Add Wellesley and Barnard if you are female.
In terms of your academic interests, take a close look at Haverford and Bryn Mawr which are part of a bi-college system and which also have cross registration with UPenn and Swarthmore as part of the Quaker Consortium. They are strong in your areas of academic interest and have a strong Peace/Conflict Studies major.
Brown, Yale, Columbia, Univ of Penn, Princeton, Harvard, University of Chicago. OK, not technically LACs, but they are the (undergrad) size you want and are urban or, in the case of Princeton, close to big urban areas.
New College of Florida (Sarasota).
Lewis & Clark (Portland, OR)
Vassar (in Poughkeepsie, if that’s a big enough city for you. Two hours from NYC.)
Kalamazoo College.
Clark University and Holy Cross are in Worcester, MA.
Reed College (Portland, OR)
Drew University (Madison, NJ – 45 minutes from Manhattan)
@brantly, UPenn undergrad is about 10K. It is (along with Cornell) the 2 biggest of the Ivies/equivalents.
Ivy equivalents that do have a LAC-sized undergrad student body (and are urban/suburban) are Caltech and MIT. Obviously, they are specialized.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1194125-good-lacs-near-big-ish-cities.html
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/705549-what-are-some-good-lacs-in-or-close-to-major-cities-p1.html
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/65021-lacs-in-urban-suburban-areas.html
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/589158-lacs-nestled-in-large-cities-p1.html
The criteria-narrowing ideas in this thread may be of interest:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/382279-list-of-top-colleges-located-in-major-cities-p1.html
90-95% of an undergraduate’s time is spent on or near campus. That is where the peers, the academics, the parties, and the events will be. As long as the campus and college community is reasonably stimulating, it makes little difference if the school is 500 or 5 miles from a “city”
My alma mater, Oberlin, is reasonably proximate to Cleveland. I don’t remember anyone ever going (except for an occasional concert).
If Jesuit school is OK, another idea might be Fordham - Lincoln Center campus. It is a smaller campus (about 2,000 undergrads) in the heart of NYC. You might qualify for merit aid there as well.
@cornelldad10 - not necessarily true. I went to Tulane and between working (and socialization with work friends) and the music scene, I spent tons of non academic time away from campus in the heart of the New Orleans.
Both my kids went to LACs in or near cities and got off campus tons including for jobs/internships plus concerts, dining, at and cultural events, volunteering, etc.
Agree with the above sentiments. Reasonably proximate is not the same is being located in a city and within walking distance/quick ride to a world that does not revolve around a college and its students.
@cornelldad10 I disagree. My DS went to SMU and was able to get a career-oriented job during the school year because it’s near Dallas. Being near a city is also important if the family lives in a rural area, like we do. Opportunities are very scarce to nonexistent here for internships/careers. And we couldn’t afford to pay for a summer internship in a big city (rent, living expenses etc). Hence the necessity, for us, of having our kids attend schools near cities. My other DS is near Atlanta.
Attending school in or near a city can also make travel home for breaks/holidays much more convenient and cheaper. My kids mainly looked at LACs and for some of the more rural ones the logistics of getting off campus and back home or elsewhere could be an endeavor.
My son was looking at small schools in big cities as well. Macalester, Kalamazoo, Occidental, Lewis and Clark, Reed, Willamette, Puget Sound, Connecticut College, Trinity in Hartford and Trinity in Tx, Butler in Indianapolis - all in medium to big sized cities. Earlham is an hour from Cincinnati, Columbus, and Indianapolis. Also, Bates in Lewiston.
Re #24 and responses that followed:
In my family’s experience: the more ready the access a school has to the resources of a big city, the more its students rely on the city for their social life, and the less vitality there is on that schools’ campus itself. Everyone fritters off constantly into the city, proportionally diminishing campus life.
Conversely, the more isolated from same a school is, the more its students must make things work right there, hence a generally greater vitality of campus life.
My D2 transferred from a campus located smack in a big city and enjoyed life as a student much more at her subsequent campus-centered school that was not near a big city. She actually found more that she wanted to do, (that she could afford to do), at the second school.
YMMV.
Goucher might be a safety for you.
There are also a number of Jesuit schools. If you are OK with them many are located in urban areas and are mid-sized colleges. They range in geographic area and selectivity. Here is the list and you can look for fits if you like. http://www.ajcunet.edu/institutions
Trinity in Hartford is an excellent suggestion. It is embedded in a state capital city and offers internships in public policy, finance and insurance and pedagogy. It is non sectarian, and part of the 11 college NESCAC colleges.
Trinity appeals to a high level of student and is wholly test optional.
Make sure to visit Trinity. Pretty campus, but It’s in a rough part of Hartford. I don’t say that lightly - I usually defend New Haven as being a lovely city when people visiting Yale talk about how bad it is.