Small Liberal Arts Colleges---pick one

Vassar -- beautiful part of the country, a little kooky, but a rock solid education can be had. Ithaca College too. Hard pass on the colleges like Evergreen with that bizarre student body.

Williams, because rank and social networks matter, and proximity to NYC is helpful.

Grinnell College-small town, very progressive, considered one of the best. Strong alumni association and support.

Reed.

Sweet Briar - an all-girls school in Virginia. Incredibly preppy and traditional - their colors are pink and green!

NOT Oberlin but I come from a VERY LONG lineage of alums an both sides of the family

Liberty University. All you queens get off your ass and sing their fight song," Fan the Flames." Ready, flamers? Begin.

What are Bates College and Drew University like?

Pomona College -world class education and happiest students

Hampshire always sounded fun, no grades or majors, just explore and find yourself. Expensive as fuck too.

"Grinnell College"

I could have gone to Grinnell - but after growing up in a small-mid sized city in Minnesota, I did not want to be in a tiny school in the middle of nowhere Iowa - even if the campus and education looked great. That's my issue with a lot of these gorgeous, academically rigorous small liberal arts colleges. I guess the isolation is entirely part of the draw. But I wanted no part of it

So, I'm trying to think of great LA colleges in major metros, or at least close (basically in the city or the burbs, the closer the better). Swarthmore, Macalester, the Claremont cluster? Most of the best ones aren't that close to major cities. Yes, there's some like Vassar where you could catch the train. But, I mean close enough for a spur-of -the-moment night out in the city. There's not a lot of choices.

I went through the USWNR top 50 and No. 27 is Soka University of America, which was founded in 1987. I've never even heard of it. I guess good on it for establishing its ranking so quickly.

Whitman. I love the landscape of Eastern Washington and Oregon and combining that with scholarship appeals to me.

Sarah Lawrence is very close to New York and highly ranked. I prefer Vassar for the scope of academics, but my friends who attended SL loved it. It's in a beautiful if suburban community with glorious late 19th and early 20th century architecture.

The Claremont Colleges (Pomona, Pitzer, CMC, Scripps, Harvey Mudd) are just over 30 miles east of Los Angeles, R11 -A 30-40 minute drive. If you want to be in Los Angeles proper, try Occidental College in LA, or Pepperdine University in Malibu (small-ish, but a great location).

Money may be no object, but getting into some of these schools -especially Pomona -is easier said than done. :)

Cool, R13. That probably would have been a great choice considering my mindset when I was picking schools. I think I knew it was fairly close to NYC, but it didn't pop up in my head right away thinking of schools in or close to major cities.

Swarthmore, just so I could pronounce is "Swahthmore" and no one could complain i was being pretentious because I had gone there.

When Cass was a sophomore, planned to go to Swarthmore, but she changed her mind one day.

And the rest is history.

Amherst. Got in, with Williams, but opted for an Ivy. My friend loved Amherst, and said it was intimate like our prep school.

Hillsdale College: What College is Meant to Be

Probably Antioch College.

An acquaintance's dad used to teach there back in the 90's.

I don’t know your gender, but as still remaining all girls schools go, Smith is an amazing school in a wonderful town and has a great community and extensive alumni reach. My good friend went there and remains enamored of it 30 years later and I always enjoy visiting with her. Mount Holyoke is nearby and is a little more secluded and along with Amherst mentioned earlier all give off that quintessential back east ivy covered hall classic New England college experience if you’re interested in that.

I will say Vassar has a lovely campus in a rough town , while Sarah Lawrence is shoehorned somewhat into the wealthy town it’s in. I’ve had friends who went both and having been former all girls schools they were very gay friendly and didn’t have that heavy macho sports culture that many schools have. Nearby to Sarah Lawrence is Manhattanville that is all girls and similar to Sweet Briar mentioned earlier. At one time they were the ultimate finishing schools for wealth debutantes, but they both grew to have strong academic programs with excellent specialities.

OP are you an actual high school student looking for a college, or is this just a thought exercise? Is you are a current student can you give some more details about who you are and your interests so people may be able to shape their responses more in line with that?

Amherst, because it was always my dream but I didn't have the grades to get in

R21, Vassar was very gay-friendly when I went in the '90s and there was an almost total absence of jock culture. The straight guys were all math dorks or artsy/literary types and the few that weren't didn't seem to have any problems with gay people, so it was really a great environment.

Poughkeepsie is still a rather rough city, but its waterfront has been restored extensively and the residential areas adjacent to Vassar are lovely. The area as a whole has a lot to offer if you have a car and NYC is a little over an hour and a half away by train.

The Claremont cluster is functionally a lot more than 30-40 minutes to LA (maybe in the middle of the night you can do it in that time). Claremont is vary nice suburb but the general area is middleing suburbs to the West and Pomona, a fairly troubled older town to the West. A small college town near a big city but in one should considered as an alternative.

USNWR ratings are useless. They often are gamed---Emory University is the poster child for this---they've claimed bigger libraries than they have (because like most schools they're in a consortium), they've tweaked admissions and tests scores. Really, you need to visit places and look at the strength of different majors.

Oberlin has turned out more people/per capita who've eventually become distinguished PHDs in their field than any other college (different fields regularly look at this sort of thing)----that kindof factoid is more useful than a USNWR ranking. Washington Monthly looks at other metrics in terms of social mobility and cost---looking at their list will get you a different set of options than the usual Little Ivies, Claremont, Reed, etc.

Re: upthread--Macalester seems to have very loyal alums. A cousin of mine attended Grinnell and while he got a very good education, he also noticed that the modal student had failed to get into Oberlin and spent too much time not getting over that.

I agree with R25 -the USNWR ratings varied so much from year to year, but for no discernible reason. I used to track my alma mater, which for the first 10 years or so after my graduation was usually in the top three, and always in the top five. No changes in the school's leadership, policies, or professors... Then it suddenly dropped to only in the top ten, and I gave up following it.

St. John's College

Earlham College (Oberlin-lite)

I went to Stanford and disliked it. Pretentious and filled with rich, not very bright legacy kids. However, a beautiful campus. Many of my friends with to places like Bard, Colby, and Williams and they all seemed to have much happier college experiences.

If I could go back, I'd take Swarthmore, Haverford, Colby, or Williams.

I chose my college because it was the only place west of the Mississippi that offered the major I wanted. Then, in my junior year I decided to change majors. I went through a huge pre-life crisis and started looking to transfer to someplace else when a professor stopped me cold with, "Why?" I realized while I hadn't been happy with my major, I was more than happy with the college, and knew I could finish the new major quite well there. Lessons learned: 1. don't be so sure you know what you're going to major in 2. don't let a single criterion make your college choice 3. if you're happy, you'll learn more and be more successful in school.

R30, did you date outside your major? When you switched majors did you have to sell your textbooks? Did you get a fair price?

R31 Date? What is that? I was a terrified, nerdy closet case back then. Now I'm terrified, nerdy, and out 'n proud. I kept all my old textbooks. Still have them, as a matter of fact. I realized the major wasn't for me, but that doesn't mean I lost interest in the subject. I just found a new passion.

Thank you, R32.

Goddard sounds interesting

R2 - proximity to NYC? An almost 5 hour train ride is in proximity? It's close to New Hampshire for crying out loud.

R35, this is Datalounge, where Atlanta is near the ocean.

R36 - ah yes, and where Dallas is close to the Gulf of Mexico, and Las Vegas is near the Pacific.

Bowdoin or Middlebury

SCAD. I have dissed it before, but the gritty port town (Savannah) and the blend of modern tech application and classical art technique tickle my fancy.

I hated the idea of attending a small liberal arts college when I was applying to colleges. I didn’t want to replicate the feeling of high school, which I loathed and found constraining. I wanted the opportunity to get lost among a wide range of persons at a bigger school.

Hillsdale. Thread closed.

R20 Antioch college (Yellow Springs, OH) closed down in 2008. My brother went there.

Davidson, as good as Duke but small

[quote] St. John's College

Annapolis or Santa Fe?

How is Haverford?

^^ Hurricanes hardly ever happen there.

Claremont is really amazing. You pull off the 10 freeway and all of a sudden you're transported to a Mickey Rooney / Judy Garland MGM town.

That was me R40. Obviously as a result, a lot of great schools are were out of the mix. But, I just didn't want small and intimate.

R48 So where did you end up?

R49, she ended up, tragically, on Datalounge.

Clarement is affectionately known as "Clareville" by the college students. Not much to do there (but plenty on campus) but it boasts a few good restaurants and a fabulous bakery. It says a lot about the town that more than 90% of the students choose to live in campus housing.

Deep Springs. Free two years on a ranch with well known guest professors, then transfer to Harvard in time for your Rhodes scholarship.

Wellesley. Because we never really say goodbye to Wellesley.

Has no one mention Villanova yet? A bit Catholic, but small and on the Main Line into Philly. Bryn Mawr fall into that category as well if OP is a she.

R49, I ended up at Northwestern - not exactly a big school (about 8k undergrad, 16k overall), but not small like most liberal arts schools. Evanston is more urban than a lot of suburbs and I had all of Chicago at my fingertips - and really took advantage. The whole feeling of expansiveness and diverse experiences, the ability to "get lost," was bolstered by the city, even if the school wasn't that big. Having visited friends at various schools, I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed a giant flagship university as well, depending on the location - Texas, Michigan, Minnesota (I'm from Minnesota).

Driving 30-40 minutes west of Claremont gets you to Pasadena...on a good day.

I graduated Drew in 1979, r8. From what I understand, it is more competitive now, but the students aren't cutthroat. Incredibly dedicated and smart.

Hudson University has a killer reputation!

The students at the College of Wooster in Ohio are required to do a capstone project in their senior year. It's very much like graduate school. You choose a topic you'd like to explore. You have to persuade a group of professors to oversee your work. You have to defend the project at a meeting where all professors and students are invited to ask questions about your findings.

Every Wooster grad I have ever met was a great conversationalist. One in particular, once we met, immediately asked me which books I was reading this year. Not your average "get to know you" question.

[quote]Hudson University has a killer reputation!

Hudson U would hardly be considered small given how many students must go there and all the shenanigans they get up to.

Plus Hudson is a full fledged university with several graduate schools and professional schools, not a small liberal arts college.

Top two majors

1. Murder 2. Getting murdered

Franklin U. in Sorengo, Switzerland.

Colorado College if you’re a rich, outdoorsy pothead.

Reed College if you're a rich, indoorsy pothead.

I'm just a rich pothead, period,.

r54 Villanova is screeching sororities and Division 1 sports, nothing in common with genteel Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Mills College. Used to be thought of as kind of a "finishing school," but has a better reputation these days. They have some impressive alumnae.

I used to want to go to Oberlin but it sounds like it is so far left that it’s a mess.

I’d say Vassar, Williams, or Amherst if I had to do it again.

No to Ithaca College. Too isolated, which would be okay if it was actually in town and not in the shadow of Cornell

[quote] I'm surprised no one's mentioned Mills College. Used to be thought of as kind of a "finishing school," but has a better reputation these days.

It's not a charm school!

R42: Antioch is back in business and has accreditation but not a huge number of students.

R 68: Were you thinking about Oberlin in 1955? It's long been lefty,

Probably Haverford because of its proximity to Philly over Amherst or Williams which are in the middle of nowhere. With Claremont colleges--Pomona or Claremont McKenna as runner up.

LACs are tricky because you can be stuck with the same small group of people in the middle of nowhere for four years.

R8 - Bates is a super preppy college in Maine and Drew is in suburban NJ and seems to have a decent sized commuter population.

r10 Hampshire is going out of business; 13 first year students enrolled in fall 2019.

Sweet Briar is closed.

Sweet Briar is still in business.

The Sweet Briar Story (TL;DR - was going to close in 2015, didn't, still open)

Williams. Thread closed.

Aren't Williams students known for being cutthroat and competitive? (and mad they didn't get into an Ivy)

No love for Wesleyan here. Too bohemian?

The classic small liberal arts college close to a big city... only mentioned once upthread. Bard. Highest quality of academic education - direct contact with the best artists and intellectuals of the day, but without too much pressure. Great networks in the New York art scenes.

I thought Williams was Ivy level - a fair percentage of their students were also accepted to an Ivy?

Lots of boarding school types at Williams.

Bard isn't that close to the city. No doubt it ties into NYC and you can easily take the train down. But in terms of using the city day in and day out - jobs and internships during the school year, nightlife, etc. That's more what I was talking about.

Again, I realize that most of these great liberal arts colleges are outside of major metro areas for a reason.

Texas A&M

R82 Yeah, 90 miles on the train. Not feasible to commute on a daily basis.

It's not that it's not feasible, but it's still a haul.

r80 no Williams isn't Ivy. The people i know who went there were turned down at Ivys.

Bard College

Williams is one of the schools known as a "little ivy." Be that as it may, you will get a much better and more interesting education at Williams than any of the official ivies that are focused on "other" things. Williams is more student focused.

My friend who went to Williams flunked out.

Williams' campus doesn't look that nice for a North East school.

r57 I went to Drew too. After an awful year at Berkeley (too big for me)

beautiful campus and the teachers really did help troubled students like me.

What dorms did you live in?

I was in Tolley and Riker. .

Amherst because it really is an excellent school

I think Williams has a beautiful campus.

Do Amherst college kids party at UMass and around the Pioneer Valley generally? That whole area is gorgeous.

Smith

Williams is where preppies and want-to-be preppies go. Amherst is where people who don't want to go to Williams go., Wesleyan is where people who want to change sex go. Vassar is where people who've already changed sex go. Swarthmore is where people who don't want to have sex go. Haverford is where people who don't know what sex is go. Oberlin is where people who wish they had gone elsewhere go. Pomona is where people who didn't get into Stanford go. Claremost is where people who didn't get into Pomona go.

PItzer to bed

Scripps to wed

And Pomona's a friend for life.

Middlebury or Bennington, to major in Italian.

R96 is a college admissions counselor.

East Coaster here- college age in early 90's. Desperately wanted to go to Middlebury- got in, but financially my folks and I couldn't make it happen. Bur man I loved that place. ( both the school and locale). Looking back, I'm NIT sure how I would have done dragging my laundry across campus in 5 ft snow-drifts though. Would love to hear more about Pomona and students' intrinsic " happiness" there, as I briefly toyed with the idea of packing bags and heading West. Oh- and and to those who thought St. John's ideal- er, No. Had plenty of friends/acquaintances who went there- knew a lot about the " Great books", not so much about keeping a job.

St Olaf

For its music program.

[quote] Sarah Lawrence

Can you even imagine what an insane asylum that place must be now?

It doesn't matter at ALL, just pick any one of the schools listed here and you are enrolling in ALL BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER! College!

Addendum to R103: Institutions for higher indoctrination

Langley College in Peekskill, New York. It was good enough for the New York Warners.

Where did all the Facts of Life girls go to college?

R45 Judd Nelson went there. Which I always find funny.

R96 is pretty spot on actually. Williams is definitely considered the “best” of this category and despite what some have said here is tougher to get into than most Ivies (basically all except the Big 3, and even then...Williams is smaller so unpredictable decisions often get made)

R107 Williams was Mecca for Art History majors from the 80s on, imagine having the Clark as an extension of your classroom. And of course no college could hold a candle to the theatre available there.

I had what I thought was a boyfriend once who had gone to Williams. He was in the process of coming out. His "girlfriend" would show up from time to time and insert herself physically between us (all clothed) each time. Everything was fine until we ran into his mother one night while we were on a date. This caused him so much stress, he speed-drove me home, then ghosted me for the rest of time.

Google informs me he became a Catholic priest. I imagine I am well rid of him, but at the time, it hurt like nothing had hurt before in my life. I have since thought of Williams as nothing more than a repository for the supremely fucked up.

Calvin or Aquinas- both in Grand Rapids, Mi. Great city

I was invited to apply to Deep Springs. It was the road not taken that I wonder about. As a gayling, I thought I needed a big city to improve my odds. Now I think some of these little places were like gay paradise (Wabash, anyone?). My dad was on the board of Shimer for awhile, but now that is a trade school devoted to educating people in historic preservation and Shimer is just a great books program in downtown Chicago. Were I to make such a choice today, I might pick the University of the South at Sewanee, Hanover College in Indiana, or Kenyon College in Ohio. Swarthmore has the best reputation of all of them, and Beloit wins awards, but College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor would probably have the most appeal.

Macaslester College in St. Paul has been rated most gay friendly, with stiff competition from Carleton, also in Minnesota.

Hampden-Sydney is said to have the tightest alumni network.

R91 -- I was in the Intentional Community on 2nd floor Brown hall (1975-1976), then Tolley pit (1976-1977), Baldwin (1978), then New Dorm (now Riker) (1979).

Williams is hardest to get into, but has reputation for being super-SJW and social misfitty

Amherst is almost as tough to get into as Williams and more socially adept, also has giant U-Mass nearby for partying

Oberlin is over overindulged artsy types--Lens Dunham went there and she is the ultimate Oberlin stereotype.

Bryn Mawr, like many women's colleges is lesbian heaven, with a heavy dollop of wealthy foreign Arabs whose fathers like the idea of an all-girls school.

Haverford used to be all male, is now co-ed, more fratty/social types, part of consortium with Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore and also UPenn, which is nearby.

Middlebury is very preppy/sporty but in the middle of f-ing nowhere, closer to Montreal than anywhere

Ditto St. Lawrence, Colgate, Hamilton, Hobart, Bates and Colby

You need to like winter a lot for all those schools.

Claremont schools getting a lot of attention from East Coast kids now but supposedly admissions is unimpressed with/does not play nicely with the various private and wealthy suburban high schools that feed kids whose parents can easily pay the $70K/year tuition into those sorts of schools.

Carleton in MN is hot with Northeast kids right now, as is Miami of Ohio.

The thing with most all LACs vs Ivies or similar is you need to be secure enough to deal with the fact that many people will ask "where is that?" or "is that a good school."

They will generally not be people who matter, but still....

College of Wooster is a total gem! Wish more folks on the east coast were aware of it.

Yes Hampden-Sydney has a strong good ol boy alum network even in the nyc region.

Also of note is that the majority of opinions and observations on DL College threads are based on The Way Things Were 40-50 Years Ago When Most DLers Were In College. Not the way things are today

r107, Williams used to be tougher to get into than some of the ivies, but not anymore. That said, plenty of students at ivies get rejected by the little ivies and vice versa, and even the best students should consider themselves lucky to be accepted by any of these colleges nowadays.

Bowdoin is pretty progressive. It stopped requiring SATs back in the '70s, and got rid of fraternities 10 years or so ago. (It never had sororities, after it went coed women were accepted in the frats.)

Explain, R116.

R114 makes a good point about people know knowing the prestige/status of a lot of the small liberal arts schools.

The ongoing higher ed shakeout should be fascinating to watch. Most of the schools mentioned here should survive, I'd think. But who knows.

I graduated from a small liberal arts college back in mid-'70s and yes, I am smarter than the average bear.

Macalester really is a little gem if you want have the small LAC vibe in a bigger city. Though, like the East Coast schools, you need to not have major problems with winter.

Fun Fact: Husker Du and Sugar frontman (and solo artist) Bob Mould went to Macalester.

The winter thing is tiresome. Most supposedly warm places have some sort of winter and it's often gray, damp and punctuated by occasional ice storms. Southern California doesn't get ice storms but tends to be gloomy from Thanks giving well into March.

Wooster seems to be a sleeper school---doesn't have the reputation of Oberlin, Kenyon, or even more safety school-ish Denison, but people from there generally seem solid, happy with their educations and often they go on to fairly distinguished careers. A cousin of mine who went there many years ago found it "too Presbyterian" but that seems to have fallen away.

Miami of Ohio has always been somewhat overrated, although not in the same vapid way as the other Miami. Outside of its STEM-related programs, Ohio State has never been a great school and so other state schools like Bowling Green and Cincinnati often carved out strong niches. I don't know if it's still true but real East Coast dullards used to be very welcome at Indiana-Bloomington, where the best students were usually from Chicago or Cincinnati.

To my earlier point, U-Miami shed its reputation as "Suntan U" about 20 years ago and is actually sort of hard to get into. As in you need about a B or B+ average.

And I'll take winter in suburban Philadelphia over winter in northern Vermont any day

A lot of the old stereotypes of these schools have changed dramatically because for the last ten years they've all made such a huge effort to bring in underprivileged people of color. So Amherst, for example, which used to be a haven for rich preppies, now has tons of SJWs... same with Middlebury.

Reed and Oberlin have always been attractive to lefty students, and now they're even more so. The social justice obsession at Oberlin has nearly destroyed Oberlin permanently since the students went so berserk picketing and harassing that bakery in town,. and getting successfully sued for millions and millions as a result,

"To my earlier point, U-Miami shed its reputation as "Suntan U"

I know this, you know this, and a lot of people in education circles probably know this, but do you think people generally know this? Has it's broader reputation really changed?

I still think most people think U Miami is as sports/party school. Most people don't even realize it's a private school. Not that what the masses think really matters.

Just how damaged are you R124?

Some fine ones that I don't think have been mentioned yet (forgive me if they have been):

Rhodes

Colgate

Millsaps

St. Mary's (in CA)

Lewis and Clark

Sewanee (aka University of the South)

R125 I thought it was Cocaine College?

I’ve gotta say though I’m glad I went when I did ; college looks so not fun anymore.

Actually I wish I went even earlier; by the mid/late 90s things were already a lot less fun.

I grew up near St. Mary's (CA) and even went to church there. Back then it didn't have that great of a reputation but I think it's improved. Mahershala Ali is an alumnus.

R124 didn't get in to Oberlin, didn't get into the schools for people who didn't get in to Oberlin like Grinnell, but did attend some less well know place that hasn't been mentioned where they were miserable.

I've been impressed with Rhodes grads. Sewanee seems to part of the "you can get a good education but don't have to" circuit of southern schools.

Washington and Lee used to be awful (the school of the gentlemen's C), but it's much better now.

Hamilton is a decent school too.

I've had sex with Davidson guys. They weren't idiots.

[quote] I still think most people [italic] over the age of 60 [/italic] think U Miami is as sports/party school.

Fixed.

No, there's plenty under 60.

True.

But they're 58 and 59

Or 35 and 27

Connecticut College if your post graduation plan is to live off the interest. Trinity College if you’re going to live off the interest from the interest.

R139 I’ve literally never known (or even know OF) anyone from a public school to go to Trinity College (and I know tons of people who went there). I really wonder what the percentage breakdown is.

For black kids it's Spelman or Morehouse

For some black kids R141, not all.

Barbara Thorndyke is a Trinity College alumna. And her going there had nothing to do with the quality of their breakfasts or the low cost of parking.

R115 my ex graduated from Hampden-Sydney, though he graduated circa 1990. He hated it and always said it was filled with White Southern boys whose families thought they were Southern aristocracy, caught up in the myths of Southern gentility. So a strong alumni network is not surprising.

Of course not all r142

It’s my dream to go a small overpriced school in a small town where I can count my fuck pool on one hand! Oh well at least I can study basketweaving. That and daddy pays for it.

I want all Liberal Arts Colleges burned to the ground, because LIBERAL.

My brother’s pal from HS went to Oberlin and majored in Frank Zappa. R144 my partner graduated from H-S around ‘90 and told stories about the super wealthy young men from Richmond. He always regretted going there too, thought he would have been better off at University of MD

I do know someone from a very unusual background (public school, parents were carnies) who graduated from Trinity. I used to go see films there--it was a bizarre place---you go from a declining blue collar neighborhood to a rarified place where people dressed like ads in the NY Times Sunday Magazine.

Washington and Lee is has a lot of alcohol-related problems. A relative taught there for a year and had no desire to stay even though they wanted him and he was in a low demand humanities field---he managed to find permanent employment elsewhere. Someone else I know was president for a year and left to take a provost position at a bigger school with a less fucked-up student body.

R106 asked, "Where did all the Facts of Life girls go to college?"

The outdoor shots and opening credits for Facts of Life were shot at Pomona College, in Claremont, using one of the dorms. The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, Real Genius, I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can, Mass Appeal, and Teen Wolf Too, Beaches, Pearl Harbor, and Dave were also filmed on the campus.

r113 Are you male or female. Baldwin was an all girl's dorm when I was there in the 80s. It was so much nicer than the other underclassman dorms. Hoyt is a beautiful building on the outside. I'd have liked to live there now but at the time it was such a hard partying dorm that it kind of scared me.

Damn -- I meant Haselton, r113.

Bowdoin College

Someone died an left Washington and Lee a huge sum of money which they've turned into a merit scholarship program which gives kids a completely free ride and even pays them for summer internships.

As a result, the school had gotten renewed attention outside of the South--they've also seen what appealing to kids from the tristate area (NY-NJ-CT) did for schools like Emory, Vanderbilt and Tulane in terms of reputation and have thus made that a goal. College of Charleston is also making a big push in that regard.

Dammit, 152 was for r151

Washington and [italic]LEE[/italic]??

I don’t think so. CANCELED!

Rhodes suffers from being in Memphis. Sewanee was mentioned, and no wonder as its campus is just stunning and surrounded by 13,000 acres of wilderness called "the Domain" it is emphatically not any kind of party school but a self-righteous, self-important episcopal type place that has no college town atmosphere at all.

Architecturally, some of the most interesting are Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, designed by McKim Mead & White; Principia College in Elsah, IL, designed by Bernard Maybeck; and of course Florida Southern in Lakeland, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It's difficult to imagine any of these college surviving to the present without this edge.

The rise of the Sunbelt has empowered small colleges in these regions less than one might expect. I mean Rollins always had a reputation, but nobody really recognizes it any more today than they ever did. The University of Tulsa used to call itself "the Harvard of the South" but people just laugh at them today.

I almost wish I went to Dartmouth in those long ago days. I was going to apply as it had a 3 to 1 male female ratio back then. If I had I would have been around to fuck D'nesh D'Souza and rescue him from the dark side which has been his career of evil.

[quote] Rhodes suffers from being in Memphis.

i would much rather be four years in a big city like Memphis than in the middle of nowhere like Sewanee is.

[quote] and of course Florida Southern in Lakeland, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Of course, Mary!

Speaking of architect designed campuses, I don’t think Cranbrook Art Academy has been mentioned yet. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful and the original campus was designed by Eero Saarinen’s father. Later buildings added have been architects of note as well.

Sarah Lawrence in the 90s was liberal arts perfection.

Barnard

Middlebury. It was my dream school, but I didn't apply because I didn't have the grades. I grew up poor and gay in a small town in the South, and I longed to go to a liberal school in New England. I ended up taking a track and field scholarship from Notre Dame, which is the opposite of Middlebury, but at least I got a good education there.

I would’ve gone to university of Washington but my dad thought part of going to college was leaving home (Seattle suburb.) I ended up at Macalester and loved it. When I was there it was smaller and had students from all states and 70 countries. I highly recommend it.

^Macalester also used to be highly regarded by grad schools many friends got into ivy grad schools.

Barnard

Mills College, historically all women for undergrad and co-ed for grad school.

Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky, the Harvard of the South.

Washington and Lee has always attracted student from outside the South. I doubt that a few more merit scholarships will solve the alcoholism problems , though----that comes from a frat-y culture and being in the middle of nowhere.

Emory remains a safety school with a very uneven faculty---they bring in big names who basically want to be big fish in a small-ish pond and fail to attract or keep talented junior people. The place has a surprising amount of deadwood and, let's face it Atlanta is a big nothing for a place it's size. the student body tends to reflect the superficiality of its surroundings---so does the campus, nice facades with cheap interiors. Vandy has always had some students from the Northeast, but even as they have been trying to get rid of the finishing school atmosphere and the large number of legacies, it's a place where students from elsewhere are often unhappy.

Not sure how true a lot of that is in 2020, R171

Emory has long been a very popular school with kids from the tristate area who were too smart for Syracuse or Tulane but could not get into Duke or an Ivy. It's less "hot" than it was 30 years ago, but still one of the big schools for NYC area kids.

Vanderbilt has made a huge effort over the past 20 years to recruit heavily from NYC and its environs (see link) and it seems to have succeeded, it has successfully shed its "for Southerners only"

W&L is trying the Vanderbilt tack and stepping up recruitment in the Northeast. They give out 44 of those full-ride scholarships each year and the catch is they are not needs-based so this makes them attractive to families that would otherwise not qualify for any kind of aid. It's definitely raising their profile some.

R162 Architecture at small liberal arts colleges - moving beyond the ivy-covered ivory towers, temples of academia. Frank Gehry at Bard.

[quote]Washington and Lee has always attracted student from outside the South. I doubt that a few more merit scholarships will solve the alcoholism problems , though----that comes from a frat-y culture and being in the middle of nowhere.

The student body is estimated to be 70–80% Greek. Students who don't join a fraternity or sorority report feeling isolated and often transfer.

Vandy has always had people from the NYC area because of the Vanderbilt family connection. There's nothing new there---the game playing with southern women ("I've never been touched there") amuses men from the Northeast. They have been trying to attract students from less traditional places like California, the Midwest, etc. and those are the people who usually find the place to be unpleasant. It's possible to get a very good education at Vandy but if your Daddy is a donor or hoped-for donor, you never have to worry about a failing grade.

R173 I love that building, but every time I’ve been there it is swathed in scaffolding as it just becomes a killer ice sheet machine for those entering it. SoCal architecture does not always translate well to the NE. Ruins the beauty of the building.

Gehry buildings will mostly look like jokes everywhere. The one at Case western oddly fits in well, perhaps because it it surrounded by other buildings of different character. I've also never seen scaffolding there in winter. The Bard building might have some other flaws.

R74 R75

I apologize for not checking - thanks for correction!

R170

Ahem!!

More on Vanderbilt's early 00s effort to recruit students from NYC area

Gordon Gee, who is a Mormon, also is a thoroughgoing slimeball who likes spending University funds on himself and has managed to get away with very generous salaries. he's also a font religious and ethnic stereotypes. University executive suites like corporate ones never seem to tire of these characters and so he's had no shortage of jobs.

My understanding from people who've taught there has been that Vandy had no Jewish faculty until the late 60s., which was odd even in the South.

"Gehry buildings will mostly look like jokes everywhere. "

The one on the University of Minnesota campus looks good IMO. It's right on the river and separated from the main, classic academic architecture portion of campus by Washington Avenue. It's grouped with health sciences buildings that generally aren't classic academic architecture.

In the picture, the main quad and the more classic academic buildings, of which there's a lot, would be to the left.

A broader view. Again, the main quad, etc. would to be the left, on the other side of the Washington Avenue - which is the name of the bridge in the picture.

New College of Florida

Reed is an odd duck in that it has a very SJW-ish student body but a very conservative (and deservedly highly acclaimed) core curriculum.

Wesleyan's heyday was the late 70s and 80s. Difficult to gain admission, not difficult to graduate, but a "good name".

Some not mentioned yet:

College of the Holy Cross... it's Catholic (Jesuits) but very hard to get into.

Rhode Island School of Design

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (formerly North Adams State College) - small public college nestled in the Berkshires not far from Williams, but less likely to encounter prep school snobs.

Also not mentioned and Jesuit is Seattle University if you can handle very dark (anchorage is only place darker in USA in winter) winters

There are quite a few regional Jesuit schools that have good local reputations, but have never had broad national recognition: Fairfield and John Carroll come to mind.

I think those schools weren't mentioned because the thread started as a "which would you prefer" question - not simply a list of any and all LACs.

Though, in DL fashion, we've branched out into the merits of various full fledged universities, school architecture, the problematic nature of Frank Gehry buildings on college campuses, and Washington and Lee's ongoing struggle with alcohol and binge drinking.

R190 Just a normal day on DL. By the way, did anyone mention which small liberal arts college Olivia de Havilland attended?

Absolutely. I often like the twists in threads.

Olivia was offered a scholarship to Mills but was "discovered" doing traveling theater instead.

R101, I did just that. St. Olaf for music.

I hear it's fantastic, R194.

Do St Olaf and Carleton students cross-socialize? I'd imagine they must.

According to people I've known from each---not really. Carleton is more elite and has roots in the Congregational Church, whereas St Olaf was established by Norwegian Lutherans who didn't want to mix with Swedish Lutherans, so it's roots were very insular and although they accept Swedish Lutherans, it's a very different place from Carleton, which gets the people who didn't get into Oberlin.

I grew up in Minnesota, but went to the east Coast for college and then graduate school, and now i work in higher education.

When I was growing up, Carleton and Macalester were both considered a step up from St. Olaf, which still is an excellent school.

Carleton and Macalester had (and continue to have) national reputations, and many of the students who went there were from the coasts or even international students.

St. Olaf was the sort of school that had mostly local students (from Minnesota or from the neighboring states of Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas), but most of the kids who went there were student council president types.

R196, not really. The campuses are across town from each other and most students (at St Olaf anyway) aren't allowed cars, so it's a pain to get to Carleton and vice versa. I did go to a few Carleton parties (early 90s) but not many.

R197, the most important thing is that none of us were Norwegian Catholics. ;)

R198, in my experience, St Olaf had a good mix of midwest students, but also a very healthy number of national students with a few international ones. Again this was the early 90s, so can't speak for now. Schools like Gustavus, Luther and Concordia probably had a higher percentage of midwest students. The music dept at St Olaf draws students from afar.

[quote] Do St Olaf and Carleton students cross-socialize? I'd imagine they must.

Yes, they are both on hilltops, with the downtown of Northfield in the valley between the hills. Students from both schools go to (and work at) the same delis, restaurants, and coffee shops in the downtown district.

There's not really a big rivalry between them since neither of them are big sports schools.

R197 what’s the difference between Swedish Lutherans versus Norwegian Lutherans? And why no Norwegian Catholics?

So if one wants to be in a top 16 metro statistical area it would be Barnard, occidental, Seattle university (yes it’s a SLAC), macalester, and? I think that Pomona and Claremont cluster would be in Riverside metro area so they’re out.

^not mentioned but would be in Seattle metro is University of Peugeot Sound in Tacoma

^ Puget ,damn autocorrect

Swedes looked down on Norwegians as country bumpkins. Norway was desperately poor in the 19th century and an even larger proportion of its population than Ireland's emigrated. The Norskis were practical patricians, though compared with what Swedes thought of the Finns, although they often wound up settling in the same places.

if you can't figure out the Catholic thing, you must not have a very good education.

r203 The Claremont Colleges are in Los Angeles County and not near Riverside.

[quote] So if one wants to be in a top 16 metro statistical area it would be Barnard, occidental, Seattle university (yes it’s a SLAC), macalester, and?

I don't know what "a top 16 metro statistical area" is, but if you're asking for other SLACs that are in big city metro areas: Mills is in Oakland; Reed is in Portland; Rhodes is in Memphis; Howard is in DC; Spelman is in Atlanta; Wellesley and Emerson are in the Boston suburbs; Haverford and Bryn Mawr are in the Philly suburbs; Goucher is in the Baltimore suburbs.

[quote] what’s the difference between Swedish Lutherans versus Norwegian Lutherans?

The Swedes use cream of mushroom as the binder for their hot dish while the Norwegians use cream of celery.

Liberal arts colleges are over.

O

V

E

R

over.

I visited Washington & Lee with my nephew a few years ago. It shares a driveway with VMI. Someone in the tour group asked if W&L coordinated any events with VMI for both schools. The tour guide replied "Oh, we don't associate with THOSE PEOPLE."

People who are willing to serve their country? People lower in social status?

My nephew was offended by that comment, so we left the school after the tour was over.

R211 = Tucker Carlson.

Thanks R208 metro areas are referred to as metropolitan statistical areas and here are the top 16 1 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA MSA 19,216,182 18,897,109 +1.69% New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA CSA 2 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA MSA 13,214,799 12,828,837 +3.01% Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA CSA 3 Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI MSA 9,458,539 9,461,105 −0.03% Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI CSA 4 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA 7,573,136 6,366,542 +18.95% Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK CSA 5 Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX MSA 7,066,141 5,920,416 +19.35% Houston-The Woodlands, TX CSA 6 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA 6,280,487 5,649,540 +11.17% Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA CSA 7 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA 6,166,488 5,564,635 +10.82% Miami-Port St. Lucie-Fort Lauderdale, FL CSA 8 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA 6,102,434 5,965,343 +2.30% Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD CSA 9 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, GA MSA 6,020,364 5,286,728 +13.88% Atlanta–Athens-Clarke County–Sandy Springs, GA-AL CSA 10 Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ MSA 4,948,203 4,192,887 +18.01% Phoenix-Mesa, AZ CSA 11 Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA 4,873,019 4,552,402 +7.04% Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT CSA 12 San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA MSA 4,731,803 4,335,391 +9.14% San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA CSA 13 Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA MSA 4,650,631 4,224,851 +10.08% Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA CSA 14 Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI MSA 4,319,629 4,296,250 +0.54% Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, MI CSA 15 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA MSA 3,979,845 3,439,809 +15.70% Seattle-Tacoma, WA CSA 16 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI MSA 3,640,043 3,333,633 +9.19% Minnea

Why is it "the Top 16"? That's an unusual number. Do you live in the Twin Cities, r213, and so decided to stop there?

Reed is oddly suburban. And nobody should be doing to the University of Detroit, Jesuit or not, for the urban atmosphere. Indeed, no Catholic places should be on our list ahead of Notre Dame and Georgetown. And all sectarian places should be suspect. I'm sure St. Louis U grads think they are on the same level as Washington U., just Catholic, but I doubt anyone else would see it.

Thanks for posting that mess, r213. That's very helpful.

Lake Forest College.

r152 How did you find being gay at Drew in the 70s?

When I was there the AIDS crisis was in full bloom so I was too scared to do anything with my sexuality.

I never really knew how tolerant/untolerant the school would have been for a gay kid.

Williams. Got in but went to Yale instead. My friend was accepted to the same schools and picked Williams. He had a blast, the best four years of his life. I hated my college experience.

[quote]Wellesley and Emerson are in the Boston suburbs

Emerson is in downtown Boston, 120 Boylston, 02116. They have an LA campus, too.

I went Washington U in St. Louis.. My sister went to Brandeis.

R218, I wasn't out. I played rugby and was closeted. Years later a friend from Drew had a gender reassignment surgery and she's very happy now. Haven't heard about many other gay folks. One woman is now a Methodist bishop. Another friend managed gay bars and cabarets in NYC in the 1980s. So, just like everyone else. My class doesn't really do the internet, though some are on Facebook. I joined in 2018 and my being gay was a big nonissue. I wonder how many already knew/suspected?

I can't remember any gay cruising areas on campus -- not the arboretum or the "punchbowl" behind Tolley-Brown. I did work at the Rose Library but never heard about anything going on. Many times, lusting after fellow rugby club members, but nothing ever came of it. Got drunk a lot at the pub or at FAP, but never drunk enough to make a pass at someone.

For the most part, Drew students back then were good people. I didn't experience much if any, homophobia except from some in the theology school.

Wesleyan was just fine for us, R78

-Lin Manuel Miranda & Thomas Kail

WashU is part of that tier of places like Case Western, U Rochester, etc. that probably once had Ivy-ish aspirations but were always provincial and ran into hard times in the 60s and 70s because they weren't cool enough or had troubled neighborhoods, or both. UPenn had similar problems---despite being an Ivy they always get confused with Penn State and West Philly became very dangerous. WashU seems to have rallied but I wouldn't dump on SLU--have known grads of both and faculty at both places (WashU recently poached a bunch of people from SLU) and WashU has had some real chowderheads on faculty even in the Med School which held on better than the rest of the university.

"I don't know what "a top 16 metro statistical area" is, but if you're asking for other SLACs that are in big city metro areas: Mills is in Oakland; Reed is in Portland; Rhodes is in Memphis; Howard is in DC; Spelman is in Atlanta; Wellesley and Emerson are in the Boston suburbs; Haverford and Bryn Mawr are in the Philly suburbs; Goucher is in the Baltimore suburbs."

Howard is a full-fledged university and doesn't really feel at all like an LAC, even if it's undergrad population isn't huge - 6000-6500.

How did you like Wash U, R221?

I've been there for conferences have been through campus many times, but could never get a feel for it. Looks nice, Forest Park is right there, The Loop is right around the corner.

STL gets slammed a lot, but I had some really good times there.

[quote] Reed is oddly suburban.

No it is not. It is fully in the city limits. It's miles away from the closest suburb (Milwaukie). It is very close to the antique shops and coffee shops of Sellwood.

It's close to a nice residential neighborhood, but so is Macalester.

You could not be more wrong R224

Wash U is a very hot school for kids from the northeast and California (plus the midwest) and has gone from being a regional school to a national school.

(This happened about 25 years ago, but DLers love to live in the past, hence the reference to things that happened 60 years ago.)

WUSTL is in the same consideration set as Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Michigan, Virginia and Georgetown and was in that same consideration set when I graduated from an UES private school about 15 years ago. If anything its rep has gone up--the guy who founded Square is an alum and funded a major building program.

Similarly, the area around UPenn is no longer dangerous, the school has stopped becoming the default for Jewish kids from the tristate area and expanded its student body to be more national. and while it's no Harvard, Princeton or Yale, it's no Cornell either.

R224 is fascinating in that they have continually put forth outdated notions of various college's reputations throughout this thread.

This is all you need to know about Washington U, a school run by horrible human beings.

Small LACs in Boston include Brandeis, Emmanuel, Suffolk, Mass. College of Art and Design, and Tufts if you want a more urban experience.

[quote] Small LACs in Boston include Brandeis, Emmanuel, Suffolk, Mass. College of Art and Design, and Tufts if you want a more urban experience.

Of these schools, only Emmanuel qualifies as a liberal arts college. A liberal arts college has a decided emphasis on undergraduate education, and generally has fewer than 2,500 students.

Tufts is by no stretch of the imagination a small liberal arts college. It is a full research university with more than 11 thousand students and multiple graduate programs.

Suffolk is also a research university with 7,500 students.

Brandeis is also a full university with nearly 6,000 students and multiple graduate programs.

A liberal arts college also has to have a traditional liberal arts curriculum (the humanities, the social sciences, math and the physical sciences, the cognitive sciences, and also the arts). Colleges and universities specializing in the fine arts and the performing arts like the Mass College of Art and Design, Savannah College of Art and Design, and the University of the Arts in Philly are not liberal arts colleges. They are art colleges.

LOL-- the post at R230 is from 2008

Which is the day before yesterday in Datalounge Time

(I knew Schlafly died many years ago, so googled.)

Brandeis was a very strange place to visit. It seemed very culty and the campus seemed like a Hollywood set of facades. There was something palatably uncomfortable in the air, an unnamed tension.

The ideal is Swarthmore and Haverford and Bryn Mawr - 30 minutes direct train to Philly and a big gayborhood. The New England ones are nice - but you’re stuck there with a small group of people. Can’t think of any other LACs that are that accessible to a major city.

[quote] WUSTL is in the same consideration set as Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Michigan, Virginia and Georgetown

Hi WUSTL Admissions Officer/r228!

What friggin school wants to go by WUSTL, it sounds like a variety of a German sausage.

WUSTL is Washington University of St. Louis. I would agree, it has become much harder to get into in recent years--maybe not as hard as Northwestern or Georgetown level, but still pretty difficult. Its reputation and desirability has hugely improved since I was in college myself in the 1980s.

Unlinkable US News list of top 20 LACs:

Williams

Amherst

Swarthmore

Wellesley

Pomona

Bowdoin

Carleton

Claremont-McKenna

Middlebury

Washington and Lee

Colby

Haverford

Smith

Grinnell

Hamilton

Vassar

Colgate

Davidson

US Naval Academy

Wesleyan

US Naval Academy is a "small liberal arts college"? Not hardly.

Top 20 National Universities - USNWR lists are easily gamed but still give a sense of what schools are hot right now, in 2020.

Princeton

Harvard

Columbia

MIT

Yale

Stanford

U Chicago

U Penn

Northwestern

Duke

Johns Hopkins

Cal Tech

Dartmouth

Brown

Notre Dame

Vanderbilt

Cornell

Washington University in St. Louis

UCLA

FWIW, those US News rankings remain fairly consistent each year.

Schools may shoot up or drop down a couple of slots, but it's not like the University of Oklahoma suddenly shows up in the top 10 and Stanford drops down to #55.

R242 Unless you're Northeastern, which gamed the system and went from 162 to a top 50 school, without changing much in substance.

R242 true, and with consistency comes credibility. Princeton’s been #1 every year well before even I was applying to colleges (late 80s at least).

Vanderbilt, however, has shot way waaaay up now. It’s like Duke was back when I was applying (mid 90s).

Has all the hits USC taken finally impacted there standing?

It amazes me how the Claremont colleges - Pomona, etc - took off since the 80s. They were second tier also-rans and are now top 10. I guess SoCal is no longer considered an intellectual wasteland.

Washington and Lee is an anomaly among LACs - for conservatives. Lots of southerners - who at least have respect for LA.

Davidson is the Vanderbilt of LACs. A Southern also ran which has boomed and become much more national rather than Southern in the past 20 years

Sort of off-topic, but I don't understand how USC has gone from an easy-A party school to one with a 16% acceptance rate. It used to be comparable to SMU.

I went to college in the mid-70s. Got into Washington & Lee and Vanderbilt, but decided to go to UNC-Chapel Hill instead.

So glad I did. Even in the 70s, UNC was pretty gay-friendly. Those other two were anything but.

One of my favorite actors - David Strathairn- went to Williams. There's been a lot of renovations going on there over the last year or so, and it was a pretty campus before that.

r248, did you see Strathairn in Days and NIghts of Molly Dodd? He was great in that.

"Sort of off-topic, but I don't understand how USC has gone from an easy-A party school to one with a 16% acceptance rate. "

USC is a major, diversified university in a metro area where people want to go. You can get a very good education there if you want to, despite it's past reputation. It's a draw regardless of rank.

The internet and the multi-app have made applying to a LOT of schools easier than it ever was. As a result, a lot of schools have significantly lower acceptance rates than they used to.

R246 In no real world was Pomona ever "second tier" (nor Harvey Mudd for the sciences). Pomona alumni from many, many decades ago: Twyla Tharp, Robert Shaw, John Cage, Charles Scripp, Louis Menand, Myrlie Evers... and a gazzillion lawyers and judges and scientists and business execs that composed CA's uppercrust for most of the 20th century.

I think some people confuse Pomona College with the city of Pomona or the county fair.

Pitzer was sort of an alternative college afterthought, and it took some decades to establish a reputation.

Pomona has an undefeated record against USC in football. Look it up.

USC... although they've worked hard, successfully, to raise the academic reputation in the past couple decades, for most of its history USC was either the place for LA middle-brow businessmen and their children, or "University of Second Choice" for kids that wanted a private school and couldn't get into Stanford.

Smart kids in LA., who didn't fit into those categories either went East, or to Cal, UCLA or the Claremont colleges.

USC has raised its reputation in recent years. It's much more highly esteemed than it was when I was in college.

[quote] Pomona has an undefeated record against USC in football.

Does that matter to anyone but Pomona grads interested in football?

[quote] Can’t think of any other LACs that are that accessible to a major city.

The Claremont colleges are less than an hour by train (Metrolink) from downtown LA. And the light rail system will get there eventually.

As long as we've moved to large universities, here's the list of the top ones in the world.

Washington U. in St. Louis? LMAO. No one wants to go to school in St. Louis. NO ONE.

R247 and R250 -- $$$$$$$$$ is why (It was also mostly known as the University of Spoiled Children, R253, while UCLA was/is University of Caucasians Lost among Asians.)

"Pomona has an undefeated record against USC in football." R255 "Does that matter to anyone but Pomona grads interested in football?"

It's a helluva bar bet!

R259 CA is a minority majority state. UCLA (although more Latinos should be attending) actually looks like the world as it is.

What about good old Tait College?

Sorry, College prof. All those schools are much larger than I remembered from the days when I was applying, and for the most part couldn't afford or qualify for any of them anyway, well, maybe Mass. College of Art.

We are NOT moving on to large universities. What a terrible thing to say.

Langley College, Peekskill, NY. Conveniently close to Eastland Academy and Bates Academy.

r265, You need to get in a lot earlier if you want to stake your claim to the more obvious jokes.

R265 = bitter Tootie

R219 let me guess got harassed by blackout Brent Kavanaugh? or barfed on?

r222 cool that you were on the rugby team. They were always the guys I had crushes on. Did you have a rugger hugger as they were called. This has brought back such memories. Forgot all about Tolley pit and FAP.

No, R268. Harold Bloom repeatedly made me the emperor of his ice cream under an oak writing desk after his Wallace Stevens seminar.

R270 Well there's an unpleasant image....

Over 20 years ago, WashU started sending big packets of information to high school counselors, updated every year. It is still going on. The counselors made the material available to the students. The applicant pool doubled since. Now students are applying to dozens of schools through the Common Application, instead of the usual six to ten. When so many students apply, the schools can say they are more selective because, of course, the number of available spots in a freshman class has not increased. WashU accepted 16% of the applicants this year. WashU has always provided an excellent education for those who get in, that hasn't changed much either.

Many, many colleges are doing this. Have a successful marketing campaign, build new amenities for students like "lazy rivers" in the recreation center and hotel-quality rooms for students to live in, involve the alumni more in campus activities, and you have more aspirants wanting to apply. The acceptance rate goes down. Suddenly you are more prestigious because every parent wants his/her child to go there, so he/she can brag about it.

You need to find colleges where you will be happy living for four years, where you like the other students, where you have opportunities to try new things, where your education conforms to your learning style. I'm happy so many less well-known colleges are listed here. It's not about the name of the university, it's all about what you can bring to the table when you go into the real world and find a job.

Reed College staying in a quiet leafy corner

I went to Middlebury and loved it. I was invited back a couple years ago by an old professor of mine to read from my new book. It was so fun to see my books in the college library. I walked around the campus and revisited old memories. It really is in the middle of nowhere and was not the easiest place to be gay in the late nineties (although, I did sleep with a closeted guy in my Spanish class when his girlfriend was out of town a couple times) but I had an amazing experience there.

Lake Forest College, now (only) $47,000 per year (tuition only)!!!