<p>
When we visited Hamilton we stayed in Clinton which I agree is a pleasant small town; however, I don’t remember it as being “walkable” in a practical sense from the Hamilton campus. My son liked Hamilton and Kenyon – a lot – but my impression was that they were even more cut off from civilization than his eventual choice, Williams.</p>
<p>macnell, I’d agree with Skidmore, add Conn College and Smith.</p>
<p>I second the Villanova suggestion.</p>
<p>We’ve visited Loyola MD. Very pretty campus, great dorms, lots of enthusiasm and spirit. They offer lots of transportation options,ie shuttle service into Balt and the inner harbor…
It’s definitely worth a look.</p>
<p>What about Richmond?</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. Macalester could be interesting. Again, one of those schools that parents have had an eye on, but daughter is still working the distance issue. though an excellent school, Lewis and Clark is one of those that qualify as too far for any consideration. We’ve seen Goucher mentioned a couple times as a school to add when we look around JH and Loyola MD. We’ll look into that, along with college of Notre Dame. Colgate and Hamilton may be too rural, though American might fit the bill, having a campus that doesn’t just blend into the city. Thanks for that suggestion. Yes, Kenyon would be to rural. Though I think you’ve put Kalamazoo in the vote lead. We’ll check into Skidmore also. Thanks for the stream of suggestions!</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon (a bit of a reach) and Case Western would also meet many of your specifications.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. We’ve just started looking into both schools you mentioned.</p>
<p>We were in the same boat as you were last year with a list that is very similar to yours. This is our results:
Washington University in St. Louis, Rice, Hopkins, Brown (match to reach)
Tulane, Case Western, Brandeis (likely accept)
U of Arizona, Kansas University (safety)</p>
<p>She was fortunate enough to get in all of the schools above with merit scholarships at all but Brown. We do not qualify for need based aid and received very generous merit at many of the schools. Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks Krug. Daughter has been getting a fair amount of mail from Wash U in St Louis, and we might have to find a way to get out there for a visit, also. We’ll look over some of the other schools from your daughter’s list (with the exception of U of A… just too far). Which school did she end up choosing, if you don’t mind us asking?</p>
<p>If you’re going to stop and look at PC there is no question you should check out Brown as well. If Wesleyan (CT) is a top choice, Brown is an immediate place to look. Many, many cross admits/applicants. Heck, the guide I saw this summer when taking an organized trip with high schoolers there even mentioned to me that almost everyone she knew at Wesleyan either applied to or thought of applying to Brown and that more than any other set of schools she found people who had Wesleyan and Brown as their two top choices and chose between them. I can definitely understand why.</p>
<p>There are parts of Wesleyan that may attract your daughter more than Brown based on what I was reading, but there are parts of Brown that may attract her as well and we wouldn’t be a bad “second choice”.</p>
<p>We put U of Arizona on the list because her grandparents live in Phoenix and the school will fly you out for FREE and put you up during Honors Weekend if you are a National Merit Finalist. It was worth the visit because my D was pleasantly surprised at how much she liked it and they gave NMF a great deal (100K for 4 yrs which would have covered more than tuition and our expense would have been around 3K/yr, WOW!!)</p>
<p>After much deliberation, she ended up choosing WashU because it had the best scholarship out of all the school that is its academic peers. After visiting many of the schools, WashU had the best dorm and terrific facilities. The students are smart, not elitist, the atmosphere cozy but not too small, urban but in a very good neighborhood. Some of the schools suggested are on the small side so look closely before you waste precious time and money.</p>
<p>For a safety, I would say Le Moyne College.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>a student body between 1400 - 8000 undergrads.
Has around 3400.</p></li>
<li><p>a more traditional campus setting (quads and greens, etc).
Yup.</p></li>
<li><p>not urban, but not rural.
It’s in a suburb of Syracuse, NY.</p></li>
<li><p>campus in or near town center or downtown area that is within walking distance for some off-campus treks (such as shopping, movies, pharmacy, restaurants. ie. don’t need a car to get around).
Students say that there are a bunch of things to do within walking distance, but most stuff is done on campus or you get there with a car (but everyone is allowed a car and lots of people have them).</p></li>
<li><p>being within a couple hours of a major city would be a plus.
Depending on traffic, it’s about 5-10 minutes away from downtown Syracuse.</p></li>
<li><p>if in a city, the campus needs to have a feel of being insulated or separate from that
city.
As I’ve said, it’s in a suburb. The campus is a conventional campus. Really nice.</p></li>
<li><p>strong academics.
Check.</p></li>
<li><p>not apathetic to sports.
Check. Division I and II and tons of club and intramural sports.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hi, Macnell. Son is a junior as well. Interested in biomedical engineering, but want to make sure there’s other good majors available just in case wants to switch.</p>
<p>Marquette is top choice right now. We visited it last summer, and loved it. Close to Chicago, which he loves, and great variety of majors besides engineering. Very caring faculty. Great transportation. It is separate from the city. Glad we visited. </p>
<p>Also starting to look at Case Western, heard great things. </p>
<p>Drove through Northwestern. Absolutely gorgeous. Reminded us of Tulane (we’re from New Orleans). Campus spread out, so may need a car, not near the city.</p>
<p>Loyola Chicago near Northwestern, also near Lake. No engineering, but computer science and business are actually at the water tower campus in the city, and there is a shuttle between the two campuses. One of our teachers son’s goes there, and he’s studying international business. He’ll be studying in Japan this year. Jesuit schools are good with aid.</p>
<p>Another good Jesuit school is Saint Louis University. Son got the impression that sports are big there. Compared to Marquette a lot.</p>
<p>DePaul in Chicago is also a good school, I hear. Worth checking out while you’re in the Midwest visiting. </p>
<p>Good friend just chose College of Charleston. Lots of kids from New Orleans go there.</p>
<p>Keep us posted, as we’re in the same boat as you! Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks again for all these incoming suggestions! Many more names going up on our radar… and it seems our proposed midwest summer trip may be chock full of college visits. Oh how our younger kids are gonna love that (note the sarcasm)! lol Krug, thanks for the most recent suggestion. Montegut, thanks and we will keep you posted. You do the same! BTW, we have only posted one of our college visits, thus far, on the CC college visit thread, but hope to add the rest over the next week or two.</p>
<p>Thanks Modestmelody and SingDanceRunLife for two fine suggestions! Whether extreme reach, slight reach, perfect fit or safety, we need to get a feel for what’s out there and that seems like a comfortable fit for our daughter. The deciding comes later, when she makes her last visits and in looking down the acceptance list, compares fin-aid. Well, we’re hoping she has aid to compare. I guess in this economy we better not assume anything!</p>
<p>Georgetown, Villanova, Providence, Richmond , Vanderbilt,Wake Forest,Elon</p>
<p>Brave Ulysses, thanks for the suggestions. Very nice list. Elon is one we haven’t really looked at to any large degree. We’ll check it out, along with more checking in depth of the others. Thanks.</p>
<p>macnell - No problem. Although Le Moyne is a safety, it’s great academically, and since it’s Jesuit, as someone else said, there’s great money! I, only a B student so nothing extraordinary got a 10k scholarship for each year I’m there! All I have to do is maintain a certain GPA (a 2.5 I believe). I have a friend who’s getting a merit scholarship for 19k/year. And keep in mind, the tuition is $25,000 and room and board around $10,000.</p>
<p>Thanks for the added info, SingDanceRunLife. We’ll definitely research Le Moyne.</p>
<p>Definitely check out Carleton and Macalester
also, what about Oberlin, Bowdoin, Kenyon</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions, kermitfrog71. Carleton and Mac are now on our radar… we’ve recently visited Bowdoin and daughter thought highly of it, but is a little unsure. Oberlin and Kenyon are rather rural, from what we’ve learned and she thought Bowdoin was getting near that feeling when we visited there. We’ll look more closely at them and see what we can learn. Thanks again.</p>
<p>I want to second Kenyon–gorgeous, great academics (biased alum! :)), and also Conn College in New London–strong academics, slightly easier to get into, absolutely beautiful campus but not in the middle of nowhere by any means–New York and Boston on your doorstep. And if she likes Bowdoin, look at Colby–also in Maine, also somewhat isolated, but terrific academics, beautiful campus, very friendly.</p>