Searching for reachy colleges with an intellectual atmosphere [WI resident, 4.0 GPA]

College Search & Lists
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Posted too quickly, apologies! Our S25 took the week long course (I think it was titled Order and Disorder) at the Annapolis campus. It was helpful to them in that they decided that the school size was a little smaller than they liked, but the discussion based seminar format and professors were excellent.

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St. John’s College seems interesting.

I am curious as to why everyone’s suggesting Macalester. What about it makes it a better fit than the other LACs that have been mentioned less frequently? Is it the fact that it is in a city, which is evidently rate for a LAC, or are there other reasons, too?

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Below is a list of schools, nearly all of which are in a city or in the immediate suburbs. They are sorted by a ratio of the number of alumni who went on to earn doctorates between 2005-2023 by the number of current undergraduates.

There are many reasons why people don’t go on to doctorates (including that fields like business and engineering go on for doctorates at a much smaller percentage than those in the liberal arts) and there are tons of people with no interest in going on for a doctorate who love to engage in intellectual discussions. That said, however, I think that such ratios may be indicative of something when a higher percentage of alumni than normal go on to earn a doctorate, and that something may also correlate to the intellectual classroom discussions you desire. Note that there are lots of somethings and mays, this is not conclusive proof or evidence. It’s just one data point.

That said, however, you can see that Macalester ranks pretty high. Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr do, too, and they’re all in a consortium together in a Philadelphia suburb. For reference, the average ratio among the 50 flagships is 0.0928 and the median is 0.0849 for doctorates earned between 2000-2018 (I haven’t done it for this latest data set), so that might give you a greater sense of how the schools on this list compare to others.

For schools that were not in cities or very close to them, I excluded them, but you could easily do this for any other school of interest.

School # of Doctorates alums earned between 2005-2023 # of Undergrads Ratio
Swarthmore 1470 1644 0.894160584
Reed 1,086 1523 0.713066316
Harvard 4534 7110 0.63769339
Haverford 847 1424 0.594803371
Bryn Mawr - Women’s college 737 1360 0.541911765
Wellesley - Women’s College 1186 2417 0.490690939
Macalester 964 2142 0.450046685
U. of Chicago 3271 7489 0.436773935
Brown 3336 7741 0.430952073
St. John’s (209 + 157) 366 855 0.428070175
Rice 1852 4574 0.404897245
Johns Hopkins 2265 6090 0.371921182
U. of Puget Sound 589 1632 0.360906863
Brandeis 1239 3675 0.337142857
U. of Rochester 2262 6764 0.334417504
William & Mary 2213 6963 0.317822778
Northwestern 2685 8846 0.303527018
Occidental 558 1854 0.300970874
Barnard 959 3223 0.297548868
Washington U. 2380 8267 0.287891617
Trinity University 725 2531 0.286448044
Spelman - Women’s College 699 2588 0.270092736
Tufts 1759 6877 0.255780137
Case Western 1572 6186 0.254122211
Calvin 773 3053 0.25319358
Emory 1709 7359 0.23223264
Lewis & Clark 480 2194 0.218778487
Trinity College 410 2237 0.18328118
College of the Holy Cross 567 3219 0.176141659
John Carroll 385 2287 0.168342807
Morehouse - Men’s College 431 2738 0.157414171
U. of Miami 1494 12883 0.115966778
Loyola Maryland 379 3987 0.095058942
Providence 406 4363 0.093055237
NYU 2662 29760 0.089448925
Butler 394 4519 0.087187431
Loyola Chicago 890 12487 0.071274125
Fordham 647 10307 0.062772873

Sources for the data in the table

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44

We have a similar income but a lower budget. My daughter has strong ECs, prioritized warmer weather (but not exclusively) and also didn’t want a Greek heavy school.

I am recommending these without knowing about costs…

For warm weather, you might consider:

• Rice… in Houston, huge city, very prestigious college, no Greek system

• Baylor…Look up the University Scholars program. There is a Greek system but there are no houses.

• Emory

• Stanford (will be almost impossible to get into)

• Duke (ditto)

• Rollins College

• Santa Clara U

• University of San Diego

• Georgetown

Colder weather:

• Notre Dame, not a big city or anything but no Greek life

• NYU, city campus if I understand correctly

• Gonzaga

• I know it won’t meet budget but UC Santa Cruz could be a could fit for you.

Also consider any large state school that has an honors college.

Your best bets financially will be:

  1. a large state university that provides a lot of automatic merit (Alabama, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, etc.) —the problem with most of these and why they became deal breakers for my daughter is that they have huge Greek presence (less so for the Arizonas)

  2. a school that meets 100% of demonstrated need.

Start talking to your parents NOW about how much they will contribute. Keep in mind that prices will rise again next year, so account for inflation.

Also I disagree with the poster who said you have EC’s. If you use the common app, you must list your top 5 meaningful extra curriculars in order of importance. Are you going to put working at a grocery store as your most meaningful EC? And leave the other 4 slots blank? Stanford wants athletes, Notre Dame places a heavy emphasis on ECs, Duke wants to see accomplishments outside of the classroom…

The good news is you have just enough time to find a program for this upcoming summer. See if you can get into a college camp program for your area of interest. Start volunteering. See what clubs in your school are available related to your major. Heck, you could even start a book club. That would be better than nothing.

Good luck.

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45

To add to this, even when the content is the same (e.g. AP calculus in high school versus single variable calculus in college), college classes typically expect the student to do more self-management of time and motivation. Student progress in college not as closely supervised and monitored as it is in high school, and college classes typically have fewer larger assignments, projects, and tests than high school (including AP) classes.

Also, many AP classes in high school cover material at a slower pace with more in-class hours than a college class covering the same material. This can be noticed when seeing that AP credit associated with some year long AP classes may be given equivalency to semester classes in college.

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46

Have you thought about getting undergraduate degree in Europe, Australia, or Asia? I think it will be tough if not impossible to be accepted in highly selective schools in US - there is a lot of emphasis on ECs and service.

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Grinnell and Carleton.

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Why Santa Cruz, specifically?

I am also wondering whether the three schools you mentioned by name at the end (Stanford, Notre Dame, Duke) are all particularly focused on one’s having strong ECs, to an extent unmatched by the other schools you mentioned, or whether they are intended to be representative of all of the other ones.

Thanks for the advice.

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As a point of potential distinction, this Hamilton professor (Meet the New Faculty: Jason Cieply, Russian Studies - News - Hamilton College) did not find Stanford to be desirably intellectual in comparison to a few undergraduate-focused colleges with which he has experience:

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You can go to any school’s common data set section C7 to see how important ECs are to them.

Stanford rates ECs at the highest level - as high as all the academic items - very important.

Notre Dame rates them at the highest level - and that would make sense for any Jesuit school.

Duke - also

Chicago - also most important.

So go school by school - to find those who downplay them.

UW rates it a notch lower - important.

Many/most would be a notch lower than that - but maybe not the most elite.

But you have a part time job. and that’s great.

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51

I recommend Santa Cruz specifically because compared to the other schools within the UC system, Santa Cruz is unique. They place a heavy emphasis on undergraduate research and they have a residential college system, more similar to universities in the U.K. IMO you would have a greater opportunity to find other intellectually curious like minded peers there. It is a very different school compared to UCLA, for example.

Also look up “Life of the Mind” schools. These might be of interest.

Regarding Duke, Stanford, and Notre Dame, those are indicative of the type of universities you seem to be seeking; the commonality is that besides academic excellence, they all specifically seek out extracurricular excellence.

This standard is not limited to these schools, which is why the Common App has an important section about a student’s 5 most meaningful ECs.

You need to understand that many of your peers will meet or exceed your stats, while also having contributed meaningfully to their schools and communities, and in some cases, they will have done so while also persevering through a disability or major life challenges.

The expectation now is that someone who seeks academic rigor should also demonstrate that they are a well rounded active person with interests, contributions and achievements outside of their academic studies. A part time job is a good start, but realistically it is not enough. Again, you have time to add some meaningful ECs.

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Having had one kid at UCLA and one at UCSC, I don’t understand this comparison at all. I’ve certainly not seen a “heavy emphasis on undergraduate research” at UCSC. Like any large public university, students need to be proactive to find opportunities, they aren’t handed them on a plate. And the students at UCLA are highly selected during admissions for being proactive. Not so much at UCSC.

Maybe that means a proactive student at UCSC won’t encounter as much competition for research opportunities? And while one might characterize UCLA as filled with achievement and career-oriented students, the context in which one might see UCSC students as relatively more “intellectually curious” is that they are perhaps less achievement and career-oriented, not that there is a higher proportion of brilliant, intellectual students at UCSC.

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I am a UCLA grad; many kids from my high school and friends of mine attended Santa Cruz.

I did not say that “there is a higher proportion of brilliant, intellectual students” at Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz IME attracts a different type of student and different type of young person than UCLA, for example. Given OPs comments about seeking intellectual discussion and minimal Greek life, I can see where a school like Santa Cruz might be a place to consider.

Added to this perspective is that OP’s current lack of ECs is a handicap when applying to straight up top ranked schools. I am suggesting schools that perhaps fly a little more under the radar that would provide the academic community OP seems to be looking and where the current lack of ECs would not be a huge negative.

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Hampshire- not city but less traditional, make your own major. ? New College ?l- small city. Oberlin - access to city ? Rhodes ?

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55

Kenyon is very intellectual but rural (although Columbus is about an hour away). Similar to Macalester in terms of the types of students but a very different location, of course. Those colleges do pay a lot of attention to ECs, though.

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These schools immediately came to mind:

  • UChicago (core)
  • Columbia (core)
  • St. John’s (core)
  • Swarthmore and Haverford (if suburbs are adequate)
  • Reed
  • Princeton (everyone has to do the senior thesis)
  • Carleton (probably too rural, but worth mentioning for its rigor)

A lot of LACs are going to be relatively intellectual/rigorous because they will tend to feature an awful lot of writing and since most classes will be smaller, kids will likely be called on/expected to contribute intelligently in class. Mac makes sense because it is in a city; most LACs are not. Maybe add Vassar and Wesleyan too, if small cities are good enough.

ETA: you might also consider Occidental College, which is in LA. It’s a bit less reachy than some of the others that have been mentioned.

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Here’s another crazy one and ECs won’t hurt - at least for school admission.

Ohio U

Huh?? An easy to get into public.

But they have the Honors Tutorials of Oxford and Cambridge.

I get it. But you have to apply and interview for this program - so that’s reachy.

City / urban - no. But OP may have to make tradeoffs. The program is something very few can offer here in the US, especially at publics.

Honors Tutorial College | Ohio University

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58

Lean into the part-time job after school. Probably one of the rarest ECs adcoms will see at the type of college you are seeking.

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59

This might be the kind of question that’ll resolve itself when I’m filling out the applications, but I don’t see where the opportunity to “lean into” an EC is. Based on this picture, one has just 150 characters to describe the activity. I also think that I have more interesting stuff for my essays to be about. Am I missing something? Where is one to do that? (There also seems to be disagreement over whether or not I have ECs…I guess they’re probably not very significant if even their validity is debatable.)

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I didn’t see any disagreement. Your job is an EC. Your family responsibilities too. I’ve seen plenty of students who have listed reading as an EC, as well as various recreational sports and/or fitness activities. AOs want to know how you spend your time, your job is to help them learn about you.

I will let circuitrider answer what they meant about ‘lean into’.

Yes, you get 150 characters in the EC description field…but you also get 50 characters in the position and 100 in the organization name. Your goal is to use all of those characters in each field. Some students will also write more about an EC or two in the additional info section…not necessarily long, just a paragraph is great. Using this section for that is fine if you have more color to share with AOs, if not then you don’t have to. Maybe you received a promotion at work (or received more responsibility) and wanted to share how that came about, to take one example.

That’s great. I’m one of the posters who said above that your essays ideally wouldn’t be about your activities.

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