<p>@mom2collegekids and other guy: cut the unnecessary bite. I clearly stated I would be happy to attend UMich for its academics, even as a safety. If having safeties when applying to colleges makes one pretentious, there is zero non pretentious college applicant in the nation…unless your two kids applied to colleges without safeties in mind, which would be very pretentious.</p>
<p>I’m a guy btw.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the awesome inputs. I’ll make sure to visit as many suggested on here as possible.</p>
<p>one unforeseen consequence might be grad school however. turning down an ED offer and then later applying to the school would not look good - a lot of top privates ask if you’ve applied previously on grad school applications</p>
<p>No…not at all. Besides…apps to grad school aren’t decided by undergrad admission offices, students are admitted by the actual depts who make the decisions. The undergrad admissions offices never see the apps.</p>
<p>When my older son was applying to PhD programs, I think the question was whether he had applied to their grad school before…I don’t remember questions about whether he had applied to there for undergrad. And, even if the question was asked, the dept profs aren’t going to waste their time calling the undergrad admissions office and ask what this student did back then.</p>
<p>Same with med school apps for younger son. He was asked if he had applied there for MED school before, not undergrad. (and he had applied before to a couple for undergrad).</p>
<p>“If you ask me, [ED] seems like a pretty desperate attempt for some universities to preserve yield.”</p>
<p>Yield prediction is more important; schools are in trouble if too few or too many (big trouble!) applicants accept offers. Schools with ED that can take 1/3 to 1/2 the class early reduce that risk, and get an early read for planning the RD financial aid budget.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids, I’ve actually been apart of graduate school admissions at 2 graduate schools - it depends on the school.</p>
<p>It’s not uniformly thrown out as you wrongly suggest. A central admissions office pre-screens applications for internal minimum GPAs/Scores before it even gets to the professors (who ultimately decide the admits and fellowship decisions).</p>
<p>“Schools with ED that can take 1/3 to 1/2 the class early reduce that risk, and get an early read for planning the RD financial aid budget.”…without worrying about those students who might otherwise attend HYPSM etc…</p>
<p>“Michigan fans are annoying me yet again in this Stanford basketball game…” You mean the fans online or the fans at the game? Since the game was played in NYC, it was in a neutral location.</p>
<p>It’s not uniformly thrown out as you wrongly suggest. A central admissions office pre-screens applications for internal minimum GPAs/Scores before it even gets to the professors (who ultimately decide the admits and fellowship decisions</p>
<p>I realize that. But, that’s not the undergrad office. And I doubt that the grad admission office is looking up whether the person ED’d 4 years earlier and had to decline for financial reasons. And even if they did, so what? The decision at that point was largely driven by the parents not being able to pay. if this is a funded PhD program, then that wouldn’t be an issue. </p>
<p>Grad schools want the best, and if a grad applicant had to decline an ED offer 4 years earlier because of affordability, who cares?</p>
<p>Re: prententiousness - OP attends one of the elite boarding schools in the nation. That he would like to avoid this kind of rarefied/trust-fund baby atmosphere is to his credit.</p>
<p>Applying ED as an undergrad has zero bearing on grad school admissions. Grad committees do not know whether the student was admitted then had to reject the offer due to financial reasons, but even if they were apprised of the fact, parents’ financial circumstances have no bearing on admissions to a grad program, it’s merit only.</p>
<p>I agree that Michigan is a bad fit for OP though.</p>
<p>OP: contact Carleton and Pomona to show interest.</p>
Not to turn this into a Penn thread (since it’s not on the OPs list because of gross generalization based on extremely limited “data” :rolleyes:), but this misconception needs to be corrected. Penn is actually in a terrific location to explore the many cultural and entertainment offerings of Philadelphia, and is arguably closer and more accessible to the central business and cultural core of its host city than virtually any other comparable urban university, including UChicago and Georgetown. Penn’s campus and University City neighborhood are virtually adjacent to Philadelphia’s Center City, with its hundreds of restaurants, sidewalk cafes, historical sites and neighborhoods, cultural institutions, and nightlife. No other top urban university is closer or more accessible to the commercial and cultural core of its host city than is Penn. And yet with that, Penn still has been able to develop a 300-acre campus with lots of open green space (including the new 24-acre Penn Park that sits literally in the shadow of Center City’s skyline), secluded courtyards, and shaded walkways.</p>
<p>Plus, Penn’s own neighborhood, University City, has become one of the most interesting and popular destination neighborhoods in Philly, with a plethora of diverse ethnic restaurants and BYOs, leafy Victorian streets, and cultural institutions of its own, not to mention a boom in development of low-rise and high-rise condos and apartments and various retail and commercial establishments.</p>
<p>OK: Penn commercial over, and record corrected. :)</p>
<p>" From years of experience they know roughly what to expect, and ED helps refine and improve the predictions."…and forces top students to make a safer choice since it is so hard to get into HYPSM. ED is more beneficial to those schools that use it, not to students. That is pretentious.</p>
<p>If you truly do not want to be outside of a city for school, then I would not put Carleton or Oberlin on the list for their proximity to major cities-- the reality is that life at LACs is campus-centric, and that students will only go into those cities on rare occasions.</p>
<p>Having said that, if you are willing to add schools that meet your concern for vibe, but not size or location, then if you do consider Carleton, then my suggestion is to add Grinnell – it is a little more difficult to travel to (few direct flights to Des Moines as opposed to Minneapolis). Negatives for you about Grinnell would be size (it is small) but the culture you are looking for is there. Two blocks away is a small, quaint town with restaurants and a movie theater (so not that much different than Carleton). </p>
<p>The words that my son – and others used – when they made their decision to attend Grinnell is “these are my kind of people.” Students who are open and accepting, who value intellectual exchange and the free expression of individual identity. It’s considered a place for “quirky” kids not because everyone is offbeat, but because if you are, then you can feel comfortable showing that. There is not a sense that everyone is trying to be different, though, just that individuality is supported and welcomed.</p>
<p>Grinnell has a “self-governance” system which creates a unique campus community, tremendous funding for activities, and as diverse a student body as you will find at any LAC. It also has one of the highest percentages of students receiving FA of any LAC, and the needs-blind admissions policy is sacred to students. This is a school that really treasures its mission of providing equal and open access to higher education for qualified students. </p>
<p>Sorry this is turning into an ad for Grinnell! I guess I’m just trying to make a case for you, in the event that you decide to place higher priority on campus culture than on size or location… because if you do look at Carleton, you absolutely should also take a look at Grinnell.</p>
<p>^^^ Georgetown University is well-located with respect to places many college students and 20-somethings would find attractive. It’s a fairly short bus ride away from DC’s “central business and cultural core” (the Mall etc.) Shopping and night-life along M Street and Wisconsin Ave are within easy walking distance. </p>
<p>The University of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood isn’t exactly a College Town. ~30 minutes of public transportation separate the university from attractions in the downtown Loop area. That’s after a long walk to the train platform (up to 1 mile away), if that is how you choose to travel. I don’t have a clear idea of the total walk + transit time to downtown by bus.</p>
<p>Harvard and Columbia would be two other contenders, among comparable universities, for accessibility to urban attractions. Many LACs are in more rural or small town locations. Macalester (St. Paul MN) is an exception. Other possibilities: the Claremont Colleges, Colorado College, Occidental, Reed.</p>
<p>Wow, there have been a lot of LACs recs! To this point I’m still not sure if I want to spend 4 more years at a place that’s too much like a boarding school (LACs) or if i want to branch out to a larger university. I’ll put Carleton, Pomona, Grinnell,…on my list though.</p>
<p>Could someone suggest me more of/comment on these colleges (intellectual vibe, party scene, frat exclusivity, etc):
-JHU
-Northwestern
-Brown
-Cornell
-UChicago
-Georgetown
-Berkeley
-Vanderbilt
-Boston College</p>
<p>Schools I’ve consistently heard good things about (based on this thread):
-WUSTL
-Rice</p>
<p>“ED is more beneficial to those schools that use it, not to students.”</p>
<p>Students benefit by having a more relaxed senior year (no more worry or applications to complete) after being admitted to their first choice school early.</p>
<p>I’m familiar with Chicago and Georgetown (though it’s been quite a while since I was last on either campus.) They have very different atmospheres, strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p>One post (#15) remarked that Georgetown is “probably the closest to an Ivy in terms of lots of old money and prestige. Big focus on politics and international relations. Sort of pre-professional.” Those remarks would be apt for the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. At least, that’s how many SFS students and faculty seem to regard themselves. Outside the SFS, Georgetown is probably the least “Ivy like” of schools the poster was comparing. It lacks the breadth and depth of research strengths you’d find at Chicago, Hopkins, or Northwestern. However, the location is very attractive (not only for shopping and nightlife but also for internship opportunities related to government, IT, biomedical, or telecommunications.) Georgetown does not have fraternities or sororities but does have a big D1 sports scene (for basketball anyway).</p>
<p>Chicago has first-rate graduate/undergraduate programs in many fields. Average class sizes are among the smallest of any comparable university; it has a smaller percentage of “big” classes (>= 50) than some LACs. Facilities are outstanding, with one of the best research library systems in the world. The faculty is superb. Some of the best not only teach undergrads but have won awards for teaching quality. The prevailing undergraduate teaching style (when I was there anyway) was discussion-focused and Socratic, with an emphasis on close reading of primary source materials. Professors were not averse to putting students on the spot with hard questions or even responding sarcastically to less-than-thoughtful answers (dunno if this has changed). The atmosphere throughout the College (dorms as well as classrooms) is famously, self-consciously intellectual - to a fault. There is a small understated frat scene. For most of the school’s history, sororities were banned, but in recent years have had a small presence. For a couple decades football was banned, then returned on a small scale to the fanfare of a kazoo marching band. </p>
<p>Really, almost the only reason to go to Chicago is for the academics (not for the barely existent sports scene, Greek scene, party scene, or social networking.) The place does have an interesting, quirky social/cultural life but even that has a strong - and arguably pretentious - intellectual slant.
[The</a> University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt](<a href=“http://scavhunt.uchicago.edu/]The”>http://scavhunt.uchicago.edu/)</p>
<p>“Students benefit by having a more relaxed senior year (no more worry or applications to complete) after being admitted to their first choice school early.”</p>
<p>EA provides the same benefit without the restrictions…</p>