<p>I am looking for schools that take the best of the liberal arts and top universities. I want a school that is smaller like liberal arts, but has the prestige and academic quality of top universities. Any school suggestions would be great. In addition, I would like to go to a school that is near or in a city, and has good sports and spirit.</p>
<p>Also, since I want do something with business then would the top universities be better than liberal arts schools by a long shot.</p>
<p>Well, to answer your last question first, no, you don’t have to go to a large university in order to go into business. Mathematics, Economics, even Physics are very suitable liberal arts majors for pursuing business careers.</p>
<p>For prestige, I would look at some of the top NESCAC colleges like Williams or even Barnard and Wellesley (for women) and places like Swarthmore, Pomona, and Claremont McKenna, if you want to be closer to a big city.</p>
<p>Universities teach all the subjects that Liberal Arts Colleges teach. Maybe you want a small university such as:
California Institute of Technology
Polytechnic Institute of New York University
Stevens Institute of Technology
Brandeis University
Colorado School of Mines
Case Western Reserve University
Rice University
Dartmouth College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michigan Technological University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Lehigh University
University of Denver
University of Rochester
Princeton University
Tufts University
Yale University
Johns Hopkins University</p>
<p>Davidson and Holy Cross both top 25 LACs with locations near cities Charlotte and Boston. Holy Cross is one of the largest LACs with 3000 students and perhaps the best Div1 sports for a LAC.</p>
<p>Lots of liberal arts schools also have business. So in this case you will be fine and no less off.</p>
<p>Also Charlotte is the second largest banking center in the U.S., after New York. Bank of America is headquartered there, and Wells Fargo’s East Coast offices and capital management offices are located in the city.</p>
<p>Babson College is a SLAC that is just for business, and is nearby Boston. If you’re a young woman, there’s also Simmons College nearby.</p>
<p>Aside from some of the ones that have been mentioned already, Haverford College is also nearby an urban area (Philadelphia), as are Carleton (Twin Cities), Macalester (Twin Cities), Vassar (1.5 hours north of NYC), Colorado College (Colorado Springs), Bucknell (in the Philadelphia metro area), Occidental College (Los Angeles), Rhodes College (Memphis), Lewis & Clark (Portland), Trinity College (Hartford) and Reed (Portland).</p>
<p>Williams isn’t nearby a city, but does have a sport atmosphere and has good school spirit. Amherst also isn’t nearby a city but is a great liberal arts college. Other top LACs that aren’t near cities, but worth looking into, are Middlebury, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Grinnell, Washington & Lee, Wesleyan (I believe this is closer to urban areas), Bates, Colby, Oberlin, Kenyon, and Skidmore.</p>
<p>Thanks and it is not completely needed to be near a city. I wanted that but it is more important for spirit and somewhat near anywhere. So it is not needed to be near city that is just bonus I guess. Thanks for the suggestions.</p>
<p>Holy Cross has great school spirit and its alumni giving rate is 56-57% among the best in the country. HC HAS 25-26 varsity sports and this year its basketball team plays Michigan, UNC, Harvard. Holy Cross website is very informative.</p>
<p>Since Holy Cross is test-optional, it might be useful to look at the Common Data Set to see how it compares against other colleges.</p>
<p><a href=“http://offices.holycross.edu/sites/all/modules/tinytinymce/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/planningbudget/CDS20122013Publish.pdf[/url]”>http://offices.holycross.edu/sites/all/modules/tinytinymce/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/planningbudget/CDS20122013Publish.pdf</a></p>
<p>Just for the sake of reference, the average ACT range is 27-30–respectable, but not nearly as high as a lot of the more competitive schools listed above.</p>
<p>The OP is looking for good LAC’s with good sports and school spirit. Among the top25 LAC’s excluding service academies, Davidson and Holy Cross are the only 2 that fit that criteria-Division 1 sports and near big city. Davidson has very good basketball near Charlotte while Holy Cross has Div1 basketball,baseball, football, lacrosse, crew hockey etc. In fact Holy Cross fields more DIV 1 sports than several of the big-time football powers. Most of the top25 LAC’s are located in remote,rural locations(Swarthmore and Haverford excluded).</p>
<p>par72, you have been promoting “Holy Cross, a top25 LAC” for at least nine years on this site. I am simply trying to offer the OP some additional information. There is no “magic” to the schools in the “top25 LACs” group, as you refer to HC every. single. time. HC is not as competitive academically as many other schools, even many outside the USNWR “top25.” For the benefit of the OP, par72 is using one for-profit magazine’s rankings–which focus more on inputs than outputs–to determine which schools are “best.” You need to do your own research on the strength of the student body, opportunities for undergraduate research, acceptance into PhD programs, or whatever it is you care about. collegenavigator.gov is really useful as a way of comparing test scores across schools, but some schools (such as HC) are test optional and that’s when you need to refer to the Common Data Set on each college’s website.</p>
<p>Also, there are D3 schools with good school spirit–D1 colleges do not have the lock on that.</p>
<p>I’m surprised no one has mentioned he University of Richmond. Also a top-25 LAC, beautiful campus, near a good sized city, undergraduate business school and D-1 sports.</p>
<p>[Robins</a> School of Business - University of Richmond](<a href=“http://robins.richmond.edu/]Robins”>http://robins.richmond.edu/)</p>
<p>[Athletics</a> - University of Richmond](<a href=“http://www.richmond.edu/athletics/index.html]Athletics”>Athletics - University of Richmond)</p>
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<p>The Claremont Colleges are more urban than rural.</p>
<p>quaker, I forgot about U of Richmond! It sounds like it fits all the OP’s criteria.</p>
<p>Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Hamilton, Wheaton, Northwestern University, Rice, Vanderbilt, Santa Clara, Mills, University of Miami, Tufts, Brandeis, Boston College, Wellesley, Wesleyan,</p>
<p>Macalaster, Beloit (1 hour from Madison WI), Colby (Lewiston ME),</p>
<p>The University of Chicago has a reputation of being very LACish and it is pretty small (5500 students) and in a great city. It has great a great reputation and a strong history (look at all the Nobel prizes!). Don’t know anything about its sports teams though.</p>
<p>Lehigh, Bucknell, Wake Forest, Notre Dame, Villanova, Georgetown</p>
<p>Dustyfeathers, Colby is in Waterville, and is secluded on a hill about a mile out of town. Rival Bates is in Lewiston, and is more “in town.” Neither Waterville nor Lewiston is particularly “urban.”</p>
<p>Bucknell is a long way from Philly…</p>