small LAC with strong science in New England

Shelldemeo · 10-27-2009, 11:24 AM

My husband and I are helping our son formulate a list of strong small liberal arts colleges that will have a good science (physics) department, a good music program (he plays clarinet) and possibly a 3 2 engineering option (but not a deal breaker as he could get his masters in that). He has a 4.0 unweighted and is in all APs this year as a junior. He is a legacy at Williams so will be applying there as well as Clark. A school with decent merit would be nice too.

ellemenope · 10-27-2009, 11:48 AM

Well, I was going to suggest Williams until I read that your S will already be applying there. The son of H's co-worker was a physics major at Williams and is now in graduate school at MIT.

nngmm · 10-27-2009, 11:50 AM

Swarthmore fits your requirements (no merit aid though). Swarthmore also offers BS in engineering.
I think Haverford is also strong in sciences, but I don't know anything about their music program.

Weskid · 10-27-2009, 11:55 AM

^^^

Swarthmore and Haverford would be good, though they are not in New England.

My school, Wesleyan (in CT), fits all of your academic requirements (including a 3/2 program with I believe Colombia and CalTech, though you should check on the exact schools). No merit aid, though.

garland · 10-27-2009, 12:14 PM

I was going to say Wes, too. It's music and physics departments are two of its strongest-- it's only two grad programs are in music and astronomy, I believe. But as Weskids says, no merit money.

SLUMOM · 10-27-2009, 12:23 PM

Connecticut College in New London, need males, too.

SLUMOM · 10-27-2009, 12:28 PM

Whoops, doesn't look like Conn gives out very much merit aid, only need-based.

JHS · 10-27-2009, 01:34 PM

The other knee-jerk recommendation in the LAC/physics category is Reed, which also doesn't give out merit aid and REALLY isn't in New England. It does have a pretty nice physics program, though.

Honestly, I would bet that most decent LACs would fit the bill here. Physics and music are things that they tend to care about, and many schools have 3-2 programs (whether or not anyone ever actually goes through them). If merit aid and New England are of equal importance with the academic factors, I would start by looking for LACs in New England that give merit aid, and then look for the best academic programs among them.

A close friend who is a college freshman drawn to engineering, film, and music, was deciding where to go last spring. Her choices came down to three very different options: Carnegie-Mellon's School of Computer Science, the University of Chicago, and Carleton. She wound up choosing Carleton. There were a bunch of New England LACs on the list, too, but they lost out to Carelton as the best LAC option for her. But other people would certainly make other choices (and if she had been accepted at Swarthmore she wouldn't have agonized for four minutes, much less four weeks).

shellfell · 10-27-2009, 02:31 PM

To echo other people, Swarthmore fits the bill (other than not being in New England). S is a Swat grad in physics & is now in a physics PhD program. He had friends who were involved in the music program. Altho he wondered if he had the preparation that grads from universities with larger physics depts. had, he passed all his qualifying exams on the first try so I guess Swat prepared him just fine.

WesDad · 10-27-2009, 03:05 PM

Wesleyan has 3-2 programs with both Columbia and Cal Tech. Wesleyan University Physics Department Undergraduate Information

JustAMomOf4 · 10-27-2009, 03:32 PM

Besides what was mentioned some obvious ones are Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, Middlebury but you might want to check out Merrimack, Gordon, Holy Cross, Trinity.

par72 · 10-27-2009, 03:47 PM

Holy Cross has good science majors.

Shelldemeo · 10-27-2009, 07:09 PM

Thanks to all your responses. I guess we have a lot of research to do!

starryskye · 10-27-2009, 07:43 PM

It's not in New England, but the science building at Hamilton is AMAZING!
~Starryskye

tk21769 · 10-27-2009, 08:22 PM

If merit aid is important, then you probably want to at least look at some Midwestern colleges.

Carleton offers a few merit aid grants (an average of $2,238 to 31 students in a class of 489 students). Grinnell offers more (an average of $10,137 to 93 students in a class of 464 students). Colorado College and Macalester College also offer merit aid. All 4 of these are among the US News top 30 LACs. They seem to have good science programs. They are more selective than Clark (but less so than Williams.) You may find that at least some of them are in more desirable settings than Worcester, Mass (depending on what you want.)