My daughter (D26) is not ready to make a college list yet, but we were talking recently about how she likes to be in classes that are packed with other nerds. Not necessarily STEM nerds… some of her favorite classes are music classes full of music nerds. She said she wants to go to a college packed with all types of nerds who are passionate about their nerdy things. So I thought I would ask which schools have the rep of being REALLY NERDY, packed full of happy nerdy kids nerding out to the max?
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No clue - I mean, both my kids are nerds - and they are at non-nerdy schools and found their people.
But there’s some lists on the subject - unfortunately, listing what are for most, unattainable schools. And most tied to STEM. And I imagine some majors, moreso than colleges, will be nerdy. I mean, if you’re studying classics…are you cultured…or nerdy? 
18 Best Colleges for Quirky Nerds Students – College Reality Check
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Right now, it’s early enough that we don’t have to be practical at all with D26’s “college list.” I am just hoping to come up with some ideas of super nerdy schools that can inspire her to feel excited about the possibility of going to some college where she can feel totally surrounded by nerds. We could maybe visit some, too. She needs some inspiration of what might be ahead in her life, to help get through the rough moments in high school, where nerds are sadly under-represented in some of her classes. Thanks for the lists
William and Mary is a bit known for that. Lots of interesting, academic type kids. Involved in all kinds of things. The school has a Nerf club and a cheese club if that gives a clue.
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I think that term means different things to different people. Like, if you love your classes but also play a sport (if just IM or maybe club), can you still be a nerd? What about if you love your classes but also dress at least a little preppy?
This is not an arbitrary question because there are a lot of LACs, say, where a lot of people are like that (one or the other or both). Also a lot of notable research universities.
So to me, if you have a broad sense of what nerdy can mean, the prominent non-tech options include LACs like Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Carleton, Grinnell, Haverford and Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Wesleyan, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Smith, Barnard, Mount Holyoke, Oberlin, Kenyon, Macalester, Reed, Whitman, St Olaf, Bard, Kalamazoo, Rhodes . . . it just goes on and on. And then universities like Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Rice, Cal, Michigan, Rochester, Case, William & Mary, Brandeis . . . again, long list to follow.
But many people might say no, at least many of those colleges have too many athletes, too many preppies, or both. And then they might have much shorter lists of non-tech nerdy colleges.
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Some schools that attract nerdy (not saying they are all nerdy): U Chicago, CWRU, U Rochester, CMU (not drama school).
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Stanford absolutely revels in its reputation for nerdiness.
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I’m in the no group…having known kids at many of the NESCACs and LACs mentioned, I wouldn’t call many nerdy. Maybe Carleton.
Definitely not any of the NESCACs…too many athletes, too many affluent, too many boarding school students…nerdy just not the general vibe, although there might be some nerds around for sure.
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Well, here’s how it came up. She is in Latin class. There are a bunch of kids in Latin class who play D&D and are definitely Nerds with a capital N (this includes my daughter). Such kids are taking Latin because they genuinely like it, they enjoy things like translating pop songs into Latin and singing them, etc. She said she expected most kids in Latin class to be like this… she thought, why would anyone take Latin if you didn’t actually WANT to learn Latin?
But she said this year there are a bunch of kids who seem to be taking Latin because they heard it was a relatively easy language class, and who make fun of the nerds who actually like Latin class in itself. Many of these non-nerd kids are into sports (I guess they are “jocks”). She wishes that the class was just full of harmless nerds enjoying their Latin class.
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That is funny. I went there and it was SO NON NERDY compared to what I hoped for in a school. 
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I’ve mentioned before of the schools we have visited, I think William & Mary and Carleton have stood out to me as the colleges which most notably blended together intellectual nerdiness with a quirky sense of fun sociability. There is a lot of that in many “smart people” colleges, but these two have stood out even in that crowd as that combination really being central to their brand/self-image.
We still have visits to come to Swarthmore and Haverford, though. I am curious to see if they reach such heights, given their reputations.
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But what schools can the average or above average nerdy student go - vs. the whos who of the top colleges in America?.. although I saw a few in the list from @NiceUnparticularMan .
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I knew tons of kids at Stanford who were secretly nerds, did their studying and/or research projects late at night, and pretended they were just sailing through classes without actually working or caring about them. It was weird that way. I felt like there was a big culture of many kids acting like everything in life came easily to them, never actually having to study or care about academic things.
Other schools I personally attended where nerds felt comfortable openly studying and being open about being super into nerdy things: Oberlin, MIT. Those two schools seemed way more nerdy, culturally. Like you would not be embarrassed at Oberlin or MIT if you were studying on a Saturday night. That is what I am comparing Stanford to.
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IMO of course…Rose Hulman, Illinois Tech, Warren Wilson, Beloit, Brandeis.
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So I guess my question for your kid would be suppose there was a smart kid who took Latin because they really liked Latin, but instead of their main activity for fun being D&D, it was soccer. Nerd? Not a nerd? And most importantly, would she see that person as a desirable classmate? I’m not prejudging, I just think that her answer to that question can lead in different directions.
I note as your story sort of implied, a while back a distinction developed between nerds and jocks. Some people assume this is an ancient distinction, but that’s actually not true at all. For most of human civilization, there was if anything the sense that elite intellectual and physical ability should go together, and “academies” and such would be places where it was expected people would do both.
That whole nerd/jock thing really arose out of some specific circumstances in recent US history, and I think in some notable ways it is already fading from its circa 1980s peak. But still, for some it remains an important contrast.
So, some people would basically say that soccer player who loves Latin just isn’t a nerd. And that’s fine, but if your daughter is looking for Latin-lovers who are specifically not into sports and such, that will definitely cut back on any list I might otherwise propose of colleges where people will likely love Latin if they are taking it.
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No, according to my daughter you could totally be a soccer nerd. Nerds can love soccer. You can be into soccer in a nerdy way.
It’s not about D&D vs sports. It’s about loving what you do, in a nerdy kind of way. Being fascinated with everything about it. Sharing your interests with other nerds. And not making fun of other people who are into their own interests.
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OK, then at least a lot of the colleges I named can definitely be considered.
As far as average nerdy students are concerned, obviously their level of academic interest/effort alone tends to push them up the academic scale in their schools somewhat, but not necessarily all the way to the top.
Among kids like that in our high school, definitely Rochester and William & Mary are popular targets. Among LACs, the NESCAC and SoCal LACs can be tough admits and tend to maybe be a little less nerdy anyway. I think the women’s colleges, the Quaker colleges, and then really many Great Lakes colleges, are different. And there is a range of selectivity across those sorts of categories.
Like, one of our tour guides at Carleton was an enthusiastic Physics major who was also recruited for the woman’s softball team. She is the sort of person I was thinking about when asking my questions above.
Carleton itself is a tough admit (although not as tough as its Northeastern peers), but then there are many more in the Great Lakes that I mentioned that get easier–in no particular order, like Oberlin, Kenyon, Macalester, St Olaf, and Kalamazoo.
As a final thought, honors colleges/programs at public universities are another option. You really have to check out how meaningful they are on an individual basis. But the kind where you might take many of at least your early classes as honors classes, and then skip on into advanced classes in academically-serious majors, can really help such kids mostly be in classes with similar kids even at what is otherwise a large university with a different vibe in many other classes.
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Not really what the OP is looking for since it’s a STEM university and heavily male but Rose Hulman popped into my head. When we visited and talked to a young lady about dating she said for the guys it can be kind of rough, for the girls the odds are good but the goods are odd.
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I am not sure specifically what you mean by “nerd”, but if you want an intellectually-engaged majority who generally like learning, like talking about learning even outside of classes, participate intensely in classes(when the class size works for this), i can assure you Duke and UPenn and William& Mary have that atmosphere in spades. There are probably plenty of others that do! And of course there are people at all of those schools who do not fit this description, but over half do based on D21(humanities at Duke, and has friends across many majors who fit this), D23 (Engineering, Penn: they are all very collaborative yet intense intellectual types and she reports similar vibes in the non-stem class), and many interactions with multiple W&M kids who have shadowed with me over the past 5 years, and they all describe W&M as intellectually engaged kids.
I know decent numbers of kids from Virginia Tech, UVA, W&L, UNC, USC and none of them seem to have an overall nerd/intellectual vibe, but I assume the nerds there find their pockets of people.
Edit: forgot CMU! Packed with nerdy intellectuals—multiple relatives have attended.
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