<p>Hello, I am a junior in high school and I am looking into a college in the New England area, preferable in Massachusetts. But I have found one in NY.
I am an average student, not in any honor classes or AP. My GPA is close to 3.0 and rising.
I've been trying to find a school that has a good department for both English (Creative writing, literature) and History. So far my list of schools I've found are:</p>
<p>Bridgwater State
Smith College
University at Albany
Boston College
St. Anselm college</p>
<p>Can anyone tell me about these schools? Are they party schools, even worth trying, what they specialize in, etc,. Especially Bridgewater, it's the one I'm most interested in right now, but it seems to accept everyone and seems sorta cheap, even for out of state fees.
Please help...
Thanks!</p>
<p>Hi irishwolf,
Can only speak about 2 of the schools you mentioned. St. Anselm is in right outside of Manchester NH. It is a small school ( around 2,000 students). It is affiliated with Catholic church. It is somewhat selective to get into, but my S knows kids who go there and like it very much. Boston College is also affiliated with Catholic church, is in Newton, MA (a few miles away from Boston). It is extremely competitive and difficult to get in to. Size is around 10,000 students. Hope this helps a little. You can go into the alphabetical listing of schools on CC and am sure there are some post you could read also.</p>
<p>Hi. BC and Smith are both quite competitive. With your GPA and no APs, I'd say they are quite a reach. The other schools are FAR less so. I honestly don't know much about them. The thing is, you need to find a good source of information. If your HS doesn't have a great guidance office, go to the library where there are many helpful guidebooks. Fisk, Princeton Review and many other books that are less encyclopedic. Remember that the "average" admitted student is just that. So if you have no "hook" like a sport or editor of the newspaper, you are judged more on your grades & SATs. So those may well need to be higher than the average. Also fill out the profile on PrincetonReview.com and it may give you a few good leads. though sometimes it spits out results that are pretty counter-intuitive.
One more thing, don't limit yourself TOO much geographically. We live in Mass. and my kids wanted to stay in New England, but stayed flexible enough to look around the northeast. My son is at Vassar in NY and is extremely happy. My other son was 7 hours away for first year and transferred back to Mass this year. It's harder than many kids think it will be to be very far from home. Sorry if I've digressed! Good luck.</p>