<p>What is (are) the best way(s) to group colleges?</p>
<p>Can someone help me group these colleges so that I can compare them better to narrow down a college list.</p>
<p>I am aware that many of these colleges are very different (which should make the grouping easier) but they all have a certain quality that I am attracted to.</p>
<p>Boston College
Brown
Cal Poly SLO
Carnegie Mellon
Chapman
William and Mary
Cornell
Duke
Harvard
Pepperdine
Reed
Scripps
Smith College
Stanford
Swarthmore
Tufts
UC Berkeley
UC Davis
UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
U Pennsylvania
U Redlands
Vassar
Wake Forest
Westmont
Whitman
Willamette
Yale</p>
<p>These two together:</p>
<p>Reed
Swarthmore</p>
<p>along with:</p>
<p>Carleton
Grinnell
Oberlin
U Chicago (not an LAC, but attracts similarly academically-oriented students)</p>
<p>your list seems a lot like mine. grouping - by location? chances of admission? size? atmosphere? </p>
<p>for example, i’d group Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD together but not UCSB. probably Smith and Scripps together, Tufts and BC maybe with Carnegie Mellon… probably Duke with Harvard and Yale and Stanford, Cornell and Brown, maybe Scripps with Pepperdine and Chapman actually…</p>
<p>Ouch, not Scripps (quite liberal) and Pepperdine (very conservative).</p>
<p>The best way to group them is by YOUR criteria. </p>
<p>For example, you have some schools on your list that <em>I</em> would consider for <em>my</em> list, were I applying, as “intellectual” and not overtly pre-professional: Swarthmore, Reed, Brown. But who knows why they are on <em>your</em> list.</p>
<p>I just want to put schools together that are considered similar. So when people say ‘I like Reed and schools that are like Reed.’ What schools would they be referring to, for example?</p>
<p>As for the liberal/conservative thing. I don’t really care. I am a “conservative” with some very liberal stances on some subjects. Plus, being a conservative and living in California means I am used to being around others with differing ideas. Plus, if everyone agrees with you what’s the fun in that? :)</p>
<p>Brown, W&M, Duke, Swarthmore, Tufts, Vassar, Wake Forest, Yale all are similar in size for undergrad (2k-6k) and have a focus on the undergrad education.</p>