philoglossia

Hi all!

I'm trying to winnow my application list to a manageable size, and I've gotten myself stumped. I'm picking schools mainly based on strength in my major, which is easy enough to evaluate. Unfortunately, it's way harder for me to figure out what the social atmosphere is like at each school. I want a college with students who are really, really serious about their ec's, pretty serious about their classes, and mainly not interested in parties/drinking. Basically, I want a school for boring people--but if that offends you, feel free to call them "focused."

So--what are these like socially? Tell me how they compare to one another:
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Barnard
Swarthmore
Bryn Mawr
Chicago
Brandeis

I was interested in Smith and Wellesley also, but I hear a lot of things about the social life of Smith being composed almost 100% of parties at UMass and Amherst. Ditto for Wellesley with MIT and Harvard. Is this true?

brillar

I can do Bryn Mawr V. Swarthmore- I applied to Swat ED, and am going to be attending Bryn Mawr next year (so truly I'll have a better idea a couple months from now). Neither of the two are party schools, although I met a ton of people who are fun and easy to talk to at both.

I visited Swat at a sort of bad time- around midterms. My host and roommate and hallmates had a pretty full day of ECs and then came back and studied like crazy. Good for a conversation, but not a wild party, so sounds like a pretty good fit for you.

Bryn Mawr has a few serious parties per year and that's about it- it's nice because if you do want to party you can go to Penn or somewhere and then come home to a nice, clean dorm. Again, fun intellectual people but not party oriented. We walked to town to get coffee and then watched movies during the accepted students weekend- it sort of had a feel of a sleepover feel (or sleepover + study group combination because a lot of the current students were working on papers).

If you want to PM me sometime next year, feel free, and I'll be able to tell you more- I'm planning on spending a lot of time at all the schools in the Tri-Co. I have a lot of Swattie friends and might be majoring there...

world changer

Harvard and Yale do have party scenes. So does Princeton, and even UChicago, in a way.

I'd say that your best bets for a super-focused, kind of quiet social life will be Columbia, Barnard, Swat, Bryn Mawr, and Brandeis.

tetrisfan

You can either immerse yourself into the party scene or completely avoid it at practically all the places on your list. You will find like-minded peers wherever you end up.