<p>Rice and Wesleyan are very good options. Rice gives really good financial aid too.</p>
<p>mm i dont think anyone mentioned reed yet- its extremely green and a quick, cheap busride to dowtown portland. the only thing- its students are..REALLY LIBERAL and there is quite a bit of drug use, but otherwise its extremely hard and definitely 'insightful'</p>
<p>brown university...</p>
<p>The majority of schools being listed here offer
no merit aid at all
, namely any Ivy, Georgetown, Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Tufts, Northwestern, Kenyon, Amherst, Wesleyan, BC, etc.</p>
<p>CMU is excellent in many things but very small in languages and humanities in general. </p>
<p>Rice is a great suggestion but it is not in the northeast quadrant. A school with a lot of similarities to Rice is Case Western.</p>
<p>Realistic suggestions are: UChicago, URochester, McGill, Johns Hopkins, Michigan. Is UofIndiana in a city?</p>
<p>Also good, but - No campus/green space: NYU & Boston U. Not gothic: Brandeis.</p>
<p>Although they have merit awards, it is very difficult to get merit at some of these schools.</p>
<p>Manhattanville would be a good safety, also designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, but there are no shops/restaurants within walking distance of campus.</p>
<p>The absolute perfect school is Bowdoin College in Maine. One of the top liberal arts schools in the country besides Williams and Amhest. It meets just about every specification. The only problem is that it is in Maine and the nearest big city is Boston, 2.5 hours away. They have twice daily buses to Boston and back. Portland is 30 minutes though. Another school that fits almost perfectly is Georgetown. Party scene was a bit wild while I was there though. Seriously consider Bowdoin though. It was the best college I've ever seen.</p>
<p>thanks again everyone, especially ws17. reed and bowdoin seem cool but are too far away. (even though i said the top right half, maine is too far)</p>
<p>oh and btw gothic architecture is not a must, so don't limit schools because their architecture isn't gothic! really anything goes, though i'm not such a big fan of more modern buildings unless they're really cool</p>
<p>yale. really sounds like yale.
but that's a major reach.</p>
<p>stanford. wait thats a reach too. basically ure describing an ivy.</p>
<p>ooohhh..northwestern sounds like it fits. well cept for the location.</p>
<p>i would definitely look into Yale or Oberlin.
Oberlin has one of the best music schools in the country (you can also take classes in the conservatory as a non-major). Really really creative and open campus. LOVE it.</p>
<p>Yale is quite creative (drama, music, art, everything) and the architecture is one of the best. Frank Gehry (who was in many of my art history books) teaches there I think. He's the architect for the Guggenheim Museum in New York and a bunch others (the new Disney hall in LA). and we watched something on Maya Lin (who did the Vietnam monument) and she went to Yale too.</p>
<p>Vassar for sure!!</p>
<p>I saw that movie on Maya Lin!! Don't you think it was very random that once she gained popularity she did the most obsure projects like making mountains of glass shards?</p>
<p>Vassar definitely fits all the criteria except that it doesn't offer merit-based scholarships. It has green campus, easy train ride to NYC, great academics (top english department), gothic styled architecture, liberal and friendly people, many study away options, and no greek system. I also heard that anyone can take music lessons easily, and there are pianos EVERYWHERE on campus. You should check it out!!</p>
<p>any ideas for what a good safety school for me could be?</p>
<p>I would suggest Tulane, but its in New Orleans and if you want to see big malls and things, you'll have to travel downtown. Its really swingin' at night and Mardi Gras. Tulane ... New Orleans for that matter has A LOT of GOTHIC buildings, esp. since the whole place is Catholic and houses and buildings are old. The student body is friendly and I think they are youthfully liberal. People still have those Kerry posters up.</p>
<p>You are describing pretty much all the non-tech top 20 universities in some way or the other</p>
<p>any more ideas for safeties? also i made a thread that shows more my academic side.... it's here:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=66767%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=66767</a></p>
<p>Wellesley. Your stats are in the middle. Near Boston. One of the most beautiful campuses anywhere.</p>
<p>Yeah, Princeton. I suppose Pomna too.</p>
<p>any more ideas for safties? what about schools that are less heard of since it seems that most schools listed here are commonly named? though maybe less common schools are just not fits for me</p>