<p>“Baltimore can be quite the fun town if you have the right guide…” ;)</p>
<p>East Palo Alto ain’t a safe garden spot either. Every urban campus is gonna have some safety issues.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your opinions (and I didn’t mean to start a p****** contest between Berkeley and JHU).</p>
<p>My D has narrowed things down a bit, so it’s now among Bryn Mawr, Macalester, Wellesley and JHU. She most likely will go on to a Ph.D., although of course things can change once one is exposed to all the different fields of study in college. She has an affinity for languages, and it certainly is possible she might lean later towards international relations/diplomacy, in which case I think Wellesley and JHU are the strongest. However, right now cog sci/linguistics, classics, behavioral science and comp lit are probably her strongest interests. Looking at the JHU class schedules for fall, most classes are 20 students or less in these areas, except for the intro to psych course at 120.</p>
<p>There is enough $ set aside to go to any of these schools, though of course the merit $ is nice to have to leave more money for grad school/life after college.</p>
<p>Mac is the only school out of her finalists that she hasn’t seen, and we will visit this week. But it is not likely she will be able to fit revisiting the others into her schedule, at least not until late April.</p>
<p>So any more thoughts now that she has narrowed it down a bit?</p>
<p>“there’s a huge difference between 120 and several hundred.”</p>
<p>I don’t agree. I think there’s very little difference. In practice, most students will not be fighting for the professor’s attention – if you do, you will get some. A lecture is a lecture.</p>
<p>“At a LAC, more typically an intro psych course would have < 20 students or so.”</p>
<p>Totally wrong. 90+ students are typical in intro psych at BMC, and it’s by some margin the smallest school on the list (~1200 students). My intro calculus class had 50. Great class, but intro classes in popular fields like that will have WAY more than 20 even at a tiny LAC.</p>
<p>You can look at the online course schedules to check class size. According to Wellesley’s Spring 2013 courses, the Calc I and II sections at capped at 25 and so are the intro Psych courses. They are scheduled in different rooms with different professors, so I don’t thing it’s just a registration category. So I guess it depends on the school.</p>
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<p>This is the trouble one gets into in making generalizations without double-checking sources. Mea culpa.</p>
<p>Am I totally wrong? Without seeing some data, I’m not convinced that 90+ is closer to being typical for selective LACs. For Intro Psych, maybe. But here are some LACs that claim to have zero classes with 50 or more students (or nearly zero, as indicated):
Carleton
Colorado College
Davidson
Grinnell (of 377 classes, 1 has 40-49 students, 1 has 50-99 students, none has more)
Macalester (of 429 classes, 5 have 40-49 students, 6 have 50-99 students, none has more
Richmond
Wellesley (of 543 classes, 3 have 40-49 students, 2 have 50-99, none has more)</p>
<p>(source: Common Data Set for each school)</p>
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<p>Crime tends to be much more localized than entire cities. Even in higher crime rate cities, there are lower crime rate areas, and vice-versa. The city areas adjacent to the Berkeley campus have significantly different crime rates depending on which side of the campus one goes. (Now there are crime mapping web sites that you can use to see where reported crimes occur.)</p>
<p>The Red Triangle is the least safe area near SF.</p>
<p>Fair enough…it is just a mistake to expect intro to psych and its counterparts to be below 20 students. Even Wellesley appears to cap at 25, and I think it’s quite unusual in having totally different sections (as opposed to one large course with multiple breakout discussion sections). They aren’t all seminars, even at the elite LACs.</p>
<p>JHU! Acapella is all the rage there! So many research opportunities as well!</p>
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<p>Again, I’d be a little concerned that Macalester’s offerings might be limiting for a high-achieving student interested in relatively low-demand areas such as classics or linguistics.
BMC (in addition to its own strengths in classics) can draw on partnerships with Haverford, Swarthmore, and Penn. Wellesley has a partnership with MIT (which has a top linguistics department) and a 12-college exchange program.</p>
<p>The Twin Cities are lively. On the other hand: [Average</a> January Temperatures for Minnesota - Current Results](<a href=“http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Minnesota/temperature-january.php]Average”>Average January Temperatures for Minnesota - Current Results)</p>
<p>JHU has highly-regarded IR programs, and seems to be strong in some of the other fields you mention. It does not have a stand-alone linguistics department or linguistics major (the subject is integrated into cognitive science). Your D might be interested in its language and speech research programs ([Linguistics</a> at Johns Hopkins](<a href=“http://cogsci.jhu.edu/research/linguistics.html]Linguistics”>http://cogsci.jhu.edu/research/linguistics.html)). </p>
<p>Check out warblersrule’s College Confidential assessments of classics departments (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1174489-comparing-classics-departments.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1174489-comparing-classics-departments.html</a>). JHU, Wellesley, and BMC all make his lists of recommended schools.</p>
<p>tk21769, those are great links, thank you. Of the top 6 classics LACs, Rebecca was accepted to 4, WL at one, and didn’t apply to the other. I guess she did her research about where to apply!</p>
<p>PDK: Congrats to your D on her great choices. As a JHU alum, I know I’m biased, but I’d go with JHU. The academics are outstanding and the campus is beautiful. I think BMC and Mac may be too small for a student with such a wide range of interests. Good luck with the decision.</p>
<p>She should visit each one, but I’d go with Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>I don’t really know it other than a visit and its reputation, but I would put in a pitch for Wellesley. There’s supposed to be an excellent alumni network which is very important in this economy. The location and the campus are fabulous. I would narrow down to the LAC with the best reputation (Wellesley) and the university with the best reputation among her remaining choices—JHU. JHU is supposed to be pretty intense and there is a significant fraternity/sorority scene mixed in with intense pre-meds. They may feel quite different.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your thoughts. She took Reed off the list of finalists because of its reputed drug culture, what do you think about that? Otherwise, it seems very strong in her areas of interest, plus has excellent stats for getting people into Ph.D. programs.</p>
<p>“She most likely will go on to a Ph.D., although of course things can change once one is exposed to all the different fields of study in college. She has an affinity for languages, and it certainly is possible she might lean later towards international relations/diplomacy”</p>
<p>Given the extensive range of subjects which interest OP’s D, it might be a good idea to postpone IR until grad school. For a coed LAC, I would have thought that Reed would be preferable to Mac, which is in a cold Midwestern climate. Further everyone at Reed has to study Greek and Roman Humanities as freshman; so there is certainly more of a classics focus than at Mac. Both have linguistics departments and majors. (Many LAC’s don’t.) Reed is tops of LAC’s in Ph.D. productivity (behind Caltech and Harvey Mudd) but Bryn Mawr also does well. [The</a> Colleges Where PhD’s Get Their Start | The College Solution](<a href=“http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-colleges-where-phds-get-their-start/]The”>The Colleges Where PhD's Get Their Start)</p>
<p>Is D certain on this LA -> Minnesota idea ?</p>
<p>“She took Reed off the list of finalists because of its reputed drug culture, what do you think about that?” </p>
<p>That’s the Oregon marijuana thing. Doesn’t CA also have “medical” marijuana?</p>
<p>These schools are so very different it’s hard to imagine your D doesn’t have a strong opinion about where she would be happiest. </p>
<p>I would think twice about going to JHU as an undergrad. Don’t say you weren’t warned. On the other hand, that area in Baltimore is a fine place to live as a student. Baltimore has lots of character.</p>
<p>What are Berkeley’s in-state costs for your D versus out-of-state JHU? Keep in mind travel costs will be higher as well with cross country flights to Baltimore much more expensive and time consuming than 1 hour flights to the Bay Area on Southwest.</p>
<p>Berkeley may have bigger classes, but the professors are among the best in their fields. Berkeley’s academic reputation for your D’s interests in the classics, linguistics, and comparative literature is pretty much tops. </p>
<p>Just things to consider.</p>
<p><a href=“Undergraduate Program | Linguistics”>Undergraduate Program | Linguistics;
<a href=“http://classics.berkeley.edu/programs/undergraduate/[/url]”>http://classics.berkeley.edu/programs/undergraduate/</a>
<a href=“Comparative Literature”>Comparative Literature;
<p>rhg3rd, that’s why I hate for Reed to get off the list (the Ph.D. productivity, and strong classics and linguistics). As someone who went to college in the 70’s, marijuana culture doesn’t offend me, but I would be concerned if more than that.</p>
<p>$ isn’t really an issue here, and I think the enormous undergrad populations and larger class sizes knocked UCLA (my alma mater) and Berkeley out for her. Berkeley would be great for grad school, however.</p>