Upstate NY schools - Bard, Skidmore, Ithaca

justmytwocents
Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:47:28 +0000

For a strong safety, where your daughter might get some good aid, I’d add Allegheny College to the mix. They’re known for their English program - I know of them best because they publish the Allegheny Review, the only national journal of undergraduate literature and it is edited by Allegheny students. It’s a small LAC in Pennsylvania - outside Pittsburgh I think. They also have a minor in Environmental Writing that might appeal to your daughter…

I’d also strongly consider Kenyon (in Ohio). They are also known for their writing program in particular. I have known several folks who graduated from Kenyon and they are very happy and had good experiences. Kenyon is less earthy/crunchy than Oberlin (a little bit more preppy) BUT still very much LAC-y.

The kids I’ve known that have gone to Vassar and/or alumni/ae from there are very artsy/alternative-y (one kid I know was deciding between Vassar, Bard, and Hampshire, for whatever that’s worth). But I have a small sample size here.

One thing to keep in mind: one young woman I know who transferred from an aforementioned school (I don’t want this thread to become a referendum about this school, so I am not going to state which one) felt the campus she left was very monolithic in its thinking and perspective; that it had a student body where everyone wore the same hipster-ish clothing, listened to the same types of music (or at least claimed to), and everyone was afraid to disagree with being “revolutionary” (I guess that’s irony, huh? Conformity is being seen as failure? Or selling out or something?). Just one experience, of course.

Is Sarah Lawrence too close to home in LI? Not crunchy enough I guess.