<p>Supposing a student was looking for a college with lots of intellectually curious students (not necessarily students with high grades, or with high test scores), what colleges should that student consider applying to? What colleges have students who like to think about ideas and issues for fun? At what colleges do students try experiments, read books, or write papers that aren't even assigned by their teachers?</p>
<p>I have a friend who went through all the schools like that.</p>
<p>UChicago is probably the most like this. She ended up not applying because she thought the classes were too big, but i don't know how bad that really is.</p>
<p>Yale is very intellectual. Moreso than Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>Columbia is, too, but she didn't apply cuz she didn't want to go to school in nyc.</p>
<p>Deep Springs college for a guy, of course, but it takes a special person to like such a small place</p>
<p>Thomas More College. I don't know why, but the girl i'm talking about says it's her first choice, even over yale. I don't know anything else about the school.</p>
<p>St. John's College in MD maybe, too, but she didn't apply there cuz she thought the students drank too much (again, i don't know how bad it really is).</p>
<p>University of Denver. Dunno much about it except it's on this girl's list and that Condoleeza Rice went there.</p>
<p>I may have forgotten a few.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yale is very intellectual. Moreso than Harvard and Princeton.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's an interesting idea. Thanks for the interesting list of colleges.</p>
<p>i think many of your smaller liberal arts type colleges would be very intellectually stimulating (i dont really know how accurate of an assumption that is seeing how im a prospective, but thats the gist i've been getting from a variety of sources-i am also looking for the same thing)</p>
<p>Oh, by the way, I think it was Thomas More College of something in New Hampshire. There seems to be a couple on collegeboard, but i'm pretty sure it's the NH one.</p>
<p>Reed College in Oregon, definitely.</p>
<p>Look at Loren Pope's "40 Colleges That Change Lives."</p>
<p>Reed
St. John's Annapolis and NM
University of Chicago
Swarthmore</p>
<p>Are all known for very difficult courses that attract this sort of student.</p>
<p>The University of Denver (as mentioned above). This is the first time I've seen the University of Denver and intellectual in the same post.</p>
<p>I agree with Tarhunt.</p>
<p>why hasn't brown been listed</p>
<p>My favorite is the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. It's very small (~300 students), and they only have one major (Human Ecology) that you can adapt to virtually anything. The course offerings are impressive for a school its size, and graduates do very well. It's an awesome school!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.coa.edu%5B/url%5D">www.coa.edu</a></p>
<p>Many of the Midwestern LACs (Beloit, Carleton, Kenyon, Oberlin, et al) also have fairly intellectual student bodies.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yale is very intellectual. Moreso than Harvard and Princeton.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What bases do you have for such a generalization? I would actually say all three universities have intellectual atmospheres.</p>
<p>If you want a university with an intellectual atmosphere, I would say a few conditions are needed. First and more important, you must have a high-quality student body. Without an intelligent crowd, ideas die. This means very selective schools like HYPSM and WAS. I would also suggest colleges that are somewhat laid-back and not very competitive; in other words, schools with grade inflation. This is because at a difficult school such as MIT, students are working night and day just to survive, and there is little time to engage in frivolous banter. Third, I would suggest a liberal atmosphere, for that is where new ideas spring, although most colleges tend to be rather liberal. So, I would imagine the elite universities and LACs have intellectually fostering atmospheres.</p>
<p>My experiences with Pomona grads have been generally that they are a smarty-pants bunch.</p>
<p>I'm not showing favoritism to Yale. I applied ED to princeton, so... I was just relaying the thoughts of a girl i know who's only qualifier in colleges is that its students seek "the truth" (whatever that means, i dunno) and stuff like that. And this girl had nearly perfect SATs so she's not braindead. Yale probably wins because it is more humanities based (not very many engineers discuss The Divine Comedy for jollies) and because, as you mentioned, it's more liberal.</p>
<p>And I would only half agree about the "top schools" equalling most intellectual. Most people just want to go to a place like harvard for the name and most of them have very little intellectual reasoning. Yes, they are very intelligent to get into harvard, but they may be out to make money in life more than actually learning at college (just an example, don't start shooting me).</p>
<p>I don't know if U of Denver is intellectual or not. I don't know anything about it except that this girl applied there.</p>
<p>Pomona--read some remark that Harvard professors find PoCo grads to be the best educated</p>
<p>We have two or three Pomona grads in my program and I'll say without hesitation that they're all uniformly incredible.</p>
<p>Clendinator:</p>
<p>I'm afraid the University of Denver's reputation is anything but intellectual. I'm sure there are some intellectuals there and I'm sure that, like most schools, it's possible to get a good education. But that's not its rep.</p>
<p>St. John's, Reed, Marlboro, Antioch college (supposedly), Macalester, Sarah Lawrence, Hampshire, Chicago, Carleton, etc.</p>
<p>St. John's has a drinking problem??</p>
<p>Oberlin (most PhD's of any 4 year college), Columbia, Reed, U of Chicago</p>
<p>I visited a lot of schools and Bates came off as one of the most intellectual environments from my experience.</p>