Engineering is tough for LACs, and many do have a male deficit in their applicant pool. However, there is growing emphasis on computer science as a modern component of the liberal arts. There are also “managerial economics” or “organization and management studies” programs that look suspiciously like “business”.
Some LACs have found success with another pitch: enroll here and play intercollegiate sports as an NCAA athlete, instead of just watching from the stands. For example, it turns out that there are a lot more high school football players than there are Division I football scholarships. A lot of those kids would love to keep playing in college, even if it’s Division III. https://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/10/1/4786810/diii-football-revolution
I’ll add Ohio University to the mix. It’s sort of always been in the shadows of tOSU… but with their DO school, excellent allied health professions, journalism school, and really a few others…it is moving up.
Beautiful small college town location for those that like that sort of feel.
I know several California kids who have opted to attend Boise State the last couple of years - more residential than many CSU campuses, and WUE tuition available.
My D has just committed to Santa Clara’s business school for fall. She had many great “bigger name” offers and being from upstate New York has gotten many confused looks when she says where she is going.She just fell in love with the school, the business program, and the location. It will be nice if it gets some more national recognition.
I knew about UMBC years ago-when my eldest son was in 8th grade, as a matter of fact (2007 or 2008), as a top school for chess kids. It was the first school I thought might go on his list. (It never made the list)
University of Florida is really on the rise.
Boston College. Georgetown towards the top
Bowdoin always great has gotten even more press with the USNWR ranking
Pitt northeastern UMass Amherst all ucs beside cal and UCLA. They are already tops
Vassar making a move. Elon udel Alabama uiuc ut in a big way
@Hamurtle My kids go to school in New Jersey and they and most of their peer have Santa Clara on their radar. Obviously UCLA and Berkeley are more well known and respected but it gets referenced on the same league as the other UC’s here.
(Yet another Rowan vote) I was disappointed that my son didn’t choose Rowan. Their engineering school has a lot going for it, but other areas are more of a work in progress. New freshman dorms are a draw. Nice upperclassmen honors housing. I know they’ve put money into their business school, and the location is rural yet close to Philly.
Soka is a very different type of university. I used to drive past it every Sunday when taking my child to hockey. For a long time I thought it was a business park (a nice business park) as it is just buildings with NO ONE walking outside. There is no where to walk to, except maybe 1-2 miles to a shopping center with a grocery store, movie theater, etc. It is the very definition of suburban, with the ice rink, a few karate studios, a library and fire station in the area right next to it. Occasionally there will be something on the news about the university like that there was graduation or some type of concert, but otherwise you wouldn’t know the school was even there.
@thumper1 Of course it isn’t. I went to UCLA and grew up in California. I could name every UC and have been to all of them (even Merced which opened after I graduated – I grew up 30 minutes way). I was pointing out that where we live in gets referenced in the same context as the UC’s below UCLA and Berkeley. I was responding to a post from someone who said it wasn’t known outside of the region.
Schools in California and Colorado are on the rise. Those are two states where prospective students want to go. Stanford and the Claremont colleges are already red-hot schools. They will continue to get even more popular. I expect UC Santa Cruz and Santa Clara University to grow and flourish. I suspect colleges in the Pacific Northwest and western Montana will also grow in popularity as more students are attracted to the beauty of the area.
Colby College is doing very well under its dynamic new president.
Grinnell College is getting more attention and interest these days.
I expect High Point University will start getting more attention. It’s not well-known at the moment, but the campus and facilities are so amazing that I expect it will soon be “discovered”.
U of Richmond has a relative big endowment so it will go up. Irvine, CA area has very smart kids and more businesses are coming, and it has an airport nearby and well educated work force, so UC Irvine will only go up.
Well, it’s not really a “university” at all, it’s a liberal arts college by US standards, and a small one at that. Total enrollment is only around 430, and the actual number of students on campus at any given time would be even lower, because every student has to fulfill a mandatory study-abroad requirement. They basically only offer one degree, a BA in Liberal Arts, although there are a few different “concentrations”. I suspect that the only reason that Soka is named as a “university” is because that is the usual name for a four-year institution of higher education in Japan.