<p>Have you considered Brown?</p>
<p>I attended Penn as a graduate student and it certainly will be considered in the city of Philly to most. It’s not like Columbia but far, far different from NU which I also attended.</p>
<p>Brown University
Cornell University
Duke University
Georgetown University
Rice University
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Pennsylvania
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University</p>
<p>“Diversity in the student body is also very important for me, and I would prefer to go to a school where students are very liberal…”</p>
<p>You’ll have a great future as an executive at NPR.</p>
<p>Who keeps pulling up these two year old threads thinking the OP is still waffling??</p>
<p>I second both the Duke and Rice suggestions. I have attended both, and both seem to fit your criteria, especially Rice (even though it is in Houston, BUT Houston has A LOT to offer). I never thought I would go to college in Texas and always thought of Texas as a backwards state, but I grew to love Texas by the end of my first year at Rice… so don’t rule Rice out based on the location. I wish I could have stayed at Rice longer but Duke offered a better program for my major (environmental science).</p>
<p>Thread is two years old. And Rice is not on the East Coast.</p>