<p>So far, I’m really interested in Bowdoin and Dartmouth. But I’m wondering what schools there are out west that are similar to these schools?</p>
<p>Colorado College (CO)
St. John’s College (NM)
Whitman (WA)
Reed (OR)
Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, Occidental (CA)</p>
<p>That’s not including some excellent schools in Minnesota, Iowa, etc.</p>
<p>Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, is one to look at. We visited Dartmouth last year and just visited Southwestern last week and it has the highly involved, focused on undergrad, interact with your professor in intimate Socratic discussion type of learning ethic, that Dartmouth seems to. In fact it doesn’t have a grad school and they have lots of research opportunities for the undergrads. Very much emphasizing a quality, solid, classic liberal arts education. They kind of assume most people want to go on to grad school and they have an excellent record for their grads getting into good grad programs. 99 percent of the professors have terminal degrees and there are no huge lecture classes at all.</p>
<p>They don’t have an honors program because they consider the set up of the entire school to be an honors program but they have a program called Paideai for those wanting an even deeper level of education.</p>
<p>They don’t have a football team and they have GREAT merit aid.</p>
<p>It’s in a pretty but rather sleepy little town - however, Austin is 20 miles away so it’s not like you couldn’t find some fun to get into.</p>
<p>Worth a look. They aren’t well known outside of some circles but are really a little gem. They are on the list of Colleges That Change Lives. Really warm and cordial staff, very informative, but not a hard sell dog and pony show. Best cafeteria food we’ve had yet, incidentally, and every staff and faculty member we met was so nice.</p>