<p>My daughter is definitely an urban girl, with a strong interest in industrial/product design, but we'd like to find some small-ish urban liberal arts schools (rather than an art school) where she can explore all possible options. She's a B+/A- student, SAT 1920 -- any suggestions?</p>
<p>Primarily arts/communication, but with liberal arts courses available, and smack downtown in Chicago between State and Michigan [Columbia</a> College Chicago : Home](<a href=“Page Not Found - Columbia College Chicago”>http://www.colum.edu/) Admissions is not particularly selective, and very little financial aid is available, but the students there seem to adore it.</p>
<p>You might want to repost your question in the Visual Arts and Film Majors forum. Most of the traditional small liberal arts colleges do not have industrial design programs and to be honest, there are very few that are strong in art and located in urban areas. She could take a look at the following universities–RIT, BU, Drexel, Temple (Tyler), Northeastern and Syracuse (all of which are located in cities). For reaches, she could look at Carnegie Mellon and WUSTL (although she would probably have to get her boards up). Small LACs known to have good art programs include Connecticut College (about equidistant between boston and nyc), Skidmore (not urban but located in a lovely town), Smith (also not urban, but the consortium makes it a lot of fun).</p>
<p>And I think that I’m going to have to disagree about Columbia College. It has extremely low 6-year graduation and freshman retention rates and lots of students wind up transferring out. I also wouldn’t call it a traditional liberal arts school.</p>