I’m planning on transferring from my current LAC for my sophomore year for a number of reasons including academics, political and social scene. I don’t feel challenged here (my high school was significantly harder), my desired major isn’t as strong as I wanted, and campus feels cramped/repetitive. I want to do something with environmental studies, which concentration isn’t clear atm (maybe a mathematics or public health emphasis?). I still want the advantage of small class sizes, a few lecture-sized classes would be ok, but small classes help me engage, and I’d like a more politically conscious/active student body. And somewhere with a more urban campus next to or near a city. If the college is in a city, I’d prefer it has its own enclosed campus.
My current rough list of schools I’m looking at are Macalester, Pomona, Santa Clara, Brown, Cornell, UWisconsin-Madison, Northwestern
Each has its own drawbacks, but each would also satisfy at least one of the things my current college lacks
If you have any suggestions or comments on my current list please help! I’d appreciate it a lot
What gender do you identify as? Some women’s colleges would do for you.
Also Swarthmore fits your rigor requirements, near a city.
You may want to try consortium schools in addition to Pomona.
- The Quaker consortium includes Swarrthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr and UPenn
- The 5-college consortium includes Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, and UMass Amherst
If the rigor of one doesn’t suit you, then one ore more of the other schools might.
You might look into Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). I think it fits your criteria except I don’t think the student body would be particularly socially conscious. It is a science/engineering school. Beautiful campus in a nice part of Worcester, which is completely renovating a tired, old downtown, and is generally gentrifying. It is an hour or so to Boston by commuter train.
It has a very hands-on, project-oriented approach. For example, the vast majority of freshmen do team projects, which are their classes, including things like Housing the World, Feeding the World, Water for the World, that type of thing. It’s on a quarter system, and students take 3 classes at a time. Lots of these are projects, and students do lots of internship/coop things as well. It’s ranked #61 in USNWR national university rankings. We know of someone who transferred there from an Ivy after freshman year and had a fantastic experience and a dream job in environmental work the day they graduated.
https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan
If you are female, you might look at Wellesley, which I think would meet all your criteria. It’s a stunning campus in a nice suburban town a little outside Boston. We know a student who went there, loved it, and also was able to take several classes at MIT. I also like the consortium idea, especially the five-college consortium, with Smith and Mount Holyoke maybe being good choices. Smith is in Northampton, which is a neat college town. Only drawback for these is that they are not very near a major city.
Good luck!
By the way, I think you have some terrific schools on your list.
Thank you all! I like the idea of being in a consortium because I think it will make the school feel bigger and give a bigger database for research, but I’ll still have all the benefits of a small college like small classes and close relations with professor. I’ll definitely look into those more. I identify as female, so I’ll probably look more into Wellesley. Swarthmore would definitely help with the academic rigor, but I think I’d find the same kind of repetitive, bubble type of student life there
Maybe also Brandeis. I think that fits your criteria all the way round.
You may want take a closer look at the WPI option suggested by TTG.
TTG has already suggested an overview of this unusual program @ https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan
Departments and programs are discussed at https://www.wpi.edu/academics/arts-sciences/departments-programs. The Arts-Sciences division offers the greatest flexibility. The Accrediting Board of Engineering technology (ABET) requires a stricter format for the engineering accredited degrees. If you pursued Environmental Engineering in the Civil Engineering department (an ABET program), you would have less flexibility than the environmental studies option in the Arts & Sciences division.
A Public Health Minor described at https://www.wpi.edu/academics/study/global-health-minor. U Mass med school works closely with many WPI programs.
Students are actually mentored to a program of studies which emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of real world problem solutions. To help solve these problems, WPI has over 40 project centers scattered around the world as described at https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/global-project-program.
As a STEM university, the student body is very comfortable with a wide variety of mathematics applications.
WPI belongs to a consortium of 11 colleges, but cross registration with WPI is limited by the university’s schedule of seven week terms whereas Holy Cross and Clark University are on the more typical semester systems. The heavy projects research scheduling require the greater flexibility of seven week terms. Each seven week course covers three traditional semester credit hours. Typically students cover 18 semester hours of work every 14 weeks. This does not eliminate cross registration, but does make it more difficult to schedule.
The seven week terms have been described as “drinking from a fire hose,” but 82% of the students still manage to graduate within four years. In the STEM university world, this is a very good record!
About 1/3 of transfer applicants are accepted.
Worcester is the second largest City in New England, but WPI has a well landscaped campus.of its own. Forty-four percent of the entering class were female this year (a new high), but it is not Wellesley College. You don’t need to travel to Boston to meet your date.
Brandeis is also a very good suggestion @ http://www.brandeis.edu/
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Hi–I agree with your comments about consortia. Wellesley has cross reg with MIT, BTW. It might be a good choice for you. But transferring in has been rough in recent years. Maybe look at their common data set, the D section for transfers, to see the stats on that. And you never know if they will take you until you try, right?
As for the consortia, Swarthmore attracts people who seem more overtly competitive intellectually in nature and very “clever” if you will, IMO if I had to sum things up. That can feel exciting to some people (and to others they don’t want that competitive feel, so it’s a matter of taste.) My understanding of Swarthmore also is that of the four schools in that consortium, it feels the most separated from the others. When we visited, it didn’t seem to have any little town area to walk out to. It has buses to the other schools, but buses from there are 1/2 hour from the other schools. Haverford and Bryn Mawr the bus takes maybe 5 minutes in comparison. Also Swarthmore to UPenn distance is by bus. Haverford/Bryn Mawr distance to UPenn is by train and feels more established and easy to access. Haverford/Bryn mawr have a long history of sharing campus facilities and basically integrating their programs, though they are separated by about a mile or two. The atmosphere at the two schools also is less overtly competitive, even though the classes are rigorous. Again, your decision will be a matter of taste and I’m giving you information only.
If you’re interested in getting out of a bubble of one school, then you may want to consider Smith or Mt. Holyoke or Amherst. That consortium has free buses to the campuses. The schools have more varied feels to them, different personalities, which may allow you more of a choice. Smith is in Northampton and has access to the little shops there more easily than the others. It’s more overtly political, has a lot of cute white clapboard buildings, manicured campus in a country-club style. Amherst is in a tiny little town, cute, also very rigorous academics. Mt. H is more distant, grand architecture and more wild-looking woods and an equestrian program, a homey feel and serves cookies in the evenings in the dorms, for example. Hampshire has a 1960s feel to its approach–asking why the paradigm is the paradigm. Lifting things up and look underneath. Ask the questions you’re not supposed to ask, that sort of thing. Testing things from all angles, And you will see your share of kids going barefoot and dying their hair various colors.
Another consortium that might interest you, extremely rigorous academics, is in California, the Claremont Consortium. Scripps is a women’s college there. The colleges are a 5-min WALK from each other. Again, they have different personalities, but because of the distance I’m not sure if you’d get out of the little bubble you were describing.
Best of luck to you.
I second the Clarmont consortium, but it looks like you have Pomona on your list already.