Different feel of different LACs in the Northeast so we can narrow visits [English, history, visual arts, non-sports]

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We are based overseas and would like to plan a few college visits for our 10th grade child. They are currently at a New England boarding school, and both child and parents prefer for a college in the Northeast.

I’m wondering if the forum can help me get a sense of the different feel/vibe of the various LACs in the Northeast area so perhaps we can to start narrowing the visits by a bit. There are so many of them and while academically they would be comparable, I am not sure about vibe/culture/fit. We will be visiting bigger colleges/universities as well, but I feel I have a better handle/understanding of the bigger colleges.

For example, Amherst - Bowdoin - Williams - Colby - Wesleyan. Bates - Skidmore - Middlebury - Colgate - Bard. etc etc etc
How to characterize them?

Kid is definitely non STEM and non sports. They excel in English, history and visual arts. No SAT yet but probably 1450-1520 range. Not particularly passionate about 1 thing. Very good with adults and reading people.
Kid is extremely quick-witted, an acerbic comedian, popular with different circles/ethnic backgrounds. Not at all politically active and actually not very PC (as mentioned, we are based overseas).

Thank you in advance for any pointer!

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We are also based overseas. Among the schools you list, we visited Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan & Skidmore. Plus Hamilton, Conn College, Trinity, Tufts, Swarthmore, Haverford and, a little further afield, Kenyon. And a few larger schools.

Our son was looking for a neutral political climate and a focus on visual arts and art history. He wasn’t involved in team sports but looked for easy accessibility to nature and outdoorsy activities.

All of these schools lean left politically, though there is a spectrum of degree. All have excellent overall academics strong English and history programs. All have involved, nurturing professors.

The physical setting varies a lot: Williams, Hamilton and Kenyon are rural which was a plus for my son. Skidmore, Wesleyan and Amherst are in lively small towns. For urban/suburban Tufts (which also has an excellent fine arts program), Conn College, Swarthmore, Haverford and Trinity

For studio art and art history my son’s preferences were Williams (where he ended up), Wesleyan, Hamilton and Kenyon. I’d add Vassar to that list, though we didn’t visit.

Williams has 3 world-class museums on or near campus which contribute greatly to the visual arts experience. In addition to its insular mountain village environment, Williams’ other points of differentiation are Winter Study (January term) and Oxford-style tutorials.

My son had a wonderful experience at Williams and would do it again in a heartbeat.

I’m sure you know these are all highly selective schools. Be sure to add a few less selective, safeties to your visit list, even if it means going outside of your favored geographic range.

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Many of the schools being discussed are “little Ivies” (and lists of these abound online). I also suggest Colleges that Change Lives ctcl.org (see website for events)

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I’ve been to Wesleyan, Amherst, Williams, Hamilton and Bard and I have to agree with @momrath. So much depends on how “outdoorsy” your child is and there’s really a continuum leading all the way from Middlebury in a Vermont mountain village to Trinity in a bona fide urban neighborhood. Somewhere in the middle are small colleges within walking distances of lively commercial strips: Wesleyan University, Amherst, Bowdoin, Smith, and perhaps Vassar. For easier admission odds, I’d look at Dickinson, Allegheny, Oneonta and Skidmore colleges.

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Is it possible they will be a visual arts major? If so, that would impact my recommendation. I agree with momrath who said history/english will be fine at all of these schools.

I’m not sure exactly what you mean/how their behavior could manifest as ‘not very PC’ (and you don’t have to answer here)…just know that cancel culture is alive and well at many college campuses in the US.

As for discerning the vibe of some of these schools, you will get a variety of responses here. I agree with posters who said one way might be to look at location…does your kid want rural/town/city? Are they outdoorsy? Artsy? LGBTQ? Since they are not an athlete, would schools with a relatively greater athlete/non-athlete divide matter? (can impact social dynamics at small schools)

Are they only interested in LACs in the northeast?

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@merc81 I know has a post somewhere where they described many of these - their opinion of course - but has a list of them and thoughts one after one.

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I would recommend getting a copy of the Fiske guide and or The Princeton Review guidebook of colleges. Both these books offer good descriptions/overviews for you.

Also, use the resources at your child’s boarding school. The college office and school should know your child and even though it is early for their process to begin, they should be able to provide a recommendation list for visits based on your child’s interest.

Lastly, I am not sure if you meant to say your child is not PC = politically correct ? When I hear that term (maybe I am wrong), I think of someone that would speak or act inappropriately in a situation.

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There are commercial college group tours for students in 10th through 12th grades. One of these services offers a 5 or 6 day tour of 17 elite Northeastern US colleges & universities.

Might be a mistake limiting options to NE LACs as students change during high school. Might prefer a larger school or a specialty school (such as RISD).

Are you willing to share which boarding school your child attends and likes/dislikes about this current school ?

Many colleges and universities offer summer programs which can be helpful in getting to know colleges and universities in the area.

If your child is “not very PC”, then I would expand your list of schools and consider universities as well.

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I found this that @merc81 posts regularly. Not sure if helpful to you or not. Obviously it’s one person’s perspective.

Bates. Egalitarian founding principles still appear in student culture. Huge Fulbright producer in recent years. Former-mill-town Lewiston can be overlooked or embraced.

Colby. Classic LAC size. Relatively new president has added dynamism. Prominent and popular environmental studies programs. Central campus fairly far from Waterville. Winter cold suitable for the adventurous.

Middlebury. NESCAC in Grandma Moses country. Views of Adirondacks from Bicentennial Hall. Academically notable for environmental studies, languages, economics. Recent vandalism not inconsistent with an entitled segment among the student body.

Colgate. Beautiful campus, appealing small village. Beyond its popular social sciences programs, offers interesting course choices in physical sciences and humanities. Division I sports and residential Greek organizations.

Vassar. English major and performing arts veneer laid over a generally intellectual liberal arts college. New science building supports continuing academic ambitions.

Williams. Intellectually capable, academically engaged students. Noteworthy athletic presence. Excellent for visual arts. Perhaps too many economics majors. Mountains form backdrop that impressed Thoreau.

Amherst. Strong programs in areas such as literature and government, to name just two. Sufficienty deep to have changed its mascot. Consortium benefits, though with associated gender imbalances. Campus itself, excepting the new science building, might fall a bit short of rarefied academic rating.

Hamilton. Legacy of having been two colleges of complementary characteristics and emphases manifests in enhanced academic, social, architectural and spatial dimensions and balance. Beautiful campus, access to suburban amenities, proximity to Adirondacks. A writers’ college, for those who wish to enhance this skill.

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We have visited most of these schools, and my D23 attend one of them (Bates). My S26 will apply to several of them. I’ve got a niece at Colgate and a nephew at Middlebury. So I’m familiar with the landscape.

All of the schools listed trend liberal, but a few are more activist than others; these include Wesleyan and Bard. A few years ago, I would have added Skidmore to this list, but with the fairly recent popularity of their business major, I think the vibe may be moderating.

All of these schools will provide an excellent education in all three fields of interest, but Williams, Wesleyan, Bard, and Skidmore are standouts for visual art (again, all are very good). English and history will be excellent at most of them – it would be worth scanning course catalogs and department faculty listings to see if offerings fit your students’ interests, because LAC departments are small and might not have faculty representing all fields.

Is your student outdoorsy? Many of these schools have an outdoorsy vibe, based on location and active outing clubs. Bard, Wesleyan, and maybe Skidmore are the exceptions here.

Your child’s projected SAT scores would be within range for Bates, Skidmore, Bard, and possibly Wesleyan and Middlebury (others might have more accurate information than I do on this). I think they might be low for Amherst, Williams, and Bowdoin. I don’t know about the others. You might check the most recent Common Data Set for each school of interest to see, and then think about going test-optional where the scores fall below the 25th percentile for any given school.

How does your student feel about Greek culture? The Greek system is pretty important at Colgate, present but not central at Wesleyan, and not present at any other schools on your list.

Most of these schools are very reachy (depending on GPA, Bard and Skidmore could be more in the target range). I would recommend you add some others to balance your list. Consider Conn College, Trinity, Dickinson, Kenyon, Lafayette, and maybe William and Mary (which is not Northeast but might otherwise have the vibe you’re looking for). Other reach schools that would be worth considering: Hamilton, Vassar (very liberal vibe, but otherwise checks a lot of boxes), and Tufts.

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My niece and nephew attended Amherst.

Great school. The social scene is usually centered around parties. The parties have a social chair, by different sports teams.

If you dont know an athlete, you may not get invited. Kind of like high school where the athletes are the popular kids.

Even if you’re not an athlete or friends with athletes, you can obviously still make friends. It’s just easier if you are part of that crowd.

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My sons went to northeast boarding schools, and did not want to replicate that experience (although they loved their high schools) in college. To them, attending a small idyllic school in the northeast was too similar to BS. They went to different prts of the country for college. Another aspect to consider, if you haven’t already.

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I’d add another vote for at least looking outside the Northeast in parallel. It would be a shame to me to rule out a potentially great fit just because it was in a different region.

And one observation is the percentage of athletes tends to be higher at least for the NESCAC LACs. This is a bit of a complex subject but you can look at the chart here and get an idea what I am talking about:

Important Northeast exceptions, though, could include women’s colleges, and also non-NESCAC colleges like Vassar, and finally Wesleyan (which is just bigger so the percentage is lower).

But then the question is would those specific Northeast colleges be good fits for other reasons? Maybe, maybe not. On the plus side, it would not be a problem finding such a college strong in HASS (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, to contrast with STEM). But would the sociopolitical culture be a good fit? I don’t want to prejudge it, but it at least sounds like a question given the description.

Of course most of the secular LACs outside of the Northeast also skew pretty liberal compared to the US general population. But the culture surrounding the discussion of sociopolitical issues might, or might not, feel a little different.

As a final thought, if even something below the Mason-Dixon line or out in the Great Lakes sounds too far, maybe non-coastal Pennsylvania? There are quite a few interesting LACs scattered through the state, and some might be a good fit. Just a thought.

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Thank you for all the helpful and thoughtful replies.

We will absolutely be looking at more targets (always the most difficult category!) and safeties as well as bigger colleges. College counselling starts in junior year at kid’s school, so we will be be able to start with a list then. But I’m hoping we can start visiting this semester when I am in the US.

We are very comfortable with left leaning schools, as most boarding schools are anyways. But from my quick read, Sarah Lawrence, Oberlin, Vassar might be all the way left for kid. And perhaps now from this thread, Wesleyan as well.

Kid will not be majoring in visual arts. Not particularly passionate about English or History, but just naturally excels in it and visual arts. They don’t know what they want to major in at all. This is mostly why I’m thinking LAC might be the way to go since teaching is more high quality and personal; I’m hoping kid will find their path in this environment.

We are an international family and somehow feel more comfortable in the Northeast, which is why this initial search/list is more focused in that area.

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The college counselors at your student’s New England boarding school should be helpful. They will have a good sense of how students do admissions wise who are like your kid. I would value their advice.

As noted, some kids at boarding schools want a somewhat different experience in college. Others don’t care. Where does your student want to be?

In addition to touring the LACs, I would suggest looking at a couple of somewhat larger colleges, just so your student sees them.

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OP said this - “both child and parents prefer for a college in the Northeast.”

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THIS is what I was talking about.

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That makes sense, so consider this suggestion purely optional. But you could pick like one major Great Lakes hub and do a few LAC visits around there.

Like, Minneapolis/St Paul is often recommended around here, for a couple reasons. First, the Twin Cities are great–fun, diverse, globally-connected, and so on. Second, there is a nice selection of LACs in or near them, including Macalester right in the heart of the Twin Cities, and Carleton and St Olaf in Northfield, which is only like 45 minutes out of town (and there are more, but this is just a few favorites around here).

OK, so you do a visit, and maybe you like the Twin Cities, at least one of those clicks, and now you have at least one more region to maybe explore a bit more. Or it is a total bust, and you can never think about the region again. But now you know.

By the way, I don’t know if you are checking out larger public research universities, but the University of Minnesota is also very appealing to some kids, sometimes to their surprise, so could be part of such a trip as well.

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Disagree, but it depends upon the individual schools under consideration.

Students in honors colleges at large public universities get lots of individualized attention from profs if so desired; plus they get special mentoring and counseling in many honors college programs.

Private National Universities have outstanding professors and individual attention is available to those who want it.

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OP also said this. Other than the NE, they’re not sure yet. It’s why they are looking.