<p>So I'm a British citizen looking to apply to an American University. I've got an american school in britain for my whole life and I've found that it's really hard to get any worthwhile information across the pond about US universities. I visited a few during spring break last year but I still didn't get a good feel for any schools.
What I really want to know is what are some good liberal artsy (doesn't have to be liberal arts, but should be a pretty broad core curriculum) that allow you to double major in urban areas (specifically pretty big cities).</p>
<p>In terms of me, I have the following stats:</p>
<p>GPA 3.3 (3.6 Junior year, had some problems freshmen...)
SAT 2120 (760 CR, 680 M, 680 W)
AP US: 4
AP CS: 4
AP Eng Lang: 4
Taking AP Stats, AP Euro and AP Econ this year.
I'm on the school newspaper and I'm Captain of the Rugby team as well as doing a lot of other club and community service work.</p>
<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated. God knows I can't stand to look at another international brochure of two ethnically diverse people shaking hands on a leaf strewn alleyway for virtually EVERY SINGLE New England college.</p>
<p>There are five schools with completely open curriculums: Brown, Amherst, Smith, Hamilton, and Grinnell. Brown is the only one in an urban area.</p>
<p>Which is more important to you, being in an urban area or having a completely open curriculum? There are plenty of liberal arts schools we can suggest in urban areas, but most of them have some distribution requirements. The ones you should take a look at are Macalester, Rhodes, and Lewis & Clark.</p>
<p>I believe that Northwestern has no core requirements either. It’s a top school and somewhat easier to get into than any of the schools previously stated.</p>
<p>Wesleyan does have a completely open curriculum. The caveat is that you need to fulfill a minimal set of distribution requirements for Honors (and a couple of majors)</p>
<p>Northwestern has core requirements. It’s probably less difficult to get into than Brown or Amherst but it’s harder to get into than all the other colleges that have been named.</p>
<p>What I’m really looking for is something less strict than, say, Columbia. I don’t necessarily need to be in an urban area, but being close to one is vital. Something like Brown or Amherst may actually be too unstructured for me.
Northwestern is close to the kind of thing I like, but it’s also very hard to get into. Maybe something like Northwestern but safer?</p>
<p>GW, the University of Pittsburgh, Washington University in St. Louis, Boston University, and Rice University are all schools in big cities. They don’t have CORE curriculums but they do have distributional requirements, as do most liberal artsy schools.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between an open curriculum (no requirements whatsoever), general education requirements (requirements in certain fields of study, but not specific classes), and further still with a core curriculum (specific, required classes).</p>
<p>As mentioned, Brown is on the “open” extreme, Columbia is at the other end. The vast majority of colleges fall somewhere in between, including the majority of top schools.</p>
<p>Rice University in Houston, Texas is very flexible with their distribution requirements… you roughly only need to take four classes in three different areas… four classes in humanities/history, four classes in social sciences (econ, poli sci, or anthropology), and four classes in science or math. AP or IB credit can be used to satisfy requirements in these areas as well. Therefore, many students here double and even triple major. Rice also loves international students. Therefore, Rice will be a little easier to get into than schools like Brown and Columbia. it is still hard to get into.</p>