I would definitely consider BYU. >>…
I think that must be a typo.
Did you request a gap year deferral from any of your schools? I would think Yale is quite intellectual - I’m surprised you didn’t take a deferral from them vs going through the entire process from scratch.
If you like Nabokov, then you might like Tufts…
Nabokov was infatuated with Tufts -he mentions it often in his stories. 
Glad to see Haverford and Swarthmore on your list of schools under consideration. They match what you seem to be looking for.
What about Brandeis? Fits your criteria as being close to a large urban city.
Reed requires all freshman – regardless of major – to take a rigorous 1-year course in Ancient Mediterranean Classics (the famous “Humanities 110” sequence). Is that the kind of academic environment that you’re looking for? http://www.reed.edu/humanities/hum110/
Another vote for Haverford. It’s known for its intellectual, unpretentious, and character-driven community. It’s close enough to Philadelphia that it’s actually reasonable to spend time in the city if you choose. Be aware that the school takes its honor code very seriously and that it has a strong role in defining student life. The other point that’s important to consider is that it participates in a consortium with Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore* and this expands the school community (and course catalogue). Because Bryn Mawr and Haverford are less than 2 miles apart with a “blue bus” that continuously runs between the two, and because there are a host of bi-co activities and an easy ability to sign up for classes at any of the three schools in the consortium*, the two colleges do allow for life beyond the single campus if that’s what you choose.
*Penn is in the consortium as well and there are students who elect to take classes on that campus, but there are limitations on registering there and the school breaks and exams don’t always align neatly.
Amherst and Williams… superb LACS among the best places to get a broad yet intellectually challenging undergraduate education in the US. Although Williams is sort of in the middle of nowhere… but do check it out.
Agree with others that BYU recommended in #18 is either a typo, or a joke. Please disregard.
You’ve already received your acceptance to McGill? Wow! In the past, the earliest acceptances have gone out is late November. Congratulations. It would be a good fit for you.
I think your current list is terrific.
I would have also recommended Reed. However the recent controversy has created a stiffing environment for a thinking person. People are afraid to inquire lest they be publicly branded a racist. That’s a terrible environment. The Reed administration really screwed the pooch on the whole thing. I wouldn’t go there at this point because this issue is dominating life at the school. It’s really a shame.
I would consider Rice, Rochester, Johns Hopkins, WUSTL, Tufts, Brandeis, Haverford, Wesleyan as very intellectual schools.
Wow! I’m really surprised at how many comments I’ve been getting on this post!
@suzyQ7 So I actually enrolled at Cornell, but I was so unsure with my decision and after visiting the campus in May, I knew I couldn’t live in Ithaca or go to Cornell. I withdrew from the school in June. I really wish I had picked Yale, but honestly, I was so unsure with what I wanted. Throughout my senior year I had changed my mind literally every 2-3 weeks, and during April, Cornell was the one on my mind that month. In May though, I immediately didn’t feel right about my decision. I didn’t even feel right about the schools I had applied too.
@TomSrOfBoston Over the summer I interned at a lobbyist firm in Silicon Valley. This fall I’ve been interning at a law firm in Los Angeles that focuses on media law (they work with a lot of video game companies). As well, I volunteer daily at the Trevor Project (an non-profit organization helping at-risk LGBTQ teens). In January, I’m moving to Baltimore and will be working at a biotech research lab at JHU. As well, I’ve set up a part-time job at a local bookstore there. That internship ends at the end of April, so in May, using my savings, I’m planning on backpacking in Eastern Europe. I’ve put all of this in my additional info section of my common app. I’m incredibly glad I decided to take a gap year. I’ve really enjoyed the work experience I’ve got so far; I love volunteering; I’m incredibly excited to travel—the only times I’ve been out of the country were for tennis tournaments so I never had the chance to explore. It’s also making me so much more excited to go to school next year because while I read a few books a week, I miss having the chance to discuss them with people. I love to learn and I really miss doing it in a classroom setting.
If you want some of my ECs, in high school, I was a national finalist in debate, I’ve been playing piano for 15 years and violin for 12, when I was younger I was in the top 10 national junior rankings for tennis and first in my state for it for the past 7 years (though I decided two years ago while I love playing tennis I want to focus more on academics so I decided not to go down the recruiting path even though I am still playing it), and throughout high school, I volunteered weekly at a rape recovery center. In terms of the “diversity” aspect of “me,” I am a half white (Europe), a quarter hispanic (Uruguayan), and a quarter Native Hawaiian. I’m gay and I grew up with divorced parents; my dad (the white one) is very wealthy and my mom (the half Uruguayan, half Hawaiian on) is lower middle-class. My dad went to UVA undergrad but transfered and graduated from Georgetown, and he got his MBA from Harvard. My mom went to a large state school in the mid-west and then got her Masters online. I have two siblings. My brother, who is 21, lives with my dad due to some health issues, and my sister is 24 and is a high-school and college dropout - because she was severely depressed (she eventually got her GED and she got a perfect SAT score, then when she went to college, she dropped out of both JHU and then she tried going back to college, and again she dropped out of Duke).
If you want more info for what I’m looking for in a college, I’m a workaholic and not a partyer at all. My older brother got hit by a drunk driver when he was 17 (while he was also buzzed) and is paralyzed and has permanent brain damage, so while I try not to judge people for drinking, I do not do it myself. I love to work hard and love to talk about books - I actually relate to UChicago’s “where fun goes to die” mentality because I was that student in high school who complained about there not being enough homework. Part of the reason I want to go to one of these “uber selective” schools is not just for the prestige, but I feel it will be easier to find similar people. I know I can find my niche at any school, but it’s probably going to be easier to find a bunch of workaholics who like to discuss Bulgakov or Faulkner for fun at Columbia or UChicago than it is going to be at, say, a large state schools or something.
Was also hoping to ask if anyone knows much on MIT humanities? I felt kind of weird applying to MIT saying I want to major in Literature and/or Philosophy considering that is definitely not what people think of when they hear the name “MIT.”
Thank you all for your thoughts and opinions thus far!
@Corbett - I know you’re not too keen on CA, but as the parent of a humanities kid that loathed the whole pre-professional thing, was seeking a very intellectual vibe, and wanted a strong “great books” type core curriculum, I can’t speak more highly of Stanford’s Structured Liberal Education (SLE) program. And Stanford has a very strong and very highly ranked program in the Classics and the school has been putting a lot of money and effort into the arts and humanities programs in the last several years.
Like Yale’s Directed Studies and Princeton’s Humanistic Studies programs (why did you turn Yale down last year, BTW? It seems like it would have been a great fit for you), SLE comprises roughly 50% of your freshman year’s courses in an intensive humanities living/learning program in which your classes (lectures and discussions) take place in your dorm where there are resident faculty as well. There are approx. 90 freshman each year in SLE, and its members form a tight-knit community. The weekend before last, SLEers had a 10-hour long “goat roast” and read the Odyssey aloud (after having studied it in depth). SLE brings in all of the top lecturers from various departments; it’s a very solid program that has been around forever (the resident faculty that runs SLE now had been a SLE student decades and degrees ago).
https://undergrad.stanford.edu/programs/residential-programs/sle
I agree that Reed provides a very intellectual vibe, but its Humanities 110 core, currently under review, has been a hot button issue for the SJW crowd and there have been a number of protests, etc. I’d investigate it fully before taking that leap.
(I’d also suggest looking at Pomona for Classics and Late Antiquities-Medieval Studies programs, but Claremont is probably even more Californian and suburban than Stanford. And I don’t think you’re going to find your tribe at USC, although their Thematic Option is interesting and they’re quite strong in Comp Lit.)
I wouldn’t worry about not getting into the city much at Columbia – you will! (In fact, that’s one of the reasons my D did NOT apply to Columbia – she wanted more of a campus culture; it seemed that Manhattan served as Columbia’s campus and she’s never been a big fan of NYC)
As for some of the other schools on your list, Georgetown will have a more preprofessional vibe – not too dissimilar to Penn’s – and Brown’s open curriculum is the antithesis of a Chicago/Columbia core. I don’t think Vandy would be a good fit at all – very Greek and not as intellectual as I think you’re looking for. And Nashville is hardly a cultural mecca (unless you like country music). I’d also steer clear of MIT – while they have some very fine humanities programs, it’s not a good place for someone who wants to study the humanities as an undergraduate (and I was told this by a Literature professor there!). Davidson is an excellent school and their classics seem quite solid (their art history program wasn’t as strong, so that knocked it off D’s list) and I think that you can’t go wrong with some of your Philly choices, particularly the Haverford/Bryn Mawr combination and/or Swarthmore; all of these schools would be be right up your alley and tick a lot of your boxes.
I’m still thinking Yale would have been a great fit for you – it was my D’s original top choice (she was accepted SCEA). Unlike you, however, she wasn’t specifically wanting to be on the east coast and actively disliked New Haven. That said, she loved the intellectual vibe at Yale, and Directed Studies is an amazing program. You can do worse a lot than Yale for the humanities. And I’d try Princeton again. And Harvard would allow you to take classes at MIT so it might provide the best of both worlds.
Another suggestion I’d have for you is Wash. U. in St. Louis. Their Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities, especially its Texts and Traditions program, is very, very strong. Both D and I liked both WUSTL and St. Louis way more than we expected to.
https://iph.wustl.edu
https://iph.wustl.edu/getting-started/text-tradition
How are you spending your gap year?
@LoveTheBard Looks like we posted at the same time! Look at my comment above for what I’m doing during my gap year. And yes, I REALLY wish I had picked Yale now, but can’t dwell on the past! I just have to focus on the future now. I have to say, last year I couldn’t really envision my future and I was just so stressed about it. This year, I still can’t envision my future, but I’m actually excited for it!
Thank you for all your thoughts and opinions. They were so extensive and I’ll really have to think about all of that. I’m actually visiting Stanford this weekend, so we’ll see if I like it. As for Pomona, I visited last year and wasn’t a huge fan. Plus after living in LA… I definitely don’t think I could live her any more. Didn’t realize that about Gtown though. I always thought of it as more intellectual. I am a legacy though, so I might apply anyway.
I have to say, I also love your like “you won’t find your tribe at USC” - I really like the use of the world tribe LOL.
The problem with this is that you won’t have many peers and that will get annoying after a while. While MIT can be really intellectual, MIT really is dominated and I mean DOMINATED by STEM majors. If you want to study literature and philosophy there are so many better schools to study those subjects.
My list of most intellectual atmospheres would be led by UChicago, Yale, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Columbia, Carleton, Haverford, Wesleyan, Vassar, Reed.
Someone else’s list might be larger, but I suspect that all of these schools are likely to be on it.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=massachusetts+institute&s=all&id=166683 indicates that there are very few students in those majors at MIT, so you may not have many peers (probably most students in those classes will be fulfilling HASS requirements). May be good in terms of attention from the faculty, though.
Here are the undergraduate majors in those subjects:
https://lit.mit.edu/major-in-literature/
http://web.mit.edu/philosophy/program1.html
Be aware of MIT’s extensive core curriculum, including extensive math and science courses (and “for poets” versions are not offered, unlike at many other schools):
http://catalog.mit.edu/mit/undergraduate-education/general-institute-requirements/
@ClassicRockerDad Thank you for that! That is definitely what I was worried about with applying to MIT. I love that it has that “intellectual” feel, but it doesn’t really have it in the fields I hope to potentially go into.
With that in mind, I was wondering what your thoughts are on WUSTL, Rice, and JHU. I’ve always had the impression that they are more STEM based schools. WUSTL and JHU are obviously very well known for their medical schools and Rice is well known for its undergraduate engineering. Thus, I’d love to hear your opinions on their humanities programs.
Granted, it’s probably good to note that while I want to go into the humanities, I was still very accomplished in math/science in high school and I do very much enjoy those subjects, just not quite as much as english/humanities. In high school I took both AP Calc AB and BC and I took Calc 3 at the local community college my senior year. I also took AP Stats. In the sciences, I took AP Chem, Bio, Physics 1, Computer Science A, and Environmental Science. I was also part of Science Olympiad where I placed 2nd at state (3 years in a row) in cell biology, and I was part of the robotics club. That said, on the other hand, I was a head editor of my high school literary magazine my Junior and Senior year and I was head of my school’s Pride Club and I forced (well strongly encouraged) them to read the Color Purple and Maurice - two of my favorite novels.
I write about this frequently in my “why this major” supplements. I write about how throughout high school I loved all my classes and it took me a while to realize that I loved more than just the subjects, I just loved learning in general. With that realization, I hope to potentially go into academia so that I can continue to “learn” for a living but also to share my love of learning. I talk about how literature and philosophical arguments are things that will never be resolved which is why I love them - they are a chance to forever learn.
As for my Common App essay, I talk about my reaction to my parents’ divorce, my brother getting hit by a car, and my sister dropping out of college, and I relate my reactions to my favorite book characters. I talk about how one author taught me this and another taught me that and how they were my way of coping as I felt my family was “falling apart.” I actually made the decision to use a new essay this year. Last year I wrote about tennis, piano, and violin and how they took up all my time and at some point I decided to not do them all so seriously because I was losing my sense of identity.
Sorry for the mini ramble there. But again, thank you for your thoughts. I would love to hear more about your thoughts on JHU, WUSTL, and Rice. I will be starting as a research assistant/intern at JHU in January though, so I will learn more then. Granted, that will be after the deadline, so probably should do some more research now.
@takacatboy - First of all, you probably dodged a bullet by not going to Cornell; I doubt it would have been a good fit.
As for Yale, if truly in your heart of hearts you think you made a mistake and would go there if admitted, I would reach out to your admissions rep and tell him/her what you’ve said here; they just may be all about second chances. And I do think it would be a perfect fit – esp. with the debate thing. Yale’s Political Union would also be a no-brainer.
When you visit Stanford, see if you can check out SLE and/or reach out to a prof or two. If you want to pm me, I can put you in touch with my D or recommend a few names.
FWIW, my D wasn’t a big Pomona fan either (besides, she was looking for merit and they don’t do merit…neither did Stanford or Yale, but oh well…). A lot of people do like Pomona though, so that’s why I mentioned it.
When I said “tribe” I didn’t quite realized just how appropriate it was, given your background.
“Intellectual” may also vary by major within a college. Students in majors with no obvious major-specific pre-professional attributes (as opposed to general thinking skills and the like) may be in them primarily for intellectual reasons. This does not mean that all students in more pre-professional majors like business are automatically less intellectual, but such majors may contain some students who are (since they have other reasons for choosing the major). The same may go for pre-med and pre-law students focused on protecting their GPAs to have a chance of going to the desired professional school.
@takacatboy - I’m gonna jump in hear and answer the question you posed to @ClassicRockerDad.
Rice is a lovely school and has a lot in common with Yale in terms of residential colleges, etc. It was pretty high on D’s list early on and she very much enjoyed her visit there. That said, while its humanities and social science programs are strong, my D was told by a humanities prof at Rice that it’s a very small percentage of the student body (ca. 6% if memory serves) that majors in the humanities. I suspect JHU would also be very science focused as well.
One of the things you want to look at with both Chicago and Columbia are how many of the core classes are actually taught by faculty and how many are taught by TAs. And Chicago’s core is gonna make you take some math and lab sciences that can perhaps be more easily finessed more easily (like Stanford, Yale, or Princeton). (FWIW, my D was a strong math/science student and – were it not for the fact that she actively disliked both areas of study and favored the humanities by a long mile – would have done fine with STEM classes; Given the choice, she rather fulfill these requirements with things that are more interesting to her.).
Another program you might want to look at is UT Austin’s Plan II honors. I met a Columbia student whose brother goes there and thought very highly of it (the mom teaches Philosophy at Columbia). This was at the same conference in which I met the MIT literature professor who candidly told me that she wouldn’t recommend MIT for the humanities.
Sorry to hear about your brother. Mine also had a very severe TBI while on a bicycle on his way to work (no alcohol or cars involved, but he flew over the handlebars). Sucks big time.