<p>A friend of mine’s son sounds similar to your daughter. His college counselor recommended these schools, many of which have been mentioned in this thread.
Galen:
Alfred U
BenningtonC
Clark U
U Conn
U Delaware
U Denver
Drew U
Earlham
Guilford
Hampshire
Hobart W -Smith
Ithaca
Juniata
Marlboro
UNH
Ohio Wes
St Lawrence
Susquehanna
Ursinus
Wheaton
Wittenberg </p>
<p>Knox is another quirky option for sure!</p>
<p>When my D was there, UDel was the opposite of quirky. it was about as mainstream, prep/frat as one can imagine.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say UD is preppy–mainstream, yes, but not like UVA-prep. Just a range of “normal” kids, whatever that means. A lot of middle/lower-class Delawareans attend for financial reasons (UD is very committed to in-state financial aid, both need- and merit-based).</p>
<p>^When my D went (admittedly some years ago) it was mustly middle to upper middle, almost totally white, and extremely frat-oriented. She was even interviewed in the school paper in an article about the lack of diversity, as she had come from a HS which was much more so.</p>
<p>Lilymoon, may I ask a question about New Paltz? It has a reputation here as being a very hard partying school. Is that true?</p>
<p>Maybe Eckerd? (St Petersburg, FL)</p>
<p>We visited, saw barefeet, black dyed hair, as well as a number of boys traveling by skateboard, .</p>
<p>They allow pets in some of the dorms, another has a vegetable garden, someone had pitched a tent…</p>
<p>Edited to add: Oops, I remember now she didn’t want to go that far south, but really I think this is a good school to check out for someone with more average stats. I’m pretty sure most Eckerd students are not from Florida. The Salvador Dali museum is close by, that is quirky!</p>
<p>radannie, thanks for the list; I am very happy to see Clark, Drew, HWS, Wheaton and Ursinus on a list with Hampshire, Guilford and Earlham! I will revisit Susq and St. Lawr., I don’t recally why either school failed to make the cut. D doesn’t want to be too far from home; Earlham is about as far west as she will go. </p>
<p>Ohio Wesleyan is a school we have considered. A friend’s D is very happy there, but she is far more mainstream than my D - - “rushed” and joined a sorority at the first oppty. My D, however, was turned-off by the large number of students involved in frats/sors. (Frats
and distance bumped Hendrix and Knox off the list.)</p>
<p>I am surprised that Hartwick, a school D visited and liked very much, is not on the radar - - it admits a higher % of public school grads than most schools and the students, though not particularly edgy in appearance, were very friendly, down-to-earth and accepting. The school is in Oneonta, a cute upstate NY town, and across the street from one of the smaller SUNYs (affectionately dubbed “Stone -eonta”), so t there are a lot of amenities and lots of programming for the students.</p>
<p>How does Alfred compare to HWS? Both are about 5hr drive from home. Is Alfred more relaxed than HWS?</p>
<hr>
<p>edited to add:</p>
<p>fendrock, I’ve been pushing Eckerd; two recent grad of D’s hs (but not in her circle of friends) are very, very happy there - - academically and socially (beach!! no frats). I plan to have her at least visit the Eckerd table when CTCL comes to town.</p>
<p>foolishpleasure, if you go to the Colleges section and find Eckerd, I posted a trip report there.</p>
<p>We thought Alfred was very different than Hobart. Both had lovely red brick classic campuses, green space and a totally collegiate feel. Alfred had way more diversity in the students. They have 4 groups of kids: the art students, the engineering students, the liberal arts students and the business students. We saw all kinds of kids of all shapes/sizes/colors wearing every type of clothing known to man and hair of every length and shade in both men and women in the 2 days we were on campus including some very large jock types carting cases of beer on Friday night. Lots of student art and sculptures everywhere and the quirkiest carrillon I’ve ever seen. They even had an equestrian barn down the road for the kids that have horses and/or ride. It was an interesting eye opener for me to imagine all those different kids in a very small town and on the same campus. Alfred is a must visit school because the town of Alfred is very, very small and there is not much in the surrounding area. One thing that was in evidence was that the kids do co-exist and socialize together and genuinely like being in a school with such a diverse group of kids, which I thought was impressive…and that comment was made by almost every kid we came in contact with. The campus has a huge amount of stuff going on at all times because of the limited town. They even published a fairly thick booklet of all the films, parties, music events, art events, etc. sort of like a TV Guide for what’s happening on campus. The admissions staff and profs were some of the nicest, most welcoming we came in contact with on our journeys. There is a state school on the opposite side of downtown so when you are in the little town area we couldn’t tell which school the kids went to but the restaurants and coffee shop were full of “prof types” and kids so we were left with the impression that Alfred IS the two colleges. It’s a very interesting and I thought very unique place and I’m all geeked about it and telling everyone that will listen…unfortunately did not make my son’s “cut list” for apps and I’ve stopped begging him to reconsider Alfred but it broke my heart (I’m more of an aging quirky type with pretty mainstream kids.) It’s also a very financially reasonable school which is a “parent bonus.” Yes, I thought the kids were more relaxed at Alfred than at Hobart. The only tangible evidence to support my theory is that the Alfred kids talked about what they were “doing” right now in the here and now, the Hobart kids talked alot about what they were planning to do or what major they were planning or what their college president was doing… not as much about what they were doing that day, that week, that semester…hard to explain. Hobart, BTW, is one of son’s favorite schools.</p>
<p>When I first saw this post, I immediately thought of Clark. Lauren Pope’s book first introduced Clark to us (with its anecdote about professors preferring to teach and inspire B students).</p>
<p>Bennington and Marlboro are both remote and small.</p>
<p>Clark has a great relationship with the surrounding (needy) community and the public school they are affiliated with wins awards. I really admire their commitment to Worcester.</p>
<p>I’ve been in contact with several Knox students, and when I ask them to describe their college in one word, the responses so far: unbound, eclectic, weird. (Beloit, comparatively, is “wacky.”) And Illinois isn’t too much farther west than Indiana. The Greek system is pretty open and laid-back, from what I hear.</p>
<p>I don’t think quirky at all wrt Susquehanna or St. Lawrence; they both feel very mainstream to me, especially SLU.</p>
<p>garland - The commitment to FA is more recent, I think. UD only started guaranteeing to meet in-state full need with loans capped at 1/4 the total cost of four years in 2008. But even before that, I don’t know anyone (from in-state) who wanted to go to UD and couldn’t due to finances. They are generous with merit scholarships to in-staters as well.</p>
<p>It’s still, however, not really “quirky.” Just normal. I see many fewer Greek-letter T-shirts year-round than I did in six weeks of summer session at UT-Austin (move-in time at the end).</p>
<p>Our head of guidance liked Clark, Hartwick and Wheaton very much for B students. The heavy religious reference on Wheaton’s website might deter some.</p>
<p>UMass might also have a diverse student body</p>
<p>Do Alfred and Hartwick get a lot of snow?</p>
<p>Wonder why I didn’t think of this one earlier, but I’m surprised nobody has mentioned College of Wooster, in Ohio. Lots of very quirky, non-traditional students. I know sisters who attended (the youngest graduates this year), and they loved it. Just putting it out there. :)</p>
<p>Is OP talking about Wheaton in IL or Wheaton in MA?</p>
<p>Wheaton in IL is the opposite of quirky, so I assume MA.</p>
<p>It’s funny, when we first started looking at colleges none of us were aware of Wheaton IL’s existence, so when somebody we knew suggested Wheaton for our son, we just typed wheaton dot edu into our browser. When we saw that motto on the home page, we all kind of scratched our heads, because the person who made the suggestion would know that our son is not religious. It wasn’t until weeks later that we figured out what was going on.</p>
<p>D visited Wheaton (MA), which is between Boston and Providence. I suspect no one mentioned Wooster b/c of D’s aversion to the mid-west (I don’t understand it myself - -it’s no farther than the Carolinas and no colder than upstate NY). D will not visit any of the mid-west schools, she has reluctantly agreed to apply to Earlham - - adding Wooster or Knox might cause her to dig in her heels and say “no” to all mid-west schools, including Earlham. (And while Illisnois isn’t much farther than Indiana, Knox is about an hour from Chicago, so probably a couple hours farther from home than Earlham, which is about 30 min from Dayton.)</p>
<p>Momof3, thanks for the description of Alfred - - I wish it had been our radar when we visited Hobart and Hartwick.</p>
<p>Earlham really is a top notch school…quirky, if you can, take her there! if she like Guilford, which my daughter saw and did not really like, she will LOVE Earlham.
Wheaton is tough…the students who have gone their from our HS at top in class, not B.
But, you never know.</p>
<p>
That probably isn’t true for this candidate any longer.“The members of the class of 2013 were chosen from among the largest applicant pool in Willamette’s history - 6,024, a 100 percent increase from two years ago - which also means they made it through a tougher field than ever before - only 59 percent of applicants were admitted. The new students present a strong academic profile - their median high school GPA was 3.75, 49 percent were in the top 10 percent of their class and 53 were valedictorians.”</p>
<p>LOL…guess I never considered Ohio the midwest but, yes, I suppose it is. :)</p>