<p>What do you perceive as the most intellectual schools? Where can you go to learn for the sake of learning? By this, I don't mean schools with high SATs, necessarily, or high average admitted GPAs or National Merit, but schools where students are genuinely interested in learning.</p>
<p>My shortest list would be: UChicago, Brown, Haverford, Columbia College (NYC), Carleton.</p>
<p>I would add Reed College to your list.</p>
<p>Swarthmore, Yale, Princeton & Chicago. St. John's College, which has two campuses (New Mexico & Maryland).</p>
<p>UChicago.
Reed.
Swarthmore.
Rice.
Bryn Mawr.
Haverford.
Colorado College.
Amherst.
Wesleyan.
Bard.
Sarah Lawrence.
The Vermont LACs (Bennington, Marlboro, Middlebury).</p>
<p>Oberlin, Macalester</p>
<p>I was going to suggest St. Johns but someone go to it before I did. The ones that remind me of what you asked for are St. Johns, UChicago and Reed. As previously posted.</p>
<p>Intellectualism and genuine interest in learning, though with a global and somewhat applied (practical/realist) twist, is alive and well at Tufts.</p>
<p>I visited Tufts and got a very pre-professional feel, but I'm going back to see what it's really like.</p>
<p>Hampshire.</p>
<p>New College of Florida</p>
<p>I always think that, because of their nature, the schools that don't give grades belong in this category, so yeah:</p>
<p>Bennington
Hampshire
Marlboro
Reed
New College of Florida
Evergreen
others I am probably forgetting.</p>
<p>Bard College, the students there are always learning.</p>
<p>NESSM, there are students who fit your description at just about any decent college in the country. Some campuses have more than others, to be sure, and you may have to work a little harder to find your peer group, but you will find them. Just about any philosophy course past freshman philosophy-for-the-masses will be full of like-minded students; the same is true of any post-freshman history course. And I can guarantee you that if you enroll in classes like "the philosophy of history" you will find your group. (Yes, even big state Us offer such courses.)</p>
<p>Here is a secret. Almost every professor of the humanities and social sciences loves to learn for the sake of learning, even those stuck at colleges not noted for a surplus of intellectual students. They will be thrilled to see you, and you will be treated like royalty. (Come to think of it, even some professors of the natural sciences, and EVEN SOME ENGINEERING PROFS are intellectuals.)</p>
<p>PS: Some of the schools others are listing are not going to fit your other requirements, as posted on other threads.</p>
<p>Chicago, Princeton, Yale</p>
<p>Carleton, Reed, Swarthmore</p>
<p>I forgot Evergreen. That definitely is one!</p>
<p>Very valid point midmo!</p>
<p>I agree with midmo about the professors. I knew wherever I ended up, I would find people interested in learning, even if they were twice my age ;-)</p>
<p>As far as other schools that don't get pointed out as much as the usual suspects (Chicago, Princeton, Yale, Reed, Swarthmore) I would add Oberlin, Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, Colorado College, St. Olaf.</p>
<p>Duke... hahahahahahahahahaha!! :p</p>
<p>no wait, i was kidding, no really i was!</p>
<p>would the op question imply that learners for learning sake do not engage in 'grade grubbing', or would not emphasize grades over the material / concepts themselves?</p>
<p>from my poking around colleges,</p>
<p>I would put into the 'pure learning' </p>
<p>the st johns's (md and nm)
chicago
reed</p>
<p>Not Swat and the IVYs - those are type A vallies types;</p>
<p>carleton, too- it plunders NMS ranks and attempts to simmer down the intense grade conscious students with humor to show that there is more to life than grades. So maybe the institution of Carleton attempts a pure learning ethos, but with grade conscious kids.</p>
<p>HYPSMC and a few peers of those.</p>
<p>To expand on midmo's excellent points:</p>
<p>I think the list of colleges and universities where students go to learn in an abstract sense is much longer than commonly understood. At any top private -- LAC or university -- and at most flagship universities there are plenty of students who are intellectually driven. To make that distinction between Swarthmore and Williams or Amherst or between Chicago and Dartmouth or Cornell is misleading at best and ridiculous at worst.</p>
<p>The major difference is to me what kids do when they're not studying or engaged in class room activities. At some schools they may opt for what are facetiously thought of as "intellectual" pursuits -- drinking expresso, smoking clove cigarettes. At others they may play soccer. This does not make the former any more intellectual.</p>
<p>Any school that offers a liberal arts education is going to have kids who are there for learning's sake. Why else would any one study philosophy for example? Surely not for its preprofessional value.</p>
<p>So in short don't be misled by the "intellectual" name-tag. Choose your college by the atmosphere, teaching style, environment. If you don't like sports and cold weather don't go to Dartmouth for example, but don't assume that you'll get any less intellectual input in a Dartmouth history class than you would in a Chicago history class.</p>