<p>S1 had a particular aversion to Wash U in St. Louis even though I liked it a lot but then again I went to college already. He was ready to send the application in to Swarthmore when he got in EA to Chicago. He dumped all his other applications and only applied to one more at our insistence. Apparently we had a problem. He didn’t.</p>
<p>I think one also has to parse the “intellectual” element. Do you mean you want to go to a school where people take academic performance very seriously? Or a school where a more cerebral environment pervades the campus (but this may not translate into a workaholic academic environment)? Make sure you are getting what <em>you</em> want.</p>
<p>Chicago, Cal Tech and MIT are unique in that they fit both descriptions, but there are a lot of well-regarded instutitions that tend to lean more one way or the other. For example, I would say Hopkins (its UG’s are really hardcore in terms of study habits) and Northwestern are good examples of schools where students take academics seriously for instrumental purposes (i.e., graduate program admissions and career outcomes), but the intellectual tenor outside the classroom is relatively weak vis-a-vis the prior three schools mentioned (JHU / NU are also known for being fratty, sporty, type-A social places relative to other top colleges). </p>
<p>In contrast, a lot of the strong, second string liberal arts colleges (the schools ranked like 5-15 in US News) essentially pay their bills by offering a life of the mind environment to students vs. attending say, and honors program at a state school where one might feel ostracized from the broader, stereotypical college culture. If this is the side of Chicago that appeals to you, then places like Vassar, Wesleyan, Swarthmore, Claremont college, etc. would be worth considering.</p>
<p>I noticed the original poster’s disinclination to (his guess) of the Reed College vibe.</p>
<p>For any other readers might be making their way down this thread, but who don’t share the OP’s requirements, I suggest google’ing </p>
<p>“tumblr humans of reed”</p>
<p>and </p>
<p>“What Is A Reedie, Anyway?”</p>
<p>The web pages linked from those searches have some profiles of current students and recent graduates. Point and click, and then you can read some first hand descriptions of Reed, from which you can then make up your own mind about the college.</p>
<p>Reed College is the polar opposite of UChicago in one sense. Reed and Reedies don’t give damn about college rankings. </p>
<p>[Reed</a> College | Admission | Reed College Admission Office](<a href=“College Rankings - Admission - Reed College”>College Rankings - Admission - Reed College)</p>
<p>To be fair, a lot of us don’t give a damn about them either.</p>
<p>I know I was a bit too harsh with my previous post and I apologize for that. From what I hear, uchicago used to be like Reed and I only wish it stayed that way.</p>
<p>It is pretty hard to recommend without SAT or ACTs… just FYI, my D2 who wanted an intellectual school ended up with the following list of reaches, matches, and safeties. She was accepted at all of them. Some are more intellectual than others, of course…</p>
<p>U of Chicago
Swarthmore
Harvey Mudd
Carleton
Macalester
Kenyon
Mount Holyoke
Lawrence</p>
<p>I agree with the comments above about JHU and Northwestern – academically challenging, but not an intellectual vibe. Are you female? If so, you might consider some of the women’s colleges (Wellesley, Smith) – they tend to be more serious about academics, although not sure they meet all your other requirements. But few schools will, you will probably need to make some compromises.</p>
<p>A few colleges that haven’t been mentioned, and probably deserve to be:</p>
<p>The University of Rochester, which has been modeling itself on Chicago for the past 20 years or so, with some real success. Rochester isn’t a giant city, to say the least, but thanks to the importance of Xerox and Polaroid in their heydays, it punches way above its weight.</p>
<p>Haverford, like Swarthmore, is a very intellectual, demanding college about a 20 minute train ride from Center City Philadelphia. It’s smaller than Swat, and not as pretty (or pretentious), but it’s a great college, and benefits from consortium arrangements with Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Penn.</p>
<p>Pomona is sort of the Swarthmore of the West Coast (and not any easier to get into). The other Claremont Colleges (they share an extended campus and a library, and combined they are roughly the size of Yale or Princeton) are also great, especially Harvey Mudd (for math and science) and Claremont McKenna. Pretty suburban, though – it’s not that easy to get to cool places in LA.</p>
<p>The other thing, too, is that in lots of high-quality public universities there will be a substantial Chicago-like subculture. It may not be as ubiquitous (or as oppressive) as at Chicago, but the “Chicago” embedded in the University of Michigan may be almost as large as the University of Chicago itself. Among the public universities where my kids’ friends who are highly intellectual had great experiences were also the University of Toronto and McGill University. They are both huge, and serve a wide range of students, but they have close to a duopoly on smart, intellectually ambitious Canadians (and attract plenty of U.S. students, too), so each of them has a strong intellectual cohort alongside other people who are just looking for job skills and qualification.</p>
<p>JHS brings up good pionts. With respect to the state schools argument, some have dedicated honors colleges / dorms (as opposed to just an honors track within one’s major) that help foster a special community within the broader campus environment. Texas and Michigan come to mind as schools that are known for offering this.</p>
<p>Claremont McKenna is far from an intellectual haven (way too much partying, not to mention carefree attitudes towards study - at LEAST first year students.)</p>
<p>Anyway, small colleges similar to Chicago are: Reed, Swarthmore, Carleton, Grinnell, Bates, Smith, Oberlin, Whitman. Caltech, Mudd are sciency equivalents.</p>
<p>I95 - I dont think uchicagoalum was referring to Claremont McKenna when he recommended Claremont Colleges – Pomona, Harvey Mudd and even Scripps could certainly be called ‘life of the mind’ schools. LA is 40 minutes but that’s do-able. Caltech has a small student body but it was recently rated (used that word instead of ranked ;)) the top research university in the world. </p>
<p>I second Swarthmore and Haverford for intellectual kids and proximity to Philly is what OP wants plus a big boon for students - a short train ride. Vassar less than an hour from NYC. </p>
<p>Really any of the top 30 LAC’s are going to provide a version of the culture OP is looking (minus the service academies and maybe W&L) - he will just have to weed out those in rural settings starting w Carleton, Midd, Grinnell Bowdoin etc.</p>
<p>Perhaps a good “intellectual index” by proxy is to look at enrollment in decidedly pre-professional majors across a range of colleges and universities. How many kids are in the business school or pre-med/health schools compared to the school’s liberal arts programs? I’m a little bit wary of tossing out more highly selectives for the sake of tossing around names without a sense of the OP’s story, though I think it’s helpful for other readers on the thread to get a sense of the schools that tend to be mentioned together.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my own in-state option isn’t ever going to be “known” as an intellectual school, but it definitely had the low-key, talk-about-philosophy-in-the-middle-of-the-woods opportunities I was looking for. </p>
<p>(That’s one thing I wasn’t able to do at Chicago… wander off into the deep woods in the middle of the night…)</p>
<p>^^^Sneaking into Graceland Cemetery in the middle of the night to sit by the tomb of Daniel Burnham might have done it.</p>
<p>honeybee63: I was responding to JHS.</p>
<p>I95, gotcha.</p>
<p>Have you considered NYU?</p>
<p>A true Intellectual needs not attend college to make him intellectual. lol</p>