Quirky unusual urban schools for offbeat student?

College Search & Lists
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<p>I’d look into UC Santa Cruz as well, especially since you are a CA resident.</p>

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<p>I’d encourage you to reconsider the requirement that your school must be in an urban environment. I think you will find what you are looking for, in terms of the academic interests and dinner conversation, at a small liberal arts college like Hampshire or Mount Holyoke. Sarah Lawrence is also an excellent option, but one of the most expensive of the bunch (though almost any private liberal arts school will have high tuition).</p>

<p>You also might want to look at Antioch College in Ohio.</p>

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<p>With your GPA and your Hispanic status, I don’t think those would be reaches.</p>

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<p>This comes out of the blue but what about Arizona State. Huge urban school and while it might look a bit like USC in pictures there is a very quirky side to Tempe in particular. ASU has a school of sustainability and conservation studies and suprisingly I know two marine (river) biologists who work out of there. You are a bit under the SAT’s for Barrett Honors college but perhaps consider investigating it. </p>

<p>OOS tuition is $23000 but Applied Biological Sciences/wildlife restoration/urban restoration is one of the WUE programs at ASU which would give you a significant discount in tuition…by the online calculation to just under $15k per year for both tuition and fees (not living).</p>

<p>And you are definately good on stats for regular entry (safety?)</p>

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<p>Several schools I’d suggest have already been mentioned (Lewis and Clark, MacAlester and NC of Florida). If though, you’d expand your geographic restrictions to non-urban, the map explodes with opportunities. Juniata, Beloit and Evergreen all are worth consideration. Carleton and Kenyon might be a stretch based on your stats, but also worth a look. Those are but a few. Good luck!</p>

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<p>Look into the New School in NYC and Emerson in Boston.</p>

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27

<p>Just go to Reed and if you really want to take a chance then I’d rule out Columbia in favor of UChicago.</p>

<p>Other considerations:
Bates College
Sarah Lawrence College</p>

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<p>CUNY Hunter College, McCauley Honors if you can get in.</p>

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<p>Northeastern university
Emerson College
NYU
Loyola Chicago</p>

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<p>Many, many schools (especially more competitive ones) disregard the writing section and recalculate the M/CR portions together</p>

<p>“Many, many”? Which ones besides Cornell and Georgetown?</p>

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<p>Stars, you didn’t mention your financial situation. Do you need financial aid? If yes, it will be a factor in building your list. If no, apply ED to one of your reaches for an extra boost.</p>

<p>I’d second the women’s colleges like Barnard, Smith. Look at The Evergreen College. Grinnell is definitely not urban but well placed on the quirky scale (and interested in high achieving Hispanics).</p>

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<p>You should look at Mount Holyoke. It’s test score optional, so you wouldn’t have to send your scores at all. They also weigh the essays and the recs more heavily than they do your grades. It’s very LGBT-friendly, and you’d be part of the 5 college consortium so you could take classes at Smith, UMass, Amherst and Hampshire.</p>

<p>You should also take a look at Hampshire.</p>

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<p>I do need financial aid. I’m middle class. </p>

<p>Thank you all so much, this is really helpful. </p>

<p>The problem I have with many of these campuses is the small town feel. I really like the urban feel, I want to volunteer and explore different cultures. Any urban suggestions?</p>

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<p>@StarsAndBoxes: There were a number of urban based colleges already suggested. Macalester, Emerson, etc. Personally, I think Macalester is a very good fit. Highly regarded academically, known for it’s quirky student base and located in the city of St. Paul. The nearby twin city of Minneapolis offers so much diversity and culture. I don’t know it would fit financially but you can check their web site for merit scholarship opportunities. Good luck</p>

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<p>Needing FA and being middle class you need to run the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of each of the schools you are considering.</p>

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<p>Your ethnicity and sexual orientation do not make you offbeat, since you have little if any control over them and they’re not personality traits.</p>

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<p>I think what’s throwing things off is when you say “quirky unusual” people think super liberal pot-smoking hippy schools. Which are all in the boondocks. But then, you say you like U-Chicago, which is not super liberal and not pot smoking and not hippy. So maybe you have something different in mind.</p>

<p>Are you looking for that kind of urban intellectual vibe like UChicago and Columbia? Or just “not Catholic and in a diverse city”? Or something else?</p>

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<p>Swarthmore is considered among the most conservative of its class of schools. I am not sure I would recommend it.</p>

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<p>Before you go any further, you should clarify your financial situation. Will your family qualify for enough NEED based aid to allow you to attend a school that doesn’t offer MERIT aid? If you don’t know, ask your parents to use a net price calculator. If that works for you, fine, you can continue with a wider list.</p>

<p>If it doesn’t then you’ll have to concentrate on schools that offer MERIT aid. Many of the well known privates on the east coast do not offer merit, so it’s important to get this issue clarified in advance.</p>

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<p>You might like The New School in New York City. It definitely fits your criteria and has a long history of outside-the-box political philosophies and such. </p>

<p>You should apply to NYU Gallatin, too. Don’t let people talk you out of that. Most people on here are really obsessed with hard numbers but Gallatin’s different.</p>

<p>Is art school of interest - like MICA in Baltimore?</p>

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