Top Colleges with a Culture of Being Intellectually Curious?

College Search & Lists
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I’m a rising senior who’s applying to college this year and I’m struggling a bit with solidifying my college list. I really want to go somewhere that is considered a “good” school (T30? a college that companies recruit from) but also has a culture of being intellectually curious – where students are genuinely passionate about learning. A lot of people in my high school ONLY care about grades and prestige, stacking up on APs just for the sake of it looking good on their college apps. I feel like I’m in the minority, where I don’t care about prestige as much as other people. I don’t want to be doing things that I’m not actually interested in just to make my resume look good. Many colleges seem to be too pre-professional or too focused in one area (engineering, pre-med, etc.) where the other programs aren’t as good. My dream school is definitely Stanford because I feel like it has a startup/intellectually curious culture and there’s so much freedom with the classes you can take. There’s a wide variety of classes from different fields and they’re all taught by amazing faculty. I’m probably not going to get into Stanford though lol, so I’m looking for other colleges that have that same atmosphere. I’m currently considering a few LACs like Pomona and Harvey Mudd, but the other LACs don’t seem to be that great in what I’m planning on majoring in.

Some background about me:
I’m an Asian-American girl probably going to major in Computer Science and Psychology (focusing on Human-Computer Interaction), but I’m not 100% yet. I want to be doing something that genuinely helps people firsthand and I’m not sure that CS really fulfills that. Potentially looking at working at a startup?
My academics are pretty good, with high GPAs (4.92 weighted, 3.98 unweighted) and high test scores (36 on ACT). I have decent extracurriculars, but not anything too amazing.

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Haverford

3

You may want to consider this perspective from a professor at a liberal arts college:

https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/faculty-jason-cieply-russian-studies

https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/comp-sci-department-hosts-college-computing-conference

4

Swarthmore, Vassar, Yale, Rice?

5

Great question, but I think that the answer has more to do with one’s major than with any particular school.

Do business, engineering, pre-med, foreign language, environmental science, or theater majors impress you as being intellectually curious ?

What about history, philosophy or English literature majors ?

Even though universities such as the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Cornell, Duke, Vanderbilt, CMU, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Emory, Harvard, and many others may impress many as pre-professional, all of these universities are overflowing with extremely hard-working, brilliant, relentless scholars & students.

Certain schools portray a culture of being intellectually curious: Columbia, University of Chicago, Princeton, Yale, Swarthmore, and almost every top 30 LAC, but it really comes down to the individual and to one’s major course of study. After all isn’t study in the liberal arts an intellectual pursuit ?

Certainly every large public university Honors College has a culture of being intellectually curious.

Thomas Aquinas College in California & Reed College in Oregon are seemingly only for the intellectually curious. The same could hold for Hillsdale College in Michigan, Earlham College in Indiana, and Beloit College in Wisconsin.

Since you are interested in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence and the Psychology of Computer & Human Interaction, I suggest Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, Princeton, Northwestern, Univ. of California at Berkeley, the University of Washington, Cornell, Illinois, Stanford, Michigan, Harvey Mudd College, Columbia University, and Georgia Tech.

6

Companies recruit at schools outside the top 30. There are 3000 colleges in the US. Do you think kids that go to the 2970 colleges that are not in the top 30 don’t get jobs? I’m not telling you not to try for some top schools, but you need to understand that it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get into one and end up at one of your safeties. You will find bright and curious people at all colleges, though you may need to look a bit harder if you’re at a lower ranked school.

7

OP: I think that the University of Michigan may satisfy all of your interests. Well respected for Computer Science and Psychology, it also has an honors program that is among the very best in the nation. There are also lots of living / learning communities which may match your specific interests.

The Fiske Guide To Colleges 2020 writes that the University of Michigan:

“The most interesting mass of humanity east of UC Berkeley. UM is among the nation’s leaders in most subjects… Superb honors and living / learning programs…”

“Michigan’s special academic programs seek to offer the best of both worlds–personalized attention and a large university setting.”

“The university’s long-established honors program, considered to be one of the best in the nation, offers qualified students honors courses and seminars, opportunities to participate in individual or collaborative research, and access to dedicated academic advisors.”

The same could be written about the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Brown, or Carnegie Mellon University.

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I think @Publisher brings up a good point: there is always going to be some degree of variety among students within any given college. To be entirely honest, I think that a non-preprofessional culture and strong recruiting are conflicting objectives (you have to give up a little of one to get the other). But I also think that very pre-professional schools (Harvard, Columbia, Penn) have a strong cohort of students that aren’t there just to recruit with Goldman. So just know that no matter what, you will be able to find people like yourself.

I do really like your outlook: making the most of the present and learning (rather than GPA grubbing and always focusing on prestige) will give you a very satisfying career.

Good schools to look at are Brown (strong CS + very intellectual student body), Yale, and Swathmore. Good luck!!

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reed, university of chicago, swarthmore, pomona, williams

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If you don’t want to do CS, look into Industrial Design in order to create things that make people’s lives better.

Yale has this program which I always thought looked fascinating -http://catalog.yale.edu/ycps/subjects-of-instruction/computer-science-psychology/

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Another bit of support for the University of Michigan (honors program) can be found on another current CC thread which announced Ann Arbor, Michigan as the most educated city in the US 2020.

@simba9: Hit the nail on the head with a Yale program which combines the study of CS with Psychology (and AI).

12

You say that you don’t care about prestige as much as others then I gently encourage you to look beyond the T30.

I would also gently encourage you to skip Uchicago and Swarthore. Very intellectually competitive in a not pleasant way. My family has had three gens of UChicago and I’ve known several people over the years who’ve attended Swat and, while both are great for the right person, they can be maddening and miserable if you’re not exactly that sort of person. Swat feels relatively isolated too compared with other schools in the consortium (Haverford, Bryn Mawr, UPenn)

Look more towards–

Yale,

Haverford/ and Bryn Mawr combo (they practically share campuses and BMC’s motto is practically “we care more about ideas”–check what it says on Niche about BMC and BMC has the advantage of having a larger endowment and offering great merit aid–and there are men on campus because of the Haverford co-college system; you also can take classes at UPenn),

Vassar was mentioned and I support that,

Wesleyan also very creative and intellectual.

If you want to look at engineering, check out Olin–known for its creative perspective.

Also consider: Wellesley, Smith, and Mt. Holyoke. Wellesley you can take classes at MIT. Smith and Mt. H are in a very creative consortium. To assess the classes you might want to google for the Five Colleges course catalog.

Also look at Pitzer or Pomona. At Pitzer they don’t have CS but they encourage combining various disciplines. You could combine CS with other things and the consortium has great CS offerings. Pitzer is very creative. If you like women’s colleges but attending classes with males, check out Scripps in the same consortium.

13

You should check out Rice. They have a Master’s and Doctoral program in Human-Computer Interaction and Human Factors. Obviously you are not looking at grad schools, but they have undergrad classes on the topic taught by the faculty of that department and you would be able to get involved in research in the area. The head of the department got his undergrad in Psych and Engineering from Michigan and then a Masters in CS and PhD in Psych. Sounds like his path is similar to what you’re looking for.

https://psychology.rice.edu/human-factors-human-computer-interaction

Rice had a collaborative environment and MANY students double major. They have distribution requirements so that students take classes outside their field, which allows you to examine other interests.

14

URochester. Open curriculum, lots of double majors, strong in humanities and science, intellectually curious students.

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Let’s not leave out William & Mary. Known for “nerdy” academics .

16

I’m almost reluctant to go too far down the usual rabbit hole arguments (LACs vs. universities; Ivy vs. non-Ivy, etc.) since I’m already sensing a contradiction in the OP’s challenge: They want an intellectually curious environment as long as its within a few narrow STEM fields which, in her view, rules out most of the top liberal arts colleges (LACs) in the country. IMO, she may be conflating intellectual curiosity with entrepreneurship although I admit that there is often some overlap between the two. So, yeah, it’s no wonder that Stanford is her ideal.

I’m mean, who doesn’t like Stanford?

The good news is that there are LOTS of Stanford-lite places to choose from around the country; many of them have already been mentioned. Are you from Cali? If so, I’m assuming UCB is your safety?

17

“As a grad student I taught at a big research institution, Stanford, and there are very smart students there as well, but they weren’t the ideal I had in mind, which was the engaged, enthusiastic liberal arts student who’s in it for the ideas, for the love of knowledge …”

The OP does not want to major in a foreign language. She wants to do cross-disciplinary work with CS, psychology and HCI and guess what for that, Stanford is one of the best, which is why it’s her first choice. And it’s her dream school, if a kid is a CS major and her dream school is Stanford, no one is going to convince a teenager otherwise. Also if the OP wanted to minor in Russian, they have a pretty good program, the Ambassador to Russia during the Obama admin teaches a couple of undergrad classes there. I’m not sure what the Hamilton prof gains by denigrating a place like Stanford, but whatever.

OP, I’d SCEA to Stanford, RD to Pomona, Cal Tech and Harvey Mudd, then fill out the rest of the list with matches and safeties. If you’re in CA, one of the UCs, Cal Poly SLO would be good safeties. Michigan could be a good match OOS, as Publisher suggested. Rice also fits a lot of your requirement but it’s another reach.

18

While you should consider a range of other schools, just make sure you do your best on your Stanford application. Why? Because of every reason you listed on your post. Be brave - best wishes.

19

Lol yeah I definitely agree with you here. I’m pretty indecisive with what I want because I do like CS, but at the same time, I’m open to exploring other options. That’s why for me, Stanford would be a dream school because it is one of the best for CS, but at the same time if I choose to pursue something else, it would also be one of the best in that area too. I’m really interested in learning Korean and taking a few creative classes too (art, photography, etc.), so I feel like Stanford has the intellectually curious atmosphere and the faculty to really push me to grow in those areas.

I’m from Ohio, so I’m a little more reluctant to apply to OOS schools that might not give as much financial aid.

20

Tough to beat St Johns College for an “intellectually curious” student body.