<p>I am super indecisive: thoughts!?</p>
<p>Well, to start with, realize that all five are academically great. None of them is going to limit your success – it’s going to depend on you, much more than on which of those colleges you wind up at. There are real differences among them, but they are real differences of style much more than of substance, and the question is which style fits you best? Also, the economics of each of them deserve careful attention (and discussion with your parents, if their money or credit is involved).</p>
<p>That said, how about starting with Sesame Street? One of those things is not like the others. Actually, each of those things is not like the others, depending on which lens you use to look at them.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Wesleyan is large for a LAC, but it’s still a LAC, and in a small town that’s at least a 90-minute drive (if you have a car) from any city as substantial as the cities any of your other choices are in. It’s intimate, friendly, full of passionate, fun students. If what you really want is the LAC experience, it’s your first choice by far (with Chicago probably a distant second, and McGill dead last. Same if you want to make movies in Hollywood, by the way.</p></li>
<li><p>McGill is a large public university in one of the coolest – in both senses of the word – cities in the hemisphere. People can have very different experiences there. My daughter’s BFF went there – choosing it over two Ivy acceptances to save money – and had a nearly-perfect experience, one that culminated in acceptances to two of the top PhD programs in her field. She loved her classes, loved Montreal, loved everything about it. Other people I know have found it cold (in the third sense of “cool”) and bureaucratic (it is), and had trouble dealing with the massive, impersonal introductory classes and the sometimes-checked-out classmates. There are world-class professors there, but unlike the professors at Wesleyan they aren’t going to reach out to you; you have to go to them. In other words, it’s a large public university, and you have to take responsibility for getting the best out of it and avoiding the worst. It will help if you like French (although many people go through McGill without learning more than a few phrases) and you want to live in a very European city. Also, if you appreciate a place where the drinking age is 18. And you are willing to negotiate cross-border issues. And it’s not going to depress you that lots of people you know don’t recognize McGill as a world-famous university, which it is.</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago and Hopkins are more similar, probably, than any other pair in your set. The differences between them are probably pretty obvious. Baltimore vs. Chicago (Chicago wins by a mile, but Baltimore is interesting, and may be a lot closer to places you want to be). East Coast vs. Middle Coast. No core vs. core. Lots of pre-meds vs. anti-pre-professional atmosphere. Division I lacrosse vs. club lacrosse. I think Chicago has a stronger faculty in most fields, but there are some where Hopkins may win, including bio-med engineering (and any kind of engineering, of course), creative writing (Hopkins may have the best undergraduate program anywhere), international relations.</p></li>
<li><p>Vandy is The Traditional American College Experience – strong frats, big-time sports, very social – in a way none of the others is. It’s a fine university, although probably better known for the quality of its students than the quality of its faculty (which is not to say the faculty is poor, just that it’s not as strong across the board as Chicago or Hopkins). Smart preppies, generally more Southern than not. It has intellectuals, but no one has ever said it has an intellectual atmosphere. Nashville is totally cool, in completely different ways than Chicago or Montreal.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So you have five pretty different choices, all of them great, actually. I understand that you may not be sure what you want, but I think if you pay attention to your gut you will have a sense which one is going to work best with your life. </p>
<p>(And that includes cost, of course. I wouldn’t choose one over the others based on a small price difference, but $4-5,000/year difference can be really, really meaningful if you have to borrow it, so take that into account in deciding where you fit best. And when you are looking at cost, make certain to look at transportation and housing costs. They aren’t going to make a huge difference all by themselves, but may affect the differences among options. Montreal and Middletown are going to cost more to get to than the others unless you live close by. At Vandy, Chicago, and McGill you are probably going to spend a number of years living off campus, at rents cheaper than the dorms.)</p>
<p>What is the net costs at each?</p>
<p>What can your family afford?</p>
<p>I have little to add to JHS’s description, except that you may want to factor post-graduation plans into your decision.</p>
<p>A better question is, what are you majoring in (and planning to do, if you know)?</p>