<p>Hi, I'm just wondering if there's such a thing as a "large" liberal arts college in an urban/suburban area? My son likes the urban environment, likes the feel of the large university, but his interests (creative writing, rehtoric) seem more geared towards a liberal arts type of school. He loves UNC Chapel Hill but being OOS his chances are slim. He is a good student, but not quite up to the standards as most on this board. (96 GPA, All AP, 1360/2080 SAT, NCTE Award Winner)</p>
<p>Just about any largeish university would offer quite a few creative writing and rhetoric courses through its English department. Just check their online catalogs at their web sites. There is quite a difference in atmosphere between schools that are right in the thick of the urban excitement like Boston University, Northeastern, George Washington,and NYU, and schools that are very close to the city, but have a decidedly suburban atmosphere (Northwestern, Villanova, Tufts, Boston College). There are also schools that are IN the city but are in relatively peaceful neighborhoods (DePaul, UCLA, Chicago)</p>
<p>Unis have liberal arts classes too--many people at most unis will be in their college of arts + science, which is the same thing. So if he likes the idea of a larger, urban uni, that's whate should go for, he should just focus on finding ones with strong creative writing, and rehtoric (the latter of which is proably rare at LACs, because they have less breadth of courses. I know my LAC does not have any rehtoric classes). Even at large unis, most creative writing classs, esp. at an upper level, will be small, so that's good.</p>
<p>Has he checked out JHU? It will probably be a reach, but has a fantastic creative writing program where most (all?) of the classes are seminar style.</p>
<p>There are many large universities with a liberal arts college for undergraduates. Harvard and Columbia, for example, are both large universities with undergraduate liberal arts colleges that combine the advantages of liberal arts education with university settings. Emory is another one that has an undergraduate liberal arts college (Emory College, and Oxford College which is smaller and not on the main campus) within a larger university. I think your son would be competitive at Emory, and it's in a suburban area of Atlanta.</p>
<p>Also, as pierre0913 said, many public universities have an honors college that functions like a liberal arts college. the University of Georgia, for example, has an excellent honors college that is a small group of undergraduates inside that huge university.</p>
<p>He could also try liberal arts colleges that have access to, or are affiliated, with larger universities. This is obviously a no-go (since it's a women's college), but an example would be Barnard, which is affiliated with Columbia University but maintains its air of a small liberal arts college. There's also the Five College Consortium, of which University of Massachusetts at Amherst is a part. Also, any college in a city with another large university is bound to have a cross-registration agreement -- I went to a small college in Atlanta but many students cross-registered at Emory, Georgia State, and Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>I'm no expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but I don't think that larger universities will have worse humanities/English departments than LACs, I just think that maybe humanities/English are more easily good everywhere, whereas science programs really require a lot of funding and are more varied (sorry if this sounds insulting to the humanities -- I'm a humanities person myself).
If a school emphasizes strength in sciences, that doesn't mean their humanities/English departments are worse, it just means their science program is what distinguishes it from all the schools that have equally good humanities but DON'T have a partnership with CalTech and a huge science endowments. Most "good" schools can get you a "good" degree in English, it's just one of those subjects.
(Again, no disrespect to English).
If you're concerned about the caliber of a school's English program, I'd say go look at that department's website specifically and see if there's something that concerns you -- don't judge by looking at the school as a whole.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, I think by reading these responses I realize my son was right all along. He knows what he wants, and I guess he can find it all in one of the larger universities on his list. I believe a school should be chosen based on the strength of the program, and it seems that some of these schools have very good programs, as well as offer him the environment he is looking for.</p>