<p>Daughter, perhaps on the shyer side, wants a school in the midwest, no more than a 6 hour drive from Chicago (ideally, closer to 3 hrs) where parties are not a dominant, or even active part of life. By parties, I think she means extreme drinking and other sorts of similar behavior. Maybe she is interested in talking about academics, seeing movies, or something like this, during fri-saturday night.</p>
<p>numbers:
3.3 unwted, 3.8 wted
26 pct-ile rank
act-27
rigorous courseload with lots of APs classes
above avg sub hs
strong ecs in violin achievement</p>
<p>Are there 4 yr residential colleges that can get close to this requirement who might take a person with numbers quoted?</p>
<p>Some extra complexities: she said she is not comfortable with conservative christian types, and (hold on to your seatbelt), she is not comfortable with 'liberal athiests' ; she'd prefer not an urban location.</p>
<p>maybe Like U of C, where, I've heard, on a saturday night they might work a board game quietly (and talk about michelangelo :) )
-- but not as selective (see her numbers), and not urban.</p>
<p>Might a big school be good for her? The idea being that in a bigger ocean she might find others like her?</p>
<p>OR is a smaller school better for such a person? At smaller schoolers are the parties magnified?</p>
<p>I don't know if it fits your distance restriction (might want to be more flexible on that), but I think Lawrence U in Appleton might be a good match. Serious academics, serious music, small-town atmosphere. </p>
<p>St. Olaf, also.</p>
<p>Earlham in Indiana might suit and while there's a religious side to the mission statement, as a Quaker college, it doesn't seem heavily conservative. </p>
<p>Kalamazoo has a good reputation and is described as "not a party school."</p>
<p>I think the same is true for Knox College. </p>
<p>These are all described in the Fiske Guide to Colleges, which you should get if you don't already have it.</p>
<p>ohio university, miami university (oxford, ohio), Indiana University, Michigan State, Penn State, UW madison, Ohio State, University of Kentucky, University of Iowa, UIUC</p>
<p>Its a proven fact, no one drinks at these unis. Plus their all great for education :)</p>
<p>How about a "public LAC"? I have in mind Truman State University in Kirksville, MO, just south of the border with Iowa. Middle sized, mostly undergraduate. Small town, seems to have a fair number of kids from Chicago; they take the Amtrak directly to Kirksville, where a van from the school picks them up and takes them to school, about 10 minutes away.</p>
<p>I don't know a great deal about Truman State personally, but I meet people regularly who are graduates, and they rave about it.</p>
<p>About 15 years ago the school had a major make-over, raising its academic profile quite a bit. It is popular with students who want a school that is not so big and impersonal as Big State U, but not so small as many of the midwest private LACs.</p>
<p>Two midwest colleges where friends kids have gone might fit the bill for you. One is Earlham, as a parevious poster noted. Very high quality academics, not urban in the least. Quaker values, but they are wholly unintrusive on a kid's personal belief and from what I hear, the tone of political discussion there because of that tends to be civil. I hear that there is a mildly nonconformist student body (hey this college, right?), and athletics and heavy duty drinking are not the thing there. </p>
<p>Also consider Knox, which has a susrprisingly diverse student body to me ( for being in the middle of nowhere), and is small and nurtuing. They also have some graduate programs so that the campus isn't just 20 year olds kids talking to themselves. The kid I knew who went there loved it and said it was mellow, rural, and very friendly. Also SATs are optional, I believe.</p>
<p>With reference to post #8 above, Truman State. I took a quick look at costs, and OOS tuition is approx. 11 K, room and board varies but is in the range of 6-7 K/yr. Total with books less than 20K per year. There seem to be some automatic merit scholarships for instate students, but I don't know what the situation is for OOS.</p>
<p>I've been on the campus a couple of times when they hosted regional academic competitions that my son was involved in. It seems like a pretty nice campus, but the town is definitely small and not particularly sophisticated. It is about 90 minutes north of Columbia, a good sized college town, perhaps about the same driving time from St. Louis or KC. In other words, it is pretty rural.</p>
<p>We are considering it for our 10th grade daughter, but we got rained out of our first planned visit last weekend.</p>
<p>Knights. I have been to these campuses. No one drinks.
Literally no one has had a beer in the history of OSU's existance. And at Ohio university ppl literally gag when the word "alcohol" is mentioned.</p>
<p>haha. Well some for real decent schools without much party would be denison, muskigum, anderson, and kettering. From what ive heard those are fairly dry campuses. Ur gonna find it where ever u go though. And im not sure on this but i think loyola and depaul of chicago are pretty conservative</p>
<p>Can anyone list some eastern schools like this? I really like Earlham, but my mom does not feel good about the distance, going on experience from this past semester being far away.</p>
<p>first off, im assuming you know not to listen to esmitty because a lot of those schools (especially madison) are the exact opposite of what you're looking for. i would give a solid recommendation to truman state, the kids that go there are definitely not the party type and it is a great value for the good academics. im from iowa, and there are tons of private colleges that seem to be a great fit for your daughter. none of the following, by the way, are full of the super liberal types of people. central college is a great college in pella and your daughter would get i think atleast a $6,000 or so scholarhip automatically. the only bad thing is that the scholarship day is over so the chance to add to that amount is over. dubuque has loras college, university of dubuque, and clark university. i dont know anything about clark, but tony danza went to university of dubuque (a little fun fact haha). i know some people that go to loras and i have also been there, it is a good college from what i see. dubuque is classified as a small city, i think it has a population of like 90,000. as im assuming you know, it is on the corners of iowa, illinois, and wisconsin. it is a beautiful river town but the only downside is there are lots and lots of hills. and then there is cornell college in mt. vernon. mt. vernon is a small town in east iowa, dont know much about it but it is a really good school and kinda spendy. other colleges to consider in iowa: drake, coe, wartburg, and waldorf. sorry this is long, but i hope it helps.</p>
<p>apayton mentions Cornell College. This one has one feature everyone should know about: students take one class at a time, full time for three weeks. Then, exams and a short break before starting course #2, which will run for 3 weeks, many hours a day, I guess, and so on throughout the school year. Their web site claims the students get to know professors very well, as much time is spent together both in and out of the classroom.</p>
<p>My daughter is intrigued by this idea. I would have to look into it in some detail before I got excited about it, but it may work for a certain kind of student.</p>
<p>It's not so well know outside of the region because it's not in the national guides but a lot of high achieving, nonpartying types at our hometown HS choose Luther College (Decorah, IA), and are very happy there. Most of the ones I know are from families who attend nonLutheran mainline churches, which are NOT conservative here. I've heard merit aid is fairly generous. The school has a really good reputation for its choral music, but I don't specifically know about its orchestra programs.</p>