<p>Its silly to choose a school based on a department. This is probably the biggest mistake high schoolers make. Departments matter in "vocational" careers like film, accounting, computer science, painting; where you are learning a very real skill set. But liberal arts majors like spanish, history, anthro, etc it doesn't matter at all. The OVERALL school is much more important. The top 50 LACs + Universities will all be about the same, and the difference between the spanish dept at one LAC vs. another is almost meaningless. I don't know where you heard one spanish dept at a LAC is better than another but wherever you read that is wrong.</p>
<p>Leaving out Vassar and Wesleyan would be a tragedy.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is 11 miles from downtown Philadelphia, just inside "the beltway" in an old wooded neighborhood. The campus itself is an arboretum, heavily wooded and landscaped. Stunning. There is a train station right on campus with commuter rail to downtown Phila and then on to the airport, NYC, D.C. etc. Athough you would never know standing on campus, a half mile (easy walk) from campus is a large mall and all the associated stuff of a major retail strip: Target, Best Buy, restaurants, etc. Very few students have cars and it's really not necessary. For all intents and purposes, there are no roads on campus.</p>
<p>As for academics, probably a one-word description would be "serious academics". Swarthmore's brand identity revolves around academic engagement with social responsibility. The students challenge the faculty; the faculty challenges the students in a somewhat unique feedback circuit that makes difficult academics enjoyable for both. Lots of discussion. It's a cooperative learning environment. Lots of group presentations, study groups, peer tutoring, etc. Bad place to go if you don't want to work hard in college. Good place if you want to really get excited by a couple of courses a semester.</p>
<p>I agree with slipper1234.
Unless you plan to pursue a career-oriented major, (e.g. engineering, film, etc,) I'd advise choosing a LAC based on overall fit.
That said, (and for what it's worth,) Pomona and Middlebury feature highly regarded foreign language depts.</p>
<p>I would be pre-med, so I do want to take as much Spanish as possible to become fluent. Many of those colleges only have three to five upper division classes a semester, and of those, maybe one is really interesting. There are so many LACs that I think would be a good fit - I don't really know how else to whittle down the list.</p>
<p>
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I don't really know how else to whittle down the list.
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<p>Well, you could start by:</p>
<p>a) which ones can you get accepted into?</p>
<p>b) what locations do you prefer?</p>
<p>c) what kind of campus culture are you looking for? Big time drinking? Not so much? Do you want serious academics? More laid back? You've provided a litte insight with "crunchy" and "geek", but that's still covering a lot of ground. For example, there are schools that are pretty "far out there" in terms of students and other schools that are just a bunch of smart kids -- both types would fall under your definition, even though they would be VERY different.</p>
<p>d) How important is diversity?</p>
<p>e) If you want to become fluent in Spanish, you need to go live in a Spanish speaking country. What are the study abroad options?</p>
<p>f) What can you afford? Do you need merit aid? Can you apply early decision?</p>
<p>b) Location isn't all that important to me unless it's humid. I'd prefer that it isn't super cold either, but I wouldn't let that stop me from going to a school with a great fit. I'd prefer not in CA (I'm from San Diego), but again, since they have a great dept, I'd reconsider going to Pomona if I like the school personality.</p>
<p>c.) Serious academics. Not so much drinking. A combination of "out there" and "smart kids" would be ideal, but either would be fine.</p>
<p>d.) I would prefer a diverse student body, but I don't think it would be a deciding factor.</p>
<p>e.) Yes, this is something that I will need to think about. </p>
<p>f.) I'm not too concerned about applying ED yet. Once I have a better handle on which schools I like, I will determine whether I want to do that then. Merit aid will def. be nice, but I don't know if it's a deciding factor yet.</p>
<p>Departments do matter in liberal arts majors. History, for example. I looked at a lot of catalogues for various colleges, and history class offerings were consistently pitiful, with either very limited quantities or limited range of fields. If I were still a prospective history major and gone to one of those colleges, I would've cried because nearly none of them offered a discernable amount in the fields that interested me the most (such as ancient, oriental and military history). Same with other majors like poli sci and economics, especially where if you were interested in a certain fields in particular.</p>
<p>Big difference being a major in languages and a pre-med Spanish major. With the large numbers of core science/math requirements you'll face for med school apps and the relative popularity/size of department of Spanish as opposed to, say, Italian, I'd agree with Slipper that your focus should not be the strength of a particular college's language sections. A very important point brought up by Interesteddad is study abroad. You may well end up fulfilling half or more of your major's requirements off-campus. Study abroad is pretty much a given for any language student these days. You can see which schools tend to send large numbers overseas:
(<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/webex/abroad_brief.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/webex/abroad_brief.php</a>)</p>
<p>Some colleges are very supportive of international exposure and directly operate multiple programs of their own (the exception) as well as offering flexible registration with others (more the rule). Carleton and U Chicago (I know, not a LAC but still small by mid-sized standards and otherwise fits the bill) are unusual in offering a panoply of options. Other schools that I'd certainly consider given all of your key requirements - Grinnell, Swarthmore, Reed, Haverford, Pomona, Oberlin. You seem open to all-women colleges - may want to add Bryn Mawr, possibly Wellesley, to Smith. Some of your other listings may be too non-geeky, non-crunchy, or too keg-driven. If you are serious about theater (I'm not talking about dabbling) I’d strongly suggest giving Wesleyan another look.</p>
<p>Well, I've been very involved in my drama dept in my HS but mostly I'd be dabbling as an extra-curricular. I guess I should clarify - academics would come before crunchiness, but I don't really know enough about these schools to say how academic/crunchy most of them are. I'm just trying to figure out what all of their personalities are.</p>
<p>Fiske Guide to Colleges is a pretty good place to start. Two page capsule reports on each college that are loaded with information on what stands out at each school.</p>
<p>Bennington definitely has it's share of both crunchy and geeky people, a good language program and strong theater. It is cold up there though, but very beautiful!</p>
<p>If you're willing to look at a small university, University of Rochester may fit the bill (except for the cold part). Excellent pre-med opportunities, especially for undergraduate research - medical center is down the street. They have more research opportunities for undergrads than they have undergrads. Rochester runs its own study abroad program, again highly regarded. Good theater EC.</p>
<p>I would agree with the general sentiment that Middlebury seems like less of a fit than Bates, Wesleyan, Vassar, Oberlin, Connecticut College, Bard, Skidmore, Bennington, Hampshire.</p>
<p>I don't know much about some of these schools, but Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Reed and Oberlin all seem like good fits. Especially Swarthmore. Not that I'm biased or anything...</p>