<p>best colleges and unis for intellectuals, anyone?</p>
<p>like, where the bookish types and library-and-coffe-shop dwellers go?</p>
<p>but, still have a little bit of fun, of course?</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Reed and U of Chicago</p>
<p>I don't think there's a school in existence where you can't have fun (either nerdfun, or Animal House variety). I include Chicago, CalTech, MIT, and Swarthmore among the schools that you can have a great time at socially, and it's particularly socially rewarding to those who look to be with like-minded people :-)</p>
<p>(Ex: my nerdfun at Chicago is having discussions with people throwing in all sorts of pop culture and academic references while punning in languages I don't speak; CalTech nerdfun according to one of my best friends is alternately building stuff and burning stuff. Both of us also have Animal House days where we go out and get very sozzled and probably don't say or hear anything remotely nerdy).</p>
<p>How many bookstores are there on campus and within walking distance of the U of C?
--There's the Sem Co-Op, 57th Street Books, Powell's, O'Gara and Wilson, and Borders, as well as the campus bookstore.......count that as 5.2 bookstores. The campus bookstore doesn't really count.</p>
<p>Coffeeshops? This will be harder.
There are three Starbuckses in Hyde Park, along with many independent ones... right on the main quads, there's Cobb, Classics, Div School, Gargoyle Cafe (not as much a coffee shop as a sandwich place to watch profs and grad students talk about economics), the Einstein Bros., Hallowed Grounds, Medici, Istria, backstory, Third World cafe, and maybe one or two others... I count 14.</p>
<p>Add to those already mentioned:</p>
<p>Carleton, Grinnell, Oberlin, Pomona, Yale</p>
<p>Most of the great LACs.</p>
<p>There are lots of links to earlier threads on this subject (including one I opened a while ago) in a reply in this thead: </p>
<p>My short answer is that my son, who likes intellectual companionship, is looking mostly at research universities in big cities.</p>
<p>St. John's (Maryland and New Mexico)</p>
<p>Intellectual + Fun kids = New College of Florida. Not in a big city, though (Sarasota), if you want lots of bookstores and coffee shops to go to.</p>
<p>I was looking for the same thing that you were. Needless to say I was going to the University of Chicago until Harvard came a calling with their great FA. At first I was sad that I'd be missing out, but I've started meeting people from this year's class and a number of them seem pretty intellectually stimulating.</p>
<p>haha what a shocker, kids going to Harvard intellectually stimulating? At any top school you can find your niche of very smart, motivated and intellectual kids. I am sure any top school, especially HYPS is just full of them.</p>
<p>Well, I've known many people from my school that went to such elite schools who performed admirably on the first two counts but were lacking on the third. They tended to be very driven and pre-professional rather than intellectual; consequently, they were attracted to big-profile schools. It's certainly not a foregone conclusion that you'll find many intellectual students at HYPS.</p>
<p>At a school that big though there are bound to be some.. My aunt went to Harvard and admittedly it was awhile ago, but she is very intellectual and I know had a great group of like-minded friends.</p>
<p>Harvard isn't very big at all.</p>
<p>search function!</p>
<p>Berkeley...</p>
<p>Numerous cafes, bookstores, etc. within walking distance of campus</p>
<p>Cafe Strada, Amoeba Records, Cody's Books (unfortunately that institution closed this year...blame Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com)</p>
<p>Here are statistics that demonstrate intellectual (as opposed to professional) undergrad teaching levels:</p>
<p>Percentage of graduates receiving a doctorate degree
Academic field: ALL</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period
Note: Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law </p>
<p>
1 35.8% California Institute of Technology<br>
2 24.7% Harvey Mudd College
3 21.1% Swarthmore College<br>
4 19.9% Reed College<br>
5 18.3% Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
6 16.8% Carleton College<br>
7 15.8% Bryn Mawr College<br>
8 15.7% Oberlin College
9 15.3% University of Chicago<br>
10 14.5% Yale University
11 14.3% Princeton University<br>
12 14.3% Harvard University<br>
13 14.1% Grinnell College<br>
14 13.8% Haverford College<br>
15 13.8% Pomona College<br>
16 13.1% Rice University
17 12.7% Williams College<br>
18 12.4% Amherst College
19 11.4% Stanford University
20 11.3% Kalamazoo College<br>
21 11.0% Wesleyan University
22 10.6% St John's College (both campuses)<br>
23 10.6% Brown University<br>
24 10.4% Wellesley College<br>
25 10.0% Earlham College
26 9.6% Beloit College<br>
27 9.5% Lawrence University
28 9.3% Macalester College<br>
29 9.0% Cornell University (all campuses)<br>
30 9.0% Bowdoin College
31 8.9% Mount Holyoke College<br>
32 8.9% Smith College<br>
33 8.8% Vassar College<br>
34 8.7% Case Western Reserve University
35 8.7% Johns Hopkins University<br>
36 8.7% St Olaf College
37 8.7% Hendrix College
38 8.6% Hampshire College<br>
39 8.5% Trinity University<br>
40 8.5% Knox College<br>
41 8.5% Duke University
42 8.4% Occidental College<br>
43 8.3% University of Rochester
44 8.3% College of Wooster<br>
45 8.3% Barnard College
46 8.2% Bennington College<br>
47 8.1% Columbia University in the City of New York
48 8.0% Whitman College
49 7.9% University of California-Berkeley<br>
50 7.9% College of William and Mary
51 7.8% Carnegie Mellon University<br>
52 7.8% New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology<br>
53 7.7% Brandeis University
54 7.6% Dartmouth College<br>
55 7.5% Wabash College<br>
56 7.5% Bates College<br>
57 7.5% Davidson College<br>
58 7.2% Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute<br>
59 7.2% Franklin and Marshall College<br>
60 7.1% Fisk University
61 7.1% Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL)<br>
62 6.8% University of California-San Francisco<br>
63 6.8% Allegheny College<br>
64 6.6% Furman University<br>
65 6.5% University of Pennsylvania<br>
66 6.5% Washington University<br>
67 6.5% Bard College<br>
68 6.4% Northwestern Univ<br>
69 6.4% Rhodes College<br>
70 6.3% Agnes Scott College
71 6.3% Spelman College
72 6.2% Antioch University, All Campuses<br>
73 6.2% Kenyon College<br>
74 6.2% University of Dallas<br>
75 6.1% Ripon College<br>
76 6.1% Colorado College<br>
77 6.1% Bethel College (North Newton, KS)<br>
78 6.0% Hamilton College<br>
79 6.0% Goshen College<br>
80 6.0% Middlebury College<br>
81 6.0% Erskine College
82 5.9% University of the South
83 5.8% University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
84 5.8% Drew University
85 5.8% Wake Forest University<br>
86 5.8% Tougaloo College<br>
87 5.8% Goucher College
88 5.7% Chatham College
89 5.7% Cooper Union<br>
90 5.7% Alfred University, Main Campus<br>
91 5.7% Tufts University<br>
92 5.6% University of California-Santa Cruz
93 5.6% Colgate University<br>
94 5.5% Colby College<br>
95 5.4% Bucknell University
96 5.4% Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
97 5.4% Concordia Teachers College<br>
98 5.4% University of Virginia, Main Campus
99 5.3% Sarah Lawrence College<br>
100 5.3% Southwestern University
</p>
<p>I love Moe's Half Price Books and Cafe Mediterranean. However, I was surprised by alot of the anti-intellectual kids I found at Berkeley when I stayed their for a week with my friend. All of her roommates just drank.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Numerous cafes, bookstores, etc. within walking distance of campus</p>
<p>Cafe Strada, Amoeba Records, Cody's Books (unfortunately that institution closed this year...blame Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com)
[/quote]
I love Cafe Strada, when I visited I always came to that place to enjoy the afternoons and watch passers-by or just read a book.<br>
Don't know where is Amoeba Records.</p>
<p>William & Mary is a great intellectual place, esp for a public school in the South. Very accepting and non conformist student body. Also attracts a faculty that would rather interact and teach students than do research for grant $$$. Some guide books say it is the public version of Brown, Haverford, or Chicago.</p>
<p>Wow, a lot of people took the coffee shop thing literally, eh?! I guess my best advice is to not go wherever they're planning to go.</p>
<p>Vossron, great response. Thanks for posting that!</p>