NationStates Jolt Archive

Dear NS forums,

Within a few weeks I will be applying to colleges all across the states, and with all the combined wisdom of the NS forums, I was hoping perhaps you guys could recommend a few colleges from personal experience for me to research. I currently have a few already in mind but was wondering if there are any good ones that I missed.

Here are some factors that are relatively important.

1) Liberal/left-leaning: colleges that aren't really conservative or religious.
2) A relatively well known, upper ranked college? (The more intellectuals, the better, and hopefully one without much of a frat scene)
3) A decent psych or medical programme
4) Preferably a medium sized college (from 4000 to 20000 people?) with a 60 t0 80% female population? :P (Okay, that's pushing it a little but I'm sure there are some out there)

Right now my top choices are either Washington University in St. Louis or either Berkley or Stanford in CA.

Well, advice or hints are also much appreciated. :)

EDIT: Or to make this simple, where do you/did you go to college, did you enjoy it, why or why not?

Stanford. More importantly, if you're soliciting help from NSG on this, then nowhere close to me (hence, Stanford, though an Alaska college might be better.)

I've no suggestions really, since picking one's college is a fairly personal choice. It's something you have to live with (in theory) for (in theory) the next four years of your life, at least.

I do recommend not including a silly conservative/liberal category in your ranking of choices, though. If anything, you should be challenging your preconceived notions at university, not zealously reaffirming them. I go to a fairly conservative college and am a liberal, yet there are few things that enjoy more than debating politics and ethics over a good many beers with people (and I'm somehow always that guy at the party whose participating in a deep conversation...often unintentionally), and that's not something I think I could really do at a college that more matched my political/philosophical leanings.

...4) Preferably a medium sized college (from 4000 to 20000 people?) with a 60 t0 80% female population? :P (Okay, that's pushing it a little but I'm sure there are some out there)...
Mount Saint Vincent University (http://www.msvu.ca/), the spot where I did my undergrad degree, had a 75% female population. As a guy, I was quite pleased with that (And rudely awakened to the "normal" university scene when I went to do my master's!). It is in Canada, though, which might put it out of the running. It was centre-left, with lots of femminist critique (Go figure), no sororities or fraternities (Unless they were very, very quiet ones!), and a solid psyc department. It does not have a medical school, but at least here that is irrelevant at the undergrad level.

Harvard.

Dear NS forums,

Within a few weeks I will be applying to colleges all across the states, and with all the combined wisdom of the NS forums, I was hoping perhaps you guys could recommend a few colleges from personal experience. I currently have a few already in mind but was wondering if there are any good ones that I missed.

Here are some factors that are relatively important.

1) Liberal/left-leaning: colleges that aren't really conservative or religious.
2) A relatively well known, upper ranked college? (The more intellectuals, the better, and hopefully one without much of a frat scene)
3) A decent psych or medical programme
4) Preferably a medium sized college (from 4000 to 20000 people?) with a 60 t0 80% female population? :P (Okay, that's pushing it a little but I'm sure there are some out there)

Right now my top choices are either Washington University in St. Louis or either Berkley or Stanford in CA.

Well, advice or hints are also much appreciated. :)

EDIT: Or to make this simple, where do you/did you go to college, did you enjoy it, why or why not?

Wash U is a very good school. I suggest you choose it, but only if you are really serious about your studies.

Because I have no answer for the first part of your post, I'll answer the second. My first "college" (:rolleyes:) was the Queen's University, Belfast, where I gained a BA(Hons) in Modern History. I'm departing in a few weeks for my second "college" in a few weeks to begin an LLB in Law.

Not much use to an American, but you did ask...

Ohio State will give you everything but the medium size.

Although Wash U will give you a fine choice.

of your top choices, I'd pick Wash U - but I was very interested in Oberlin (http://www.oberlin.edu/). if I had it to do again and money wasn't an issue, I'd go there. only 2800 people but 55% female? (I wanted it because it had a lot of gay people and I think a good psychology program) avoid california and texas at all costs. they're at opposite ends of the political and cultural spectrum but I'm consistently amazed at how annoying I find the citizens of both of them. as it is, I'm a high school drop-out but my ACT score got me a full ride to UCA (http://www.uca.edu)...which isn't so bad, really.

I don't know anything about Washington in St. Louis, but I had a great experience at Stanford, and I have friends who had a great time at Cal.

Ah, I realised the flaws of my question. Sorry that's not what I meant. What I should have said was, please give me a few recommendations for colleges to research. I would never just randomly ask people to help me decide on a place to live for the next four years as a final decision. But I do appreciate all the information so far! :)

I assume you're talking about undergrad? You might look into some of the liberal arts schools, like Swarthmore, Wellesley or the like. The higher ranked ones tend to be on the small to medium side, but still retain a good national reputation. I don't know anything about their psych or pre-med programs though.

If you're looking for a liberal one, Stanford , Yale, Princeton, and Harvard are out the door. Maybe try UC Berkley, or UC Davis. The most prestigious schools tend to lean on the conservative side. I can't complain, being that I generally side with republicans:rolleyes:.

Dear NS forums,

Within a few weeks I will be applying to colleges all across the states, and with all the combined wisdom of the NS forums, I was hoping perhaps you guys could recommend a few colleges from personal experience for me to research. I currently have a few already in mind but was wondering if there are any good ones that I missed.

Here are some factors that are relatively important.

1) Liberal/left-leaning: colleges that aren't really conservative or religious.
2) A relatively well known, upper ranked college? (The more intellectuals, the better, and hopefully one without much of a frat scene)
3) A decent psych or medical programme
4) Preferably a medium sized college (from 4000 to 20000 people?) with a 60 t0 80% female population? :P (Okay, that's pushing it a little but I'm sure there are some out there)

Right now my top choices are either Washington University in St. Louis or either Berkley or Stanford in CA.

Well, advice or hints are also much appreciated. :)

EDIT: Or to make this simple, where do you/did you go to college, did you enjoy it, why or why not?

I am a freshman at Florida Tech. Let's take a look at your requirements:
1. Well, we're not too conservative or religious. So I'd say check.
2. We're highly ranked for research, and the frat presence seems to be mostly flyers and posters (they're recruiting now).
3. Check. Especially the psychology part.
4. Ouch. Florida Tech has around 2500 undergrads, and my class has a 70-30 male-female ratio. That said, from what I can tell, the psych department may be majority female (then again, I'm an astrophysicist, so I wouldn't know).

If you drop the size requirement, I'd recommend that you look into the Claremont colleges in California. They're very small, and very good. I believe one of them (Pomona?) has a good psychology program. And aside from Harvey Mudd, I think they may be majority female - Claremont McKenna is all-female (though it's a short walk over to the other colleges).

As for advice, I have a few pieces of that. The most important of all is to visit. Visit before applying, this may help you eliminate a college. DEFINITELY visit after you've been accepted, to make your decision. When you visit, take a tour of the campus, talk with students, and meet professors in the departments you are interested in (students who know what they want to do have a major advantage). Consider sitting in on a class.

If you drop the size requirement, I'd recommend that you look into the Claremont colleges in California. They're very small, and very good. I believe one of them (Pomona?) has a good psychology program. And aside from Harvey Mudd, I think they may be majority female - Claremont McKenna is all-female (though it's a short walk over to the other colleges).
Claremont McKenna is coed; Scripps is the all female school of the Claremont colleges.

As for advice, I have a few pieces of that. The most important of all is to visit. Visit before applying, this may help you eliminate a college. DEFINITELY visit after you've been accepted, to make your decision. When you visit, take a tour of the campus, talk with students, and meet professors in the departments you are interested in (students who know what they want to do have a major advantage). Consider sitting in on a class.
This I agree with. You can get a decent feel for how you'll like a school based on a visit and tour of the campus. Check with the campus visitor center for a list of classes that you can sit in on.

I'm a senior at Northwestern, which fits all your requirements (except the high female population... ours is roughly 55%) and has been very good to me the last few years. My sister's a sophomore at Wash U and really likes it there. Of course, if you can get into Stanford, you should definitely go there.

By the looks of it it would be easier to pick a pocket instead of a college, if you are good at it you don't need a degree to make a living. LOL (I love this play on words )

Harvard.

Stirling's good... Lovely Loch ....:)

I'm in the process of filling out my application to send to the University of South Florida. I want to go there because after visiting the campus I found that they have many undergraduate research opportunities and that they recently opened a research center for what I hope to be involved in someday, nanoscience. They have a five-year program where at the end you get a BA in Chemistry and an MS in Chemical Engineering. I'm planning on doing that. And since it's in Florida and I'm from Florida, I'll be able to take advantage of Bright Futures. :)

Kalamazoo College is a great school. I would research it if you want to find out. We have one of the top 25 psych programs in the nation.

Cornell University, an IVY League school based in Ithaca NY but has its medical school in NYC.

Just go to App State. They're all the buzz now.

No.

I'm a senior at BU (who starts classes in about an hour and should really go shower and stop dicking around on the interwebs, but mreh, I'm a senior, fuck it)

starting with your requirements:
1) liberal: I'd say so.
2) well known, highly ranked: yes. The Times Higher Education ranking placed us 28th in the US, 66th in the world. Newsweek similarly places us 35th in the US, 65th in the world. Frats have minor presence and are not in any way vital to having a social life
3) Our med school is 34th in the nation, and I'm not sure what our psych is, but I assume pretty decent
4) We are a massive college. We have about 16,000 undergrads and 11,000 grads. Of that, we are somewhere between a 60/40 or 70/30 girl to guy ratio.

Overall, the most intimidating thing about BU was the size. The nice thing about it is the fact that when I have a bad day, I can leave my apartment and never see a person I know and be left alone. you are also pretty much guarenteed that you will meet someone you like in your dorm.

Claremont McKenna is coed; Scripps is the all female school of the Claremont colleges.


This I agree with. You can get a decent feel for how you'll like a school based on a visit and tour of the campus. Check with the campus visitor center for a list of classes that you can sit in on.

Thanks for the correction.

I am a freshman at Florida Tech. Let's take a look at your requirements:
1. Well, we're not too conservative or religious. So I'd say check.
2. We're highly ranked for research, and the frat presence seems to be mostly flyers and posters (they're recruiting now).
3. Check. Especially the psychology part.
4. Ouch. Florida Tech has around 2500 undergrads, and my class has a 70-30 male-female ratio. That said, from what I can tell, the psych department may be majority female (then again, I'm an astrophysicist, so I wouldn't know).

If you drop the size requirement, I'd recommend that you look into the Claremont colleges in California. They're very small, and very good. I believe one of them (Pomona?) has a good psychology program. And aside from Harvey Mudd, I think they may be majority female - Claremont McKenna is all-female (though it's a short walk over to the other colleges).

As for advice, I have a few pieces of that. The most important of all is to visit. Visit before applying, this may help you eliminate a college. DEFINITELY visit after you've been accepted, to make your decision. When you visit, take a tour of the campus, talk with students, and meet professors in the departments you are interested in (students who know what they want to do have a major advantage). Consider sitting in on a class.

Can I ask you what your High School marks were like? Astrophysics is what I would really like to take, but I'm not entirely sure I have the marks for it. Any other suggestions?

I would advice Bob Jones University. Honestly, trust me on this one. Just apply, and then go. No, don't look anything up about, believe me when I say you should definitely go, no questions asked. Really.