Suggestions for schools to see/apply to?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi! I’m a junior at a public high school in Massachusetts. I’m new to CC, and I’m trying to figure out where I want to spend four years of my life!

Preferences:
I’d prefer to be on/near the East Coast, although if I fall in love with a college elsewhere I certainly won’t write it off. I don’t have an explicit size preference but it’s crucial that the college I attend have a strong LGBT community. Setting (urban, suburban, rural) doesn’t matter as much to me - I’d prefer not /extremely/ urban or /extremely/ rural. I don’t care about sports or Greek life whatsoever.

Interests:
I have no idea what I’m going to major in!
Creative writing and marine science/ecology are my two biggest interests. I’d really love to attend a college that had strong programs in both of these areas. I know that marine science isn’t the most common so I’m more flexible on that.
I’m also definitely going to study abroad during college, so a school with a strong study abroad program would be great.
Less important, but I’m also a diehard language and alphabet nerd, and would love to attend a college that offers languages that are less commonly taught.
I’d also like to go to a school with the option of pre-med and/or pre-law–I’ve been toying with the idea of both of these.

My Stats:
My school doesn’t use a 4.0 scale but my GPA on the 100 scale is a 95. I take mostly honors classes, and next year I will have two AP classes, AP Environmental Science and AP Lit. (I haven’t taken more because the situation with APs at my school is strange–there are so many prerequisites that it’s difficult to take any before senior year!) I will also have an internship at a marine science lab through the school, and be TA-ing a computer animation course in lieu of one class.

I get my SAT scores back in July and take the ACTs tomorrow, so I obviously have neither score yet. My SAT Literature subject test score is 760. I’ve scored above 1400 on SAT practice tests, for what it’s worth.

Extracurriculars:
I’ve been on my school’s National Ocean Sciences Bowl team for three years, became captain this year and will also be captain next year. I’m in my school’s Model UN club and went to the Harvard Model UN conference. This past year I went to the New England Young Writers’ Conference, and also had an internship at a biotech lab. I’m also in NHS and in my school’s Gay Straight Alliance.

Volunteer Stuff:
I have volunteered for four years with an organization that makes technology accessible for those with disabilities–specifically colorblindness, which I have–and for the Deaf community. (I don’t have my hours for this, I’m finding the hours this summer–they’re in a file cabinet somewhere in Canada…) I am a New Student Guide at my school, which has regular influxes of refugee students and students from developing countries, so I’m registered to be one of the official people to help ease that transition–I started recently and think I have around 40 hours. I have also volunteered at my local aquarium and at a nursing home.

Cost Constraints:
I am very fortunate in that I have no relevant cost constraints.

So, I would love some suggestions on where I should look and possibly apply!

Thank you so much for reading through that whole thing!

2

Just throwing one out there since you mentioned marine science - University of Miami.

3

Thanks, I’ll check it out! I hadn’t been considering anywhere that far south but it looks interesting :slight_smile:

4

South Florida is definitely not what you think of when you think “south.”

5

University of Maine has a Marine Biology program and is ranked LGBT friendly. Williams is also a good school. Any cost restraints?

6

Eckerd

7

Try Brown University. It’s a reach for everyone, but I think you your qualities and the school’s match up well. You may want to look at UC Berkeley, too.

8

Thanks! Thankfully, none.

9

Bard? Great writing program, very LGBTQ friendly. Colby has a ton of programs that align with your interests. Since you’re open to other areas, Scripps?

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@newkidnewtrix : I just visited Brown and loved it there. I’d like to visit UC Berkeley as well, but that’ll require some convincing my parents, lol. Thanks for the suggestions!

@gardenstategal I’ll read about Colby! I’ve been up to visit Bowdoin and Bates, Bowdoin was really cool but Bates and I didn’t get along - would you say Colby is more along the lines of Bowdoin or Bates? And, regarding Scripps, I actually have a lot of family in San Diego so that would work great! I wasn’t aware that they had anything for undergrads though. Do you know anything about UCSD, or about Scripps in disciplines outside of marine science?

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I just came back to suggest Bowdoin! Ya beat me to it @thissquidcantype

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@newkidnewtrix Bowdoin was so cool! My only qualms with Bowdoin were that it was smaller than my high school and sort of out in the middle of nowhere, but those things could both be interesting!

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For what it’s worth, I studied oceanography and classics (Greek and Latin) at Duke and was openly gay, and I loved it. For a combination of marine biology, writing, languages, and LGBT life, it’s hard to beat on the east coast. Brown and UNC are particularly good for all of the above as well.

You’re more likely to find less commonly taught languages at universities than liberal arts colleges, and universities often have much larger LGBT communities as well. A few that particularly come to mind on the east coast:

Boston U
Brown
College of Charleston
Cornell
Duke
Hampshire (LAC but part of the 5 Colleges)
Northeastern
U Miami
UNC Chapel Hill

Eckerd is fantastic for marine biology but has limited language offerings. Other publics may be suitable but have iffy financial aid for OOS students – URI, UF, FSU, William & Mary, U Maine, UNCW, and so on. Those may be worth a look if cost truly isn’t a concern.

If you expand outside the east coast, you could add Stanford, USC, and perhaps some publics like Washington or the UCs (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB).

14

Colby is probably closer to Bowdoin than Bates in vibe. Check out the Bigelow lab for ocean sciences! And they have a Jan Plan the works with refugee resettlement in Portland.

Scripps doesn’t have marine science as a major, but there are profs who are focused on that. They have marine ecology, oceanography, and some good study abroad programs that could fit. Perhaps better at the grad level, but worth checking out. There also have a number of creative writing workshops.

15

@warblersrule BU and Duke are actually my current first choices! Do you know anything about BU and Northeastern’s marine science programs? Also, what do you know about Eckerd’s? A few people have recommended it to me IRL, but it looks like a small school and that doesn’t usually bode well for LGBT life.

Thank you so much for your response! I was kinda secretly hoping you’d respond, I’ve been lurking on CC for a while and you seem to be the go-to marine science person.

16

Between BU and Northeastern, I’d give the nod to BU. Northeastern has a good marine biology program, but BU has more well-rounded offerings in marine science (i.e. geological, chemical, and physical oceanography as well). I applied to Boston for graduate school but have never looked closely at Northeastern, however, so take that opinion with a pinch of salt. Both are definitely good enough for an undergraduate’s purposes.

Eckerd has an awesome reputation in marine science. In fact, it has produced more PhDs in oceanography – in raw numbers, let alone per capita! – than many much, much larger universities like Florida State and UCLA, and it has produced more Hollings scholars than any other college. Additionally, you don’t have to worry about competing with graduate students like you do at most universities.

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@warblersrule Thank you so much! You’re the first other person I’ve met who’s both LGBT and involved in marine science, so this is all extremely helpful. I had no idea about Eckerd - added to the list :slight_smile:

18

William and Mary has a marine science minor and includes the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), which conducts a lot of research on the Chesapeake Bay, and I’m sure work beyond that. Undergrads take classes in marine science through VIMS. I’m not familiar with that particular program though. I second UNC-Wilmington as a public with a strong emphasis on marine science and a spectacular location on the southern NC coast. I consider William and Mary to be LGBT friendly. I’m not familiar with the culture at UNCW, just know someone who looked into it for marine science and checked it out.

http://www.vims.edu/about/index.php

You are from MA. If female, what about Smith? It has a lot of what you are looking for and is part of the five-school consortium with Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and U Mass-Amherst, which might expand opportunities, maybe for language studies and any marine studies offered through U Mass system.

If looking at CA schools, you might look through academic offerings at UCSD and UCSB (Santa Barbara).

I’ll also mention the University of Washington in Seattle. It’s just a very short commuter trip to downtown Seattle, which is right on the water with ferry service all over the region. The campus is very beautiful (have visited a couple of times). Seattle is a progressive city. It looks like it has strong programs in what you are looking for. Not specifically familiar with them.

https://www.washington.edu/students/gencat/academic/college_environment.html

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@ttg I’m not female, but kinda wish I was cause Smith is awesome lmao. I’m definitely going to apply to UCSD, maybe UCSB as well. I’ll take a look at William and Mary. Thanks for the suggestions! This forum is awesome :slight_smile:

20

@thissquidcantype

If you get out to Cal and have a minute, might want to look at UCSC. While it does not have the name rec of Cal, UCSD or even UCSB, UC Santa Cruz has some very interesting Marine Bio (and Space Science) stuff going on. We personally know very high-achieving students who chose it over “bigger name” schools due to specifics of program. And it has a very decent literature program as well.

Santa Cruz/Monterrey Bay is a bit of a sleepy “surf/fishing/ex-hippie” town with a warf & boardwalk (feels maybe a bit Cape Cod/cooler Maine/Conn coast town if you need an East Coast reference…). It’s a really beautiful part of the CA coast, smallish town, big school. I dunno specifically how LGBT-friendly it is, but it’s Northern California, pretty close (1.5hrs w/ traffic) to San Francisco so it will be relatively friendly, is my guess.