What are the names of some colleges who always try to put their own twists on things, in order to differentiate themselves from the “rest”? In other words, I’m looking for a college that seems to always encourage new ideas and new ways of thinking, but are willing to show it in everything they do.
I know this question may seem vague, but for example, I personally like University of Chicago right now. Their essay prompts are fun, quirky, and interesting (“Find X”). They also send me artistic and creative postcards, like my name spelled out in pictures. From an information session that I attended, I received overall a very good vibe, and when one of their admissions counselor came to our school, he was very open and especially funny.
If anybody could please help me out; I’m saying thanks in advance.
Are you talking about advertising, or about the curriculum? For the latter I’d suggest Marlboro, College of the Atlantic, Hampshire, and Colorado College.
Bard, Pitzer, Sarah Lawrence, New College of Florida, Warren Wilson College, Reed, Goucher, College of Creative Studies at UCSB, Bennington, Eugene Lang College at New School, St. John’s College (either Santa Fe or Annapolis) . . . for Arts & Media/Communications, Emerson . . . for STEM, Harvey Mudd or Olin . . .
On the curriculum standpoint, one can look at open curriculum versus lots of requirements / core curriculum. The extremes among four year schools in the US appear to be:
Evergreen State: no requirements for the BA degree other than completion of 180 quarter credit units (a typical number of credit units since 1 quarter unit = 2/3 semester unit).
St. John’s College: “great books” core curriculum is the entire curriculum.
Oglethorpe University in Atlanta has an unusual core curriculum that is split up over four years, so you can start major courses from the first year. The core courses are interdisciplinary and emphasize reading of primary texts.
Juniata College is a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania that likes to put its own twist into things.
They have self-designed majors (programs of emphasis), interesting traditions and activities, and the staff members seem more than just admission representatives. Everyone at the college is a REAL person, and they make it seem like home with a unique way of running things. Check it out if you’re interested!
I guess your title don’t match your content to me. I don’t think of Chicago as unconventional so while I was going to try to add my two cents, I guess I don’t get it.
Chicago had historically been quirky-smart – egghead, life of the mind, etc. And I say that affectionately as the parent of a little egghead who was admitted there a couple of years ago. In the past few years, in pursuit of higher rankings, their admissions profile has started to look more like Ivies. But they will still take “their” kind of kid if they can identify them. So I think I know what the OP means. My kid also got into Swarthmore and Harvey Mudd, and was quite attracted to Reed.
As intparent suggests, you have to know its history. Its “unique and unconventional” characteristics are mostly carry-over from President/Chancellor Robert Maynard Hutchins’ reforms of the 1940’s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maynard_Hutchins
A few other features distinguished UChicago from many other “elite” universities throughout most of the 20th century. From its beginning, it admitted women. It welcomed Jews. In the “Hutchins College” (and after) it rejected the cult of the scholar-athlete. Around the time Yale was announcing its mission to produce “1000 male leaders” each year, Chicago was content to educate a few hundred gadflies and public intellectuals (the likes of Bernie Sanders, Saul Alinsky, Philip Glass, Roger Ebert, Seymour Hersh, Allan Bloom, Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Sagan, and Susan Sontag).
I agree that most of the colleges mentioned above are “unique and unconventional”.
They put their twists on the academic calendar (Colorado College), the school-work-life relationship (Deep Springs, Warren Wilson), the curriculum (St. John’s), etc. None of them has had quite the shape-shifting effects on scholarship, science, the arts, and public policy that UChicago has had in the past 50 years or more. Whether UChicago will continue to have that influence is hard to say. Apart from its now-relaxed Core curriculum, it has become harder to point to very much about it that is very different from any other prestigious research university.
Which nearby neighborhood are we talking about? Hyde Park? Or Woodlawn?
By the 1970s, Hyde Park (where many UChicago students and faculty live) had become one of the best examples in America of a successful urban renewal effort in what became a racially integrated, middle-class urban neighborhood. Hyde Park-Kenwood is where America’s first black president has his family home. Former Mayor Harold Washington lived there. Louis Farrakhan has a house in HP-K. Muhammad Ali had a home there. It is one of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in the city.
Woodlawn was a different story. By the 1970s, the north end of Woodlawn (bordering UChicago dorms and the law school) had become a No Man’s Land of abandoned buildings, into which university students rarely ventured. Beyond those few blocks lived almost nobody but black people.
Goddard College and St. John’s Annapolis/Santa Fe.
Thomas Edison State College (NJ) virtually all virtual. Note that it’s 30 years old so it pioneered the idea of self-directed studies well before the Internet. It also gives extensive transfer credit to life experiences that can be assessed academically.
Barea College - sweat equity for all
Cornell College in Iowa - one class at a time
West Point
Annapolis
Hillsdale College - Free Markets
Grove City College
Kettering - engineering co-ops
MUCH THANKS TO ALL. I’m going to read each of your responses carefully and look up all the colleges that were mentioned. I apologize if I wasn’t clear, but now that I see what everybody’s saying, I’m looking for is a college that:
has a curriculum with classes that you wouldn't usually see at other colleges (classes where the name would catch your eye in a list and surprise you but also make you want to take that class)
an environment and community that encourages students to always try new things and respectively challenge ideas (sounds like every college's mission statement, but I'm looking for people who've been to this kind of college and can proudly say that this is what their college did)
policies for students and staff that bring everybody together, rather than creating separation (a college that allows the students and administration to work together in a good relationship)
a college that knows the value of hard work, but never ever forgets a sense of humor or personality (again, vague, but if anybody has felt that their college exemplified this, please recommend a name)
By unconventional, I mean a college that YES does require a lot, but they are able to make those requirements interesting by offering out-of-the-ordinary classes and a specially designed system for education that other colleges wouldn’t use. And of course, the morals and values of a school matter as well, and I think it’s great to know what a college did first before other colleges.
I know it’s not the best to focus on the advertising, but I can’t deny it when a college’s advertising strategies do draw me in. Some colleges send a billion emails a month, along with pointless pieces of paper to your mail. I find that UChicago has kept a really fair balance, and their sense of design and advertising is attractive to me. I believe that something I like must be at the college if they can translate their character into pieces of paper or digital information.
I’m gladly willing to hear any additional thoughts, anything is helpful to me right now, no matter if you don’t truly understand my words. If it’s worth a shot, I’d say I’d really appreciate any other college names.