what second-tier colleges should i consider?

College Search & Selection
6

<p>Possibilities:</p>

<p>Reed College
Kalamazoo College
Earlham College
Lawrence University</p>

<p>These schools share 3 characteristics:

  1. They are all liberal arts colleges with small average class sizes.
  2. They all have placed in the top 20 in recent years for per capita PhD production in the life sciences or biological sciences.
    (sources: <a href=“http://legacy.earlham.edu/ir/bac_org_06.htm[/url]”>http://legacy.earlham.edu/ir/bac_org_06.htm&lt;/a&gt; ;
    <a href=“http://legacy.earlham.edu/ir/bac_org_06.htm[/url]”>http://legacy.earlham.edu/ir/bac_org_06.htm&lt;/a&gt;)
  3. With the possible exception of Reed (which I would not label “second tier”), they are not among the 75 most selective schools.
    (source: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html&lt;/a&gt;)</p>

<p>Other possibilities:
Connecticut College (strong botany program)
St. Mary’s College of Md (beautiful campus, nice location for marine bio field work)
University of Washington, University of Wisconsin (tied for USNWR #15 for graduate biological sciences)
your state flagship</p>

<p>More selective possibilities (“match” territory for some Ivy applicants):
Colorado College (Rocky Mountain setting and one-course-at-a-time “Block Plan” create interesting field work opportunities)
Grinnell College (among the top 10 for bio/life science PhD production)
Oberlin College (another small “PhD factory” for bio/life science)</p>