With respect to your location preferences, you will have plenty of QuestBridge partner schools to explore:
https://www.newsweek.com/25-most-desirable-urban-schools-71889
https://www.newsweek.com/25-most-desirable-suburban-schools-71867
Though it’s true that relatively few LACs are located in or near cities, a few that are such as Swarthmore and Haverford would be top-level for biology.
You will have to go to graduate school regardless of whether you do your undergrad at a LAC or a university. Going to a university for undergrad does not automatically give you a graduate degree. You’re graduating with a BA/BS wherever you go, whether it’s Vanderbilt or Amherst. Some universities do have accelerated master’s programs where you can complete a master’s degree after your BA/BS in only one year instead of two, but such programs are much less common at top schools.
If you need an urban environment, then neither Bowdoin nor Amherst are for you. Williams is definitely not for you, either. I second what the above poster said about Tufts, and I’d also look at Swarthmore.
I’m not sure where your ideas are coming from, but I’m going to suggest you ditch them all and start with a clean slate. To say that Harvard ostracizes conservative students tells me that you are getting advice from someone who is very biased against Liberal Arts education (THE foundation, btw, of a degree at nearly all top colleges) because they think the word liberal just refers to politics.
And there is a big difference between people who are socially conservative and politically conservative. The vast majority of college campuses these days are pretty socially liberal, even colleges viewed as leaning more conservative, such as Duke. If you are looking for a college dominated by intolerant viewpoints, especially in regards to LGBTQ people, look at Liberty and Bob Jones.
There are a few colleges that I suggest you don’t apply to, such as Oberlin and Wesleyan. As far as you wanting rigorous science-based curriculum and research opportunities, you will find that at all QB colleges, so it’s hard to know where to start. Are you interested in the quality of teaching and having access to opportunities through personal contact with professors? I suggest you look at some LACs. At the LACs, Profs teach undergrads, not TAs or grad students.
I’m not seeing info about your grades and test scores. You’re applying through Questbridge, so I’m guessing you’re a high-performing student. If you’re looking for conservative, I suggest you cross Amherst off your list. It is not known for conservative values. Hamilton, W&L, UVA, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt might be good choices for you. I’m not seeing Davidson on the QB list.
ALL schools on the QB list are top notch. There’s no point in ranking them, as per your original question. All of those colleges are going to give you a rigorous education and lead to research opportunities. It’s going to be up to you to make the most of whatever opportunities you can find. Frankly, it’s a LOT easier to connect with professors at smaller colleges. QB students often have very good experiences at smaller colleges because it is easy to meet other students, classes are small right from the start, and professors will know you by name, making it easier to secure good recommendations.
I think your biggest potential stumbling block might be your own preconceived ideas of what some of these colleges are about. Allow yourself to learn about them without letting misinformed ideas cloud your judgement. Good luck to you.
Rice checks off a lot of your boxes and admits a large number of Questbridge students (55 last year). Rice leans liberal, but there are conservative groups on campus such as the College Republicans group. Everyone’s opinion is respected at Rice, and there are not large protests. Rice does not have Greek life. Collegiate sports are not a huge factor at Rice. Rice is in Houston, Texas adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. There are many research opportunities. The inner city where Rice is located leans “blue” while the outlying suburbs are “red.” Texas is a “red” state. There is a Republican governor, both US Senators are Republican, and both chambers of the State Legislature are controlled by Republicans. You could get involved in local or state Republican politics and could find your tribe at Rice.
Graduate school includes the programs after undergraduate college: Master’s degrees, PHDs, JDs, etc. To do cutting edge research, you’ll need a PhD, and any PhD program worth doing will be funded. It means you’ll basically be paid to attend (ok, not well paid at all, but you won’t have to pay anything.)
Check out “where science PHDs got their start”. It’s a list with college names ranked in order of producing people with PHDs in various fields.
At most top universities/LACs, the upper level courses are at ‘graduate’ level because most students enter with AP/IB/AICE/Dual enrollment classes user their belt. It’s their default start, so to speak. The courses are very intense and move quickly, so by senior year the students are very advanced. They then apply to graduate school. The NESCAC undergraduate=> Ivy league path is well-trodden.
At normally selective 4-year universities with master’s or PhD programs, students with AP/IB/AICE/DE classes are considered more advanced than average so they get advanced credit. They often reach senior level classes as juniors (keeping in mind that those may well be junior level classes at more selective colleges). So, senior year, they take classes from the 1st year of master’s classes.
To give you a specific example:
At top colleges, almost all students arrive with calculus classes under their belt, some have taken multivariate calculus. At Penn, the assumption is that everybody who needs ath for their major has achieved a 4 in Calculus BC or at least a 5 in Calculus AB. Students with a 3-4 in Calculus AB are placed in a sort of remedial Calculus class. At a good flagship, a student with a 3-4 in AP calculus AB will start in Calculus 1 or get credit for it - they’re considered on time to slightly ahead, not ‘late’. Finally, at a directional college where most stem students start with precalculus, the same student who d be behind at Penn would be a full year ahead in math.
As a result, the 4th year classes offered to students who start in Calculus 2 or 3, Calculus 1, or precalculus, aren’t going to be the same, and some advanced students who’d be taking the ‘regular’ senior classes at a highly selective LAC would thus be taking the same classes under the title of graduate courses at your state Flagship for example. The big difference is that you may have more choices…or fewer choices… depending on where you attend, but it’s not crucial since you can only take 4-5 courses a semester and even the smallest LAC will have 500 to choose from each semester.
‘liberal’ in Liberal arts has nothing to do with politics. It’s related to the Latin word ‘liberare/to liberate’, to emancipate through knowledge. It’s actually very traditional: it comes from Europe and and the middle ages. At the time, as today at all respected universities, there were seven academic fields nobody could do without if they wanted to be considered educated. These included (translated into contemporary English): English, Speech/public speaking, math, music, critical thinking, Philosophy, and science. All American colleges are based on this original ideal, although they’ve added new branches of knowledge to this core, since many subjects didn’t exist in the middle ages.
As for the way conservatives are treated, it really depends on what you believe ‘conservatism’ to be.
To give you real-life College examples:
Students who feel righteous posting flyers encouraging fellow students to ‘denounce’ (to the police) classmates with Hispanic surnames on account of their being potentially undocumented will be met with anger by other students.
Students who insult, treat poorly, or insist on wanting to ‘cure’ LGBTQ students will be met with hostility.
So, it’s true that if these are your beliefs it won’t be easy at any college.
Students who want to argue for a small government, tax cuts, or fewer regulations on businesses will encounter spirited debates. This is actually par for the course at most colleges 
Students who are libertarians and want to abolish most current prohibitions will also have plenty to discuss with others.
Students who want to defend their religion’s place, or lack thereof, in public life will be treated with respect. (There are places of worship on most campuses and groups for students of every faith to keep growing in that faith, as well as groups for interfaith dialogue.)
Colleges do rescind, often for academic or integrity reasons: the student got D’s or an F, misrepresented themselves in their application, cheated or committed a crime between the application deadline and deposit, it’s absolutely not uncommon.
What you’ve been told about involves a conservative indeed; but the student was recently rescinded, not for being conservative, but because they were supposed to display some characteristics to get in and had successfully hidden some academic/character flaws: do you honestly think that if a student in your US history class used the n-word repeatedly it’d be without consequence? (it was as part of an AP us history study group so I imagine the teacher wasn’t asked for a letter of recommendation); then after all the mass shootings, imagine that same student claimed he wanted to kill a specific group of people who had just been the victim of a hate crime/mass shooting, do you think any college would take the risk?
I doubt you have either claimed to want to kill all x people nor have you used inappropriate language in class (I would hope!) so you would not be at risk of being rescinded.
Thank you all for your incredibly juicy tips and recommendations. I do apologize for my seemingly biased view on liberal-leaning top colleges, and I will do what I can to drop my misconceptions and be more welcoming of their educations. This should, theoretically, allow me to consider all QB partners outside of Oberlin and Wesleyan. Are there any other institutions that lean this far left on the QB partner list page that I don’t know about?
While researching the influence of LACs on graduate education opportunities (starting with the Google search recommended by MYOS), I found a paper by Thomas R. Cech titled “Science at Liberal Arts Colleges: A Better Education?” in which he analyzes the amount of Ph.D.'s gotten by grads who got their degrees at research universities and LACs. Of course, LACs demonstrate higher percentages. However, there are some interesting notes tied to some of the things you all have said.
This research on LACs is starting to make me consider LACs MORE than universities, even making me second-guess Vanderbilt as my top choice. However, I don’t want to load up my college rankings (if I get accepted) with selective LACs and get rejected by all of them, compared to me getting accepted at a research university. Swarthmore, Vassar, and Haverford are definitely interesting to me, but I’ll have to look at them more heavily. I’ll have to do more research on other LACs as well. I’m sure there are more that will be of interest. I wonder that, with my academics and ED application, if I would have a high chance of getting into a college with an acceptance rate greater than or equal to 20%…
In terms of universities, the ones that catch my eye the most so far are Tufts, Rice, Vanderbilt, and UChicago. (I would say Harvard and Yale, as they have sent me a good bit of letters and informational books about their campus, but there is no way in heck I’m getting in there, right?) I’ll do more research into them as well, same reason as above.
(Disclaimer: No, I do not have any of those beliefs, nor do I say those outrageous statements. The main thing is that I do have Christian/conservative beliefs that I would like to be tolerated. I have socialized very easy with and been friends with those I disagree with, such as members of the LGBTQ community and others. I also like to make Norm MacDonald type jokes at times, and I don’t know how that kind of comedy is tolerated, as it sometimes jests towards minorities, but very lightheartedly. Take for instance, his “Math by a woman” joke if you don’t know how he operates.)
LACs tend to be pretty intense academically since you get to know your professors well and there are high levels of participation in classes. Some students really thrive in that kind of environment, where there’s a lot of direction and intimacy, but others are more independent and would probably do better in a university. It depends on the kind of student you are.
About acceptance rates to LACs, it depends on which LACs you’re looking at. Are Vanderbilt and Rice more selective than Williams, Amherst, or Swarthmore? Not really. But they’re more selective than Haverford and Vassar.
That’s an interesting note. My studies and research have always been fairly independent, but in the end I do require direction and collaboration from other students. I’m not really sure what kind of student I am. Is there any accurate way to assess this?
I understand the selection rates, but I also am looking at class size and standardized test scores. Would my chances be greater at an LAC, with smaller room for students but with slightly lower test scores, or a university, with more room for students but slightly higher test scores? Does that play in to the acceptance chances, or should I just look at the surface level acceptance rate and compare it to other colleges? If I apply ED I to Swarthmore and Vanderbilt, with equal acceptance rates of around 11%, which college stands a higher chance of accepting me? I’d be in the middle 50% at Vanderbilt, but the upper 75% at Swarthmore looking at my ACT (34). (I know relying on ACT alone isn’t an accurate assessment, but try to look at it somewhat quickly, if possible.)
The most intelligent student I know at my child’s highly regarded LAC did not submit any test scores. This person also did tons of volunteering and worked for all four years of college. This student had great summer internships at the same company for two summers. This student has won a prestigious national scholarship, was an international and national winner in an intellectual team competition, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and just graduated summa cum laude. If you know anything about the most selective LACs, you will know that graduating from one of them summa cum laude is a true achievement.
Test scores are not the equivalent of intelligence. I can tell you as a test prep tutor, I work with highly intelligent kids who are not good at taking standardized tests. At top universities, which have astronomical numbers of applicants, test scores often serve the purpose of being another way to whittle the pile. It would be complete erroneous to assume that students at LACs are less intelligent than students at universities.
My child had a very high test score. She attends a college that is well known for being one of the first to be test-optional. She would absolutely not regard herself as being more intelligent than her peers. She knows she isn’t. She will be a senior, and she and several of her friends are doing research this summer, with a few even doing it last summer too. She was offered three different positions. The profs who offered them know she is well-prepared to do the work.
Fun fact: A huge number of profs send their own children to LACs. They understand that the quality of teaching at some LACs is equal or superior to some universities. Many LACs have high numbers of students going on to PhD’s or grad school.
To ED or not, that depends on you. It can definitely be an advantage at a lot of LACs. The student I mentioned above applied ED, btw, because the FA was going to be the best, according to the NPC.
Re Harvard and Yale, both sent my party-boy son (high test scores) lots of info. It means nothing. He would flunk out of Yale in a week, lol.
ETA: @KelseyM , you still don’t seem to be grasping that you need a balanced list of colleges. You are making a mistake if you assume you’ll be ok just applying to Swat, Vanderbilt and Tufts. With LACs, more so than universities, they are looking closely at how they think you’ll fit in on campus. Look at a range of schools. Look at Colby, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, Amherst, Bates, Dickinson, Colgate, Whitman, Claremont McKenna, Davidson, Washington and Lee, and U Richmond (all those last four are regarded as being a little more on the conservative side).
Linda, I’m looking at every single QB partner on the list. I have a Google Doc assigning over 10 kinds of ratings to each and will be over 40 pages long, with 1-2 pages of analysis for each partner. I have to rank 12 of them if I get selected for the NCM. I have to look at each college as carefully as possible to discern the differences so I can rank them accordingly. I’m not discriminating any college whatsoever, I’m just using a couple of examples for the sake of being concise. Apologies that my attempts at being concise aren’t conveying the right message.
I talk about test scores because my EC game isn’t like the prodigy you listed, or anyone similar. I am very low income. I live in a somewhat rural community. I have a lot of personal problems at home that I have to help out with as well due to my dad’s financial and social pressures. I ask and ask and ask around, “What can I do involving student work, paid or unpaid, at your facility?” All of the labs in my area have rejected my offers to assist because I don’t have a higher education or am not of age. The only place that I have left to ask is Lonza, and there are currently no online listed student opportunities in the Charleston area. I WANT to engage in lab work, but it doesn’t even seem like I can.
I am working up to 30 hours a week now in the summer to help myself so my father doesn’t have to anymore, because it’s getting to the point to where he can’t. I’m trying to save up for a graphics tablet to demonstrate my passion for the arts and merge it with science in a way that is educational. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I have a lab internship at a local university, and I average 6-7 hours a week. I took a Gen Chem class at my local community college in June. I’ve interviewed for a volunteer position at a local retirement home where my mom happens to work. No response. I am not underestimating or tossing aside the experience of those without test scores. I only talk about test scores because it’s about all I have, and my hope in getting stronger ECs is decreasing. I’m doing everything I know to do and it isn’t enough. As a result, I’m not even sure if I can get into ANY of these colleges.
Of course, I was forgetting about Questbridge partners. You have a Questbridge advisor, right? Are you aware that most of the QB college will pay for you to do a fly in so you can visit? I’m not super familiar with QB, but I think @MYOS1634 can give you some pointers.
My understanding is that if some of these colleges award you a fly in, it’s a good sign. I can’t link the sites, but google college green light fly in and diversity programs.
MYOS has talked with me about fly-ins, but I wasn’t sure what schools had fly ins… Thanks for the greenlight, I’ll definitely bookmark that. Looks like most QB partners have this “fly-in” thing. How many fly-ins should I apply for once they become available? Are they as selective as the actual admissions process?
@KelseyM If you are applying as part of the QB program, your chances are determined by QuestBridge rates, not by the acceptance rates of the colleges.
About 5%-6% of all QB applicants are matched with full scholarships, and another 12%-13% are accepted to one of the partner college, usually with a good financial aid.
Unlike how it works with Posse Scholars, QB partner colleges do not commit to accept a certain number of QB scholars, so your chances of being selected by your college may depend on how selective the colleges you put on your list are, or not.
In any case, the better matched your profile is to a partner school, the more likely they are to be choose you. So add and rank colleges based on how well they match your preferences and your personality. Ignore selectivity. If, say, Princeton isn’t a good match overall, do not rank it high because “It’s Princeton”. Conversely, If Princeton is an excellent match, overall, do not rank it low because “it’s too much of a reach”.
Apply for all the fly ins that are at colleges of interest. I think you might need teacher recs, so get on the ball with that. They are not as selective as the admissions process, but they provide a boost in a number of ways. One, these colleges (for the most part) value demonstrated interest, two, you can meet an AO and have an interview (probably), three, you can see if you like the vibe on the campus.
Be aware that, I believe, the fly ins happen mostly in September. You can only do so many before it affects your grades, tbh. It’s time-consuming.
Probably already mentioned, but the more conservative QB schools would probably be Wash & Lee, UVA, Vandy, Davidson, Notre Dame, Claremont Mc Kenna, maybe some others. They are not going to be super conservative socially. Students at these schools tend to be relatively open-minded these days. If you really want a conservative LAC, look at Davidson, W&L, and Claremont McKenna first.
These are all top notch schools. In general, the higher the acceptance rate, the better your chances, both ED and RD. Keep in mind though that these are all very selective. Even at a tiny school like Haverford, for example, with only 1200 students, they are going to be looking very closely at your app to determine fit. You might want to consider Haverford. It’s not super conservative, but it’s a school with a moral conscience and a very strict honor code, of which it is very proud. It’s a very special place.
Excellent advice, @MWolf .
So I should consider personality and social life over the academics, I guess? That would make it a little easier, since comparing academics of top LACs like Bowdoin, Amherst, Swarthmore, and others is a nightmare. I’ll do the social parts of each analysis first. In fact, should I even be considering academics in my rankings when comparing LAC with LAC, or university with university?I can’t tell the rigor apart if my life depended on it. Looking at course requirements for each biochemistry/biology major for 5 LACs just starting out is exhausting. Do I look at lab hours per week? How many courses required for the major? The course descriptions seem to cover the exact same thing. I just took cell biology as an example and each description sounds like it has the same skeleton, but one is more verbose than the other.
A rule of thumb for students interested in Questbridge is that they should rank universities and LACs. The NM is like multiple chances at ED - but just like ED you must be prepared to attend your highest ranked college that admits you. In exchange they promise a full ride for all 4 years.
I discussed fly ins before - they require a lot of essays and the applications should open about now. You need to apply to 5 to get one I’d say, and going to 2-3 fly ins is both important and difficult.
“Fit” (the character, personality of the university, sort of) is crucial. Academically all QB colleges are elite and thus all are very high quality so you could leave that concern for now since it sounds overwhelming.
W&L and McKenna are conservative in that lots of old money scions (“1%”) attend and students are fiscal conservatives. McKenna students ave a reputation for being very concerned with making money especially compared to students at nearby Pomona who aren’t into that. (This is very broad, obviously!) At most elite universities a lot of children from wellniff to wealthy families attend because their parents and grandparents gave them tips, made sure they attended the right schools and took the right courses, got them tutors if needed, etc. But there’s no one who attends who isn’t deserving, except perhaps for 2-3 who got in because their parents gave a building or something.
Brown, Wesleyan, Oberlin are definitely very liberal, but so is Swarthmore. Haverford, with it’s strong honors code and focus on consensus building, is very respectful of ideas.
I think you’re obsessing a little over lab hours and such. Lab hours are going to matter a lot more when you start doing research positions during the summer, etc…
Get yourself some campus tutoring positions, or grade tests when you’re an upperclassman. As an example, my kid had three campus jobs. Two were tutoring, one was as a test grader in a math-based social science course. Now she’s doing research. A good friend of hers, who attends a tippy top LAC, was awarded a very competitive summer research position at a prestigious University after her freshman summer. She applied for it, she did the work, etc…
The point is, it’s not lab hours that my kid and her friend did during the semester. It’s about making the most of opportunities that present themselves. Each QB college will give you access to those opportunities. So maybe, yes, you should think about fit.
Of course, look at majors, see what campus clubs are available, look at location, read about these schools in the Fiske Guide. (Way back in the day, my D and I had literally never heard of the college she now attends until we read about it in Fiske. Go to your local library, they will probably have them there.)
You seem very concerned with rigor, and I’m guessing you want to be around other intense, studious types. You also want to not feel out of place as a conservative person. For all those reasons, consider Haverford, Carleton (not conservative, but not super liberal either. Lots of rigor), Princeton, Northwestern, Hamilton, and others already mentioned. Having said that, are you going to feel out of place in a different way being among a fair number of “old money privilege” students? Consider what MYOS said.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that Haverford might be a good fit for you. It’s also in a great location, and the campus is beautiful. The best dorm rooms I have ever seen were at Haverford, as a bonus. You can message @doschicos if you want some insider info about the school.
I’ve heard that Swarthmore has a very liberal, social justice vibe. I agree with @Lindagaf that Haverford is a good alternative.
Definitely apply to some fly-ins. I know that participating in the Williams fly-in, at least, increases acceptance chances by a lot. I’m sure it’s similar for the LACs you’re looking at.
You’re going to find academic rigor at any of your top choices, so it’s best to go beyond that and research campus vibes.
About your politics–
All of the LACs you’re looking at will have strong support systems for students of all faiths, including Christian students. But I really don’t think that being anti-LGBT will be well-received, especially when those institutions have such a focus on being as inclusive as possible.
Hi,
I will offer you a list of each college you guys mentioned for me with contradictory opinions on its political atmosphere for each. I’ve read many threads here about each campus, and there are so many arguments it’s absurd and I can’t decisively figure out anything.
I’m becoming very depressed about this situation, nameably because of my small range of ECs, my petty comparison to other candidates, stress to pump out essays like a factory chicken, and my extreme self doubt into getting into any college. I don’t think I’ll get the scholarship because of these things. If I get the scholarship, I don’t think I’ll be accepted to any place i apply to. If I get accepted, I don’t think I’ll be welcomed since no matter where I go, I’m a minority, and my opinions don’t want to be heard.
Apologies, I’ve been upset about this for a few days because I haven’t gotten hardly anywhere with my research, so I’m ventilating.