<p>My daughter is thinking of majoring in chemistry, minoring in art. She'd like a LAC, although might consider a somewhat larger school. She'd prefer not to be in the middle of nowhere, but doesn't want to be in the middle of a big grimy city either. Probably not the West Coast. Her GPA is 4.84, has a 35 ACT. Places we have or will be looking at are Clarke, Goucher, Macalester, Middlebury, Oberlin, Swarthmore, and Vassar. For larger schools, Brown and Wesleyan. Does anyone have any thoughts on the relative strength of the chemistry programs at these places, or any other schools we should consider? Thank you.</p>
<p>It depends somewhat on what she wants to do with that degree. If she has an interest in getting a PhD in chemistry, here is an interesting link that shows PhD production in several areas (Chem is broken out). Data is a few years old, but not sure how much it changes.</p>
<p>[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College) </p>
<p>My D is looking at Physics major with minor in studio art, so we are doing similar (although not identical) research.</p>
<p>Thank you! I don’t think she knows at this point how far she’d want to go with her education. Fun having these daughters with divergent interests, isn’t it?</p>
<p>I don’t know how strong Wesleyan’s chem department is but they will have alot of research because they get increased funding because they have graduate science programs. Wesleyan is still an LAC (although slightly larger than some of its peers, it has a pretty small campus though) but is has small graduate science programs that yield this huge amount of research that is also passed down to undergrads.</p>
<p>muhlenebrg college is an amazing all around lac
also haverford college too.</p>
<p>My son looked at many of the colleges on your daughter’s list. I would add Williams: excellent chemistry (and sciences in general) plus excellent art studio and art history department. It’s easy enough to double major.</p>
<p>I would also suggest that your daughter submit an art portfolio with her application even if she doens’t intend to major in studio art. It’s a plus in LAC admissions.</p>
<p>The location is rural and insular, but more or less the same as Middlebury and the emphasis on the arts is surprisingly intense.</p>
<p>Rhodes and Davidson are in or near medium-sized cities and have excellent chemistry programs. Davidson is outside Charlotte proper in a lovely small town with a community that truly loves the college; it also has a small lake campus for water sports about 10 minutes away. Rhodes is in Memphis proper in a fairly nice section of town (Midtown) that contains the zoo, the art museum, a large park, bars, lots of places to eat, etc. Nearby is Cooper-Young, which is sort of the hip and trendy portion of town and contains live music venues, the LGBT community center, more places to eat/drink, etc. </p>
<p>Rhodes allows its students to cross-register at the Memphis College of Art, which is nearby within walking distance. I’m not sure how good art at Davidson is.</p>
<p>Might look at Holy Cross-great chemistry department with new science facility. HC WEBSITE is very informtive. Holy Cross(don’t have to be religious) has beautiful campus 1 hour from Boston.</p>
<p>“She’d prefer not to be in the middle of nowhere, but doesn’t want to be in the middle of a big grimy city either.”</p>
<p>Interestingly, the schools ‘in the middle of nowhere’ tend to have especially strong cultures that are more inward focusing than schools in urban areas or areas where there’s a lot to do off campus. The small town schools make more of an effort to bring the world onto the campus because they know students aren’t disappearing into the city on weekends. S attended Grinnell (great chemistry dept. by the way - amazing sciences and they offer merit aid, which most other top LACs don’t) and although it was only an hour to Des Moines and to Iowa City, he rarely wanted to leave campus because there was so much going on there. Of course, he’d get his ‘urban fix’ when he was home over the holidays so city/suburban life had no mystery for him, which is part of the reason he chose ‘the middle of nowhere.’</p>
<p>
I don’t think that’s an entirely accurate assessment, unless you’re only looking at the top 10 or so LACs. Quite a few top LACs offer merit scholarships. In fact, about half of the top 30 LACs offer at least modest ($10-15K) scholarships. Some of them - Washington & Lee, for example - are noticeably more generous with merit aid than Grinnell.</p>
<p>Since you brought up merit aid and reminded me, I should’ve mentioned earlier that Davidson and Rhodes are among those that offer large merit scholarships. Additionally, Davidson is one of the extremely few LACs that is loan-free for all students; it was the second college in the country after Princeton to eliminate them.</p>
<p>I totally empathize with not wanting to be in the middle of nowhere. I spent some time at a university in a town of only a few thousand people; “downtown” consisted of Wal-Mart and a few shops. I love nature more than most, but that was far too rural even for me. :eek: Campus social activities only go so far.</p>
<p>You can look here for degree programs approved by the American Chemical Society:
<a href=“American Chemical Society”>American Chemical Society;
<p>However, you may have to do some individual investigation of each school to see if the faculty interests and course offerings at each school match the student’s interests within chemistry.</p>
<p>Note, however, that chemistry does not have very good job and career prospects at the bachelor’s degree level (chemical engineering is better in this respect). So minimizing debt is important.</p>
<p>Furman has strong arts and strong pre-med which I would translate to good bio and chem departments, but might want to check it out. Greenville is cool city but not overly large and campus is beautiful and around 5000 students.</p>
<p>I think of Reed, Carleton, Swarthmore, Haverford, and Grinnell as LACs that are particularly strong in the sciences.</p>
<p>Should Wellesley not be added to the list? Not to mention the MIT connection foa academic and social affairs. For safety purposes, the rest of the women colleges a la Smith or MHC might be good options, safe the more remote locations.</p>
<p>Fwiw, isn’t Grinnell the poster child from … Middle of nowhere? Unless one overlooks acres and acres of corn fields.</p>
<p>Xig, that is (IMHO, we visited just a few months ago) why Grinnell offers very strong merit aid. I do think they offer more than most other LACs at their ranking level, and it is partly because they need to offset the location. Even my D, who has loved several other very rural or remote campuses, could not see herself at that one. Some people love it… but it is one of those schools that I would say absolutely requires a visit before assuming one would want to attend.</p>
<p>We also had a poor experience on the day we went with the sciences department. It was one of those days when they encouraged HS students to attend, and had classes the kids could attend. BUT, out of the 40 or so classes available, there was exactly ONE science class the kids could sit on (and they only had a handful of seats). So pretty much no one got to attend a science class. D went to 2 English classes, but it didn’t say much for their attempts to recruit science students. We asked the admissions people, and they said the science faculty just hadn’t volunteered to allow visiting students when they were asked. But it was pretty frustrating to travel there and be unable to even sit in on a science class.</p>
<p>Factoring in the issue of no West Coast, no “in the middle of nowhere,” and “no grimy city,” I’d leave Brown, Swarthmore and Wesleyan on the list. Agree with previous recs about adding Carleton and Haverford. May also want to consider Rice if willing to venture South.</p>
<p>One more thing I forgot to comment on earlier. We have noticed this, as my D is interested in a Physics major with a Studio Art minor. Some of the colleges discussed on this thread to NOT have minors. You can only double major if you want to focus on two things. Examples would be Carleton and Reed. And it is particularly difficult to double major at Reed due to the junior year examination and senior project requirements for each major. Just saying, that is something to look at as well.</p>
<p>Carleton is also a tough place to double major because of the senior Comps, or comprehensive exercise. Doing two of those in one year can eat you alive. But it’s a great place for science!</p>
<p>Even if the college does not offer official minor, that does not prevent a student who has a minor-level interest in a subject from taking several courses in that subject as kind of an unofficial minor.</p>
<p>Williams doesn’t offer minors either, but because of the loose course distribution and requirement policy double majoring, or even triple majoring, is fairly commonplace.</p>