<p>At this point I have not been able to sleep because this decision is agonizing me. I need to choose a college that can offer unprecedented academics, solid job availability, and an overall good experience which all these schools can do, but basically I am interested in Non-profit organizations or PR/Director @ a major corporation. I am a fun, happy go lucky, hard worker. I go to one of the top boarding schools in the US now and it has given me a solid foundation for a hard work load that Swat or Williams would offer, however, I am sick and tired of the suffocating social bubble and it has created a lot of tension for me.</p>
<p>I am an expert talker and socializer and i really want to have a job where I can help others or a job managing the image of a company like TOMS or Apple. I understand my career goals are hefty, but I am just not knowledgeable enough to make a decision and would love some anecdotal experiences or opinions. </p>
<p>My profile: Hispanic, male, I love to go out, try new things, food, traveling, etc. I am basically a stereotypical guy that likes new things constantly and I hardly ever sit idle.</p>
<p>Money is not an issue and I have already ruled out Bowdoin, Middlebury, UChicago, and Columbia.</p>
<p>I go to Stanford, and I could see someone like you being very happy here, but then again, I haven’t been to Swarthmore or Williams, so for all I know you might be totally happy at those places too. Good luck wherever you go!</p>
<p>I feel like socially Stanford might be the best fit, but I am afraid of an impersonal education. Class sizes and research dedicated professors seem to be troublesome.</p>
<p>DayDreaming, congratulations on all your acceptances. I can understand your feeling that sometimes the responses on these forums aren’t very helpful. (Recently, there seems to be a larger-than-usual proportion of “X College vs. Y College” threads that descend into trivial nitpicking and ad hominems. I guess that’s sort of typical for this time of year as May 1 approaches, but it’s really tedious–especially when people stalk a range of forums and make the same statements repeatedly.)</p>
<p>All of your choices are excellent, and based on the personal characteristics and goals you presented, I believe you would be very satisfied at Stanford. Re: class sizes, it is not difficult to sidestep many of the larger classes if you make some choices with that in mind. E.g., if you prefer a closer environment for humanities courses, the SLE program would provide that. Professors here have proven themselves very accessible, including many who conduct important research. Some of them introduce their fields to freshmen and sophomores through the Introductory Seminars program, which offers small class sizes. Popular intro level courses can have large lectures, but (1) I’ve found it easy to bypass some of these because I had sufficient background in the material before I arrived here, and advisors and faculty generally trust students to select courses at the appropriate level, and (2) as at all research universities, lectures are followed by small recitation sections. At LACs there may be smaller lecture sizes (though not always, depending on the subject and its popularity), but the sheer mass of research activity going on at Stanford and the resulting availability of opportunity to participate more than offsets that factor, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I hear you about the suffocating bubble of boarding school. I attended a day prep school, but even there the air can get stale in a hurry. The atmosphere at Stanford is entirely different and I think you’d find it hugely refreshing socially. Many students here are interested in nonprofits and there are many structured opportunities to become involved with them and to meet like-minded people.</p>
<p>Hope this helped somewhat, and feel free to ask other questions if you have some.</p>