<p>I know I want to go to college in or near a big city any huge city except Washington D.C., really. I want to meet people from all over, so a high number of out-of-state kids would be really nice. Medium-sized would be best (~5,000), though I could deal with something fairly large as well. And, of course, a pretty solid education... I'm not sure what I want to go into, so a school that's pretty good in everything would be nice.</p>
<p>I'm in a semi-ruralish area in the south, 31 ACT, all A's, pretty good EC's.... Any ideas?</p>
<p>Out here in California we have University of Santa Clara. Well respected in the San Jose area. Most schools that attract out-of-state students are not safety schools, though. In California, the safety school that gets the most out-of-state attention is Pepperdine, but Occidental is also one to look at. In Texas you should consider SMU (Dallas) and Trinity University (San Antonio).</p>
<p>Boston: BU and Northeastern
NYC: Forham and Manhattan
Pittsburgh: Pitt, Duquesne
Philadelphia: Villanova (just outside, maybe not too diverse though from what I hear)
And, if you should re-evaluate excluding DC, GW and American</p>
<p>With your record these should be pretty safe choices. Most of these responses have been centered on the East Coast. Possibly you could indicate whether or not you're lookind country-wide or not.</p>
<p>University of Rochester seems to fit all your criteria (albeit it's not a safety - could be a match for you). While Rochester isn't necessarily the first city to come to mind, it is a fairly large one and the University is part of it. It has about 4,000 undergrads and about 1,500 graduate students. It also has an open curriculum - there is only 1 required course although there are some distribution requirements. Its mission is to help kids, including the undecided ones, find their passions.</p>
<p>Pepperdine is not a safety by any means. It is hard to get in. Furthermore, Pepperdine looks at all aspects of your application--not just GPA and test scores. Therefore, it's not really a safety for anyone. There have been plenty of people with 4.0s and really high ACT scores who didn't get in. Someone just posted that they have a 35 ACT and did not get in.</p>
<p>The reason why I don't want to go to D.C. ... I'm not sure if I can quite put it into words. I've visited lots of cities, and for some reason I just didn't like D.C. But I loved L.A., Boston, Atlanta, the Twin Cities...</p>
<p>DC is a very compartmentalized city. The nice parts are nothing like the not-so-nice parts. The stoic capital area is nothing like the quaint atmosphere of Georgetown or the party-place Adam's Morgan. I wouldn't rule out DC so quickly, I didn't like it when I visited with my parents but after interning there it might be my favorite city in America. Its totally run by young people and has an incredible social scene.</p>
<p>Rhodes has a great campus with great faculty. It has like 75% OOS students but the student pop is like 1600. IT is located in Memphis and is a gorgeous campus. Check it out. You have good grades and probably get some scholarships :P</p>