What exactly do your mean by “small”? Student body size? Size of the physical campus? Or are you really thinking about distance from an urban environment?
Go visit the places you are thinking about. See what you think. Every year we read here about kids who believed they would only be happy at a big/small/urban/suburban/rural/LAC/State U/etc. but who ended up at a very different sort of place and were very happy there.
I don’t think there’s an easy answer. It also depends on social options being more available than not. Eg, even a mid-size campus, if dominated by Greek life, can seem smaller if you aren’t into that, if you have fewer options of interest on weekends. So also check the clubs and activities, events, etc.
Saying some campus is x miles from the closest urban area can mislead when there’s super public transpo. Acreage doesn’t tell as much as how the campus is laid out. The BMC footprint may sound small, but is hardly smaller than Brown, with 5x the number of students.
Obviously, anything that can be labeled “isolated” is its own story. But suppose your major was so active and your particular activitiy interests were plentiful. Would you consider that “too small?”
Do you mean doesn’t feel smal b/c of urban environment or b/c it has a relatively big campus footprint/size? I think the former b/c of the example you gave, but clarification will help!
I am a US citizen and I’m taking the SAT in march. I’m aiming for a 1500+.
My grades were average in 10th grade and around the top 15% of my class 11th grade, which I want to keep up now in my senior year.
I’m most interested in PoliSci, Public Policy and International Relations (I’m looking at American University for that as well). MUN and an internship at a human rights institute are my main activities in that area, and I also volunteer as a tutor in social studies and I’m involved in theater productions outside of my school.
I like Wellesley for many reasons, and I’m looking at the seven sisters for their academic and extracurricular offering but I’m no more comfortable at women’s colleges than at co-ed ones. When considering women’s colleges it’s particularly important to me that they not be isolated (which I use as a broad term). For example, Wellesley is near many other colleges, has cross-registration with some and easy access to Boston and Cambridge from what I hear.
I hope the extra details help those of you who asked! I’m really appreciating all the information.
Trinity, Hamilton, Claremont McKenna and Pomona (not a comprehensive list) seem to be among the few liberal arts colleges that offer a major in public policy (though you could create aspects of this major elsewhere). Trinity, you will note, resides in a capital city. You also may want to research LACs that offer available programs in Washington, D.C. Mt. Holyoke is an example of a school that would be notably strong for international relations.
Mount Holyoke is very isolated as is Colgate
Smith is located in a small city, Northampton.
If you are interested in more urban liberal arts colleges, look into Tufts, Holy Cross and Trinity College.
Tufts University is not an LAC. Tufts has about 5,600 undergraduate students.
SCRIPPS!