Cornell --> Yale + Brown + Williams + ???

monydad
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 16:00:45 +0000

Also fwiw, some of your preferences may be working at cross-purposes.

The schools my family has experience with suggest to me that proximity to a large city can be inversely related, in a causal way, to a college’s sense of community.

And the LACs I am most familiar with that are not in cities do not have all that much, relatively speaking going on around them. Their communities are too small. The worst combination, seems to me, is small school + small locale.

From these perspectives, a mid- size school in a small collegetown/city can be a good compromise/balance vs. some of the competing features you’re looking for. Like Cornell. [Though perhaps less like Cornell in some other respects].

Another thing to keep in mind, you are not liking the class sizes now, but come senior year you may appreciate the breadth of the course catalog, and the depth of advanced courses/areas you can pursue in, and related to, your major(s). Keep that in mind too, particularly as you consider LACs. It would be unfortunate if you arranged things such that you experience the worst aspects of each environment.