Looking for a school for myself. Want to get a general liberal arts degree.
SAT is Math 510, Verbal 600. GPA 3.6 so highly selective schools are out.
I always thought I wanted a midsize school near a big city, but recently visited Sarah Lawrence and fell in love with how free their curriculum building seemed to be, yet thoughtful. Also loved the prettiness of the campus. So I am now open to suburban schools with a small student body.
Diversity is somewhat important for me as well as a liberal atmosphere.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Bard College - same vibe, more rural.
Bennington - same vibe, more rural.
Go to this website: https://ctcl.org/
Better yet, get the book Colleges That Change Lives.
Lots of these schools will accept you, and some are rather progressive in their curriculum.
Most of them will be in small towns of cities. Pretty campuses, progressive education.
Check out some liberal arts schools in the New England area!! There are a lot of resources here for college students and here are some that I remember with similar if not better rankings to Sarah Lawrence:
- Connecticut College
- Trinity College
- College of the Holy Cross
- Mount Holyoke College (women's school)
UNC Asheville, one of the relatively few public LACs, is worth a look. The core curriculum is noticeably more restricted than at SLC, but it has the vibe and students you’re looking for, I think. With 3800 undergrads, it’s on the larger side for a LAC.
Asheville itself is quirky and hip. Residents are pretty proud that it boasts more craft breweries than any city in the US besides Portland.
Cost constraints and state of residency?
Evergreen State is open curriculum and not very selective, but could be expensive if you are not a Washington resident.
Is there a public LAC for your state listed in http://coplac.org/members/ ?
Thanks so much for the replies.
Theoden - Just ordered the paper version of the book “Colleges that Changes Lives”. Will def read through.
Andoverblue - Thank you for the recommendations. I looked up Connecticut College, Trinity College and College of the Holy Cross. They all seem like reach schools for me but worth a shot.
Warblersrule - Thanks, never thought of UNC Asheville. Honestly, when looking at the demographics, it looked a bit lacking in diversity, but I’ll take a further look.
Ucbalumnus - As for cost, I’m ready to bite the bullet for Sarah Lawrence, which is $52k before aid. Will take a look at Evergreen State.
Goucher, Ithaca, Manhattan college.
Sarah Lawrence is more than $52k just for tuition, not including living and other expenses:
https://www.sarahlawrence.edu/financial-aid/undergraduate/tuition.html
Goucher and Clark on the East Coast,
with Willamette, U Puget Sound and Redlands on the West.
University of Redlands in California. 2,500 students. No grades; written evaluations.
If you are open to the Midwest, look at Beloit. They are test optional. With your GPA, it looks like your net cost would be in the $30k range.
@BaldParrot You can also check out the website: https://ctcl.org/
They’ve added a few colleges, like Bard and Agnes Scott
It all depends on what you want to study, or what you THINK you want to study and what geography you might look at.
Here are some questions that can help you.
- What might you want to study?
- What part of the country are you open to going to school in?
- Do you want an open/creative curriculum? Do you want be able to create your own major? Do you want to be exposed to a broad and robust curriculum that will train you to think laterally (which means taking some required courses in certain areas)
- Are finances an issue? Will you parents foot the bill, will you need to take loans?
- Are you interested in getting internships and doing original research?
Sarah Lawrence, Bard, Hampshire College, Bennington have similar vibes. My experience when touring Bard was very much about the life of the mind, very artsy (shhhh…were thinking). I didn’t get a sense that too many people were visiting the career office or getting internships, though I may be wrong - it’s just not what they talked about. I don’t know much about their outcomes after graduation, but it’s something you might want to think about.
Midwest: Lawrence, Lake Forest, Earlham, Kalamazoo.
Not sure if they have your ctiteria, but libetal arts colleges in Kentucky are vastly overlooked & rarely mentioned on College Confidential: Centre, Berea, Transylvania, Georgetown.
Clark
SMU
Take a look at Randolph College. Very small, very pretty, good FA. Located in Lynchburg, Va–a historic river town, plenty of charm. Fairly liberal. I am on their Facebook page and the opportunities their graduates find are amazing considering the small size of the college. Lots of fun, funky, artsy traditions. Students get a lot of one-to-one time and attention from faculty–big on liberal arts but some of their science majors are notable as well. Used to be Randolph-Macon Women’s College, but went co-ed about a decade ago. Your stats would work and diversity is good.
Check out Guilford in NC. I’m guessing that a lot of what you liked about Sarah Lawrence, you’d find there.
New College of Florida is one of the CTCL and will be far more affordable at ~$15k tuition for OOS students after the OOS scholarship that automatically goes to them.