<p>William & Mary, Davidson, Rice are perfect matches for the OP description. Esp W&M because it has much more socio economic diversity as a public school.</p>
<p>^^^No kidding? What would the sense of applying ED if the odds of acceptance were no better than EA?</p>
<p>^ If you have a first choice school, you don’t have a choice of EA or ED.</p>
<p>Just putting in one more good word for Macalester. My nephew is a senior there. This sister will attend next year. My nephew has had some wonderful opportunities provided to him by the university. He has gotten an amazing education and oh… he just aced the heck out of his MCATS! The students there are smart, hard working, Midwest nice and non-pretentious to the point of being self effacing. </p>
<p>My other nephews go/went to Grinnel and Keyon and both these school offer what your are looking for but in very rural settings. Macalester has the advantage of being set in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is a super cool city. The population is smart, hip, and fit. The food and music scenes are great. It is easy to fly in and out of and it has a terrific public transportation system. What’s not to love?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, pretentious is an adjective that goes along with prestigious and successful schools. Although you should remember that every school is going to have some pretentious attitudes and that should not stop you from attending a school that will allow you to be as successful as possible. Don’t let a few elitist rich kids represent all the students at a top school</p>
<p>This thread is pretty old, but seeing that the OP is still a junior, I decided I would give my two cents. I’m only going to comment on the schools I have enough information on to be a somewhat credible resource. By the way, I’m also totally liberal and I can’t wait to get out of my elitist prep school in NYC. Through my college search I wanted many of the same qualities and was also very disinclined to attend anywhere that was too pretentious or fratty, so here goes:</p>
<p>-Northwestern: LOVED this school when I visited, personally. I don’t know why people are making such a big deal about its Division I athletics… the Ivy League schools are also Division I but it doesn’t dominate their school culture. Definitely worth a visit! I applied to this school on a whim because I needed another upper match to round out my list and never imagined that I would end up actually seriously considering it. Yes, about a third of the campus is Greek, but everyone I met during my visit was very welcoming and denied that Greek Life was exclusive or dominating. Of course there are really snotty sorority girls and frat bros, but I got the feeling that no one other than themselves really cared very much about them. One thing that I thought was very special about NU was how diverse and laidback the campus felt. Some schools will have diversity in numbers but homogeneity in campus culture, if you know what I mean–at NU you have the theatre geek and the violin major and the football recruit mingling together in the same class. Very refreshing experience. Proximity to Chicago is an added plus.</p>
<p>-Brown–Super liberal, I would love to go here but was rejected. Oh well, I always had the feeling that they were kinda pretentious in their own weird hipster self-loathing way anyway.</p>
<p>-Cornell–Less pretentious than the other Ivy’s, but also (it seems from general consensus) possibly less fun. I get the vibe that students here take studying very seriously, especially the engineers. Of course with an undergrad student body of 14,000 you’re bound to have a diverse set of experiences. I’m going here next year, so woohoo!</p>
<p>-UChicago- I have a family friend who goes here and loves it, although she admits to it being incredibly busy. She’s quirky and kind of dorky so I doubt that the school atmosphere is that elitist, otherwise I know she would hate it.</p>
<p>-Georgetown- Catholic and pretentious (from what I have seen/heard)! The two people I know who will be enrolling there next year from my NYC prep circle of acquaintances (I hesitate to call them friends) are incredibly wealthy and elitist. Plus, they’re soooo WASPy; blonde, lacrosse, everything. Sorry to generalize–I’m sure that you can be a chill person and be totally into lacrosse at the same time (??)</p>
<p>I’m sorry-- how did I forget to mention Wesleyan University? It literally has everything on your list-- in suburban CT, lots of research opportunities (I believe that of the LACs it is investing the most into the sciences), very liberal, very pleasant and diverse student body. Lots of happy kids and absolutely no frat scene. You might want to check this one out.</p>
<p>Rice - 10 char</p>
<p>Davidson, Holy Cross, Colgate all top25 LAC’s with good balance of academics and athletics. Great school spirit in this group which is unusual among LAC’s. HC near Boston, Davidson near Charlotte, Colgate more remote.</p>
<p>I think you should visit WashU, Rice, and UChicago. WashU students are very happy and smart, but they’re not pretentious. If they were pretentious, they would’ve gone to schools with more bragging rights, which I’m pretty sure they could if they wanted to. I was a transfer from a BigTen state school and I could see the difference in student body. Big state schools are not bad, but because they take in a lot of in-staters who might be not as smart as the out-of-staters, you tend to meet many lazy and unmotivated students. Even at previous uni’s business school and engineering school which were ranked quite highly in the USNews ranking, there were still so many lazy students who only cared about partying. So yeah, if you are an international student who has to pay out of state tuition, you would be better off attending a small or medium size private university. From your list, I think UChicago would fit you best. </p>
<p>Hey MBVLoveless, I have the same exact view on colleges as you and I was wondering where you decided to apply after visiting the campuses? I haven’t been able to tour a lot, and would love to hear your list. </p>
How can the OP be a male if he said that his parents wouldn’t even let him apply to Bryn Mawr because of their avg SAT scores? I know this is an old thread, but I had to say something. LOL
Please use old threads only for research.