I assume that all Ivies would feel great, but I would like to know which one to express more interest in without visiting (very long trip with not a lot of money or time).
I need to have very good mathematics/economics. I may become an Actuary or some sort of Economist. Who knows. I am just a boy. I just need some great mathematics with great teachers and job placement.
The feel of the campus will win it all though. I am liberal but I hate other liberals. For example, people who complain that they don’t have enough safe spaces are disgusting. Social justice warriors are disgusting. I also hate conservatives, but I like to have them around. For that reason, I probably want a moderate school.
Campus size may or may not bother me. I would enjoy a larger school but also a smaller school.
Campus cities will also be a huge factor. I feel like Dartmouth would be outstanding but I want to have access to some sort of large city.
I probably won’t party, but I don’t care.
I would love to have amazing dormitories as well as amazing campuses. I want to look out the window and gasp at the beautiful sight. I want to have the greenest grass surrounding me.
Am I pretentious? Nah… I don’t think so. I probably don’t want to go to Harvard because of that reason though.
So far my top choices are Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth, but I am open to any of them.
I catch a lot of sarcasm, so I can see why you dislike the “safe-space” ideas. Most of the Ivies are more liberal and “social-justice oriented” than you may like. While that’s not true for the entire student population, I suggest you start looking at schools outside of the East coast.
Ugh, so much wrong with this whole post. The long and short of it is that odds are you won’t exactly have your choice among them. Especially since you seem to have gotten a 25 on your ACT last time you took it. How much did it go up since then?
I haven’t looked at all of them, but at least the ones I’m most aware of, those Ivies don’t take applicant interest into account—they don’t have to, they know their yield is going to be high no matter what.
If @rebeccar is right and you’ve got a 25 ACT, though, the succinct answer is: none of them.
Princeton is ranked higher for economics, although Yale isn’t far behind.
Princeton is an hour’s drive from New York, while Yale is an hour & a half. Yale is located in the city of New Haven, while Princeton is in the suburbs.
Yale is known for being liberal. I’d assume Princeton is moderate, leaning left, since that’s how much of our state could be described.
You want an actual answer? It’s pretty clear you don’t know much about the topic other than wanting the prestige of an Ivy name. The reason I know this is because you say:
No, they wouldn’t. Dartmouth and Cornell have INCREDIBLY different feels. So do Penn and Columbia. There is no reason to say all Ivies would feel great.
Okay, so you may or may not want to be an actuary or economist but who knows. All Ivies have great teachers/job placement.
Just gonna eyeroll at this and move on.
Okay, so you may or may not want a large or a small school. What was the point of this sentence?
Okay, so you may or may not want a party school. What was the point of this sentence?
Your post is all over the place. You say the city is a huge factor and for this reason you’re not into Dartmouth, but then say Dartmouth is a top choice. The whole post is “these things may or may not be factors, I don’t really care,” and then the one thing you say is a HUGE factor, you ignore.
You see? You don’t want liberals or conservatives. You don’t want large or small. You don’t want party or not party. You want a city, but also want Dartmouth. You may want to be an economist, but who knows.
Go visit their campuses and talk to admission advisors so you can have a better understanding. Apply to all that you like as admission in top 20 colleges is pretty much like winning a lottery.
You should start by asking yourself why you want to go to an Ivy in the first place.
Also, I hate to put it so bluntly, but unless you are a stellar student - and even if you are - you should focus more on what schools you have a chance at getting into and which one of those is the right “fit” for you, rather than spending too much time worrying about whether you should “choose” Princeton or Dartmouth.
These schools may be a bad residential fit for you. At most (if not all) of them you’ll be randomly assigned a dorm and a roommate, and live in very close quarters with generally gregarious students - many of whom have strong feeling about social and political issues.
I read your post and thought most of the Ivy League doesn’t sound like a good fit at all. Maybe University of Chicago? (Assuming you can get in.) I think most colleges have plenty of moderates, but the liberals and conservatives are much noisier.
I was going to make the same suggestion as @mathmom – Chicago sounds far closer to your preferences. You can look up rankings for math and econ departments on your own; also, go check out the departmental webpages – see whose research and classes are the most appealing.
If you want good insight into the campus climate, I suggest that you read each school’s student newspaper online – that will give you a much better feel for the atmosphere and level of tolerance than a campus tour would anyway.
I agree with @mathmom - most of the Ivy League doesn’t sound like a great fit for you for a variety of reasons (either not urban or too liberal).
My first thoughts were Vanderbilt, Duke, and Emory - all of which are still pretty liberal but perhaps likely to be less in-your-face liberal than some of the Ivies. Vanderbilt is in Nashville; Duke is in Durham and not far from Raleigh; Emory is in Atlanta.
If you want a more moderate campus, another one I thought of is the University of Richmond - a small liberal arts college, but very selective and in the city of Richmond. I also thought of Washington & Lee University, but it’s in Lexington, which is a small town in rural Virginia pretty far away from any large cities.
On the other hand, you’d probably want to shy away from Columbia - despite it having access to a large city and lots of great mathematics classes with preparation for actuarial exams, it’s very liberal and very focused on social justice. (I also wouldn’t say the campus is amazing - beautiful, but not in the old-world Gothic kind of way.)
However, it doesn’t seem like you know what you want since most of your statements contradict themselves, as was pointed out. It’s okay to be unsure about what you want, but you should probably take a little time to think about it first and then come back and ask with more detail.
On the off chance OP’s post was serious, I’d suggest a gap year or two to do some maturing. I’m not being snarky–I just honestly find that the entire post reflects some very underdeveloped thinking about college, people, and the world.