<p>@MYOS, I tried to privately message you. Have you received them? :)</p>
<p>I think Swarthmore, Reed and LAC’s in general are OP’s best options for entry at age 16. Columbia and NYU both have older student bodies than most universities and are poor choices.</p>
<p>I don’t know about NYU, but that’s not true of Columbia. Columbia College and SEAS students are regular college-aged students, aged 17-19 when they enter and 21-23 when they graduate. The School of General Studies does admit non-traditional students who average age 29, but there are only 1600 of them compared to 6,000 undergraduates in CC and SEAS (and an additional 2500 at Barnard). The average age at CC, SEAS, and Barnard is 20.</p>
<p>Also, GS students tend to be less involved in the campus life as many of them have families and jobs. My husband (28) is a GS student in the Columbia marching band and I’m pretty sure he is the <em>only</em> GS student in the marching band.</p>
<p>The average age of NYU students is 21. That indicates a pretty traditional-aged student body.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>To OP - a 25 on the ACT isn’t very promising for the top colleges you are looking at like Swarthmore and Yale.</p>
<p>If you are interested in the New York area, why not consider some of the City University of New York (CUNY) colleges? Hunter College is a relatively large (15,000 students) public college; Lehman College is a more medium-sized (10,000 undergrads) college; and City College is sort of in between (13,000 undergrads). I recommend them because their non-resident tuition is a bit cheaper than most public universities’ (around $15,000/year) for a full-time student taking 15 credits per semester. Your ACT score also falls within their accepted student ranges. These schools are actually quite selective, with acceptance rates in the 25-35% range. City College actually has a quite beautiful campus with a mix of old and and modern architecture in the Harlem/Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, and Lehman has an attractive campus in the Bronx. (Hunter’s on the Upper East Side and is more a collection of buildings.)</p>
<p>If you want a more iconic campus in a suburban area (with a lower cost of living), you may be interested in some State University of New York campuses in the NYC metro area:</p>
<p>SUNY Binghamton: in upstate New York, a couple hours from the city but a great university. Medium-sized at about 12,000 students. Total costs for an international student is $35,000/year.</p>
<p>SUNY New Paltz: A beautiful campus in suburban New Paltz, about 1.5 hours driving north of New York. About 6,000 students. Their cost of attendance for internationals is pretty low, around $26,000, because it’s pretty cheap to live on-campus in New Paltz. </p>
<p>SUNY Purchase: Purchase is a medium-sized college about one hour north of NYC and the CoA is about $29,000.</p>
<p>SUNY College at Old Westbury: A liberal arts college type place on Long Island, a suburb of New York. CoA around $28,000.</p>
<p>At all of those places, your ACT scores fall within the middle 50% range of accepted students.</p>
<p>If you want to be competitive for Yale and Swarthmore, you need to raise your ACT score to a 30 at the very least, and better to have a 32.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I know you said you wanted co-ed colleges, but I really think you should consider some women’s colleges. Many of them will give you exactly what you want (a good philosophy major, the beautiful campus in a suburban area) while being a little bit more attainable as far as application goes, and may offer you just as good financial aid. For example, Bryn Mawr is in the same consortium with Swarthmore, which means you can take classes there and socialize with the Swat kids. But while Swarthmore has a 17% acceptance rate, Bryn Mawr has a 40% acceptance rate and your ACT score is not that far below their middle 50% range.</p>
<p>Similarly, Smith College and Mount Holyoke are in a consortium with Hampshire and Amherst Colleges. Amherst is the most selective - it’s quite similar to Swarthmore, with a 14% acceptance rate I think. Smith’s and Mount Holyoke’s are both 42%. But they’re both great schools with great financial aid and you can socialize with the men at Amherst, Hampshire, and UMass.</p>
<p>(Actually, Hampshire is another great liberal arts college you should probably apply to; your test scores fall in their range, and it’s the kind of artsy, very liberal college that would appeal to a potential philosophy major. Every student at Hampshire builds their own major.)</p>
<p>Thank you so, so much! I will look into the schools you’ve listed above. I’ve already starting considering women colleges like Agnes Scott, Bryn Mawr, etc. The last time I would be taking ACT/SAT is around August/September, I think.</p>
<p>Off-topic: My Science and Reading dragged my scores down for ACT. I read really, really slowly. Any tips? 
Also, I’m looking for an adult who could mark my essays and give me opinions, although I’d look for my English teacher as well. Thank you.</p>
<p>Bump.</p>
<p>My teacher told me that in America and outsiders alike, LACs are consider as a “soft choice” because it is the last resort of a student who cannot get into Universities. I do not know whether it is true that LACs are highly looked down upon. Anybody has any replies to that?</p>
<p>Your teacher is wrong. o_O</p>
<p>Students who get into Yale and also get into Amherst have a hard choice. And Yale isn’t the one to win every time, far from it. Students who get into their state flagship and a good LAC also have a hard choice to make and depending on majors &financial aid, the choice is not obvious at all.</p>
<p>Your teacher may be confusing community colleges and LACs…</p>
<p>I really do hope so. He thinks that doing a General Ed would be much worse than doing a specific major, but I really don’t see myself dedicating 100% to major specifically on Philosophy. I plan to take Extra-curricular activities and Astronomy (if I can) and other classes for the joy of knowledge. (He went to UC:Berkeley and insists on his beliefs) Although he is extremely nice, I wish he was not so strongly-opinionated. He wants to personally go and find articles for me to look at.</p>
<p>Your teacher doesn’t understand how colleges work in the US. I don’t understand how he can have attended UCBerkeley and not know about distribution requirements, since they certainly exist at UCB too! No student would be considered well-educated if they didn’t take classes in a variety of subjects to allow them to write and speak well on a variety of topics, and if they only knew about one subject.</p>
<p>Could it be your teacher went to Berkeley for grad school only?
Because in grad school, indeed, you only pursue one subject - the purpose of grad school is to make you a specialist of that subject and an expert who creates knowledge in that subject.</p>
<p>In the US, ALL students have to take general education classes - even students in “technical” majors such as engineering and nursing. You CANNOT take just classes in one subject, regardless of college, and typically you declare your major during your sophomore year (you will take 2 philosophy classes during your first year, and 6-8 other classes, whether you attend Harvard or a state school… of course, the level and depth of the classes will differ.)
[Degree</a> Requirements & Policies | College of Letters & Science](<a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=undergraduate/degree-requirements-policies]Degree”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=undergraduate/degree-requirements-policies)
[Homepage</a> § Program in General Education](<a href=“http://www.generaleducation.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do]Homepage”>http://www.generaleducation.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do)</p>
<p>Schools such as Reed and UChicago have a stronger set of couses called a Core Curriculum with compulsory classes and readings for all students although pathways may be different depending on students.
<a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/core.shtml[/url]”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/core.shtml</a></p>
<p>Let him look for articles as it’s unlikely he’ll find many that state students just enter college and major in something with 100% classes in that subject. 
Note that even if you could, I would NOT advise that for a philosophy major.</p>
<p>Seek out UCAlumnus: I’m sure he’ll confirm that as an undergraduate at UCB, you MUST take general education classes and distribution requirements. :)</p>
<p>Yes, he did go for Grad School. I think he is messing up Undergrad with Graduate. (I don’t know, really. It’s very confusing since it’s been a long time since he graduated and he doesn’t really bother explaining all these things.) </p>
<p>Recently, I’ve also been referred to UWC-USA which is entrance by scholarship to do IB. There were students in my school who were accepted into UWC’s scholarship programme. I might just apply for it during September and see how it goes. :/</p>
<p>UWC is a superb opportunity: you attend school with students from all over the world and once you graduate you’re guaranteed a scholarship for college. I think one of the most interesting ones would be the one in the Balkans.</p>