What are some quirky/hippieish/hipsterish/chill nerd colleges?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I know that's a VERY specific description of the kind of school I'm looking for. I realize that no school can be everything I want all the time, but I think a lot of schools tend to be very good at attracting this type of student:</p>

<p>Ideally, the people there would be smart, nerdy, but in a sort of hip Seth Cohen sense, very into music and literature, very opinionated, but at the same time not that shrill annoying protestor on TV that you just want to slap. Passionate but not self righteous. You know? I don't want them to be overworked grinds, but I don't want them to be the type of people who, when asked what their favorite books/paintings/writers are, say apathetically "oh I don't know, I like a lot of stuff." I want them to be really INTO things, really passionate about it, but chill about it. I'd like it to have a pretty moderate-strong drug culture, since I think that's pretty indicative of its chillness. I want kids who are dorky in the sense that say, David Foster Wallace or Jonathan Safran Foer or Spike Jonze are dorky. The kind of people who can be happy lighting up, staying up all night listening to good music, and then writing an eloquent essay. PS sorry I keep using the word "chill", it's the only good one I can really think of. </p>

<p>To give you an idea of the kind of school I'm looking for, here are the ones I've identified as possibilities (they're pretty much all liberal arts. I'm pretty sure that's where I want to look):</p>

<p>Wesleyan (absolutely love it, this is the the school I have in mind when I describe the ideal. It's the kind of place that brings together MGMT and Annie Dillard.)
Columbia
Brown (although I'm worried it might have a lot of people who TRY to meet this ideal but fail annoyingly)
Carleton
Macalester (although I'm worried the culture might be a little too political-activistish. sorry, but I'm just not into the environmental/social justice movement as much as a lot of people are.)
Pomona</p>

<p>Ones I might be interested in, but I'm worried they might be a little TOO much of one/a few of these qualities:</p>

<p>Bard
Evergreen
Grinnell
Occidental
Reed
U of C</p>

<p>Do you get the idea? I don't want spacey drugged out hippies, nor super aloof NYUhipsters, nor sorority girls, nor joyless grinds, nor future businessmen in suits, nor burnout prep school failures. I don't mean to sound so negative, but I've got a pretty specific idea of the type of school I'm looking for. Like, for example, I do not want to go to Middlebury or Williams because those schools seem to attract sort of athletic, hard working, "well rounded" people, and though it's a great school, it's too...normal. Or I don't like the super-outdoorsy granola LL Bean model feel of places like Bowdoin or Colby. I'm very wary of jock-y schools, really big schools, state schools, schools with a "pre-professional" vibe. It's so hard to get a good read on what a school is ACTUALLY like, because all you hear is vague statements that tiptoe around accurate stereotypes so much so that all colleges sound the same after a while.</p>

<p>Anyway, if anyone has any ideas on any of this (including input on the schools I already listed,) please please do so. I'm turning in my college list soon, and I don't want to feel like I've missed out on some gems.</p>

2

<p>Quirky cool nerds = Rice University</p>

3

<p>I’m a Wes student (it was my first choice), and liked Wes for its laid-back and quirky atmosphere. A couple of pretty obvious schools you’re missing are Vassar and Oberlin – those, potentially even more than Brown, are the other schools I think are most like Wes. </p>

<p>One thing you should know is that Wes does have a lot of activists. Not as overwhelmingly so as some stereotypes would have it, but there are definitely here, and they aren’t particularly “chill” about their causes – they are passionate, and passionate about making changes. </p>

<p>My thoughts on your other choices, as someone who seemed to like similar things as you (but, obviously, I don’t go to these other schools, so take it with a grain of salt): </p>

<p>Columbia – I found Columbia too cold and maybe a little too pre-professional/success driven. Friends there love it, though.
Brown – My second choice. Definitely a good call.
Carleton – I love this school. But from talking to my friend there, it is more wholesome-quirky that hipster/hippy.
Macalester – I seriously doubt it is more activist-y than Wes.
Pomona – Same as Carleton.</p>

<p>Bard – Def. more hippy than I wanted, and talking to friends there confirm this.
Evergreen – Same as Bard, if not more so.
Grinnell – See Pomona and Carelton
Occidental – I really liked this school, maybe not as hippy/hipster, but very diverse
Reed – I liked it, but it’s very intense, and I wasn’t a huge fan of all the requirements.
U of C – I think more intensely intellectually focused than most of your other choices. The core was not my cup of tea. </p>

<p>The main thing I see about this list (esp. the one of schools you are more sure of) is that it doesn’t seem to have any safeties, and few matches, even if you have great stats. You might want to check out Pitzer, Lewis+Clark and Goucher for some more match/safety type schools (assuming you are in reasonable range for, say, Brown as a reach). From your second list, Evergreen, Occidental and potentially Bard and maybe even Grinnell would probably fall somewhere on the safety-high match spectrum. </p>

<p>You might also want to check out this thread I made a while ago: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/407021-if-you-like-wes-you-might-also-want-consider.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/407021-if-you-like-wes-you-might-also-want-consider.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>Carleton’s really not that hipsterish at all. Much more athletic than other schools on your list. Quirky, passionate, sure. But not hipsterish.</p>

<p>Check out New College of Florida.</p>

5

<p>You’ve described Grinnell with the exception of the “moderate-strong drug culture.” There is some of that but no more so than the other top LACs.</p>

6

<p>I would look at Vassar, Oberlin and Kenyon.</p>

7

<p>WesKid:
Thanks a ton man, this is really helpful and you seem to know exactly where I’m coming from. Wesleyan is a possible for me, as are Carleton, Oberlin, and Reed. Mac is a likely, so is Grinnell. Brown and Columbia are of course, reaches. I currently go to a prep school in the Northeast (I live outside of Chicago,) and am pretty well acquainted with the subculture. And after four years, I’ve decided I’m really not into it. The problem is, and you hit the nail on the head here, I’m having a hard time finding some likelies/strong possibles that still fit into the category. I had the exact same feeling you did about Bard and Evergreen, sort of burnout-ish and veeery hippieish. Also same with Reed, it sounded good but really unnecessarily intense. U of C is known as the place “where fun goes to die” around where I live, and I do think there’s some truth to that. I know someone who goes to Oxy who’s suuuper hippieish, but she might be sort of an outlier.</p>

<p>What did you think of Vassar?</p>

8

<p>^^^</p>

<p>I really liked Vassar. It wasn’t as high on my list as Wes and Brown because I’m not a huge fan of it’s location (the town kind of sucked), and I don’t really like the 60/40 female/male ratio, but it was probably my fourth or fifth choice – it sounds like it would be a good fit for you.</p>

<p>I also really think you should look at Oberlin – a lower match than Wes/Carelton, but higher than most of the schools below that you have. Definitely my favorite match that I had (as opposed to high match/low reach, which is what Wes was for me).</p>

<p>I think Oxy could be a good likely for you, as would Pitzer. If you want a super-likely/somewhere you would probably get a lot of merit aid (I don’t know what your financial situation is), I think Goucher could be good – it’s one of the Colleges that Change Lives, it’s a beautiful campus, and it has the right vibe.</p>

9

<p>warren wilson??my firends loved it there…might be too hippie-ish for you though…</p>

10

<p>Right, the problem with a lot of these schools is they’re sort of in the middle of nowhere. How do people deal with being in a (fairly) crappy town at Wesleyan? </p>

<p>Oberlin sounds like it could be a very good option, I think I’m going to apply.</p>

<p>Some people I talked to said Goucher and Pitzer were “preppy burnout” schools. I can’t speak to the validity of that, but I will say that the preppy burnout thing is a danger when you’re looking at low match/safety schools in this category of schools. Mind you, most of these people are older and might have outdated views. Do you think this is at all true for some of those (Evergreen, Bard, Lewis + Clark Pitzer, Goucher)?</p>

11

<p>^ That’s not my impression of L&C (DD2 attends there now). Definitely quirky/nerdy.</p>

12

<p>Hampshire, Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, Marlboro. </p>

<p>Bennington & Marlboro, definitely “Middle of Nowhere” type feeling. </p>

<p>Hampshire, Amherst is a great college town with a lot to offer. </p>

<p>Sarah Lawrence-you can take the train into NYC.</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>They deal with it just fine, mainly because there is always a TON to do on campus. Middletown’s not the best, but it has a good assortment of restaurants, a movie theater, a couple of bars. It’s not NYC, but it’s a fine supplement to a social/extracurricular life that’s centered on a super-active campus. In general, I think that as long as a semi-middle of nowhere campus has a lot to do, you won’t get bored. Plus, at least from Wes (and this is even more true of Vassar), it’s not too hard to get into NYC if you want to, for a little variety once in a while.</p>

14

<p>I was looking for pretty similar things (almost every school I applied to has been mentioned), and I second everything Weskid said about Wesleyan. Vassar and Oberlin were the most like Wes in this respect (although I liked Oberlin a bit more) but based on my impressions both have less prep schoolers and jocks than Wes. I agree that Bard would be a good option too, although it’s smaller than the ones I mentioned and also in the middle of the woods.</p>

<p>the only schools that haven’t been mentioned that I thought of were Skidmore and, if you’re female and open to woman’s colleges, Smith.</p>

15

<p>It’s funny to hear comments that Wes has a “laid-back and quirky atmosphere”. My son visited. He wanted to hear about their sciences and instead, the tour guide took them all around to see the new sports program (stadium, gym, etc.) That was the whole tour; didn’t like it at all as a result. He liked Brown, Columbia, Rice, and Oberlin. He would consider Carleton except it’s in MN. My sister went to Smith (years ago) and recently to Sarah Lawrence for grad school. She loved the school. If you’re a girl, you might also want to consider Smith and Barnard. My niece went to Barnard and loved at those NYC things. Said it was a nice mix of nurturing environment, being all girls, and hip.</p>

16

<p>Just popping in to add that when I read the OP, I thought it was spelling O-B-E-R-L-I-N in neon lights. Oberlin and Wesleyan are a pretty matched set, except Oberlin is a little lower-key, and it has LOTS more, and better, musicians thanks to its conservatory. Hampshire is another good one to check out, and probably a little safer on the admit side. Bard, too – I think it skews more toward the hippieish, but half the student body is probably as you describe. If you are worried about being in the middle of nowhere, Sarah Lawrence is worth a thought, since it’s 20 minutes by commuter train from Grand Central Station.</p>

<p>The people you are describing definitely exist at UChicago, as a minority subculture, but “chill” is an adjective that does not describe very many people there, especially if you spend more than ten minutes with them. “Chilled”, maybe, in February, but inside it runs hot, not cool. (Columbia, by the way: also not chill.)</p>

<p>Some more remote possibilities: </p>

<p>A good friend of my son’s from Manhattan is EXACTLY as you describe, and he’s at Ursinus (and liking it fairly well). His other, similar friends are at Vassar and Kalamazoo.</p>

<p>Evergreen is much larger than any of the other places you have described, of course, and it’s maybe a little over-the-top alternative. But a young relative who is your kind of person ended up at Western Washington (after an odyssey that included Bard, UMass Amherst, Evergreen, and University of Washington, and time in Italy with a Vassar program). Western Washington was the only one of those she really loved, and it was hard to tear herself away from Bellingham when she was done.</p>

<p>Finally: As I am sure you are aware, you are stereotyping waaay too much. Every school you are “rejecting” has people like the ones you describe. They may not be the dominant crowd everywhere, but they exist everywhere in decent numbers. And the opposite – there are frat-boy jocks at Wesleyan and Oberlin, too, and if you are patient and pay attention you will figure out that they are there because they have a lot in common with you, too.</p>

<p>Also, people tend to change a lot during college. A friend of one of my kids went to NYU as a dressy, somewhat JAPpy linguistics nerd, and four years later she is Ms. Organic Agriculture (Brooklyn Division). I never associated NYU with alternative agrarianism, but apparently I was wrong.</p>

17

<p>Oberlin and Sarah Lawrence (for different reasons)</p>

18

<p>Hampshire–if it’s not toooooo hippie for you, it’s definitely got quirky nailed! And the Happy Valley is beautiful.</p>

19

<p>Well I too think the University of Chicago is not going to be your cup of tea, bowl of bhang, or whatever the right metaphor is. Not sure why it’s on the list at all.</p>

<p>My S liked Wesleyan a lot (except for the Middletown setting) and Macalester (except for the cold weather). He settled on Colorado College and is having a blast there. It offers a distinctive Rocky Mountain location along with an unusual, one-course-at-a-time “block plan”. </p>

<p>I think (as far as a parent can tell) it strikes a good balance between some of the corners of your box represented by Reed, Warren Wilson, or the NESCAC field hockey set. I would not necessarily put it ahead of Wesleyan for you, but then, it’s a bit less selective so might make a good match/likely (assuming you are in hailing distance of Brown). If you want to stay East, you’re not into mountains, and you’re trying to keep your list small, then Oberlin sounds good.</p>

20

<p>Check out CUNY - Purchase. Real alternative vibe there.</p>

<p>Basically, look at small liberal arts colleges in rural or suburban areas. That tends to attract those kinds of people.</p>