Hi! I’m a senior and I’m looking at mostly liberal arts colleges at this point. I plan to go to graduate school for vocal performance, but for undergrad, the school I attend doesn’t need to be juilliard caliber. I’m just mainly looking for decent faculty, ensembles, and performance opportunities. However, the feel of the school is more important to me-I want the students to be friendly and open-minded, and I’m looking for a beautiful campus that feels like a park. In terms of weather, I was thinking just warmer places at first, but I think I might enjoy rural new england weather as well. Here’s my list right now: Vassar, St. Olaf, Pomona, Williams, Davidson, Duke, Bowdoin, Colby, Bates, Richmond, Wake Forest, Hamilton, and Skidmore. I’m not really looking for any more suggestions at this point, I’m simply wondering if anyone has feedback about the general feel of these schools. Thanks!
For a subjective (naturally) assessment of campus aesthetics see: “The 25 Most Beautiful College Campuses in America” / Thrillist (available online). From your list, Hamilton and St. Olaf are included. Regarding music, I’ve heard particularly good things about Hamilton’s department recently.
Of the schools I’ve visited on your list, St. Olaf, Bates, and Hamilton have the prettiest campuses IMO. St. Olaf sounds like a good fit in terms of music/vocal performance. It’s famous for its choirs!
Oberlin is beautiful and has a great conservatory.
Most LACs are like that, more or less.
One that often shows up high on “most beautiful campus” lists is Colgate. Some of the women’s colleges (such as Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke) also tend to rank high. I think all the ones on the OP’s list would be more than acceptable in this respect.
Bowdoin is very pretty - definitely feels like a park.
“I think all the ones on the OP’s list would be more than acceptable in this respect [aesthetics].”
The OPs schools vary so widely in their architecture that I don’t think this would be the case, particularly since architecture often expresses the period within which it was designed and constructed. Nineteenth Century buildings constitute the core quadrangle of several of these campuses, but some were built at various other times. Colby’s contruction, for example, began in the 1930’s; Skidmore is essentially a 1970’s campus. And on the older campuses, differences can be found in scale, relation to the natural landscape, and particularly in the degree of success with which newer buildings have been integrated with the older ones.
You say you aren’t looking for suggestions but I am miffed. Oberlin probably fits your wish list most perfectly. Bowdoin is beautiful but I found it dark. Swarthmore and Haverford should also be on your list. Swarthmore is actually an arboretum and looks amazing in the spring. Flowers and blooms everywhere. Petals fall like gentle snow and the fragrance is magnificent.
I’ll second Bowdoin. My wife and I checked it out on our way from Boston to Bar Harbor this past summer. It’s a pretty little campus with some cool buildings and a neat statue of a bear. One of the cool buildings is home to an Arctic (or Antarctic?) museum.
You don’t want more choices, but if you’re thinking of Vassar you should also look at Bard, which definitely qualifies for the ‘like a park’ criteria. Fantastic music department - in the college (that’s where undergrad vocal performance is taught.) And then there’s Dawn Upshaw’s graduate Vocal Arts Program with concerts and master classes you could attend. As a singer you would audition your sophomore year (moderation) into the track. Know that not everyone is accepted but, if not, you could continue with a general music degree and still take lessons and perform in vocal ensembles.
Thanks everyone! The reason I’m not looking at Oberlin is because of how gray and cold the weather is-my dad lived in Cleveland and said the weather was absolutely miserable. I’m honestly debating whether I’m generally okay with cold (New England) weather right now, but I definitely want there to be some sun.
If you don’t like gray and cold, maybe New England isn’t for you? Boston gets pretty gray and cold in winter, and I’m sure Maine does too. New York, too.
The problem is most of the good schools seem to be in New England
Oberlin’s position on a Great Lake serves to take the edge off of the extremes of winter. Oberlin’s average January low temperature is 10 degrees warmer than Waterville, Maine’s, for example. Latitude is a factor as well, of course.
(Sperling’s.)
@AmeliaCharlotte the other issue with Oberlin is that, as a singer, you would, most likely, want to enroll in the conservatory and that is an admit for vocal performance just about as difficult as Juilliard.
You should also pose this question on the Music Major Forum where there are many many knowledgeable vocal performance posters.
if you want to know about some top LACs in the South and out West, here are some:
Pomona/Harvey Mudd/Claremont McKenna/Scripps/Pitzer (Claremont Colleges)
Washington & Lee
Davidson
Reed
Whitman
Sewanee
Occidental
Iowa is not as cold as Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michigan or northern New England, and it’s probably sunnier than Boston. So – you could look into Grinnell College too. Great school.
Furman.
Richmond definitely fits your needs. Campus is absolutely gorgeous and, while the music department may not be one of the top in the country, the voice studios in particular are excellent, along with the choir, schola cantorum. You’d also probably have a shot of becoming a Richmond Artist Scholar (if you apply by the Dec 1st deadline), which is full tuition. People from the UR music department have attended grad school (just off the top of my head) in competitive programs at NYU Steinhardt, UCLA, NYU Tisch, and Eastman. Let me know if you have any questions about the school.
These schools do represent several distinct architectural styles. Pomona ^= Vassar ^= Amherst. Colleges in the OP’s list were built over periods of 100 to 200 years or more, so architectural style can vary even among the buildings on a single campus (although a certain style such as Mission, Gothic, or Georgian predominates at least in the old core buildings of many of them). For my money (to the extent I’m familiar with them from visits or from pictures & descriptions), I think all of them could meet a basic “beautiful campus that feels like a park” standard (so I’d be inclined to look for other distinguishing features.)
Most kids prolly would suck it up and deal with the difference between azaleas & wisteria, or brick v. limestone, if it meant a better academic fit or lower costs.
However, if campus beauty is a major factor, and you’re fairly particular in your tastes, then there is no good substitute for college visits. You may find in some cases that you feel one way about the campus but a different way about the surrounding town or the dorms.
As for weather, Weather Underground has good data on mean monthly min temperatures and such for many cites (including Northfield MN and Saratoga Springs NY).
OP wanted
- “Feels like a Park”
- “Music”
- “Warm weather”
Of course, all fit the third criteria, but they only ones that fit the first two would be Pomona and Scripps.