<p>I think you would enjoy Reed, lol, it is reputed to veer off the charts in the “intellectual bubble” rating.</p>
<p>Other options might be Lehigh - I believe their architecture school is a 4 year pre-professional program; Connecticut College - they call their program “architecture studies” to differentiate it from the professional programs; and Bennington - beautiful campus, but more isolated, and there’s the weather thing.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I think you’ll have to compromise on some of your wants, as I don’t think there’s a warmer weather, semi-urban, selective, LAC-type college which offers a 4 year pre-professional architecture program. Many of the options I’ve seen mentioned are pretty good, though.</p>
<p>No offense intended, but I remember reading about Lehigh in a college guidebook and being horrified by the descriptions of the rich/preppy students. As has been said, I am going to need to make some major trade-offs, and for me I feel as though finding somewhere with the right atmosphere is more important than whether or not they have architecture.
I think my next goal is going to be to do some more research into the colleges that sound particularly intellectual/like they would be a fit for me socially, but it’s obviously harder to figure out what it’s like to live at a college than it is to look at what classes, programs, etc. they offer on paper (which is how I ended up at Barnard in the first place.)</p>
<p>None taken - my DS ruled out Lehigh for (among other things) similar ‘fit’ reasons. 
I’d agree that you’re zeroing in on the more important aspects, but they’re also more difficult to quantify. You’re close enough to Connecticut College that you might be able to visit and get a sense of the school, though. Good luck!</p>
<p>On the weather front, have you considered any schools in California or Texas? If you truly want to escape the cold, you could draw a line across the map of the US that follows some estimate of your limit for cold tolerance, and look for places on the warmer side of that line.</p>
<p>If New York City was too cold for you, you should not even think about the Chicago area. Compared to Chicago, winters in NYC are positively tropical.</p>