<p>Looking for recommendations of schools in the 5,000 student range for nerdy son with good grades, good test scores, and very few ECs. No religiously-affiliated schools. I’ve looked, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.</p>
<p>University of Rochester</p>
<p>Don’t overlook the Claremont College Consortium. While each individual college has under 2000 students, when you add up the student population at the five colleges, you come up with just over 5000. Many of the departments share facilities, so the consortium acts like a medium-sized university. </p>
<p><a href=“The Claremont Colleges Services – The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS) is the central coordinating and support organization for a highly regarded cluster of seven independent colleges known as The Claremont Colleges located in Southern California.”>The Claremont Colleges Services – The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS) is the central coordinating and support organization for a highly regarded cluster of seven independent colleges known as The Claremont Colleges located in Southern California.;
<p>Including grad students?</p>
<p>Brandeis (~3200 undergrads / ~1900 grads)
Rice (3700 / 2400)
Wake Forest (4400 / 2400)
Tufts (5000 / 4400)
Elon (5200 / 700)
Wm & Mary (6K / 2100)</p>
<p>Maybe Wake, but they could be more EC-oriented and, perhaps, a little too social for someone like your son–but no offense intended, of course. What are those good grades/test scores?</p>
<p>Case Western Reserve University</p>
<p>It’s true: more details would help. Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth et al…they all have UG bodies about the size you want. But of course they tend to put more emphasis on ECs, which is why I didn’t mention them. That, and the fact that they are obvious choices.</p>
<p>Few ECs is not a problem, depending on what they are and the level of involvement. Grades and scores…it depends how good is good.</p>
<p>SecondToGo literally thumbed through a college guide a picked out every mid-sized school in his target states … interestingly there are not a lot schools this size compared to either smaller LACs or large universities. (I agree it’s a very appealing school size)</p>
<p>Very interesting post on school size. I have one at Wake Forest and one headed to Elon - so clearly - we like the 5000 undergrad size. Very hard to find - plenty around 2500 and smaller - plenty of large universities - that 5000 size is a challenge. We also considered William and Mary for S1. </p>
<p>I would also suggest that size not be too much of a defining limit. A student who is happy with 5000 students would probably be fine expanding it a bit to 3000 - 9000 - so as to have more options.</p>
<p>Flying in the blind on finances, many LACs. Lack of a long EC list can be overcome by good grades and scores.</p>
<p>Denison, Reed (you have to write a great “Why Reed” essay), Lewis and Clark…</p>
<p>I wish there were more schools this size, as it is a nice spot between big and small. Almost all of the schools of this size I’ve found in the northeast are either Catholic affiliated or super selective (e.g. many of the Ivies). </p>
<p>Some exceptions:
The College of New Jersey - public LAC
Marist College - formerly Catholic, no longer religiously affiliated
Lehigh</p>
<p>Also:
WashU in St. Louis is about 6000 undergrad students, but very selective.
Bucknell is a larger LAC in PA, about 3500 students</p>
<p>How about Carnegie Mellon? It has just over 6000 undergrads.</p>
<p>U Chicago - </p>
<p>5,388 students in the College (undergrad)
6,928 graduate students</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions; and yes, the Ivies that fit that size are obvious. Rochester is on the list. I hadn’t realized William & Mary was around that size–for some reason I thought it was smaller. The exact number of students obviously isn’t the issue. Looking for something a little bigger than a SLAC, with greater depth in departments (he’s interested in, among other things, classics, linguistics, and computer science), but not a huge school and not teaching by graduate students. Carnegie Mellon is interesting, because it would be perfect socially and for computer science, but it doesn’t offer classics.</p>
<p>GPA 3.9 uw (out of 4.0) and while he will take the SAT in June, based on PSAT and his sister’s experience, I’m guessing it will come in at about 2300.</p>
<p>I know some people take classics and other languages at Pitt, but I don’t know that I would choose CMU if classics were important to me. My younger son with similar requirements was willing to consider Vassar as a larger than usual LAC.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you mean by very few ECs. My older son did Science Olympiad, Academic Team at school and lots of stuff with computers (freelance work and fun stuff) at home. My younger son did orchestra and Science Olympiad at school, and was on the literary magazine senior year only because his friends were. At home he made origami earrings and sold them at a local gallery - mostly for the holidays. That was it. No sports, no real leadership. </p>
<p>Other places to look at: SUNY Geneseo (possible safety), Colgate, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins. American is the right size, but probably not the best fit for those majors.</p>
<p>" . . . not teaching by graduate students . . . "</p>
<p>The 5,000-student colleges are mainly part of private universities, and almost all of them will be making significant use of graduate student TAs. The elite private university world is almost entirely between 4,000 and 7,000 undergraduates.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins should be on your list.</p>
<p>You may want to look at Ithaca College, too – a LAC on steroids, with about 6,000 students. And in a small city with a LOT of college students – one of the great college towns of the U.S.</p>
<p>Another college in the 5,000 - 6,000 undergrad range is Georgetown. The OP stated no religiously affiliated schools but we have found through our son that the religious life is very independent of the academic programs. There are many options but no religious requirements other than the two theology courses that are part of the general core requirements in the college. Georgetown does offer programs and majors in the classics and computer science/math. Their language and linguistics programs are one of the top programs in the country. We weren’t looking at religiously affiliated schools either and were quite surprised and pleased with what we found at Georgetown.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins is on the list, but will have to reconsider Georgetown. It may be a tad too urban, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a very good possibility. Thanks, AvonHSDad.</p>
<p>Few ECs = JETS, Science Olympiad, some chess tournaments in 9th grade (the HS doesn’t have a chess team). But really his primary activity is dungeon master for a D&D group of college kids and adults, along with Magic the Gathering.</p>
<p>If you have not already, I would go through the Fiske Guide. It won’t take long. They list the enrollment for each school featured. Pull out those with a size and location you like. The odds of anyone suggesting a school for your son not in the Fiske guide is slim and none. I have found the Fiske summary/description of each school to be pretty accurate. </p>
<p>For example, Case Western Reserve, not a good place to find a date for Friday (alot more men than women) but a great place to be if your laptop breaks down at 2am and you need help recovering the data.</p>
<p>My son’s main EC is competing in Magic the Gathering tournaments. Most ‘nerdy’ colleges have Magic clubs.</p>
<p>Try looking up a list of National Masters Universities, to see if any meet your other criteria. These universities only offer programs wiith terminal masters degrees, rather than PhD’s. They’ll have the undergraduate liberal arts college plus several grad schools such as Law, Business or other professions where the highest degree in the field is a masters.</p>
<p>Sometimes at a National Masters university, the combined number of undergrad and grad (masters) students equals around 5,000.</p>