<p>I paused a bit at NU also. Nerd culture? I didn't see it. But I'll acknowledge that one visit gives me no right to judge. </p>
<p>However, if NU gets kinda-like-Chicago credit due to nerd-engineering culture, than WashU should get some nods too. In addition, there is such a low-key sports culture --- Div III rah-rah is quite modest, as in, We beat Amherst! We're No. 1! --- there that it's frankly more similar to the Harvard, Tufts, Brandeis vibe than NU in my opinion.</p>
<p>Haa. I say Swarthmore. I think the Swaathmore pronounciation is a Philly/Jersey variant. Reminds me of President Bloom's comment:</p>
<p>
[quote]
I began to understand the unique qualities of Swarthmore when, in August 1974, as a newly hired assistant professor of psychology and linguistics, I opened my office door to find five students seeking direction for pursuing their intellectual passions. The first student, fresh from a summer internship with the renowned linguist Noam Chomsky, was set on probing the implications of Chomsky's most recent book; the second was keen to explore the origin of the Armenian alphabet; the third was determined to test a new approach to helping dyslexic students to read; the fourth was intent to analyze the link between bilingual education and linguistic nationalism in her native Montreal; and the fifth — a first-year student — was eager to nail down who says "Swa'thmore" and who says "Swarthmore" and why.</p>
<p>By mid-morning, I was committed to working through Chomsky's latest book, to mastering the evolution of the Armenian alphabet, to bringing myself up-to-date on research in dyslexia and linguistic nationalism, and to attending to variant pronunciations of my new home — and I was confident that I had the world's most extraordinary teaching job. I was convinced that nowhere would I find undergraduates more excited and serious about shaping and testing ideas — for the sheer pleasure of it, for the contribution it makes to knowledge, and for the impact that pursuit can have towards a better world.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Swarthmore</a> College | About | Welcome to Swarthmore: <br>A College Like No Other</p>
<p>Tufts and Reed from the top of my head have the same type of student body.</p>
<p>Add Carleton to categories 4 and 5 in post 16. There are quite a few cross applicants between Chicago and Carleton.</p>
<p>Reed, St. John's, Brown
Possibly Bard</p>
<p>firefly-- I tried to list only one school in each, even when it could be used again. Don't know why, other than to make me think of more schools.</p>
<p>jazzymom-- perhaps we have different conceptions of what a nerd is, or perhaps I live under a rock and haven't acquired a universal social typology. I consider a "nerd" to be a term one should aspire to, and its application has nothing do to with one's social habits but rather one's habits of mind.</p>
<p>The kids I know at NU (selection bias, but my sample size is large enough to be encouraging) are interested in learning and like school a lot. I would say that they are, as a whole, more toned down about their nerdiness than Chicago kids, which isn't always a bad thing.</p>
<p>And yeah, Wash U should have joined that first category, as should Carnegie Mellon. Both seem to share a lot of applicants with Chicago as is. The problem in my not listing them has to do with how I think of schools geographically- I mentally skip over St. Louis and Pittburgh.</p>
<p>Bard would fit in under non-pre-professional. I like the school and I know a lot of top applicants who are now at Chicago who used Bard as a low match.</p>
<p>I added to this list to reflect all of the new submissions given by posters. As ffs and others point out, many schools fit into more than 1 category or might not even fit that well into the category assigned to it. However, I like this grid as is because it gives prospective students of Chicago and other schools a way to put their finger closer to what appeals to them and look for schools in that similar category.</p>
<ol>
<li>Urban or quasi-urban midsize schools that have a twinge (or, in some cases, more than a twinge) of nerd culture. In this particular case, "nerd" is defined pretty broadly and definitely correlates with the presence of engineering students. </li>
</ol>
<p>University of Rochester
Tufts
Brandeis
JHU
Northwestern
Rice
Harvard
Wash U
Carnegie Mellon
Penn</p>
<ol>
<li>Women's Colleges: another great place to find a group of students who are sacrificing some aspects of traditional college social life in order to enrich their intellectual lives and identities.</li>
</ol>
<p>Wellesley
Bryn Mawr
Barnard
Smith
Simmons
Agnes Scott
Scripps</p>
<ol>
<li>Colleges that emphasize "great books" or “intellectualism” either through course options and offerings or by mandate.</li>
</ol>
<p>Whitman
St. John's
Columbia
Reed
UT- Austin Plan II Honors
Brown</p>
<ol>
<li>Any school with developed programs in classics, ancient studies, renaissance studies... or even colleges where a lot of the most popular majors are not pre-professional ones.</li>
</ol>
<p>Williams
Vassar
Wesleyan
Carleton
Bard
Lawrence
(and I'm sure others-- this data is accessible via collegeboard.com and probably through the college's own web site, too)</p>
<ol>
<li>Any school that produces a relatively high percentage of PhD candidates (I'll let interesteddad post that data with his fancy formatting). That list includes a lot of schools that have already made this list, but also:</li>
</ol>
<p>Oberlin
Swarthmore
MIT
Mudd
Cal Tech
Haverford
Pomona
Grinnell
YPS</p>
<p>Cornell, JHU, Columbia, Barnard, and Rice have a lot in common with Chicago. Cornell is not urban, but is similar in academic intensity.</p>
<p>Chicago originally modeled itself after Johns Hopkins--and to this day they are similar institutions in many respects, particularly at the graduate level. At the undergraduate level--UC and JHU are similar in size, location, intensity and intellectual stimulation. They differ mainly in that Chicago subscribes to the strong core curriculum model--while Hopkins has no core curriculum and only basic university-wide writing and distribution requirements. At Hopkins, the requirements are largely set by the department or program you major (and/or minor) in.</p>
<p>Ahh...Bleck. This thread just totally screwed up my college list, and made it extremely long and reach-heavy. I had been doing so well with it....</p>
<p>LOL--</p>
<p>JBV, I encourage you to look at percentage of students who go on to pursue PhD's to look for some solid match/safeties. Interesteddad posts this data quite a bit, and I'm not having much luck pulling it up on the internet right now.</p>
<p>This list is not complete and repeats many of the schools already mentioned, but it's a good place to start:
REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY</p>