<p>BeaMom, have you looked at Santa Clara University in San Jose? It is urban, close to San Francisco, about 5 - 9K students, and very high quality. I don’t know anything about theater there. </p>
<p>When we visited, I was impressed by the fairly extensive Jewish presence in this Jesuit school. We went to several Jesuit campuses on our tours, and it was absolutely fascinating how they have all evolved differently over time in terms of their spiritual roots. One, whose name I will not mention as I continue to hope it was an anomaly of the leader of the information session, was openly patronizing of anyone who would be interested in worshiping in any tradition. i was not the only parent in the audience who nearly fell off my chair. One (Boston College) said that every student had to take 3 courses in some type of theology, and said that there were a huge number available including some that I wanted to sign up for that day! Many were applicable to the Jewish faith. Santa Clara talked about their strong commitment to service (required for every professor) and to the support of every faith tradition. There was a ethics center on campus donated and supported by a Jewish family: every major is required to take an ethics course designed for their major. </p>
<p>I have to tell you a story about this school that this audience may enjoy. We visited this school early in the exploration process. At that point, SCU met every single criterion, but DD was adamant that she didn’t like it’s “feel” on paper (much later, she admitted that San Jose didn’t sound sexy enough). She REFUSED to even consider it. We had a rule that if we were flying somewhere to visit, she had to tour three schools, so she extremely reluctantly agreed to look at it, grumbling all the way to the gate. As soon as she hit the gate, she was blown away at its beauty. We were late, so the tour guide knew nothing of her interests. However, if I had given him cue cards he could not have presented the school in a more daughter-centric way. For once in my life, I kept my mouth CLOSED and avoided eye contact at all costs. When we got in the car, I pulled out my standard notebook so she could spit out her pros and cons before she forgot them. The first thing she said was “MOM! I SO wanted to hate this school because you pushed it SO HARD. And darn it - it is now my first choice.” LOL. In the end, she picked a different school, but it was one of my favorite memories of our college tour.</p>