<p>most often you hear mentioned....... </p>
<p>univ. of chicago
wash u in st. louis
rice university..........although it's more southwest</p>
<p>univ. of wisconsin - madison
univ. of michigan - ann arbor</p>
<p>northwestern university</p>
<p>lac's
macalester
grinnell
carleton</p>
<p>Personally, I think that bigger and well-known schools in the midwest are U Chicago, UIUC
For fine LACs... it would be Carleton, Kenyon, Oberlin, Grinnell, Macalester...</p>
<p>I second Grinnell</p>
<p>I second Grinnell. My cousin is a junior there now, and he loves it. It's a really diverse school as well.</p>
<p>I posted in this thread earlier. However, I just wanted to caution readers to look beyond the excellent, but "usual suspects" of Oberlin, Kenyon, Carlton, Macalester, and Grinnell for high quality midwest LAC's as well. For instance, some excellent comparable LAC's to Kenyon (that don't have nearly the crush of applicants and therefore higher chances for admission and possibly merit dollars) include such LAC's as College of Wooster, Kalamazoo, Ohio Wesleyan, Knox, Beloit, Illinois Wesleyan, Hanover, Wabash (men's school), Wittenberg. There are many more throughout the Midwest that could fit the bill as well as the "name brand" schools noted above.</p>
<p>In response to the airport question: St. Olaf and Carleton are both in Northfield, which is not too far from the Mpls/St.Paul international airport, which is the base for Northwest airlinesand has flights to all over the place.</p>