<p>If DC is in the regional consideration, you may want to go south just a little and visit the University of Richmond. It ended up being one of S’s favorite schools. They have good financial aid.</p>
<p>Montegut: engineering grad school would probably depend largely on what type of engineering, right? But I would think that Johns Hopkins in particular and also Carnegie Mellon would probably fit the bill in that region: universities with strong technical programs plus cultural strength. Actually, so would MIT. For your niece, consider Sarah Lawrence in addition to the other suggestions made above.</p>
<p>enonimouse–just something to look into but, if you back down on the selectivity of the school, you increase your chances of merit aid significantly. Depending on income, however, the Ivy’s may be the least expensive option out there for people making under about $180K.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of Carnegie Mellon, but while it may be in a Mid-Atlantic state in theory, in practice it’s really in the mid-west. It’s almost a seven hour drive from NYC while it’s about half an hour to the Ohio border.</p>
<p>Well, I understand what you’re saying about Pittsburgh,in regard to distance,mathmom,but as someone originally from Pittsburgh, I never have and never will, consider myself as being from the “mid-west.” 
Husband went to CMU. Great school for the right kid.</p>
<p>I am from Iowa, have lived in Maryland ((close to I-95, not western), and have a child at Pitt. Pittsburgh is much more like the Midwest than Maryland or any of the other places I have lived on the East Coast(NJ and NY).</p>
<p>Yeah. I come from a city very much like Pittsburgh, and I consider it (and Pittsburgh, and Cleveland and the like) as the “near Midwest”.</p>
<p>One of my cousins’ life trajectory took him from DC to Cambridge, back to DC, then (in his mid 30s) to Pittsburgh and later Kansas City. DC to Pittsburgh was a huge change, even though it’s only 300 miles or so. Pittsburgh to Kansas City was many more miles, but really not so much change in culture.</p>
<p>Rereading Montegut’s post, if S really wants roughly the DC area, probably he should include northern VA and MD as well as Philadelphia. Again, I have no idea of the strength of the specific engineering programs in which he would be interested, but that would include Hopkins and Penn, as well as Temple, Drexel, U MD College Park, and some of the VA state Us (maybe George Mason?). I would guess that Carnegie Mellon and VA Tech would be too far away from DC to suit him. Some of the schools listed might be too similar to his UG institution to suit him.</p>
<p>Not “elite”, but provides great merit and is not jocky, no engineering == Goucher.</p>
<p>It is just outside of Baltimore.</p>
<p>Well worth a look if your looking for big merit and since this is early in the game, that engineering major may change.</p>
<p>Drexel in Philly also offer big merit/great engineering.</p>
<p>I second the suggestion of Univ. of Richmond…pretty much an A-/A school now, I believe…even higher level than that would be Haverford near Philly…a smaller Liberal Arts school, but good for Math & Sciences…and in that same area is Swarthmore…</p>
<p>My S1 looked at Haverford, liked it but S2 loved it when we visited and he will definitely apply there–my hesitation: how big is the math department, and isn’t it much more “jocky” than Swat? I believe they said a huge percentage of the students play sports and I thought that they probably both recruit heavily (and given their small size that leaves little room for non-jocks) and have a sports culture. Since we visited in August when no students were on campus, the actual school culture was hard to detect. Also, unsure of future FA–they seemed to only promise for class of 2016 and said they woul be re-evaluating for future classes.</p>
<p>I don’t think Haverford is “jocky” in the way you mean. There may be many students playing sports, but they don’t define campus culture.</p>
<p>For example, although Amherst recruits as heavily as Williams, and this year Middlebury won the Directors Cup (for overall athletics) Williams has the reputation of being “jocky” and the other schools don’t.</p>
<p>S attended Williams, and that was not his experience. Haverford’s culture is largely defined by its Quaker past and its honor code. Of course, it may be a little “jockier” than Swat, for sure, but even Swat has proud athletes.</p>
<p>D3 athletics just do not dominate a school the way D1 athletes may (but don’t always.)</p>
<p>I don’t think a huge percentage of students play sports at Haverford. I agree with Mythmom. It isn’t jock culture at all!!!</p>