<p>Well, is it competitive? I mean, I'm not a student there obviously, but that's just what my friends said.</p>
<p>I'd suggest Earlham, UC Santa Cruz, Bard.</p>
<p>It is difficult to search online and say "oh, that college is or isn't 'pedantic'." You have to visit. Try walking up to a stranger and make him speak extemporaneously on the school and its competitiveness. By the way, don't write a school off because the atmosphere is competitive. You will never know how you fit in until you spend time there.</p>
<p>Shallow and pedantic... perhaps.</p>
<p>Yes, perhaps. Family Guy lol.</p>
<p>On a visit to Yale, I asked one of the student guides to name one negative aspect of the school. After asking for clarification she responded, "Well, I guess the only bad thing about Yale is that you can't be here forever! You have to graduate at some point!" Disappointed with and skeptical of her answer, I countered her statement with a quick retort: "That's the answer they tell you to give. Honestly, tell me an honest answer to my question." Thinking long and hard, she responded with another clean, textbook answer. "Well, I guess the bad thing about Yale is that you can't take all the classes here. They're just all so interesting, I was upset I could only take so many!" So I gave up trying to pry an honest answer out of her and I left to go look around the campus.</p>
<p>Two hours later at one of many small, independently owned convenience stores near campus, I was accosted by a young man wearing a tie-dye shirt, ripped blue jeans, and a long pony tail. He was asking me to sign a petition of some sort. "No thanks, I'm not interested," I said, brushing past him to get to the refrigerator. All I really wanted was a cold drink.</p>
<p>If you are interested in hearing about the negative side of schools look here:
<a href="http://studentsreview.com/%5B/url%5D">http://studentsreview.com/</a></p>
<p>Be careful of some of the comments. Sometimes it seems as though a couple of students went a little heavy on the substance abuse before spilling their hearts out about their schools.</p>
<p>Harvard got terrible reviews. Many were probably posted by angry students who didn't get in, so they figured they'd discourage others from investigating the school.</p>
<p>That site is infamous for a lopsided presence of negative comments.</p>
<p>I'd rather read the negative stuff. How else will you discern what the college is really like. Lopsided, who cares. If you go on a college tour, its lopsided with how great the school is.</p>
<p>This is true. They aren't allowed to say one negative thing. It's like they're selling you a used car.</p>
<p>What don't you like about this car, "Well, when it stalls on the highway, it makes a great sound, and I wish that I could always have the car make such a pretty noise." No really, what don't you like about this car? "I guess, I just wish I could be driving it all the time. The rust has such a nice tint to it."</p>
<p>I have a bunch of Harvard friends. They liked it but only a few loved it.</p>
<p>When I hear about Harvard, I get this terrible sense of such high unobtainability that I get depressed and cry...well I don't cry...but I feel sad I guess</p>