My DD originally thought she wanted small/medium sized colleges; we wasted a lot of time visiting Colby, WashU, Emory, Pomona, Brandeis, and the likes, although it did help her figure out what she wanted so maybe not a complete waste of time. But last month - only a few months before application need to start being sent in - she realized that she is more likely to find what she wants at a large school. One of her biggest pieces of criteria is big school spirit. She also wants a big spectator sports scene - her favorite is basketball but she also loves baseball and football. She’s very involved in her school and local community so doesn’t want to go to a commuter school; the more students living on campus, the better. A high percentage of OOS would be nice too. She doesn’t plan to go Greek and doesn’t plan to drink much in college if at all as she is a devout Catholic so a large drinking scene is a turn off. Her top choice is Notre Dame for which she is willing to overlook its size. But she really just wants the large school atmosphere. The problem is that she thrives in small classes and, although she does want some large lectures, wants the majority of her classes to have less than twenty students. She’s looked at Berkeley, UCLA, and UMich, but none of them really give top students the chance for small classes. She likes USC, UVA, and UNC-CH which are all appear to have slightly smaller class sizes than what she wants. But what we both think is her best bet is to look at honors programs that offer lots of honors classes and honors dorms to make the campus feel more residential.
At the moment she thinks she wants to major in psychology which will, unfortunately, have a lot of massive intro and intermediate classes, but is also still considering anthropology, sociology, or another social science. She’s a smart kid and has a 33 ACT, an UW 3.9 GPA, and is taking 3 AP classes this year and 4 next year with the rest all honors. We’re full pay at whatever school DD goes to, have always expected to be, and are okay with that, but if there’s a school she likes that will come with some nice merit scholarships that is, of course, a plus.
We live in New York state and a SUNY is a big no-no for her. We’ve already looked into ASU and Penn State, both of which she absolutely adored, so something similar to them is what she is looking for. Her GC recommended South Carolina, Texas, Arizona, and UGA as colleges with strong honors colleges but also admitted that since it is a very competitive high school in NYC she doesn’t know much about state schools besides the SUNYs and Cal, UCLA, UNC, UVA, UMich, and GTech.
I understand that big public schools are not a CC specialty, but I was just wondering if any of you knew any honors colleges/programs besides Barrett and Schreyer that attract top students from both IS and OOS, offer lots of honors seminars, and/or have honors dorms. Thanks.