<p>So I'm looking for smaller liberal arts colleges (1-4000 range) that are situated in or near urban areas, hopefully in the South or the West.</p>
<p>To give you an idea, I really loved Sewanee, but I hated the fact that it was in the middle of nowhere (relatively). I was kind of wishing for what was essentially Sewanee in or near an urban area. Is there anywhere that anyone knows of that's kind of similar?</p>
<p>Other Notes: I'm looking to possibly major/double major in English, Communications, or Political Science.</p>
<p>Right now (I’m planning on taking both tests again)</p>
<p>ACT: 32 composite
SAT: 2050 (…I think. I’d give it about a 50-100 points either way, because I can’t remember exactly)
GPA’s around a 3.7-3.8
I’m a junior with mostly As (got a high B in Trig and a high B in my latest English class)</p>
<p>What about one of the Claremont Colleges? Near LA, 5 liberal arts colleges that share one larger campus space (some shared services like health services and athletic facilities, but each school has its own admissions, degree programs, etc.). 5,000 students total across the five schools.</p>
<p>Reed is in Portland. Macalester in St. Paul, MN is a great school (but I realize it does not meet your South or West criteria).</p>
<p>What do you mean by “a bit much” for Georgetown? Are you talking about cost? Size?</p>
<p>What did you find appealing about Sewanee? What do you mean by urban area? Fortunately for you, most of the liberal arts colleges in the West are located in or near urban areas although they tend to be much less conservative than Sewanee.</p>
<p>intparent: mostly the cost (I mean, 62,000 a year? Why when I could get just as good of an education somewhere else for 30-45,000, or maybe even less?) It just seems very impractical to waste that much money when I know I’m going to be going on to get a masters at some point.</p>
<p>Thanks for recommending those colleges, though. I’ll definitely take a look.</p>
<p>Actually Sewanee is very good with financial aid, and gives a bit of merit aid. At most schools, particularly non top tier ones, the sticker price does not match the actual price.</p>
<p>whenhen: I really liked the size and the feel, definitely. The students all seem very friendly and really seem to love it there. The teachers are excellent and the campus is GORGEOUS (the architecture and the way main campus is laid out, definitely). I just don’t feel like I’d be happy living in Sewanee for four years.</p>
<p>Urban area…I think I’m looking for either a mid-size town or a suburb of a large city. Kind of like Conway (where Hendrix is) or some place like Decatur is to Atlanta (Agnes Scott and Emory)</p>
<p>You might want to look into Willamette and University of Puget Sound as well as Lewis & Clark. All three are in suburbs of major cities, although Wilamette is in both a city and fairly close to Portland.</p>
<p>Reed College is extremely academically intense and very close to Portland. The professors are excellent, but I can’t speak about how friendly the students are.</p>
<p>Here are some other Western LACs or small universities in or near urban areas that aren’t extremely selective but have excellent academics:
-Trinity University (Tx)
-Occidental College
-Southwestern University</p>
<p>Do any of these colleges have really good programs in any of the three majors (English/Creative Writing, Communications, Political Science) and/or give you the ability to do internships all four years?</p>
<p>I don’t think any college is going to “give you the ability to do internships all four years”. By that I mean that college students generally need to find their own internships – you can have an internship every summer if you can wrangle one AND can afford to do it in an unpaid field (your major list looks like it is likely you would have mostly unpaid internships). I have heard that Willamette, with the location across from the capitol, is a good location for finding internships.</p>
<p>Some colleges also have a semester for internships – some of them participate in something called the Washington Semester that provides housing and some support in finding a DC internship. You pay regular tuition at your college, and get credit there for the semester internship and taking a class offered by the program in DC. I think my D had a research paper as well to do. There may be other co-op or internships for a semester or two at some colleges.</p>
<p>Some of the colleges people are suggesting are closer to the $60,000 price than what you are hoping to pay. You need to run the net price calculator for all of these if price is important to you.</p>
<p>Trinity in San Antonio makes a major effort to get as many students into internships as possible. At their Open House events they have a panel on just research and internships.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about your particular areas of interest, though. Trinity has huge pre-med and pre-engineering programs, but I didn’t get a good sense about anything else.</p>