles it. We are going to the Barnes Foundation! </p>
<p>ariesathena: That sounds great, but I'm not sure if we're going to go down into the Virginia area. Ah...there's just so much to see!</p>
<p>KhAn_T1m: I didn't know U of Rochester was so strong in neuroscience, which is a nice surprise. The weather over here is really hot and dry during the summer, mild and windy (ugh..dust storms + tumbleweeds) in the spring and fall with occasional showers, and cold enough to snow (sometimes) in the winter. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the comments! You guys are just so awesome.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Smallish (1,000-5,000 students)
Focus on undergrads
Friendly environment
Happy students
Available profs
Small classes
Research oppurtunities for undergrads
Good Neuroscience/humanities programs (interested in majoring in neuro or humanities)
Intellectual/Academic/Slightly quirky or dorky atmosphere (hey, just like me! )
Little or no drug/alchohol/partying scene
Small Greek presence
Good admission rates for med school/grad school
Diverse
Liberal politically but not overly so
Located in a suburb/rural area but close to a bigger city
Trivial factor but still: Gothic architecture + campus with lots of greenery are def. good things to have
[/quote]
Sounds exactly like Princeton to me except for the minimal drinking. My D plans to major in psych/neuroscience and also take a lot of humanities and dance while she is there. Can't get much greener, next to two big cities, available profs and opportunities for research. And, make no mistake. Princeton feels markedly diverse these days.</p>
<p>Do check out the Barnes web site to see EXACTLY when you can possibly get tickets. They are really restricted by the local township in # of days/wk they are open and I think they only let @ 200 people in per day, or some ridiculously low number.</p>
<p>There is a case in the court system to try and change the will of Dr. Barnes to allow the art collection to be moved to downtown Phila. to a new museum and just have art classes and education at the current Foundation.</p>
<p>Ariesathena is right on. If it were me, I'd bag the Niagara Falls trip and head south into Virginia rather than north to Niagara. That would open up UVA, W&M and possibly Washington and Lee and Richmond (though they lack several criteria on your list, namely small Greek presence and politically liberal, and W&L is in no way proximate to a large city). University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg might be worth a look as well if you go that route.</p>
<p>Trinity in Connecticut seems to me to meet many of your criteria; not sure re neuro. It would be a match/safety. Has the Gothic architecture in a big way. A real "ivy-covered" halls feel; reminds me more than most US schools of Oxbridge.</p>