Need " Crunchy Gronola " types in PA?

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

D a sophomore at Muhlenberg, and I would agree with the posters above.
Another w q - your D has been at Muhlenberg long enough, do you agree??

As Bucknell grad, I would say to take it off the list.
Haverford- definitely worth exploring-

[Khipper]

Juniata is a possibility.

If it were a daughter instead of a son, I would recommend Bryn Mawr or Chatham.

[Faline2]

May I point out that you should eyeball Virginia schools because we have so many people with more of the Middle Atlantic state attidudes (hey..new word..I think I will keep it rathr than correct) Yes we have AttiDudes from our beltway population?
Mary Washington is a fine school and I know a Virginian with lesser scores who got in after waitlist in mid June. The day I took my eldest son there, we strolled and stopped in a shop on Main. Young man who waited on us was a sophomore. I asked him about Frats there. He said, "No, here at MWC we don't pay for our friends."
They are also 60/40 female/male so there might be a hint of preference for males and a rather good dating life.
They have a symphony orchestra where you earn a 500 dollar stipend annually or so for playing (info on that is a bit dated..check)...which is not exactly Conservatory standard but you didn't say if your son is talented enough for a competitive symphony or band position. If he is competitive in performance, James Madison might be interested in him.
Anyway..it looks like a private college and even at OOS rates, may be cheaper than some privates.

Dickinson also comes to mind as a possible. Bennington in Vermont as a likely happy fit. good luck searching and no matter what..enjoy the process and time with your S.

Fredericksburg is uber charming...as long as you don't want to get on the expressways just outside of it. RR station within a walk from campus with cheap seats into DC for internships etc. Yet it has a Mayberry RFD typle ice cream parlour, cool bluegrassy guitar shops, high brow antique stores and the real deal in both colonial and civil war historic sights. We know several kids there. There is a bit of buzz that many northern Virginians can't resist running home on Saturday. But I know Long Island has students there.

St. Mary's in MD is also an honors college with stats similar to his in a quiet bayside sailing remote but lovely campus. Excellent relations between faculty and students and fine classroom experience there. Goucher?

[anothermom-w-q]

My D gives me very little info about Muhlenberg. I know she is active in the Theatre Association, and that is where she finds the quirkier kids. I stayed out of the discussion of Muhlenberg because I live so far away, I don't feel like I know the student body too well. And being a Left Coast dweller, the campus culture at all the East Coast schools is foreign to me.
If the OP wants to consider Ohio and Oberlin, how about Kenyon?

[bobsmom]

I think Juniata is probably among the "crunchier" of the schools in PA but as far as I know, it does not have a music major. Juniata does a lot of things very well but music is mostly secondary to other majors. How about Lebanon Valley?

[kathiep]

Oh, Lebanon Valley, that's a good idea. We had two kids stay with us a couple of years ago for an orchestra festival at our High School and both were going to attend Lebanon Valley. Beautiful campus.

[hereshoping]

How come no one has mentioned Temple? On the preppy continuum, you can't get further away. Lots of REAL diversity! I believe it has an excellent music department. However, I suspect it's a tad TOO connected to real life for most of our questioning, philosophical, liberal "crunchies."

[dudedad]

A little further afield, (but still in leftfield):

Guilford

[kathiep]

dude,
The OP specifically asked for PA schools. Well, I guess everyone else was chiming in for far afield schools too. Hey, op, where are you anyway? Maybe you want to be a little more specific about what kind of liberal crunchy school (city, no city, son's stats, etc.) and if you want more out of the area suggestions.

[mtpaper]

I'll second the motion that you look at Wesleyan for music degree, with liberal attitudes.

[JHS]

(1) Just to be clear, when I was talking about "preppiness" at Haverford, I was talking about real preppiness -- as in having gone to a prep school, or being demographically, educationally, and attitudinally similar to kids coming out of prep schools. I didn't mean "Republican". I didn't mean popped collars. I did mean a sense of entitlement, noblesse oblige, and civic engagement, and a tendency to be wealthy but to disdain ostentatious displays of wealth (unless they're the RIGHT ostentatious displays).

(2) If you're worried about Haverford being too Republican, or the kids dressing up too much, don't. Visiting is fine, but don't bother visiting to confirm that. There can't be more than a handful of Republicans, and the kids don't dress up. It is an elitist Quaker school -- that means few Republicans, lots of social service, lots of competitiveness but none of it overt, modulated voices, and clean but scruffy clothes. It is a GREAT place if you are looking for heartfelt philosophical discussions late at night on your way back from the homeless shelter.

(3) Temple does have a good music school, but it is a separate school. The OP's post mentioned schools that were mainly smaller and all a lot less urban. Temple is exciting and diverse, and probably a legitimate safety with the OP's son's numbers, but it is not "crunchy" in the least.

Take, as an index of crunchiness, the ease of getting up a good pickup game of ultimate frisbee on Saturday afternoon, or finding someone to go to the Dar Williams concert with you, or the likelihood that your roommate has studied Buddhism, or the inverse of the likelihood that your roommate is studying accounting. On a scale of 1-10, Haverford would be about 8. You might decide to join the cricket club rather than playing ultimate, but the Dar Williams concert is on campus, and both you and your roommate care a lot more about the Book of the Dead than the double-book entries. Temple would be 1 or 2. There's no place to play ultimate, the on-campus concert is Beanie Sigel, and your roommate works part time for a tax preparation service.

[hereshoping]

I think that was an interesting analysis, JHS. A good friend of my son ("crunchy" I guess--a Green Party person--but definitely left liberal and anti-prep) toured Haverford and got the impression of wealthy prepster Stepford kids. He hightailed it out of there as fast as he could. He ended up at Skidmore, which he felt made room for true quirkiness and indivdualism, while still being liberal, of course.

Is it preppies or a certain kind of preppy people are trying to avoid? It seems to me if one really just wanted to find out how many frats and sports teams a school has, as well as how many members of the student body attended prep school, one could just look up that info.

[wis75]

Shaking my head at the crunchy label for being vegetarian; most Indian foods are cooked, no crunchy vegetables or chewy meats... Wonder if schools with a high percentage of Asians, especially Indians, would cater to non standard-American tastes? Do any of the public schools on the east coast accomodate different ethnic tastes? UW Madison lists its menu choices with notations for various foods- check various school websites housing pages; they usually give menus somewhere.

[wackymother]

Wait, can we back up for a minute and talk about Lafayette? What are students there like? On the crunchiness continuum, how does it place against Lehigh and Drexel? And how about Carnegie-Mellon, they have a big theater program, where do they stand?

I'm looking for a crunchy place for an engineering-and-computer-science-type girl.

[safisher]

My daughter is from Northern California, capital of alternative lifestyles, and loves Lafayette. My friend raised his son in an alternative parenting situation and the son is now a Lehigh student and doing very well.

I believe in almost any school you are bound to find groups of like minded individuals. A visit especially with an overnight is the best way to cut through stereotypes and determine a students comfort level.