<p>What colleges would fit this description? Some I know of are Reed, Macalester, Occidental, and Goucher. Do any others come to mind? I'm looking for places along the lines of Oberlin, Hampshire, and Grinnell but closer to an urban area. Thanks!</p>
<p>Lake Forest is further down the food chain and if you’re a competitive candidate for the places you list would be a good safety school for you. It’s in a northern suburb of Chicago.</p>
<p>Sarah Lawrence (NY)</p>
<p>Swarthmore is near to Philly. </p>
<p>I used SuperMatch and it gave me stuff like
Claremont Colleges (Los Angeles)
Cooper Union (New York City)
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (Boston)
Haverford College (Philly)
Wheaton College - Massachusetts (Providence)
Sarah Lawrence College (New York City)
Macalester College (Saint Paul)</p>
<p>They are all about a 40 minute drive away.</p>
<p>Sorry if this is not what you want.</p>
<p>Carleton College, Northfield, MN just 40 minutes south of Minneapolis. They have a daily bus route plus extra buses on weekends.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is about forty minutes from New Haven which is pretty lively in itself. A lot of people will hitch a ride there and then catch the commuter train to New York City which takes only about 90 minutes.</p>
<p>If you are willing to go south, consider Rhodes in Memphis and Hendrix near Little Rock. Otherwise, Vassar in Poughkeepsie, NY, and of course the Claremont Colleges (Pomona and Claremont McKenna) in So Cal are suburban.</p>
<p>There’s a train station on the Swarthmore campus that takes you directly to Philadelphia</p>
<p>Davidson-Charlotte area. Holy Cross-40 miles to Boston.</p>
<p>Carleton & St. Olaf are both small LACs, great academic schools, and are both in Northfield, about 45 minutes from Minneapolis & St. Paul. I think both run bus routes up there on a daily basis to downtown and to things like Mall of America.</p>
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<p>Lewis and Clark. Opposite side of the river from Reed.</p>
<p>Wellesley (Boston), Barnard (New York), and Bryn Mawr (Philly) if you’re a girl. If not, Swarthmore and Haverford (both very close to Philly) come to mind.</p>
<p>Oberlin is a 30 minute drive from Cleveland.</p>
<p>Colorado College is in Colorado Springs, a city of ~400K at the foot of Pikes Peak. So you get the advantages of both a city and some of the best outdoor recreation areas in the world. Money magazine designated Colorado Springs America’s “Best Big City” in 2006. Outside magazine placed it first on its “Best Cities” list in 2009. Colorado College also offers what is probably the best weather of any top 50 LAC outside California (with the possible exception of Davidson in NC). </p>
<p>The ultimate urban LAC has to be Barnard (for women only).</p>
<p>Other schools cited in posts above are fine colleges, but not necessarily in (or even very near) desirable urban locations (depending on what you want). Goucher is across the street from a suburban shopping mall. Carleton and St. Olaf are outside a small rural town; Minneapolis might seem awfully far away when you don’t have a car and it’s 10 below zero outside. Definitely go visit some of these places if the setting is very important to you.</p>
<p>To the list of urban single-sex LACs, I would add Mills (San Francisco) and Agnes Scott, Spelman, and Morehouse (Atlanta). </p>
<p>Eugene Lang (NYC) and Trinity U (San Antonio) are glaring omissions among the more traditional LACs.</p>
<p>
Hendrix is in the middle of a dry county, and it is virtually a requirement to have a car to get around. It’s a great school, but it’s difficult to call it urban (Little Rock is ~45 min away).</p>
<p>^ Yes, I did not even think of Eugene Lang. Great urban location (right in Greenwich Village).</p>
<p>You might consider whether you want to be right in the city or near it. Some of the colleges mentioned here – e.g. Pomona/Claremont, Oberlin, Carleton – are not in a city. And I have to wonder how often people take a 30 minute ride to get to Cleveland. (BTW, 30 minutes through rural Ohio is a much longer drive than 40 minutes through Southern California.) Also, what kind of city do you want? Trinity is an exellent LAC in HArtford and very urban.</p>
<p>You should really use [College</a> Search - College Confidential](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/]College”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/) It’s quite good for this kind of stuff. I’ve listed the top 20 schools for a 4.0 student, school size <2000. </p>
<p>For Large Urban Area (Pop. > 250,000):
Cooper Union - New York, New York
Reed College - Portland, Oregon
Occidental College - Los Angeles, California
Rhodes College - Memphis, Tennessee
Jewish Theological Seminary - List College - New York, New York
Transylvania University - Lexington, Kentucky
Macalester College - Saint Paul, Minnesota
Mills College - Oakland, California (near to San Francisco)
College of St Thomas More - Fort Worth, Texas</p>
<p>For Suburb/Town close to a Large Urban Area:
Swarthmore College - Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (near to Philly)
Pomona, CMC, Scripps, Pitzer, HMC - Claremont, California
Haverford College - Haverford, Pennsylvania (near to Philly)
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering - Needham, Massachusetts (near to Boston)
Davidson College - Davidson, North Carolina (near to Charlotte)
St. John’s College - Annapolis - Annapolis, Maryland (near to Baltimore)
Bryn Mawr College - Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania (near to Philly)
Oglethorpe University - Atlanta, Georgia
William Jewell College - Liberty, Missouri (near to Kansas City)
Ursinus College - Collegeville, Pennsylvania (near to Philly)</p>
<p>^ Using the CC “College Search” function is a great suggestion. However, those criteria (such as “< 2000 students”) may or may not generate the list you’re after. It excludes many great schools and includes schools that are either fairly far down the USNWR “National Liberal Arts Colleges” list (e.g. Oglethorpe @ #166) or off it completely (e.g. Mills). If the OP is competitive for Reed, Oberlin, and Grinnell (and attracted to those schools, and wants “in/near Big Cities”), I’d suggest something like these criteria:</p>
<ul>
<li>My Scores = 4.0 average AND 2100 SAT (“must have”)</li>
<li>School Size = Small OR Very Small (“must have”)</li>
<li>Campus Setting = Large Urban Area OR Suburb/Town close to a Large Urban Area (“must have”)</li>
<li>Type = private (“must have”, excludes service academies)</li>
<li>Getting in = very selective OR selective (“must have”)</li>
</ul>
<p>This will generate the following:</p>
<p>Swarthmore College
Scripps College
Rice University
Reed College
Claremont McKenna College
Haverford College
Cooper Union (arts and engineering school)
Wellesley College (women only)
Colorado College
Barnard College (women only)
Olin (engineering specialty school)
Jewish Theological Seminary (specialty school)
Macalester College
Davidson College
Occidental College
Babson College
Bryn Mawr College (women only)
Wheaton College (IL)
Rhodes College
Pitzer College</p>
<p>The OP may want to eliminate the specialty, engineering, or women’s colleges. I’d add a few others such as Pomona College, maybe Harvey Mudd College (primarily a math, science & engineering school), and maybe William & Mary. I’d probably remove Babson and Wheaton in favor of match/safety schools that don’t quite meet all the criteria.</p>
<p>
That may be true but your still talking about 30 vs. 40 mins (unless you want to try to walk both - then that would make a difference).</p>