My ideal school

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I want to shorten my college list, but I'm having a bit of trouble. I'm going on a college tour soon, but I'd like the advice of you knowledgeable CCers!</p>

<p>Here's my list thus far:
Grinnell
U of Chicago
Vassar
Wesleyan
Carleton
Brown
Pomona
Yale
Harvard
Bryn Mawr
Macalester
Wellesley
Barnard
Haverford
Amherst
Williams
Dartmouth
Stanford</p>

<p>Here's my ideal school:
*No greater than 7,000 people
*Good reputation
*Intellectual, friendly student body- movers & shakers
*Gorgeous campus
*Close to a city or has a ton to do on campus
*I don’t like intense cold, but I will certainly put up with it if everything else about the school is great
*Social life not centered around drinking
*Close relationship with professors
*Lack of large core curriculum
*Liberal is okay, but not crazy liberal. </p>

<p>I'd ideally like to get my list down to eight.
Also, if you think I've left a worthy school out, please inform me.</p>

2

<p>Be more specific. What state / part of U.S. are you looking at</p>

3

<p>I’m sure a lot of universities fit that description, but I’m just going to point out Princeton.</p>

<p>Size: Princeton has a little less than 7,000 students and only 5000 undergrads. (Heavily undergrad focused)</p>

<p>Reputation: It’s Princeton.</p>

<p>Student body: When I visited, everyone was nice and helpful. Furthermore, the students that I met were very happy at Princeton. In fact, the Princeton Review (which is not associated with the University at all) ranked Princeton #4 in terms of “happiest students”</p>

<p>Campus: The campus is absolutely stunning. After getting off the small train that took me to campus, I immediately thought of Hogwarts. The Princeton Review also rated Princeton’s campus #2 in terms of beauty.</p>

<p>Proximity to City: Princeton is an hour away from both New York and Philly. I have heard of students regularly travelling to these cities to enjoy Broadway productions, shop, or simply to hang out. Cities are far enough away to not distract from a close-knit campus life, but nevertheless accessible. Also, the town of Princeton itself is great too. It has two shopping malls, a library, a theater, and many great restaurants. (Including the best sushi shop in New Jersey)</p>

<p>Climate: You get all four seasons in New Jersey. It’s not Siberia and it’s not Hawaii. </p>

<p>Social life: As with almost all colleges/universities, if you don’t want to drink, no one will force you. I have friends at Princeton who would never even touch a bottle of alcohol. </p>

<p>Political Science: Princeton’s poli sci, according to the National Research Council, is among the top 10 in the nation. Also, there’s always the renowned Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. </p>

<p>Relationship w/ profs: What truly separates Princeton from many of its peers is its emphasis on undergraduate education. Professors at Princeton are not simply committed to research, but also to teaching undergrads. </p>

<p>Core Curriculum: It’s not like Brown’s open curriculum but it’s also not like Columbia’s rigid core. The curriculum is really there to encourage academic exploration rather than limit it.</p>

<p>There’s a mix of liberals and conservatives as with most campuses.</p>

4

<p>Wesleyan - is it crazy liberal? Barack Obama took an entire day off from campaigning just to pay Teddy Kennedy the high respect of taking his place as Commencement speaker. Maybe crazy liberal is a good thing right now. I do know that ounce for ounce, Wesleyan is getting more national press (i.e., reputation) than just about any other school its size in the country. Wesleyan is mad hot at the moment. </p>

<p>The campus is what it is: a former New England men’s college. If you’re into a variety of old, classic looking buildings (as well as, up-to-date modern ones), with a lot of mature tree-shaded groves, Wesleyan’s your place.</p>

<p>There’s no core curriculum. The drinking scene is there if you want it but, easy to avoid if you want that, too.</p>

<p>It’s mid-way between Boston and New York. Amtrak is ten minutes away and will take you anywhere up or down the Northeast Corridor.</p>

5

<p>Bye bye Chicago-- has a pretty extensive core.</p>

<p>Based on your criteria, I think I would choose among:</p>

<p>Wesleyan
Carleton
Brown
Yale
Harvard
Bryn Mawr
Macalester
Wellesley
Barnard
Haverford</p>

<p>That’s an excellent list to sift through.</p>

<p>I would also start thinking about some lower matches and safeties: check out Brandeis and Simmons College. Do you have some others in mind?</p>

6

<p>consider Swarthmore.
Macalester fits your criteria</p>

7

<p>I encourage you to look at Smith College. It has a wonderful, supportive, caring sense of community. It’s known for academic excellence and small classes. It fits your criteria. Smith has:</p>

<p>• Terrific advising and mentoring. Available, committed professors, no TAs; many students do research with professors. Lots of papers published by undergrads.
• Academic excellence. Small classes. Many academic opportunities. Faculty are there for the undergraduates.
• Open curriculum, no core requirements, 1000 courses, 50 majors/50 minors, can design your own major.
• Smith is part of a 5-college consortium (with Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke and Univ Mass). Can take classes at any. Free shuttle bus to get to classes at the other campuses. Buses run nights and weekends also.
• Smith is part of the 12 college exchange–students can attend a semester or year at: Dartmouth, Amherst, Vassar, Bowdoin, and others, should they want to.
• Students told us that it wasn’t hard to meet men and they did so in classes (5-college consortium), clubs, projects, organizations, parties. One student noted it was nice to be able to focus on academics and work during the week (without distraction), and then socialize on the weekends.
• Smith creates women leaders, and has a strong, involved alumni network. </p>

<p>Bottom line: check out <a href=“http://www.smith.edu/collegerelations/SpeakingofSmith-0414.pdf[/url]”>http://www.smith.edu/collegerelations/SpeakingofSmith-0414.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

8

<p>Hmmm…some thoughts (not really helpful on cutting now, but, well, anyway): </p>

<p>–Of the schools you’ve listed, Wesleyan, Vassar and maybe Macalaster are probably the most liberal. You should visit them (or at least one) and decide if you think they’re too “crazy liberal” for you or not…by some people’s definitions they would be, but they aren’t, say, Bard or Hampshire. As a Wes student, I don’t think Wes as a whole is really crazy liberal, but YMMV. But definitely check them out, because all three fit your other criteria really well.</p>

<p>– I think visiting will help you narrow your list a lot. There’s a big difference between a school as (relatively) large as Harvard or Stamford and one as tiny as Haverford; there’s also a huge difference between a school located in NYC (Barnard) and ones in the cornfields of Iowa, even with a lot to do (Grinnell). You might decide you really like or don’t like all girls schools, etc, etc. Visiting will help you figure out what you like the best, and you’ll be able to narrow down from there. For example, if you end up loving the tiny school feel, you’ll probably cut most of the Universities on your list — or visa versa. </p>

<p>I don’t know if you’ve already got your visiting schedule planned, but if not, I’d suggest definitely making sure you hit at least one of the various kinds of schools here. IMO, its more important that you get a variety than hit up a bunch of the same schools — visiting, Wes, Harvard and Barnard will give you a better picture of what kind of environment you’re really attracted to than Harvard, Yale and Stamford. Obviously, the more you visit the better, because you never know which school will just click, but I’d suggest you try to hit up at least on of each of these:</p>

<p>–The most liberal schools (Wes, Vassar, Mac)
–The schools in cities (Mac, Barnard)
–The all girls schools (Duh)
–The more isolated schools (Grinnell, Williams, Dartmouth)
–The smallest schools (Haverford, Bryn Mawr)
–The Unis (Duh)</p>

<p>Again, sorry if the visit is all planned out, making this pointless, but that’s my 2 cents. I learned a lot about what I like just from visiting a couple LACs and Unis, even though none of them ended up on my final list. </p>

<p>– I’d say definitely cut Chicago. It’s a great school, but is both in a really cold climate and has a large core…it just isn’t nearly as a good a fit as the other schools you’ve listed. </p>

<p>–If you end up really liking some of the colder schools (ESP Mac and Carleton), try to visit in the winter or at least talk to some students about what the cold is really like. From talking to a friend who goes to Carleton, despite the fact that I loved the school, I’ve become really glad I didn’t go there. I think the cold would just make me miserable, so you should really consider if you’ll be able to handle it. </p>

<p>–Another (safer) school to consider, esp. if you end up liking smaller LACs and/or city schools, is Occidental in LA. It’s a really neat school and, along with Mac and Barnard, is one of the few LACs directly in a city.</p>

9

<p>what about vassar? depending on what your stats are, hampshire…even if you are upper-tier LAC competitive, this could be a nice safety for you. and, it is in the amherst consortium, meaning that you can take classes at schools in amherst, ma. barnard is a good choice, too. </p>

<p>others:
-carleton
-reed
-occidental
-brown sounds like your ultimate school
-uva…no core curriculum if you are offered to be an echols scholar, and it is close to richmond - but charlottesville is not a bad little town! it is, however, on the conservative side and is fairly large. it’s one of those “small-feeling” large unis, though.
-what about rhodes in memphis as a safety? memphis is a great town and rhodes is a nice school.
-i’d say colby, but it’s in maine…</p>

<p>that’s a pretty tall order for a school, but there are a few that fit the bill.</p>

10

<p>Thank you all for your lovely, prompt responses!
I am, in fact, searching desperately for matches and safeties. My only safety as of now is the University of Missouri-Columbia. I will be automatically accepted into their honors college and probably get a free ride, but I don’t think it’s exactly what I’m looking for. If I decide to major in journalism, though, this would be great.
I will certainly consider Princeton. It sounds fantastic.<br>
I’ve heard that Smith women are a bit… well, really angry women, but if this isn’t true, I’m certainly interested!
Wesleyan sounds pretty sweet. It’s staying.<br>
I guess I’ll have to take Chicago off. Too bad. I like its quirkiness, but maybe it isn’t right for me.<br>
collegehelp- do you have firsthand Swarthmore experience you could share?
Weskid, I love your visiting plan. Luckily, I’m currently in the process of planning my college tour! I will surely take this into consideration.
unalove, any reason why Pomona wasn’t included?<br>
Occidental sounds awesome. Obama transferred, though. I wonder why!
I don’t know much about Rhodes other than my cousin’s friend goes there and he’s a huge hick. Hah.</p>

11

<p>oh, and here’s a link to my chances thread to make choosing safeties and matches easier.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/524662-small-school-valedictorian-evaluating-chances-high-caliber-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/524662-small-school-valedictorian-evaluating-chances-high-caliber-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

12

<p>What are your subject tests and scores? Many require them.</p>

13

<p>Northwestern also for journalism</p>

14

<p>I haven’t taken them yet, but I plan on taking Biology E/M, U.S. History, and Math IIC.</p>

15

<p>^^ eesh, Pomona should have been on my initial list. It fell off by accident. And it would be such a great school for you (plus CMC next door, it sounds like you might benefit from some CMC classes too).</p>

<p>I also didn’t realize you had such a connection to Chicago’s vibes, and it might be worth keeping on that final list even with its core curriculum. If you would like to talk in more detail about how Chicago’s core works/ your reasons for not wanting a core, please private message me… I can tell you right now that if it’s because you’re not a math/science person, Chicago’s math/science components of core are much easier to fulfill than the reading/writing components. (Not fair, but true).</p>

16

<p>well, if you are looking for schools that are less than 7000 people, then Stanford, Harvard, U Chicago are definitely not qualified. Take Harvard as an example, the registered full time undergraduate students are 1700 people approximately for each grade. That is about 6800 students for the Harvard College. And there are still other schools like Harvard Business School, which has an 1800 student body…
Stanford has more than 30,000 full time students.
So you could consider to get them off your list.</p>

<p>But I personally believe that as long as they provide small class teaching, the student body is not a big problem, such as Stanford.</p>

17

<p>You just grossly exaggerated the size of Stanford’s student body. Stanford has 15,000 students.</p>

18

<p>i’m sorry . my bad. i doubled it.</p>

19

<p>Rice fits all of your needs and more.</p>

20

<p>You said you need some safties. Obviosuly, what a safty is will depend on your stats, but some schools that are safer than those on your list (I imagine most would serve as at least low matches) and you might like are:</p>

<p>–Occidental (as I said…def. check it out, it has a lot of what you’re looking for, including one of the best campuses I’ve seen. It might not be that much less competitive than Mac though, I’m not sure the most recent stats)
–Pitzer, Scripts (maybe not safties, but if you end up really liking the Claremont consortium, these are good safer option to Pomona).
–Goucher (GOURGOUS campus)
–Lewis+Clark</p>

<p>Also, if you end up really liking Vassar/Wes/Brown, you should also check out Oberlin. Not a safty at all, but it is a touch less competitive than Vassar/Wes , and very simular (though more isolated, but with a ton to do on campus).</p>