<p>I’d be proud for my D to attend either Grinnell or Oberlin. Both colleges are academically elite liberal arts institutions, both are politically left (a good thing in our family), and they have similar histories (both locations were stops on the Underground Railroad). My D was born and grew up in Minnesota (except for high school) so she would feel right at home at Grinnell with all the Heartland liberals. She knows the culture. But Grinnell College is just too damn small, smaller than her high school. A small school combined with middle of nowhere location, even more so than Oberlin, Ohio, and without a world-famous music conservatory (my D is a cellist but not a music major) would feel too isolated for four years. She picked Oberlin.</p>