Albus Guide

The Albus Guide to Colleges

300 profiles of colleges that are free to apply to Written for 2024-2025

About This book is a publication of Albus Tutoring, an academic support service located in upstate NY. (In-person or remote tutoring and advising can be arranged through albustutoring@gmail.com.) It was originally conceived as an enticing coupon book for people who are unsure about whether they want to go further afield for college, or perhaps about whether they want to go to college at all.

Table of contents Preface .................................................. 4 Introduction ....................................... 8 A world of choice ...................... 8 The three sections .................. 17 Prestige ............................................... 18 Intimacy–core................................... 93 Intimacy–periphery....................... 185 Intimacy–praxis ……………........... 330 Praxis .................................................. 485 Further information .................... 594 Usage notes .................................... 657 Researched and written in Jan–May 2024. Verify all information listed. Photo credits at bit.ly/albusguide.

A new kind of guide College advising is a multi-billion dollar industry that involves the better part of each generation of Americans as they move through those one or two critical years where their marks are crucial and their choices are life-changing. It’s all too easy to see the importance of finding the right college. In the developmental pipeline of our society as it exists today, where you go to college can influence who you know, what you do, and where you live. It is where ties, memories and identities that last a lifetime are made. Given these facts, the college guides on the market can seem surprisingly inadequate, unhelpful, or even dull and banal. While there are guides sponsored by huge corporations that hire dozens of advisors and pool together their time and knowledge to create texts over several years, they remain devoid of actual insight. The best-selling books on the market, The Fiske Guide and The Princeton Guide, are written on the model of registries or telephone books, and cobble together profiles with a rambling form devoid of real synthesis that makes it difficult to see distinctions. Using student quotes might sound like a solid idea on its face, but the reality is that corporate outreach tends to elicit tinned responses, and most students lack the comparative view necessary to make a good guide. The result is that these profiles weave vague narratives that sound substantive and helpful but only on that fraudulent principle on which vapid horoscopes sound apt and erudite. The writers, it seems, are keenly aware that the only way to make redundant commentary palatable is to convey it in a conversational tone. That it isn’t going to cut it for the discerning reader in the age of AI, or so we can hope.

My background and mentality predisposes me to the task of writing profiles that are clearly distinguished and that hone in on identifying features. I am someone who has always been enamored with “types,” which is to say the diversity of identities, because I treasure what makes things what they are. As a small child, I was engrossed by those shiny profiles in miniature, Pokémon cards (during the brief age when they weren’t sabotaged with crass graphics). Not unrelatedly, I was also fascinated by the forms of real nature. My favorite picture book was Zoo by Gail Gibbons. Something about the thin pen drawings, so unlike the blocks and blotches usually found in children’s books, evoked a certain form of descriptive cognition that I craved, like how certain fonts are used for different purposes. This bible was quickly succeeded by The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animals of the World. It wasn’t the well-known pandas or polar bears that piqued my interest as much as it was the golden toad or the Hoffman’s two-toed sloth, something that would carry over in my favor for grassland sparrows, with their subtle colors and lace-like patterns of the prairie, over the flashier sorts.

My enthusiasm for organic cognition was not limited to the strictly natural sphere either; I took glee in hand-crafting and illustrating informative packets for heritage breeds, posessed an eye for the nuances and shades of snapdragon, and had short-lived obsessions with other forms of cultivation. As an ardent regionalist and localist on cultural matters, meanwhile, I was appalled by people who flew over legions of territory to visit landmarks (and revulsed by the mentality of tourist guides, which I considered criminal). The lens I had gained transferred to societal topics as I began my magnum opus, which is at times drawn from in this book.

As a romantic† naturalist and ethnographer trained in the field, my own “liberal arts education” was one that would not be easy to explain in words or number in credits, and that educated the subconscious more than the conscious. It involved the acquisition of a method of perception, liberated of the dependencies on constructs that cause others to gloss over so much; an intuition for the rhythms of similarity and difference underlying all of existence; and the ability to discern forms from what might seem like a sheer jumble of information. This is a perspective that I have brought into this work. It is this same positivistic, naturalistic mentality that also formerly drew me to the stimulating sociological experiments that permeate the worlds of young adult fiction today. (These are sometimes called dystopias, which is due to the fact that errors are always more acute, if not more prevalent, from the etic perspective.) I believe that these books reflect a hidden fantasy that many people raised in the age of loneliness have about intentional communities††. This is an insight that has informed the substrate of this work. I understand that colleges are to be holistically conceived, that they are living, breathing beings. They have the populations of towns and often take on the attributes of nations, with their own colors and anthems, and highly elaborated and revered rituals optimized to satiate the instinct for warfare. The identity of an entity is more than the sum of its parts, and I have included information about things that are not themselves important but act as colorful clues to their identities as wholes, such as their architecture, their histories and their associated figures. †anti-trivia and abstract † †(such as associations formed by algorithmic sorting mechanisms that could help them find their place)

The formatting of this book takes its cues from the American heritage of field guides (real and fanciful alike). It has adopted the Peterson method, which instead of using snapshots that vary with the perspective and lighting, strives to craft a canonical and proportioned entry for each taxa and characterize each using its most distinguishing points, as I believe that pure abstraction is the only way to create any true catalog of qualitative diversity. It is indebted as well to the first edition of The Sibley Guide East, which did as much as anything else to educate me on the organic beauty of diversity with its gem-like reams of profiles. The broader styling and infographic sensibility of this book, which may be more pertinent in future or alternate editions, is informed by magazines, atlases and almanacs such as those produced by the National Geographic and DK. I have preferred to intersperse contextual information or put it in the back for reference, because the tendency to front-load and “tell” information before you need it is seldom as sensible as it seems in theory or in tune with how people actually read and learn. On the whole, you will find that this work expresses my inexorable tendency to approach everything as an art, if not a philosophical seminar. I hope that this won’t look like overkill on second thought. A college guide might appear to be a mundane matter, but it isn’t really. It is a guide dedicated to nothing less than helping people of the most pivotal age find meaning in life, by covering the diversity of social institutions that are the traditional staging grounds for and portals to adulthood. As such, it centers on the themes of identity and vocation and the multitude of questions they raise, and is at its best when infused with the same richly multidimensional spirit of the liberal arts as the institutions it covers.

A world of possibility Going to college is the first chance that people have to be adults, and it is an exciting, liberating pathway to all the freedoms that maturity offers. In the United States, this degree of liberation is explosive. Teenagers are faced with the ability to go anywhere within the bounds of the largest and most diverse free country on earth (if not beyond), with about a thousand institutions to choose from. This may be the first time they are permitted to so much as walk down the hall without a pass. In the United States more than anywhere else, college is seen as a rite of passage that exists not only for the purpose of learning a profession, but for the purpose of forming the self through social bonding and liberal education. This is a fact recognized by an admissions process that often puts more emphasis on who they are as a person than on their academic records alone. All of this imbues a soul-searching significance to the moment of going to college, which can inspire a sense of desolation if you aren’t sure about where to go. With few resources that rise to truly meet the momentous and grandiose dimensions of this time of one’s life—momentous and grandiose in their potential through a humanistic lens—it is small wonder that many students are overwhelmed and look primarily to their choices close to home, the infinitesimal benefit of convenience they provide being used as a heavy-duty razor to pare down the range of choices to the few they can digest.

If they are determined to “go” to college, in the traditional and revered sense of experiencing independence and expanding their horizons beyond their hometown, it further makes sense that faced with a multitude of strange, faceless

and meaningless names, they would look to unidimensional rankings such as the US News Report’s, the single list that has dominated the college admissions process of the past generation, or for as long as it has been the frenzy it is in the present day. The bland “guides” that have been produced thus far have typically left them with little choice, and thus with little way to fulfill the radically idealistic vision of college created by the historic post-1990 shift in the human psyche that also radicalized the ideals of finding your match in work, friendship and love. The dominance of rankings obscures the fact that finding a college can be, and should be, an enriching, stimulating, and formative process of finding your soul mate somewhere in a vast, diverse and dynamic land, rather than stressful one of obsessing over your celebrity crush or a merely assumptive one of settling for your nextdoor neighbor. This is a predicament that could easily be remedied with the application of affinitive AI (a fact that tends to be obscured in the rush to ape Hollywood’s caricature of the future by straining to contrive cold, corporate products that people think smack convincingly of its fictional aesthetic connotations), but as matters are, the prospect of sifting through colleges and their myriad personalities is appreciably and understandably daunting.

The profiles in this book are written the way that profiles of colleges should be written, with a keen focus on “what makes them what they are,” so that you can gain a grasp of what each one really is and be drawn them by heart. Reading a college guide should be a vivid experience, not a dry task of disentangling descriptions, nor a lonesome endeavor of trying to pull meaning out of comically pat and tepid quotes about as reassuring as faint robocalls chirped from an automaton supposed to help you find direction in life. You’ll

feel emboldened to consider all of the options offered with an open mind as they come alive on its pages, and in the purest sort of experience, with the appeal of their gestalt and not only their stats to consider. In this book, it is completely pick-and-choose, because there are no fees to apply. Application fees, it is true, are negligible compared compared to the cost of attendance, but it is also true that this is small comfort on the immediate timescale, and that they are juxtaposed to an increasingly dim allure as more and more people question not only what colleges to go to, but whether it is worth going to college at all. Going to college is an act of courage for many, and even considering places that are far from home always requires a leap of faith. This article of faith, thus, poses the lowest possible threshold—a drop of initiative, a hint of curiosity—to the consideration of its contents, and rewards the reader by expanding their ability to imagine and envision their potential futures by a hundredfold. By this guide’s end, college will no longer be an abstraction, something you’ve heard that you’re supposed to go to, but a richly detailed, organic object that you know inside and out and can navigate on your own terms.

Of course, going to college is a bilateral game, but this guide will be of great use for finding more colleges that you find appealing for personal reasons and not only for ones that make them difficult to get into. It is all too easy to underestimate the variability of the American-exceptionalist style of admissions. While its aims may be nobler than the admissions processes found elsewhere, there is truth to the fact that trying to turn college admissions into, as some advocate, a judgement of morals and character, can be based on quite bold assumptions on the part of colleges.

This is something you’ll probably be aware of if you’ve taken

a look at the sad, mutually plagiarized application questions that colleges put on their applications. Unfortunately, the score ranges that people typically take as admissions requirements to American colleges, which are not disaggregated by types of applicants, are typically only suggestive. Just because the probabilities seem to keep corroborating with each other doesn’t mean that the result will definitely be within their range (as if it’s even sensical for a probability to transmute into a value). It’s probably smart to broaden your net, which will give you more admissions and tuition offers to choose from. I can think of many people who could possibly have benefited from this book and found colleges in it that they like better than the all-purpose, expensive out-of-state colleges they were forced to attend (and by its end, perhaps you will be able to as well).

I imagine that there is a risk that some people will turn to this as a book to raid for safeties. However, I hope that they will come to see this as a comprehensive survey, a complete work and a consummate guide in its own right as well.

Colleges that don’t charge application fees do so because they have one-of-a-kind identities, and as a result, can trust that people will apply to them because they are drawn to what they offer. Some trust that interested people will apply mainly because they serve local communities, but those with a national reach are frequently specialized, niche, and mission-driven in some way or another. Many enjoy high yield rates (meaning that they options with unmatchable selling points rather than generic backup choices) and cultivate loyal alumni. These colleges are, therefore, in many ways, a collection of the most exceptional, distinctive and lesser-known educational institutions of the United States, the most dynamic and innovative country on earth.

M

ost of the colleges in this guide are liberal arts colleges. This is to say that they are colleges that exist for their mission of serving students (what a theoretically naïve beholder of the concept of college might assume that all colleges are), rather than research institutes that offer educational services on the side for an income stream. I remember that my own fanciful assumption as a teenager, admittedly one disengaged from pop culture, was that a college is just one building like a schoolhouse. I was amazed to learn that a college could have the layout and population of a town, and that the professors who teach students are usually nothing more than researchers hired to do research, which would appear to be a dubious sort of arrangement unless they were working alongside them, although the professor who explained this to me (who I knew was a professor mainly because every few years I would walk into graduate students in the privacy of my own home and freak out) found it annoyingly natural. You might not be as dumb as I was, but it’s worth explaining the point.

High schoolers, it must be said, usually overlook liberal arts colleges (that is, apart from the private equivalents of community colleges in the area for those in the community college mentality). It is common for ambitious students to apply exclusively to large research universities. This is probably because the small size and unbusy image of most LACs (a lack of newsmaking research on absolute terms or huge sports teams) make them much lower in profile than research universities when they are not in the immediate area. The visceral disappeal of a community college is, in my view, not only understandable but perfectly astute—it’s likely to feel too much like a continuation of high school, except that it’s far more lonely, with the vast majority of the peers

you’ve been with since the age of approximately five scattering to far-flung pastures while you stay to face your long, bleak adulthood, in which it can be more difficult to make friends because of high dropout rates and single-track developmental pathways. It’s natural to imagine the solution as a large university, if not immediate entrance into the workforce to stave off the sense of driftlessness and ennui.

The reality, however, is that far from only promising lives of quiet desperation, there are many smaller colleges offering vibrant and tight-knit communities for you to explore.

Some students are attracted to research universities because they want to engage in research. Counterintuitively, most of the best places to look to if you want to do research aren’t research universities. If you’re an undergrad, you’ll have much better chances of engaging in hands-on learning right away, not just joining huge lectures, at a liberal arts college. You could very well find yourself working at levels of advancement and intellectual rigor that other students couldn’t dream of until they’re PhDs, and maybe not even then, given how busy and unenthusiastic advisors can be; and you’ll be fresh out of high school, able to change your mind about what you want to study based on your hands-on experiences, not a 22 or 26 year old who’s cresting their prime with the rest of their life already mortgaged away.

While the output of well-known universities may be impressive, whether you’ll be able to take advantage of them as an undergrad is another matter, because professors at research universities traditionally mentor students only at the graduate level. Attending a LAC for undergrad, then moving up to a RU if you decide to pursue graduate studies to take advantage of specialized professors (in the specific areas you will now know that you want to pursue), advanced

facilities, and teaching opportunities is the course of action that makes the most sense for the majority of the population (with the exception of those for whom hordes of people and course offerings is a must, although the low coincidences of class sections within a major can make it difficult to form relationships, and the courses open to freshmen are often limited). At your LAC, you will be likelier to be able to form relationships with professors who can be a source of connections (for internship and research opportunities that pad your résumé for grad school or immediate entry into the job market), and can write letters of recommendation that make you stand out. Combined with the advising you will receive at a liberal arts college, especially within its often purpose-built honors college, you will likely be in a better position to enter grad school than at a grad-focused school if you are interested in a medical, legal or academic position.

Another reason students might want to go to research universities is that they are interested in STEM, and assume that liberal arts colleges aren’t likely to be the best for that when they read the definition of the liberal arts (the education that is meant to develop you as a person more than train you in something specific). However, it is only a half-truth that liberal arts colleges aren’t as good for STEM. They can have the overwhelming advantage when it comes to undergraduate education in biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, and neuroscience—the “pure” sciences in general. It is true that not all LACs offer computer science, and that few offer engineering if you want to get a bachelors in four years instead of a masters in five (with the attraction or detraction of attending two colleges). Furthermore, their course offerings may be limited to the few and necessary (and if the few professors in your area are bad at teaching,

though they’re often better, you’ll be out of luck, so you should look them up on the site Rate My Professor, which is a good tip for the smaller departments at any college).

However, consider that the personal attention that you’ll get could be a boon in these often dry and difficult fields. Your teachers will be able to do more to personally coax you through your points of poor understanding and difficulty.

Their experience with individuals will often give them a better understanding of what they need to do to teach, and they will probably be there to teach out of their attraction to and devotion to the craft. This is far from guaranteed to be the case at large universities. If there is something special you want to pursue, furthermore, you may be able to do so at a LAC with faculty support. You will also be able to switch tracks easily if necessary, whether from or to these fields, with the thinner academic divisions at smaller colleges.

Waivers for colleges with fees A necessary note to make is that virtually all colleges will waive fees through the Common App if you are eligible for welfare or a college preparation program for disadvantaged students. However, these income limits will exclude many applicants who would benefit from waivers, overlooking the fact that it is often not affordability as much as tradition, class and psychology that is at issue. The spending limit does not rise linearly as a function of income. Higher-income parents involved in the preparation process are willing to spend thousands, in which case fees will seem nominal and their budget will be unlimited, but other students go through it without any great support and are intimidated by fees that stack up quickly, incentivizing them to adopt limited horizons

and humbler aspirations. The threshold where the real difference in the ability to pay fees is made is far higher than the one at which waivers are granted. In most cases, you would only be eligible for waivers if your household earned less than 5k a month or 60k a year. This means that your dad could be a plumber, or a trucker, or both your parents could be working parents, and you would be too rich to qualify for the Common App waiver. In all likelihood, fees impose a barrier causing students to apply to fewer colleges and not look as far afield, which can be damaging because private colleges are not always costly and often offer more support.

Overview of the sections Many people have ambitions about getting into the upper crust of society and view college as a stepping stone toward that end. With the paucity of indicators we have to attach to individuals (hint), our society relies on names on degrees in many situations, and they are a shortcut and accelerant to positions that usually require working your way up through tiers of jobs (more because this reveals already-held skills and filters people over time than because of anything else, much as with the process of going to college itself). If you yearn for a quicker ladder up life, or plan on entering academia and would benefit from relevant connections and resources, the prestige section will be of particular interest.

You may, on the other hand, be interested in college foremost as a formative experience in and of itself. In that case, you may be most interested in the intimacy I and II sections, which make up the bulk of the book and are its core and beating heart. These sections contain communities of that are steeped in deep and rich histories. They frequently have high levels of civic engagement, provide a structured environment and resources for personal development, and offer opportunities for close engagement around your interests with professors. They may be your best bet if you want to form memories and youthful social experiences that last you a lifetime, ideally in a stay-in-your heart kind of way.

The last section is praxis. If you are a certain type of person in a certain type of situation, the idealism of the colleges in the former categories could seem needlessly overbearing and insular, even impositionary. If you want to be treated like a full adult, get out into the world and self-direct your life,

these colleges are structured and programmed to allow you to do so. Alternatively, they may suit a more independent and inteprid spirit than the above colleges for some reason of their location or the other. You will be making something out of these colleges more than they will be making something out of you. (Trade (e.g. mechanical, culinary, cosmetic, or ministry), military and online schools are not included.)

These sections are intended to provide a degree of conceptual clarity and organization through modest subdivision. It is best to read the book through, and you may find this task easier and more compelling than with most college guides. This is not only a college guide in the sense that it will necessarily help you find an individual college in one of its pages. It is more than the sum of its parts, which weave a picture of the lay of the land as a whole. It will educate you on what it is and what to look for. It will, better than other books will do, “change how you see colleges” and “tell their stories.” You may come to understand the value of college on different terms, see it in another light, or feel more optimistic about your journey. You will certainly be able to make a more informed and confident decision about any college with a comparative and contextual perspective. This is very much a homily, not (only) instruction of doctrine.

The header of each profile gives you the price (approximate net costs—tuition, room and board—for incomes around 60k to 80k) and the size (populations of undergrads and of the largest city within 15 minutes). Any distances are by car (short-range public transportation will take multiple times as long). Deadlines are explained in the reference. The further information section will tell you more about the stats of each college and their specific admissions requirements.

Prestige

Colby College Admit: 6% Size: 2k (16k) Price: 3k-15k

Waterville, ME

Colby (“Dare northward”), the 12th oldest liberal arts college in the country, was designated a State Wildlife Management Area in 1969. Its art museum is the largest in Maine and a major draw for visitors to the state. In 2021, it established the first AI institute at a liberal arts college, and in 2023 it established the Halloran Lab to aid entrepreneurs. It has a state-of-the-art athletics center, and its outdoor orientation program, which includes options like sea kayaking and surfing, is required of all students.

Some of Colby’s stronger programs are reported to be those in economics, government and biology, and majors applying computing to biology and psychology are offered. It hosts research institutes for biotech and climate change (it was the fourth carbon-neutral college). Compared to Bowdoin and Bates, the two other elite Maine LACs, Colby is the most remote—located in small-town, inland Maine, along with Thomas College—although it is also the most international.

Its selectivity has increased as it builds its offerings.

Apply by 11/15 (EDI) or 1/2 (EDII or RD)

Carleton College Admit: 22% Size: 2k (21k) Price: 15k-25k Northfield, MN Carleton has been said to have the best undergraduate teaching in the US. Its students major in STEM and go on to pursue PhDs at the highest rateba of any liberal arts college, and it receives more NSF funding than any other. It has a history of enrolling students who are National Merit Scholars. Courses are shorter than at most LACs. Carleton’s campus, 45 minutes south of Minneapolis, is adjacent to an oak savannah (which connoisseurs will know is an endangered ecosystem because of the mesification of the East). Its historic, small river town is shared with St. Olaf College. The college was religiously conservative in its early history. It hosts the oldest student-run pub in the US, The Cave, which has drawn notable musicians over the years.

Alumni include editors of Politico and Mother Jones, WaPo columnist Jonathan Capehart, numerous sitting college presidents, and authors of The Teenage Liberation Handbook and Lies My Teacher Told Me. The most popular majors at Carleton are computer science, biology and mathematics, and it has gender parity in STEM. Apply by 11/15 (EDI) or 1/15 (EDII or RD)

Bowdoin College Admit: 9% Size: 2k (20k) Price: 10k-20k Brunswick, ME Three miles from the coast and thirty minutes from Portland, the largest town in ME, the archetypal Maine college was founded shortly after the American Revolution and has played a major role in the nation’s history. The wife of one of its faculty members wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was pivotal in instigating the Civil War, and alumni served as president, managed the budget of the Civil War, led the Freedmen’s Bureau, and founded Howard University. Longfellow (“Paul Revere’s Ride”) and Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter) were members of its literary societies.

Several recent alums have become news reporters.

Bowdoin has a history of making forward-thinking changes for inclusivity, including by experimenting with descriptive grades from 1967 to 1990, going SAT-optional in 1970, abolishing fraternities in 1997, and even doling out iPads.

Dining is highly rated, but can be relatively familiar and pedestrian. As at Colby, ice hockey is a prominent sport. Its mascot is a polar bear. Economics and government are popular as at most elite colleges, and it shares strengths in languages, area studies and neuro with other top LACs. It boasted of giving grants to 22 students this year, which means that getting your personal inquiries funded may be more competitive than at some less prestigious LACs. ED: 11/15, ED/RD: 1/15. Free if you apply for financial aid.

Looking further into college programs Most colleges offer a similar range of bachelors degrees.

Some, like biology and psychology, are to be found at any college. More prestigious or affluent colleges typically have sizeable programs in the traditional social sciences, such as politics and economics (the latter in the stead of business).

Most colleges have business and teaching, and many that are not as name-brand have “professional” majors that are oriented toward immediately training students for a career, particularly nursing and exercise science (the latter is usually the result of attracting students through athletic programs).

Engineering is usually in a path where students spend three years earning a bachelors in physics (most commonly) and then two years earning a masters in engineering elsewhere.

Some directly offer bachelors in engineering.

The full list of majors offered can be found on a college’s website. Its largest majors by enrollment can be viewed on College Navigator. The size of the enrollment in a major is is not always indicative of the quality of the course offerings and department resources (smaller programs may in fact offer greater faculty interaction). The details of a major’s course offerings can be viewed in the catalog of the college, and reviews of the professors who teach them can be found on Rate My Professor. Some majors vary significantly in their focus from college to college. For example, biology course offerings can skew toward being relevant to pre-med or environmental students; psychology can have theoretical, experimental, or applied (that is social work) emphases.

(These may be called tracks or concentrations.) Some colleges will describe the requirements for the major on a dedicated page.

Tulane University Admit: 13% Size: 9k (377k) Price: 26-34k New Orleans, LA Tulane, home of the “Green Wave”, draws students from all over the country to its campus in the Big Easy, a city known for its nightlife, jazz music, rich cuisine, and French and African culture.

Some sources say that it is the best party college in the nation. Despite its spirited cultural scene, which is so unique and genre-defying it has been described as a standalone region of the US, it has faced challenges in recent years, and is projected to go under sea level by 2050.

People say that students at Tulane are special for their collaborative work ethic. After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, then the costlist cyclone in history, Tulane became the first research university to establish a public service requirement (40 hours) for graduation. You can earn majors from different schools at Tulane, making it easy to double or even triple major in disparate fields (in concert with the lax requirements), and it has numerous 4+1 programs.

The finance and real estate programs are strong, and its Latin American and tropical medicine programs may be the best in the country. Engineering, architecture, Russian, German and Asian studies, neuro and pol-econ are offered.

Women Tulanians outnumber its men 2 to 1. Famous alumni have included Republican firebrand Newt Gingrich, Speaker and architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution, Andrew

Breitbart, the founder of Breibart News, the alt-right news source associated with Trump advisor Steve Bannon, and the GOP candidate in the 2022 Nevada Senate race. Current faculty include Walter Isaacson, the bestselling biographer and US historian known for his, highly, dubious analyses, and novelist Jesmyn Ward, who is the only woman or African American multi-time winner of the National Book Award.

Tulane is just across the street from Loyola University New Orleans, a smaller university, and Audubon Park, a half acre city park that was recently developed into a golf course. It is 10 minutes from downtown NO and 20 miles from bayous and wildlife refuges. While it can get muggy, temperatures stay in the 60s and 70s for most of the academic year.

The French Quarter, Mardi Gras, football team with pretty helmets

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/15 (EA), 1/15 (RD), or 1/16 (ED)

Scenes on campus during the Israeli-Hamas war 23-10-30, City Journal—Fitts didn’t respond with a top-line call for calm dialogue and a plea for each side to understand the other’s pain. Instead, he took a sharp law-and-order approach. “We condemn and are outraged by today’s violence,” he wrote. “Everyone who committed an illegal act on this day will be held accountable for their actions. In addition, all students are accountable to the Code of Student Conduct,” with violators to face “disciplinary action.” Fitts praised police for making “several arrests” on-scene, as well as a later arrest for anti-Semitic vandalism, and noted that “additional arrests may be forthcoming as video evidence is reviewed.” He also promised more policing by both oncampus and city officers and told students to expect a “highly visible police presence” at future protests. Finally, he warned students “to avoid participating in any further demonstrations off campus,” as they could get caught up in violent escalation.

23-11-10, AP—The unease is felt acutely at Tulane, where 43% of students are Jewish, the highest percentage among colleges that are not explicitly Jewish.

24-03-14, the Tulane SDS—Tulane has done nothing to protect Arab students and members of SDS from repeated harassment and threats, and now one of our members has been assaulted by a member of the faculty… We are calling on Tulane University to publicly denounce Walter Isaacson for violently battering a student. We are calling on Walter Isaacson to resign from his post. We are calling on Tulane to acknowledge the violence against Students for a Democratic Society that it has encouraged with its silence.

A movement’s moment of reckoning 23-11-17, the New York Times—The group has been banned or suspended by Brandeis, Columbia and George Washington University. And it has recently become the target of thundering speeches on Capitol Hill and blistered during a Republican presidential debate…

Although published reports have pegged its founding to 2001, Students for Justice in Palestine actually began in the early 1990s at the University of California, Berkeley, according to Dr. Bazian, one of the founders.

Apartheid was collapsing in South Africa, he said, and some critics of Pretoria’s policies turned toward the Palestinian cause through the new student group. Other activists— environmentalists, opponents of American intervention in Latin America, critics of the gulf war—joined in, broadening the group’s base…

By the middle of 2001 [after the final efforts at peace had collapsed], the Berkeley group was drawing headlines. It pressed unsuccessfully for the university system’s regents to divest from Israel, and it blocked a campus gate to simulate an Israeli checkpoint.

23-12-17, the New York Times—There are growing signs that colleges are starting to clamp down on pro-Palestinian protests and events on campus, as the institutions face pressure from donors, alumni and politicians, who are furious over what they say is an antisemitic campaign against Jews…

“It’s truly like nothing else we’ve ever seen before,” Ms. Sainath said. “We’re having a ’60s-level moment here, both as far as the repression but also the mass student mobilization.”

Kenyon College Admit: 34% Size: 2k (2k) Price: 20-29k Gambier, OH The oldest private college in Ohio, Kenyon has a small rural campus (one hour northeast of Columbus) with spare, elegant spires that has been praised by critics as the most beautiful in the world. It has established its own land trust (one of only two run by a college) to preserve its air of a countryside escape (the Kokosing, meaning river of small owls, is inhabited by hellbenders and river otters). It even has a farm where students can raise goats and turkeys, and then eat them.

Kenyon is a hardcore LAC, which means you could major in Greek or Latin, but only concentrate in computing (which nonetheless may be appealing, because there are more courses to apply it to other fields than at other colleges).

Common majors at Kenyon include English, history and art.

Languages, politics and psychology are popular as well.

Programs in the pure sciences are solid, and students go on to earn PhDs at high rates. Students can intern at the Center for American Democracy. The Kenyon Review is among the most prestigious literary journals, winning more short story awards than any other. Sports have a history of achievement.

The excellent swimming teams benefit from its soaring, light-filled athletics facility. Clubs include ones for archery, ballet, and horse-riding. The college is rich in sentimental traditions, including a song that is sung when students enter and leave Kenyon. Candles are lit in every window when a

new president arrives, and the bell is rung when the football team wins a game or the US is no longer engaged in war. The shield is so haute it has been plagiarized by Ralph Lauren.

Alumni include Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes (a piquant comic strip about a small child frustrated by modernity), John Green, the author of The Fault in our Stars (a melancholy YA novel) and host of Crash Course History, Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children), co-founders of Bloomberg and Pod Save America, actor Paul Newman (Newman’s Own charity), a Venezuelan opposition leader, the prime minister of Sweden and the leader of its Social Democratic party from 1969 until their assassination in 1986, chief Supreme Court justice Rehnquist, the secretary of war under Lincoln, an Obama spokesperson, the current US ambassador to Ukraine (appointed in 2022), and the author of the authoritative textbook on cell biology. The band that made the no. 1 alternative “Shut Up and Dance” was formed at Kenyon.

The college has been described with fondness by its alumni, with Bill Watterson calling Kenyon a rich meal that “your brain will probably burp up for a long time.”

Why Shakespeare remakes and Hamilton are ridiculously popular

Apply by 11/15 (ED) or 1/15 (ED/RD)

Oberlin College Admit: 35% Size: 3k (8k) Price: 24-29k Oberlin, OH Oberlin was a coalesced product of the wave of utopian experimentation around the 1840s as the most radical descendant of the Oneida Institute, the first manual-labor college (college that students help to run and sustain as a community themselves) in the US. (Manual-labor colleges today include Deep Springs and Warren Wilson; students at Oberlin can grow their own food.) Oneida County, a Welsh settlement and intellectual capital, would also see the rise of the Oneida Community, the most successful American commune, during the worldwide upheaval of 1848.

In 1829, a faction of students that had become dissatisfied with Oneida’s leadership under unclear circumstances left Oneida to become the main contingent of students convening at Lane Seminary on the fraught Kentucky border, along with abolitionists from Rochester and from across the country, while its president left to found Knox College. They were led by Theodore Weld, the prime architect of the abolitionist movement. His writing and oratory would influence Harriet Beecher Stowe, the daughter of the Lane’s president, to later write Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and inspire the president of Western Reserve College to leave his institution to head Oneida as its second president. At Lane, Weld organized seminal debates on slavery that created the first academic freedom controversy in the US, after which many

students on the supportive side left to become students at Oberlin, an amenable project founded by a fellow follower of Finney, the radical disciple of Oneida’s first president and Rochester-area leader who had also shaped Weld and the founder of the Oneida Community. There they ensured that Oberlin, unhindered by finances or provincial politics, would become the sole college at the time to admit students without regard to race. Oberlin also became the first college in the country to affirm that the administration could not control the speech of its students, and the first to admit students without regard to sex. As the OG of academic experimentation, Oberlin has probably exerted more irreplaceable influence than any other college in the country.

The unusual institutional arrangement of Oberlin includes the oldest music school in the country, which created the first program in electronic music in 1967 and is the largest one integrated with a liberal arts college. It has some of the best art museums and libraries at a LAC. As with Kenyon, it produces Fulbrights and PhDs at a high rate, and its alumni hold 1% of the seats in the National Academy of Sciences.

Ethnic studies is a strength of Oberlin, and environmental studies, history, and computer science are popular. Political offerings are expansive and 60s-influenced. The college is 40 miles west of Cleveland and 10 miles from the lakeshore.

Students are fairly down to earth, despite the news coverage. Alumni include Lena Dunham (of Girls), the writer of The Princess Bride, a founder of The American Prospect (known for its success in mentoring new writers), the founder of Ben and Jerry’s, the first president of the NACW, sociologist Warren Wilson, and the founder of Deep Springs.

Apply by 11/15 (ED), 1/2 (ED) or 1/15 (RD)

Connecticut College Admit: 38% Size: 2k (28k) Price: 20-30k New London, CT Founded as a sister college to Wesleyan by alumni when it stopped accepting women, CC remains influenced by Wesleyan in the form of an emphasis on interdisciplinary studies.

Its academic program, called Connections, asks students to find a question that animates them and then study it through multiple fields, as well as apply their classes in the world.

Connecticut became coed in 1969 and is now 61% female.

Although it does not allow Greek groups, it has many affinity groups. It runs on an honor code meaning that students take unproctored finals, and it has a system of shared governance meaning that students are represented on boards that make all policy decisions. In 2023, student protesters expelled the longtime dean on speculative charges of racism by locking themselves to key academic buildings, with the support of staff and faculty. Students describe the college as “preppy”.

The most popular majors are psychology, economics and political science. Course requirements are very minimal (two writing courses and two Social Power and Difference courses).

Its alumni include the (hapless) Trump press secretary Sean Spicer, the host of The Majority Report, and a feminist geopoliticist. It is equidistant between NYC and Boston.

Apply by 11/1 (Jan. admission), 11/15 (EDI) or 1/15 (EDII or RD)

Macalester College Admit: 28% Size: 2k (732k) Price: 18-24k

Saint Paul, MN

Macalester is one of the few top liberal arts college in a major metropolis. It promotes community-based learning and allows students earn money while working at a local nonprofit or elementary school. Dozens of courses across a dozen departments partner with businesses and organizations as part of their curriculum.

The course requirements at Macalester are very lax (only one course each in four areas), although the college emphasizes internationalism (the UN flag has flown on campus since 1950). International studies, math and computer science are the most popular majors. It provides free transportation to and full course registration at four other liberal arts colleges in the Twin Cities, including Augsburg University, further adding to the flexibility in students’ course options. Students can further take courses at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Macalester attributes its ethic of service (and possibly other qualities vis-a-vis its sports chant “Drink blood, smoke crack, worship Satan, go Mac”) to its Scottish roots. Its alumni include recent UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Carter VP and unsuccessful presidential nominee Walter Mondale.

Apply by 11/1 (EDI or EA), 1/1 (EDII) or 1/15 (RD)

General education requirements If you’re like most students, for most of your school career, you’ve taken classes in a standard set of subjects rather than ones you’ve elected to take. Especially if you’re part of the minority of students who pursue intellectual interests on their own as a primary form of leisure, the idea of being able to choose your own classes will be an exciting prospect. Not only will you be able to register for your own classes, but they will explore topics much more niche than those that are standard in public district schools. Alternatively, you may simply not want to be forced to take classes in certain subjects that never quite resonated with you, whether that be math or history or some other common bane. (This is the less redeeming motive that colleges attempt to combat.)

All of the specific courses you take, apart from possibly one or two writing courses, will usually be ones you choose. Most colleges will also try to ensure that every student will have done a number of things at some point in their course of study, however, in a program that they frequently brand as their proprietary curriculum (though it is seldom unique apart from the labels declaring the tonic-like properties of the requirements). The usual instrument for enacting this curriculum are distribution requirements,1 or around 5-15 different categories that you have to take classes in, which range from intercultural understanding to quantitative literacy. These constitute what colleges consider the cultured individual to be acquainted with. They are usually broad enough that you will fulfill them without effort if you have modestly expansive interests. (The exception to this may be foreign language, which some colleges require up to the level of proficiency, meaning two fast-paced courses.)

This is part of the idea known as a liberal arts education (which is about being liberal with your studies, or getting a generous helping of every subject, and about arts in the sense of skills and techniques). Its intent is to give you the grounding to see from a variety of perspectives. This is usually somewhat idealistic. Most people will not be applying the philosophy or aesthetics courses they took in college to their lives. It is even more obviously idealistic when the liberal arts are characterized as the last bulwark of civilization: the refrain goes that it is not enough to only have technical expertise, and people must take courses on human subjects so they can remember the human side of things asw well. Whatever such ability they have would come from their own experiences. Moreover, all social ills arise from flaws in the conventional wisdom, and hegemonizing what it internally holds to be its own flaws won’t help anything.

There is potentially value in having a chance to think thoroughly about matters before you go on with your career.2 Some people want to do this in the extreme with vast core curriculums that will give them tutelage. Others already have a strong sense of belief and direction, in which case they might be attracted to the idea of more open curriculums. The importance of this tends to be overstressed, however. If you have interdisciplinary interests, the much greater constraint on your liquidity will be major requirements. Few introductory classes, and flexible means of fulfilling credit requirements (syncretic majors can go either way), are points to look for.

Found in the degree requirements section of most college catalogs Colleges tout the practicality of the liberal arts by pointing to how it aligns with employers’s most wanted skills; utterly elided is that being prepared is different from making that visible. The only way this could help is by building the college’s brand in the aggregate.

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Grinnell College Admit: 13% Size: 2k (10k) Price: 20k-28k

Grinnell, IA

Grinnell offers an open curriculum, with only two required courses in your first year. Despite how remote it is, most students come from far outside the area (18% are from outside the country entirely and less than 10% are from Iowa), and it manages to attract a diverse student body to its virtual academic nunnery, being the most socioeconomically diverse college that successfully graduates students (behind only Vassar).

An important factor to consider is Grinnell’s size and possibly claustrophobic location (in corn fields). The college is halfway between Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, and an hour’s drive from Des Moines. An evening shuttle take students around town for free, and weekend transportation is provided to Des Moines for $5 or to Chicago for $60 (five hours) each way.

Grinnell nonetheless has a high freshman retention rate.

The most popular majors at Grinnell are computer science, biology and economics, and it is considered to have strong linguistics and science programs. Grinnell has a heavy but manageable workload and produces PhDs at a high rate. Its students consider its strength to be the decency and tightknit nature of its population. It is a top producer of Peace Corps (the 10th highest producer among small colleges).

Apply by 11/15 (EDI), 1/5 (EDII) or 1/15 (RD).

Reed College Admit: 31% Size: 1.5k (653k) Price: 20k-30k

Portland, OR

Reed College is, to put it simply, the most academic college in the United States. Its commitment to intellectual purity and rigor is unparalleled, and has been held since its founding, when the coach of an internationally reknown debate program came to Reed as its first professor to enact his vision of an “ideal college”, as set out in the final chapter of his pedagogical dissertation in 1911. This ideal college was one that would cut out the superficiality of East Coast student life, with its focus on class, by eliminating athletics, fraternities, and sectarian exclusions.

One of Reed College’s unusual features is that it does not tell students their grades in order to put the focus on their learning. Students are only given comments on their exams and assignments. It is common for students to graduate without ever knowing their GPA, though it’s useful for them to ask if they plan on pursuing further studies. Every student takes an introductory humanities course covering the classical world and (in a somewhat strained response to contemporary criticisms) America up to the Harlem Renaissance, and must complete a thesis with a 90-minute oral defense to graduate. Its most popular majors include literature, political science, anthropology, sociology, and math, and it has a relatively high number of physics majors

for a LAC of its size as the only place where undergraduates can operate a nuclear reactor. It is one of the highest producers of PhDs of any college, behind Caltech, Harvey Mudd and Olin (pure STEM colleges known for their intellectual rigor) and vying with Swarthmore (another intellectual LAC). It is also the top LAC producer of Rhodes scholars on a per capita basis by a significant margin. Reed stopped sending data to college rankings in 1990.

Students at Reed are treated as full adults, as displayed by the habit of students of calling professors by their first names, the Paideia (originating in 1968), the festival where students lead and attend classes of their own design, and the college’s disinterest in monitoring drug use. They are reputed for their leftist (or possibly, merely more principled) politics, seen in the antiracism protests that mobbed out the president in 2018 and resulted in the aforementioned change to the curriculum by an external review committee.

Notable alumni include Steve Jobs, who attended Reed College for a year before subsequently dropping out to “seek enlightenment” by traveling India (and then co-founding Apple); Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia and creator of its “neutral point of view” and “disregard unpragmatic rules” policies; Gary Snyder, a poet and figure in the Beat Generation featured in Kerouac’s novel The Dharma Bums; and Richard Danzig, former chairman of Center for a New American Security, a think tank that advocates for greater military vigilance within the Democratic Party.

Reed is 16 minutes from Portland, a progressive, bikeable metro surrounded by old-growth forest and mountains.

Apply by 11/15 (EDI or EA), 12/20 (EDII), or 1/15 (RD)

Middlebury College Admit: 13% Size: 3k (8k) Price: 12k-20k

Middlebury, VT

The oldest and most prestigious of colleges in Vermont, Middlebury lies in the center of the Champlain valley. Its campus is a stately (and remote) village, lamp-lit at night.

Upperclassmen can live in villas that have community themes. It is most reknown for its language programs, which host immersive summer experiences, and its pioneering role in environmental studies. Its grad schools of international affairs are prestigious. The gen ed requirements are minimal.

Middlebury has the oldest environmental studies undergraduate program at a private college, established in 1965 just as “environmentalism” was coming into existence.

Bill McKibben, who wrote the first book about climate change for a popular audience and has been called “the nation’s leading environmentalist”, is a faculty member. The hundreds of students in the ES program can focus on biology, psychology, chemistry, economics, history, law, art, or any number of fields. Economics, international relations, history, English, math, computer science and architecture are among the other common majors. Computer science offers a variety of courses on a forward-thinking slant. The campus hosts the oldest writers’s conference in the country.

Middlebury made news for a protest in 2017: bit.ly/bcprotest.

Apply by 11/1 (ED) or 1/3 (ED/RD). Select yes in fee waiver.

Quidditch and its discontents Muggle quidditch, which was first invented by Middlebury in 2005, is modeled on the wizarding world’s favorite sport.

Many people have found this sport problematic. One of the points of complaint is how it has an undue dependence on the Seeker. This does create the potential for big saves, a fact that’s convenient for the plot. (Rowling has claimed that “it’s a metaphor for life,” which is also my excuse for any imperfections in this book.) The problem, however, is that there isn’t any synergy involved in the accomplishment. The Seeker might as well be on a different playing field, and the fact that they’re put in the midst of the other players is aesthetic, because the main difficulty with finding the Snitch has nothing to do with them. The players and their actions make for an aggregate of individuals, but that doesn’t make them a group, which is something else entirely.

The sport of Quidditch reflects a pitfall that is common when constructing a game that feels meaningful to play (which is trickier than you think; as Rowling has noted, it’s more difficult to be imaginative than to be figurative). On a similar line, it seems extraordinarily cheap to award the characters merely additive points and cap off each year with a count of all their points in a sentimental conclusion to quantitatively represent their success that year, and Rowling repeatedly relies on the plot device of non-interactive steps. This is part of a broader weakness and strength of the series, which might be described as the fact that Rowling isn’t afraid to be cheesy, as exemplified by how the Houses use expressive onomatopoeia to convey their personalities. Judging by all the bibbly-bop town names in England’s countryside, this might just be a thing about valuing straighforward logic.

The University of Chicago Admit: 5% Size: 7.5k (2697k) Price: 4-14k Chicago, IL As the only college directly comparable to the upper tier of the Ivy League in the Midwest, the University of Chicago has staked out quite a niche for itself. It is best known today for the Chicago Statement, the definitive statement on free speech for the current era of purported campus intolerance. More broadly, it is known for its intellectual rigor and seriousness, as expressed in its quirky application questions, the nerdy stereotype of its students, and its reluctance to add ethnic studies departments (which some people consider to be too ideological, as we’ve seen in the grievance studies affair) until after the events of 2020.

Its stances can look stodgy, trite or dismissive, as they might in the letters that it sends to new students saying it does not sanction “trigger warnings” or “safe spaces”; on the other hand, its mildly counterinstitutional tendencies, comparable to that of MIT, can be viewed as arising from the unusual earnesty of its commitment to academic ethics.

The University of Chicago plays a central role in the academic landscape. It was the site of the world’s first nuclear reactor and administrates the country’s top lab for the study of particle physics, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, along with Argonne National Laboratory. The University of Chicago Press is the largest university publisher in the United States. It was the neurocenter of the

freshwater school of economics, led by Milton Friedman, the most famous capitalist economist (almost synonymous to contemporary free market thought), during the period from the 1960s and the 1980s, shaping American identity during the cultural Cold War. Its (grad) business school is currently the top-ranked in the world (although Wharton has a flashier brand), and its law school is consistently ranked in the top three or five as well. It has rigorous math, economics and political science programs, and despite its slogan, “where fun goes to die”, it also fosters its connections to the origins of improv comedy, fields the country’s top Model UN team, and hosts an annual Latke-Hamantash debate. A wise meme once said that quirky ass bitches choose between UChicago and Brown like they’re night and day. The neighborhood, 8 miles from downtown, is said to have a safe, small-town feel and is adjacent to 1.5 square miles of parkland and beaches.

The storied alumni of UChicago’s large classes include the CEO of Microsoft, the founders of McKinsey, Blackstone and Carlyle, David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Obama’s campaigns, Saul Alinksy, the popularizer of the concept of community organizing, Bernie Sanders, the popularizer of socialism in the post-Cold War US and the leading articulator of its new populist left, the sitting presidents of Middlebury and Princeton (the most traditionally scholarly of the Ivy League colleges), scientists Carl Sagan, Edwin Hubble and James Watson, cultural commentators David Graeber and Samuel Huntington, and economists Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson and Thomas Sowell. 100 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with UChicago, putting it behind only Harvard and Berkeley (schools also prominent in the subconscious, representing Eastern and Western centers of power).

The main reading room. Skyline and steps to the lakeshore.

Apply by 11/1 (ED/EA) or 1/2 (ED/RD). Free if you apply for aid.

Trelawney as prophecy and parable What the Harry Potter series lacks in terms of its central plot—you won’t find yourself roused with righteousness at the thought of prejudice against Mudbloods, simply asserted without explanation like the anti-semitism that it’s based on, or left with an understanding of courage beyond the utterly quotidian—it frequently makes up for with its perceptive commentary on social affairs. (I qualify “frequently” in part because of its crude and unrealistic male characters, most notably Ron, who’s jocular but never funny. The fact that Rowling says he was supposed to cuss a lot confirms my fears because that would complete just the carbon copy of the cliché. I think Harry and Hermione would carry along the series nicely, with Ron being a random kiddo that’s too dull to be good for anything and that neither cares for very much, if we must have him to connect Harry to a mother figure.)

A case in point is the series’ satire of academia through the figure of Trelawney, whose caricature paralleled other critiques of the 1990s. In his third year, Harry discovers that his submissions can be successful even when they’re made up as long as they appeal her (rather perverse) ideological conceptions. This observation followed the Sokal scandal, and anticipated the grievance studies affair a decade later.

The transfiguration (magical physics) teacher’s suspicion of the wholesale legitimacy of the field of divination reflects an attitude that is common toward critical studies and portrays “the two cultures” (a British coinage). Rowling may have been inspired by the drift of Continental philosophy when she was a humanities major in college. The ironic legitimacy of Trelawney, revealed later on in the series, however, suggests that there may rarely be glimmers of truth to be found.

Northwestern University Admit: 7% Size: 9k (78k) Price: 6-20k Evanston, IL One hour north of UChicago is the suburban, beachshore campus of Northwestern, reknown for its journalism, organizational leadership and theater programs. Like UChicago, it does not have an undergraduate business program, but does produce billionares at a high rate with its MBAs. It emphasizes professional programs such as medicine, law and engineering more than the academically oriented UChicago. Northwestern competes with large Midwestern public universities in the Big Ten sports conference, and offers Greek housing. It operates on a trimester system, meaning that students take 12 instead of 8 classes per year. Many double major instead of feeling siloed—“AND is in our DNA”. Alumni include Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, George R.R. Martin, the author behind Game of Thrones, the writers of Sex and the City and the novel Gone Girl, actors Zooey Deschanel and Maude Apatow, starring in irreverent, flippant skits, Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Derek Thompson, a speculator about trends in work and culture for The Atlantic, as well as the record holder for Pulitzer Prizes.

11/1 (ED) or 1/3 (RD). ‘Do not include any of the above’

Why students chose Northwestern From what I know I feel like nu has a little bit more interconnectivity than most other schools of the same level—peel the avocado One of the reasons that I chose to go here was because I wanted to do STEM, but I didn't want to go to just a STEM school surrounded by other STEM people—Book_wyrm323

We’re Missing a Key Driver of Teen Anxiety DEREK THOMPSON — Forty years ago, the most anxious kids in America were those in low-income households.

Beginning in the late 1990s, that flipped. . .

Richer and more complex economies require more rigorous and intense education, putting more pressure on kids to be high-achieving perfectionists. . .

“I have for years thought that one of the main causes of the increase in adolescent depression was an increase in school pressure,” Laurence Steinberg told me. “When I talk to kids and we talk about sources of stress, they mention school pressure more than likes on Instagram.”

Some parents might respond that a little school pressure at 17 is a fine price to pay for decades of higher salaries and career success. If so, this is a case of delayed gratification.

Harvard University Admit: 3% Size: 9.5k (655k) Price: 4-17k Cambridge, MA As the Ivy League college of Boston, the intellectual capital of the world’s only superpower, Harvard’s brand is most likely unmatched by any other university on the planet. The charge of its name is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The insecurities of the proletariat can give it a negative flavor (and an obnoxious tendency of some graduates for performative modesty has been noted).

However, it is equally possible for people to be attracted to Harvard for superficial reasons or simply because it provides awesome resources and connections at a very low price.

Harvard’s association with the elite makes for increasingly heavy baggage in politics, and its brand has been a volatile and fraught commodity. (It recently adopted a mum policy.)

The recent alumni of this college of Unitarian heritage, including 2020 wunderkid Pete Buttiegieg and neo-Trump adapter Elise Stefanik, sometimes seem burdened by their preparations compared to the distinctive alumni of Calvinist Yale. Black students may feel that their degrees are tainted by a recent lawsuit. Aside from its larger than life image, it is also important to consider the on-the-ground reality of its campus, which can feel cramped and touristed. Harvard has the most holistic admissions process of any college (even elite ones) and is sympathetic to nonstandard backgrounds.

Apply by 11/1 (REA) or 1/1 (RD). See FI.

The enlightenment of the apes Founded in New England in 1636, Harvard’s beginnings lie with the refugees who settled under British auspices and under a creed called Separatism, motivated both by the persecution that had torn apart the Old World during a recent war—something that we idiomatically refer to as “intolerance” rather than “antipuritanism” since modern standards of tolerance have rarely applied to minorities in the past millennia—and by long-term concerns about the future security of their people. By their own account, the settlers were amiable and fair. They made offers to broker peace by dividing the Americans’ land in treaties or buying it with their alien customs, and as inteprid, careful settlers, they took in small numbers of individuals and tribes that they deemed civilized. However, it is clear that the goal was always to dominate and control the masses. Our civilizations were lost, and the people went into hiding. Most people today would be shocked to hear the officials of this high and enlightened project describe the Americans as “merciless savages, whose warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions,” bristling against modest calls for restraint in their acts of retaliation from abroad, after the grimey Americans outside the utopian dome they had built revolted and attacked their villages in a long-planned rebellion against the alien settlement, inspired by radical religious movements that took fire in the impoverished encampments. They remember the past as the triumphant rise of civilization in a land promised to them by a higher power. In an alternative history told by some Americans, however, the beginnings of the settler-colonial project are not remembered as a day to thank, but as a catastrophe.

Harvard has grown with the nation and played a central role in advancing its history. It has graduated several presidents and sitting members of Congress, and as such, it wields great power over the American psyche. Still, it has skeletons in its closet—over 7,000, in fact, according to a report in 2022, which it began laying to rest with the tribes of Massachusetts in 2023. Calls for Harvard to acknowledge that it resides on illegally seized lands rose in the wake of civil unrest of 2020, and it passed an acknowledgement to the effect in 2022. These events intertwined with the instatement of its first non-white president and a growing awareness of the situation faced by Palestinians. Only a year later, a tide of resistance to a settlement began as the displaced began organizing down below, and the United States stood stoutly with it as the latent archetypes of the savagery on the periphery, breaking through the gates from “the outside districts,” rising out of the huddled masses in the darkened understory, and those who defend against it from the city on the hill—the model of affluent democracy to be vindicated, the noble experiment to again be proven— were kindled and reinvigorated once more. The peripheral was only external to the egotistic view of modernity. When Harvard students placed the blame for the historic uprising of the divested on the state, we were incomprehending, and the fallout was seismic. Nonetheless, it marked a turning point in our discussion and in our foreign policy. As we explore and interrogate the imperfections of our founding, we find ourselves in a strange position. Acknowledging injustice is easy when it is of the past and the real-world repurcussions are few. Recognizing it in our own present is another, much more contentious, much more difficult matter.

Washington University Admit: 12% Size: 8k (293k) Price: 4-18k St. Louis, MO This beautiful and sprawling university is located 7 miles west of St. Louis in the suburbs, adjacent to the variegated, 2 miles square Forest Park, including ponds, a free zoo, free museums, and a theater. An 1876 ceremony dedicated “this large and beautiful Forest Park for the enjoyment of yourselves, your children and your children’s children forever”. In a southern Midwestern locale that has long been the center of population in the country, but with a lower-profile mystique, Washington adopted its name as a symbol of unity when it was founded in 1854, around the limit of recursion in the restructuring. It has hosted more presidential debates than any other college.

WashU ranks highly on indicators of college life, including dorms and dining. Its colors are an herbal, crisp combination of red and green. Facilities, activities and the administration are widely praised, and students are described as laid-back, friendly and eager to engage. Sports are not well-attended (the football team is considered poor), but it does have a moderate Greek life and several intramurals, and students have free access to the city metro. The center for innovation and entrepreunership lets students take courses or apply to its startup incubator. The university has also co-founded an

innovation district in St. Louis. The school of medicine is the third-best funded in the US, and its genome institute contributed 25% of the sequencing to the Human Genome Project. Engineering (material science, biomedical, chemical, computer, electrical and systems, environmental, minors in quantum and aerospace), CS, finance and marketing, cognitive science, architecture, visual design, fashion, and creative writing are among the common majors. A large number of biology specializations, including developmental and stem cell biology and genomics, bioinformatics and computational biology, are offered. Global studies offers developmental and international relations concentrations,

with considerable flexibility in courses fulfilling the major.

Requirements consist of three dedicated writing courses, one course each of a numerical, cultural, and ethical nature, and three courses each in the three academic divisions.

Apply by 11/1 (ED) or 1/3 (ED/RD). Free if you apply for aid.

The formation of an American mythology Historical mythologies serve the edifying purpose for adults that fables and fairy tales serve for children. Every nation has a mythology about the past that serves to guide it into the future—an account of what has happened in the form of an anecdote that can easily impart lessons and morals. America is a novel nation, and the development of a national mythology of its own has been the ceaseless work of history up to the present day. Moreover, the peculiar themes and preoccupations that mark its mythology, as distinguished from the general triumphalism common to all nations, have only recently come to be seen on clearer and brighter terms.

America declared its independence from Britain in 1776, but it only totalized its intellectual independence from the motherland over the course of the first ascension. This was the exultant time when it expanded to fulfill its divine destiny of encompassing the continent from sea to sea, and in the expansionary spirit that Kennedy’s call to reach for the moon and create a great society would later evoke, sought to integrate East and West, North and South, and black and white. The ascension’s quest to create a sustainable state of resolution (because a house divided against itself cannot stand) was the concern of America’s first mass movements, and gave rise to a number of eloquent, impassioned orators that future generations would look to. In the meantime, Americans looked to colonial-era figures such as Washington, who had called for unity in the face of regional divides; to choose a member of their own time, it seems, would have been too controversial. (It is not likely a total coincidence that WashU was named in honor of Washington a year after a new territory had been named after the same.)

During this stage of spiritual arousal, America’s leading intellectual, while admonishing America to claim its own identity, pulled on figures of the old continent for his book Representative Men. A century and some odd years later, many of the figures of Emerson’s era would be featured in Kennedy’s own chapter book of biographies, Profiles in Courage, expressing his understanding of what it meant to make a stand for history even when it results in backlash in one’s own present. This book launched Kennedy into the national spotlight and paved his way to the presidency. A descendant of the marginalized, Kennedy became an enduring icon of America, not only for Americans but for people worldwide, from denizens of the empire that had bequeathed it to those of its foe in the Cold War, signaling its rise as the leader of the “free world.” One admirer in Britain even took inspiration from the Kennedy brothers to write about another upward-striving set of brothers. (Of course, Kennedy’s understanding of courage was heuristical, and we can hardly trust someone who thinks that jumping on the trendy transphobia bandwagon is a mark of courage.)

If a book of profiles in courage (or historical righteousness) were written today, it would include members of Kennedy’s own time, from those who opposed McCarthyism—unlike Kennedy—to mythologized figures like Rosa Parks and MLK; and in contrast to the still-internal framework of his book, it would pay more respect to the emerging theme of American pluralism. This book is a study, a paean, an elegy in profiles, and more than anything else, it pays tribute to America’s diversity. America’s tradition of courage has been uniquely influenced by the dynamism born of its freedom—a defiance of boundaries that demands a conciliation more jarring, more transcendant, and more postmodern than many can imagine.

Johns Hopkins University Admit: 7% Size: 6k (576k) Price: 6-13k Baltimore, MD Founded in 1876, the same year as the invention of the telephone and the founding of Edison’s lab in a newly industrialized society, Johns Hopkins was America’s first research university, radically envisioned and masterminded by an elite taskforce, and marked the start of graduate education in the United States. Grad students outnumber undergrads 3 to 1. It is on the frontier of the heart of Baltimore, a historic city that saw the writing of the Star Spangled Banner, and its more affluent, tree-lined college district. (The undergrad campus is shown to the right and the hospital is shown above.) Baltimore may have a reputation as a slum to the national audience, with Trump calling it “a place where no human being would want to live”, and Kimberly Klacik’s ad in 2020 making a call for a change of governance. However, this should not scare you away from the city, which defies stereotypes as the northernmost city of the lowland plains known as the South and part of the cosmopolitan, educated bustle of the Midatlantic. The historic capital of Catholic America, Baltimore is only an hour or two away from D.C., the nation’s Vatican and the site of its most ferocious debates, largest marches, and greatest acts of change.

Johns Hopkins is reknown for its medical research, which has helped to secure its spot as the university receiving the most funding for research for 45 consecutive years (a streak unlikely to be broken anytime soon, as it is a statistical outlier). Its graduate schools of international relations, biomedical engineering, and public health are top-ranked.

Undergraduates can get in on the action with 80% participating in research (a testament to its openness may be that a high schooler who emailed over 200 labs only received a response from JHU).

About half prep for med school, and 80% receive acceptance (rates at other colleges should be viewed with a grain of salt because they may have higher drop-out rates). John Hopkins does not favor internal applicants to the medical school. Neuroscience, public health, biomedical and chemical engineering, computer science, math, economics, international relations, and music are common majors. Gen ed requirements are six social courses and three STEM. Students are described as moderate and not as politically inflamed as at some universities, and as studious but not as cutthroat as in the pre-med programs at some. John Hopkins is not considered to be a big party school. The Peabody Library, which opens into a five-story atrium, is one of the most beautiful in the world and is dedicated to 19th century works. Shuttles carry students around the city.

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Excerpt from “The New Education” (1869) I want to give him a practical education; one that will prepare him, better than I was prepared, to follow my business or any other active calling. The classical schools and the colleges do not offer what I want. Where can I put him? Here is a real need and a very serious problem. The difficulty presses more heavily upon the thoughtful American than upon the European. He is absolutely free to choose a way of life for himself and his children; no government leading-strings or social prescriptions guide or limit him in his choice. But freedom is responsibility…

He will not believe that the same methods which trained some boys well for the life of fifty or one hundred years ago are applicable to his son; for the reason, that the kind of man which he wants his son to make did not exist in all the world fifty years ago [before the primary industrial revolution]. So without any clear idea of what a practical education is, but still with some tolerably distinct notion of what it is not, he asks, “How can I give my boy a practical education?”…

It requires courage to quit the beaten paths in which the great majority of well-educated men have walked and still walk. A boy who is brought up in a different way from his peers and contemporaries, with different information, habits, and associations, suffers somewhat both in youth and manhood from the mere singularity of his education, though it may have been better than the common. If it were the custom for all young men, whose parents were able to let them spend one third of the average human span in preparation for the rest, to study Chinese ten years or more; if scraps of Chinese had the same potent effect on the

popular imagination as have classical quotations in Parliament, and selections from Plutarch in Congress; if, in short, acquaintance with Chinese were the accepted evidence of having studied till twenty-one or twenty-five years of age before beginning to earn a living, it might well be matter of serious consideration for a careful parent, whether his son had not better devote the usual number of years to the study of that tongue…

We wish to review the recent experience of this country in the attempt to organize a system of education based chiefly upon the pure and applied sciences, the living European languages, and mathematics, instead of upon Greek, Latin, and mathematics, as in the established college system.

A comparative audit of alumni This audit is retroactive but does corroborate my sortings (Hufflepuff until I adjusted my method for RUs); Hopkins in Gryffindor because of its bioethics, ROTC description, cancer research (a classical good), and its attachment to the real and judgement of the proper; WashU in Ravenclaw because of its students described as interested in diverse, interdisciplinary things, their liveliness and willingness for political curiosity, and the esoteric location, which is out-there to most and conducive to intermixing. Bloomberg, Woodrow Wilson, Dewey, Pierce, PJ O’Rourke, Wes Moore, Adichie and Erdich are from JHU. The chief strategist of the Sierra Club, HIV/AIDS experts, FBI directors, the author of the future-sighted The Dialectic of Sex, firebrand antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly, the writer of the memoir Brain on Fire, the founders of Men’s Wearhouse and Lionsgate Films, artists and playwrights are from WashU.

New York University Admit: 12% Size: 29k (8468k) Price: 16-36k New York, NY The largest private college in the US, with 59k students (half of them undergrads), NYU is in a class of its own.

The 1.4 F:M college, which is the 4th most common dream school after MIT, Harvard and Stanford, does not have a campus in the sense of grounds that it exclusively owns.

Instead, it has a number of buildings in Greenwich Village, the south Manhattan district centering on a public square that served as the cradle of the LGBT movement and the Beat Generation, with luminaries from Kerouac to Angelou, and that hosted a safe house of the Weather Underground.

(It is at the center of the broader bohemian area including Chelsea, East Village and Soho.) Students live in nearby university apartments or rent their own. (One of them made news for camping out in the basement of the 24-hour library to avoid rent, which sounds like it should be a point of appreciation to me.) This makes for an independent experience where the potential to make friends may be enormous but requires being outgoing.

NYU’s location is, although pricey, unparalleled for finding internships and jobs. As with anything else, this requires a good deal of personal initiative. Advisors work with about a hundred students. Research opportunities are found by

cold-emailing professors. Common majors include business, nursing, theater, film, digital media, computer science, and engineering (civil, computer, chemical, industrial management). You can also apply to Gallatin, where you will design your own major out of the course offerings at all the schools. Unlike what you might think, it is not more competitive to be accepted to Gallatin than to the general college, and it enrolls 1,500 students. The College of Arts and Sciences requires three STEM and four social courses.

Gallatin requires one STEM and six social courses. Courses fulfilling these requirements explore fundamental topics and can be viewed at bit.ly/nyucoreclasses. Individual majors can be explored at bit.ly/nyumajors. Current faculty include three Nobel laureates in economics, and Jonathan Haidt, a contemporary civilizational theorist (bit.ly/haidtted). Alumni include the Buddhist founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins, the scorewriter for many Disney Princess movies, Lady Gaga, Alec Baldwin, Angelina Jones, Woody Allen, Adam Sandler, Donald Glover, Spike Lee, Mueller and Greenspan. Inventions and discoveries have included the neutrino, structure of DNA, vaccine, x-ray, modern telephone, wireless mic, microwave and elevator.

NYU is a boldly innovative university that is not afraid to distinguish itself. It has rapidly climbed in prestige with the dawning of the 21st century and has sought to become a global university. The campus choices it presents on its application include the UAE, though this is a whole other ball game. With over a hundred nationalities and an emphasis on intercultural understanding, the Abu Dhabi campus produces Rhodes at the highest rate per capita of any college.

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Excerpt from “The Emir of NYU” (2008) The futuristic and fantastic Abu Dhabi campus is moored in the capital of the UAE (an elective monarchy), home to the richest family in the world, and looks like something out of a Star Wars film (above). Engineering, history and Arabic studies are among the majors offered.

Within less than three years, NYU plans to more or less clone itself in Abu Dhabi, thereby becoming the first major U.S. research institution to open a complete university off American soil. It is a wildly ambitious project, far more grandiose than simply opening up a study-abroad program.

Unlike any other major American university, NYU will treat its offshore campus as virtually equal to its New York campus...

The task is not to insert NYU into an existing city; it is to plan an urban campus on a piece of land that today is literally a desert island. “It’s an amazing opportunity to seed the urban fabric the way we would like it,” Ballon says. “Where else would you get to operate on a tabula rasa?” Eventually, the campus will share Saadiyat Island with an outpost of the Louvre and a Guggenheim by Gehry; a Zaha Hadid-designed performing arts center; a maritime museum by Tadao Ando;

and a canal-side park for a biennial international arts festival—not to mention 29 luxury hotels, three marinas, two golf courses, and hundreds of waterfront villas...

Then there’s the problem of Israelis’ being barred from entering the country. “This is not just an abstract question of human rights,” says Sylvain Cappell, an NYU math professor and chair of the Faculty Senators Council. “Israelis are gigantic figures in academic life, and if we held conferences in certain disciplines, it would be an embarrassment not to be able to have Israeli participation.”...

As Sexton sees it, “anytime we move into a completely different culture, we have to take pains to describe to people we are sending to that culture the various differences.”

When pushed on whether certain of his students would be unwelcome in Abu Dhabi, Sexton refuses to relent. “I would say to any student here that wants to go to the Abu Dhabi campus, ‘Go.’ Gay students, Israeli students, I refuse to think in those categories.”...

“Our strategy arises organically from New York City itself, which is the first miniaturization of the world.” In fact, to hear him talk, NYU’s expansion to the Middle East is almost a moral imperative: the logical extension of his quest to make NYU “the university of the other.” His pitch is an astonishingly brash conflation of destinies, as if the fate of the modern world, as well as that of higher education, is hitched to the success of this Abu Dhabi expansion, which, though he might deny it, is insuperably intertwined with the vision of president John Sexton. Or, as he puts it in his characteristic bravado: “Stymieing the project would be missing an opportunity to transform the university and, frankly, the world.”

“The Coddling of the American Mind” (2015) I did not realize the book was this bad (making a meaningless “the right is also” analysis, critiquing Trump by confusing explicit defiance with Orwellianism, and not considering that shamelessly claiming trauma can be postmodern maturity), but I’ll excerpt a mundane history from the original article.

Explicit trigger warnings are believed to have originated much more recently, on message boards in the early days of the Internet. Trigger warnings became particularly prevalent in self-help and feminist forums, where they allowed readers who had suffered from traumatic events like sexual assault to avoid graphic content that might trigger flashbacks or panic attacks. Search-engine trends indicate that the phrase broke into mainstream use online around 2011, spiked in 2014, and reached an all-time high in 2015. The use of trigger warnings on campus appears to have followed a similar trajectory; seemingly overnight, students at universities across the country have begun demanding that their professors issue warnings before covering material that might evoke a negative emotional response.

In 2013, a task force composed of administrators, students, recent alumni, and one faculty member at Oberlin College, in Ohio, released an online resource guide for faculty (subsequently retracted in the face of faculty pushback) that included a list of topics warranting trigger warnings. These topics included classism and privilege, among many others.

The task force recommended that materials that might trigger negative reactions among students be avoided altogether unless they “contribute directly” to course goals, and suggested that works that were “too important to avoid” be made optional.

Northeastern University Admit: 7% Size: 16k (655k) Price: 9-19k Boston, MA With its vague name, Northeastern might seem to blur with the other Boston area universities, but it was founded in the Progressive era on a philosophy of accessibility and practicality that diverged drastically with other colleges in the area, evolving out of the social services provided by the YMCA rather than an institution founded to serve the gentry of the class-separated city. It has operated on a cooperative model since its founding, meaning that students work to apply their studies in addition to attending classes to further them on alternating terms.

Northeastern has been a national and even world leader in cooperative education since the first conferences on the subject were organized in the 1970s. Today, 96% of students take at least one coop, and 78% do multiple. They do not pay tuition during coops, and can take up to three semesters in them while still graduating in four years. Half receive a job offer directly from one of their co-op employers.

Northeastern is a global university with 13 campuses, including 3 open to undergrads. The main campus, with its administrative headquarters, is in the heart of Boston, half a mile from a rose garden, Fenway Park and Target, and a mile

from Boston University on the riverfront. Students can also apply to spend their first year in Oakland, on the former campus of Mills College, transferred to Northeastern in 2022, which is on the redwood-forested foothills of a famously progressive city on the east side of San Francisco Bay. They can also spend their first year in London. After their first year, they can choose to stay if they are in Oakland (which offers CS, health, psychology, neuroscience, business, and politics, philosophy and economics), but will otherwise transfer to Boston. NU has many student groups, including the outdoors club and a capella, and hockey is the largest sport (there is no football team), competing as the Huskies.

Engineering (including computer and industrial) and business have 4k students each, and CS has 2k. Other sizeable programs include architecture, journalism, neuroscience, economics, political science, international relations, nursing, environmental science, and math. Unusually, it offers bachelors in pharmacy. Oakland offers health science and public health. Sign language, game art, computing and law, landscape architecture, marine biology, and music tech and industry are unusual majors. In addition, students can choose from 180 combined majors. Dorms are apartments after the first year. Alum Biz Stone co-founded Twitter with Dorsey.

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“How to Game the College Rankings” (2014) ——————————On the making of the college admissions landscape as we know it today———————————————— In 1996, Freeland looked across the sea of crumbling lots and saw an opportunity that few others could. He had inherited a third-tier, blue-collar, commuter-based university whose defining campus feature was a collect of modest utilitarian buildings and some new trees...

US News and World Report merged in 1948, but it wasn’t until 1983 that the publication printed its first cover story ranking America’s top 50 colleges. The issue happened to coincide with a sudden robust interest in higher education among the general population. What had once been for the wealthy or brilliant few was increasingly becoming the entry fee to the middle class. For the first time, a college degree was considered necessary, but how to choose between the thousands of institutions conferring degrees? Thus followed a new demand for information—just as Consumer Reports rated washing machines, college rankings would serve as a first-time buyer’s guide to colleges.

Along with the US News list, the New York Times had just released Edward Fiske’s first Guide to Colleges in 1982, and in 1984, the College Board began regularly selling SAT prep books...

In the offices of US News, Robert Morse has labored for decades. Morse is far from intimidating. He slouches and shuffles, letting the plastic dry-cleaner clips on his shirt go unnoticed. Yet, as the chief data strategist and the developer of US News’s secret sauce, Morse has been the most feared and influential voice in higher education.

When the US News editors first devised a formula that declared, with statistical accuracy, which schools were on top, they quantified something that had been thought intangible. For generations, colleges had relied on a brew of prestige and reputation. Suddenly, legacies and tradition— qualities that had taken decades or centuries to cultivate— were less important than cold, hard data...

With their authoritative tone, the rankings alone introduced new possibilities. Before, it had been doubtful that NU could ever rub shoulders with Boston College or Harvard. But now, everything was reduced to numbers. And those numbers could be beat...

Meanwhile, other schools that couldn’t successfully game the system were trying to cheat their way to the top. In 2008, Baylor University told newly admitted students they’d receive $300 in bookstore credit if they retook the SATs, and $1,000 a year in aid if the scores improved by more than 50 points... In 2012, Claremont McKenna College copped to misreporting SAT scores for several years. Also in 2012, George Washington University admitted to inflating the percentage of students who graduated at the top of their high school classes, and Emory University said it had misreported high school GPAs for four years and SAT scores for nearly a dozen years... Cases of misreporting have only strengthened the anti-rankings movement, which has been around for decades. Lloyd Thacker, who founded the Education Conservancy in 2004 in Portland, Oregon, is one of US News’s fiercest critics. He says research shows that the rankings distort the way students, parents, high schools, and colleges pursue and perceive education. “Have rankings contributed to anything beneficial in education?” he asks.

“An Idealist Set Out to Change College Admissions. It was a Long, Lonely Quest” (2019)———On the lashback to the status quo—————— in 2004 Thacker quit his high-school job and founded the Education Conservancy. His first project was to edit and selfpublish College Unranked: Affirming Educational Values in College Admissions, a book of essays by counselors, deans, and college presidents. [[In this book, edited by a veteran admissions counselor, a passionate advocate for students, the presidents and admission deans of leading colleges and universities—like Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Harvard—remind readers that college choice and admission are a matter of fit, not of winning a prize, and that many colleges are "good" in different ways. They call for bold changes in admissions policies and application strategies, to help both colleges and applicants to rediscover what college is really for. It's not just a ticket to financial success, but a once-in-a-lifetime chance to explore new worlds of knowledge.]]

One day, Jay Mathews, a prominent education reporter, called and asked, What are the answers, Lloyd? His reply: If I had the answers, they wouldn’t be the answers. He preferred to ask questions that might inspire people to think for themselves. To some listeners, that was refreshingly humble; to others, it was annoyingly vague . . .

But after knocking on the door of conscience, what, exactly, should you do next?

Many activists confront the same fact: Passion takes you only so far. Thacker excelled at raising questions and stirring emotions. But as one adviser told him, he needed “deliverables” . . .

That people saw potential in him meant that he had to produce something. But what? He invented his job as he went along . . .

The research encouraged Thacker, but his plans to broaden it fell through. Other reports he helped produce. . . describing experts’ ideas for what an exemplary admissions system might look like—contained intriguing insights but garnered little attention.

Some experiments got a lot of media attention. In 2007, Thacker helped organize a campaign urging colleges to distance themselves from U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings, which skewed institutional priorities. . .

“BigFuture,” a robust, interactive college-planning website he brought to life in collaboration with the College Board, still gets plenty of clicks. [[the project is intended to enhance two existing strands on the board’s sprawling site. . . One, under the heading “Plan,” helps high school students build to-do lists. The other, “Search,” assists them in evaluating particular colleges]] . . .

Affirming the importance of sustained service is among the goals of Turning the Tide, a campaign to promote ethical character in admissions that Thacker helped get off the ground.

Frank Bruni’s 2015 book, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, preaches calm and perspective. It’s full of the messages that Thacker had been spreading for years.

As the years passed, though, the Education Conservancy got less and less attention from the news media. Supporters often expressed interest in the issues Thacker raised but then stopped short of discussing next steps.

Brandeis University Admit: 39% Size: 3.5k (227k) Price: 24-37k Waltham, MA The beautifully modern Brandeis University on the outskirts of Boston was founded in 1948, the same year as the founding of the state of Israel and the first universal declaration of human rights. Einstein withdrew his support of Brandeis shortly before its founding, expressing concern about its support for the nascent Red Scare in allyship with the West, Israel’s sponsor. Until 1965 it housed the most influential thinker of the period, Herbert Marcuse, a Jewish émigré who wrote “Repressive Tolerance” in 1965 and was responsible for the rise of critical structuralist views of society (“the system”).

Students included Angela Davis and Abbie Hoffman (a leading protest organizer). 1969 faculty included Maslow and MacIntyre.

Alumni include NYT writer and globalization thinker Thomas Friedman, and the author of Tuesdays at Morries about a Brandeis professor, the best-selling memoir of all time.

Half of the students at Brandeis today identify as Jews.

(Another 17% are domestic Asians and 21% are from overseas. Brandeis has seen an influx of internationals in recent years.) Professors are described as passionate and caring. A professor of physics stated that “What stands out

most about Brandeis is the ability of students to interact with faculty and engage in cutting-edge research at all levels.

They can knock on my door at any time, and enter a lab and be part of research from as early on as their sophomore or even first year.” The ethnic basis of Brandeis also manifests in its expression of its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Notably, it became the first private university to defund Students for Justice in Palestine after October 7. This decision was made on the rather blithe grounds that the SJP had supported Hamas, and had thereby supported a group “[that] the United States has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” as explained in a message to the campus titled “Free speech, not hate speech.” which goes against the usual conception of free speech as including the right to celebrate deaths. A case in point (which you would think people might at least phrase their justifications more carefully to exclude) is how Mandela (the South African Barghouti) used violence and was considered to be a terrorist. Most laypeople would consider it to be a scandal that the ANC, a social organization with an armed wing like Hamas, was denounced as a simple terrorist organization simply because it “used armed force as part of its political effort,” since we’re much more likely to see costs in the service of righteousness as justified in the historical view.

Furthermore, Brandeis’s logic ignores the raison éntre of free speech, which is the fact that in the case you were wrong you wouldn’t think you were. The reason for allowing speech isn’t that we think it’s correct. It makes little sense to disqualify speech because it is wrong when the only reason it was ever allowed was for it to contest the belief that it is.

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'The Chosen': Getting In David Brooks (author of Bobos in Paradise) Nov. 6, 2005, the New York Times In 1904, the Yale yearbook boasted of having "more gentlemen and fewer scholars than any other class in the memory of man."

In those days, most people who applied to schools like Harvard were admitted because people who weren't from the right social class didn't bother applying. But Jews, for reasons that are not clear, never got the message. They applied to Harvard, Yale and Princeton even though they weren't really wanted.

And because many were so academically qualified, they increasingly got in. . .

They went because they were ambitious and often brilliant, and they brought with them a value system at odds with the WASP chivalric code. The Jews were more likely to prize work, scholarship, verbal dexterity, ambition and academic accomplishment.

Of course the old guard detested the rising tide of Jews in their midst. As one Harvard alum wrote to the university's president in 1925: "Naturally, after 25 years, one expects to find many changes, but to find that one's University had become so Hebrewized was a fearful shock. There were Jews to the right of me, Jews to the left of me, in fact they were so obviously everywhere that instead of leaving the Yard with pleasant memories of the past I left with a feeling of utter disgust of the present and grave doubts about the future of my Alma Mater”...

They sensed that mediocre students like Roosevelt really did possess a set of virtues that needed to be protected and cherished. Thus, many of the best administrators were torn between protecting the old and including the new.

Karabel's thorough and definitive look at elite college admissions is fascinating because he doesn't just treat his narrative as a civil rights tale of racist institutions slowly giving way to the forces of justice and decency. Instead, he writes, "The history of admissions at the Big Three has thus been, fundamentally, a history of recurrent struggles over the meaning of 'merit.' " As the elite universities confronted each class of applicants, they were really trying to determine which qualities to nurture and reward, and which were most important for democratic citizenship.

The essential conflict throughout these years was between those who wanted to accept more students on the basis of scholarly merit -- intelligence, high test scores and good grades -- and those who sought what you might call leadership skills -that ineffable combination of charisma, social confidence, decisiveness and the ability, often proved on the athletic field, to be part of a team.

The conflict continues to this day. But as Karabel notes, at any given moment the universities tend to gravitate toward the definition of merit that best helps them preserve their status as prestigious, rich and powerful institutions.

In the 1920's, the Protestant Establishment still dominated business and society [and eugenic thinking and the KKK was at its height]. University administrators sensed that if they admitted too many Jews, they would alienate themselves from the power centers around them. So they restricted the number of Jews by shifting their admissions criteria and putting more emphasis on "character," measured by alumni connections, athletic skill and personal letters of recommendation. Applicants were less likely to be admitted if all they demonstrated was academic brilliance.

Jewish integration is more a result than a cause here.

Jewish student enrollment is down at many Ivies Jewish students are enrolling less at many of the Ivies and going to a broader range of institutions than before Sara Weissman (former editor of the Jewish student magazine New Voices) May 8, 2023, Inside Higher Ed Jewish students accounted for about a third of enrollment several decades ago and now make up just roughly 16 percent of the 10,412 undergraduates at Penn ...

That’s still a sizable group, especially given that Jews are only about 2 percent of the U.S. population, Greenberg said. [Asians are about 7 percent of the US population] …

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a Jewish news wire service, reported in 1967 that Jewish students had reached high numbers at the Ivies after decades of low enrollments. The news outlet cited a New York Times survey at the time, which found that the student bodies at Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania were 40 percent Jewish. Jewish student populations at Harvard, Yale and Cornell were estimated to be between 20 and 25 percent, while those at Dartmouth, Princeton and Brown hovered between 13 and 20 percent.

Jews now make up 9.9 percent of Harvard’s undergraduate enrollment and 12.2 percent at Yale, according to estimates on Hillel’s website. The share of Jewish students at Columbia University is an estimated 22.3 percent … Cornell and Brown are the only two Ivies to buck the trend of significant declines compared to the 1960s, with Jewish students making up 21.5 percent and 23.9 percent, respectively, of the enrollment …

“Jewish students now go to a much larger number of schools than was ever the case,” he said. “Twenty years ago, 30 years

ago, 40 years ago, there might have been 100 to 150 schools, which were the only schools Jewish students went to. Today there are hundreds and hundreds of schools.”

A century ago, Ivies in the Northeast, such as Harvard, Yale and Columbia University, sought to artificially lower the number of Jewish students at their institutions.

Harvard applicants, for example, were asked questions, such as their mother’s maiden names, to suss out if they were Jewish … Harvard officials were also careful not to assign too many Jewish student to the dorms, she said. These strategies reflected a growing “anti-immigration sentiment in the United States” as the children of immigrants from Eastern Europe and elsewhere flocked to these institutions, said Synnott, who’s written extensively about the history of discrimination in Ivy League admissions against Jews and other groups …

Discriminatory policies toward Jewish applicants at the Ivies started shifting after World War II …

She noted that the issue touches on a larger national debate, as the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on race as a factor in admissions this summer.

She views affirmative action in higher ed as institutions trying to right historic wrongs and “trying to be inclusive and keep some sort of balance.” [Keeping a balance is usually the motive] A likelihood that this article failed to investigate is that Jewish-American culture itself has changed, after multiple generations of being integrated into American society, to the effect that Jewish Americans no longer fetishize the idols of upward social mobility as they did before and are willing to look beyond the coasts and prioritize different qualities, such as quality of student life and progressive institutional values. It might be interesting to see if there’s been any corresponding shift in their choices of majors as well.

University of Richmond Admit: 24% Size: 3k (227k) Price: 17-27k Richmond, VA This nicely sized college has a beautiful campus with ornamental towers, neat gardens of tulips, and a 24-hour student commons bordering a pond, named one of the best in the county and the filming location of Commander in Chief. It is on the outskirts (near a river with wooded banks) of the central Virginia city, also its capital, the first major city after DC in the corridor and close to the James River NWR and historic Jamestown.

Richmond is tied with Colby in the US News rankings and has loyal alumni.

Men traditionally enter a ceremony where they walk in a procession and sign an honor code. 1 in 4 participate in Greek life. Nearly half of students are business majors. All start undeclared at the college of arts and sciences, the general college, and can choose to enter the school of business or the school of leadership studies (which is one of a kind) after their first year. English, journalism, bioethics, CS, PPEL, area studies (Italian, Russian) and the arts are among the other programs. Psychology is research-focused and the CS program is vibrant. Work is rigorous but students are close to faculty and receive 5k for research. Dining is praised and has healthier options.

12/1 (scholarship), 1/1 (RD). Waiver: bit.ly/richmondsesh

Denison University Admit: 17% Size: 2k (50k) Price: 20k-30k

Granville, OH

Denison was founded 7 years after Kenyon as Ohio’s second oldest college. It is likewise located in central Ohio, though not quite as remote. While Granville has a population of 6k, it is only 13 minutes from Newark (50k) and 35 minutes from Columbus (907k). It is the 11th most socioeconomically diverse college that successfully graduates students.

Denison’s most popular majors include economics, business (including international as at Richmond), communication and public health, and it is one of a number of colleges that offers a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (created by Oxford in the 1920s). Its most famous alum is Steve Carrell of Office fame. Its traditions include topping bagels with brown sugar and cream cheese, which sounds pointless and disgusting. This reminds me, I think it’s a little unfortunate that Richmond seems to have a Spiderman theme to the unacquainted. They could at least change the shape of the spider so it doesn’t look like the one on Spiderman’s uniform.

As with many colleges that lack application fees, Denison looks to other factors that demonstrate interest, such as whether you apply early and try to do an interview. Such colleges are prone to ask you to write another essay (a great opportunity to show how much you know about it) after you submit or, equivalently, to put you on a waitlist for appeal.

Apply by 11/15 (EDI) or 1/15 (EDII or RD)

Trinity University Admit: 31% Size: 2.5k (1473k) Price: 16-24k San Antonio, TX The top LAC in Texas, Trinity emphasizes opportunities for interdisciplinary scholarship and research.

Over 80% of students apply their studies by researching or interning, and 147 students from several departments participated in research over the summer of 2020. The FYE (first year experience) offers the choice of a topical focus or great texts. The current campus is ideally situated next to a small hiking area and 3 miles from downtown San Antonio, the southernmost metro known for the Alamo, the river walk, and MX culture, including the biggest Mexican market in the US. Highs are in the 90s in the summer and in the 60s in the winter.

Common areas of study include neuro, finance, accounting, engineering, COMM, English, classics, history, Spanish, math, earth science, SOC, PLSC, ENVI, HRM and theater. The course load is described as rigorous. Living on campus is required and the dining is one of the more critiqued areas, although a range of options is available and weekly events serve free nachos and milk and cookies. Alumni include CEOs of KIND bars and Whole Foods (pro-Israel and libertarian activists), Trump’s digital strategist (“Project Alamos”), and the operator of the Varsity Blues scandal.

Apply by 11/1 ED/EA or 2/1 ED/RD

These photos were from a cloudy day (I’m sure it’s usually sunnier)

Fordham University Admit: 54% Size: 10k (8468k) Price: 37-42k New York, NY The first Catholic college in the northeast, Fordham was founded by the most well-known Catholic leaders in America at the time, including the state’s first archbishop and the country’s first cardinal. It has connections to both Irish Catholicism and the Jesuits. Its approach to its Catholic identity is middling between colleges that treat their religious affiliation as a formality and those that make it central to their mission, with a third of students identifying as Catholic. Fordham’s main campus is located in the Bronx, called the ghetto, loud borough of NYC, with a majority Hispanic population, and the birthplace of hip-hop. It is next to the New York Botanical Garden and 30 minutes north of hipster areas in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Students can also choose to live in Manhattan next to Central Park (lacking biology and chemistry and offering theater and dance), which is smaller with 2k students and has fewer clubs and athletics. They can transit to take classes at either campus.

Honors students in the Bronx take great books and STEM courses; honors students in Manhattan take courses on the humanities. Fordham’s business programs are well-known and it has strengths in the humanities. Alumni include Trump (transferred to Penn), Obama’s director of the CIA, recent NY governor Andrew Cuomo, singer Lana Del Ray, actor Denzel Washington, and VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro.

Apply 10/1-10/31 for free (EA/ED) or 1/3 (RD/ED)

The Fordham administration is one of the most illibertarian that I’ve seen (in that affectedly, comically stern sense). This is not likely to be relevant for most purposes (through a para-praxis lens) to the average student. Of note, Fordham has never allowed the SJP to be established because of the polarization it might create, even before Oct 7, a fact that was the subject of the first controversy of its kind.

Vassar College Admit: 19% Size: 2.5k (32k) Price: 20-25k Poughkeepsie, NY This beautiful and pioneering college in the Hudson valley, founded by philanthropist Matthew Vassar, was the de facto leader of the Seven Sisters but now actively recruits men, who make up 40% of its student body. It was the first “real” women’s college, well-endowed and offering a broad education, and was long considered to be the “feminine side” of Yale. (It went coed the same year as Yale, 1969, becoming the first women’s college to do so.) On the outskirts of the charming town of Poughkeepsie, 2 miles from downtown and the riverfront, its campus is a designated arboretum. Its current president was the director of grand strategy at Yale.

Vassar emphasizes interdisciplinary education and has a history of curricular innovation. It held a pioneering role in psychology, drama, Russian and Victorian Studies, and was the first to offer an undergraduate degree in cognitive science, the study of the mind through the perspectives of philosophy, economics and computer science. Its neuroscience program also has an interdisciplinary lens.

General education requirements include one writing course, one quantitative course, attainment of proficiency in a foreign language (several are offered, including Irish, Swedish and Greek, complemented by study abroad

programs in major European countries with Wesleyan), and taking half of your courses outside your major and a quarter outside its division (social science, natural science, art or language). Sizeable programs include English, CS, biochem, neuro, cognitive science, American studies, Africana studies, French, math, science/technology and society, ENVI, CHEM, astronomy, earth science, physics, PSYCH, ECON, IR, PLSC, urban studies, sociology, film studies, theater and art.

Graduates going to law school seek more urban pastures such as NYU, Columbia, Fordham and Berkeley.

There is no Greek life at Vassar, but it has an all-whistling a capella group and an outing club that takes advantage of its proximity to the Catskills. Vassar was ranked as the most socioeconomically diverse top college by the NYT in 2014, with Grinnell coming in second. The student body is considered to be liberal and there is a large LGBT population (as at most former women’s colleges).

Alumni include actor and activist Jane Fonda, Jacqueline Kennedy, Meryl Streep, Mary Calderone, who mainstreamed birth control and sex education in the United States, Ruth Benedict, an anthropologist and early writer on race, Anne Hathaway (who transferred to Gallatin), Mark Ronson, dream pop singer Victoria Legrand, and programmer Grace Hopper.

11/15 (ED) or 1/1 (ED/RD). See FI for waiver

Wellesley College Admit: 13% Size: 2.5k (30k) Price: 11k-28k Wellesley, MA Wellesley began educating more female scientists than any other college shortly after its founding in the Victorian era, and it was the second college overall to provide laboratory instruction for undergraduates, after MIT. It is one of the Seven Sisters, a group of women’s colleges in the northeast. Four out of the five still catering solely to women, apart from Barnard which is in Columbia University, are in this book. (They have admitted transgender women and “nonbinary women” since 2015, Mount Holyoke since 2014. In 2023, Wellesley students passed a nonbinding referendum to include trans men and nonbinary men.)

Though adjacent to a lake and forest, Wellesley is located in the Boston area (which is known for its density of large towns and colleges), 35 minutes inland, and takes full advantage of the resources that this region offers. Wellesley and MIT students have cross-registered since 1967, and Wellesley students can take part in research endeavors at MIT. Along with classes at MIT, students can take classes at neighboring Babson, Brandeis, and the Olin College of Engineering, taking the provided shuttle (they can also apply to dual-degree programs where they will enroll at one of these colleges after their Junior year). As part of the Classical LAC Exchange, they have the chance to study for a year at

Smith, Mt Holyoke, Wheaton, Vassar, Connecticut, Wesleyan, Trinity, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, or Amherst by having Wellesley approve their application, and they can also take a semester at Connecticut’s National Theater Institute or Williams’s Seaport Program in American Maritime Studies if these approve their application. Scholarship is open access, and the alumnae network is intensely loyal and supportive. The most popular majors at Wellesley are economics, experimental psychology, CS, and political science (it was one of the first to enter the latter field in 1883).

The Wellesley Centers for Women are some of the largest organizations dedicated to the research of gender, with areas of research dedicated to education, economics, mental health, youth, and gender-based violence (i.e. the traditionalist concern with protecting women in particular from violence and preventing offensively egregrious violations of gender roles).

The most famous alumnae from Wellesley are Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton, the first female secretary of state and the first female presidential nominee, although both enrolled before most of higher education went coed.

Both have spoken about the impact Wellesley had on their lives (the former founded the Albright Institute, a center for studying international affairs through an interdisciplinary lens), and are known for their hawkish philosophies and unsympathetic attitudes. Albright was quoted as saying "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other" to women who backed Clinton’s opponent.

Apply by 11/1 (EDI), 1/1 (EDII) or 1/8 (RD)

Smith College Admit: 19% Size: 2.5k (29k) Price: 19-27k Northampton, MA Smith is the largest of the Seven Sisters and includes a graduate program that is coed. It is part of the Western Massachusetts metropolis, the second largest in New England after the Boston area, with easy access to the contiguous settlements along the river, including Springfield 25 minutes away. Like the Boston area, the valley is known for its concentration of educational institutions. Smith is a member of the West Mass Consortium, the most successful consortium in the United States apart from Claremont, allowing students to take classes at Amherst, UMass– Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire. As at Wellesley, its scholarship is open-access. Special intercollege programs for niche subjects can be viewed at fivecollege.edu. Smith is in the town of Northampton, which is the most liberal small city in the US and has the most lesbian couples per capita (it has been called the holy city of lesbians, much as Greenwich Village and San Francisco are, more familiarly, to gays). The entire campus is a botanical garden and is surrounded by farmland, forests, hills, and the large river.

Smith has an open curriculum and lacks final exams. Of the women’s colleges, it was the first to offer an undergraduate engineering degree and the first to join the NCAA. Common majors include English, psychology, data science, sociology,

art, architecture and film. The engineering program is enviably holistic and applied in outlook, without the insular mentality found at some colleges. The school of social work is unique for its focus on clinical work (psychiatry). Research is offered in social subjects as well as the sciences. Smith guarantees a funded internship experience to all undergraduates. 35% of Juniors study abroad through Smith’s program in Europe or elsewhere. Parties and clubs are basic and many students visit UMass for a social scene.

Smith does not have dormitories but rather has 36 houses (literal residential houses) in a variety of styles with 10 to 100 housemates, which they can choose for a quieter or rowdier atmosphere. The college founder’s recipe for molasses cookies is served at Friday teas at each house, where students, faculty and alumni socialize. The official color of Smith is white, sometimes gilded with gold. It has been named the most haunted college in America by some sources. Smith alumnae include the authors of Gone with the Wind (a romance novel about a Southern belle), The Bell Jar (a novel about a young woman’s descent into depression and bipolar disorder), Tuck Everlasting (a novel about a hidden family that has taken an immortality serum), and Orange is the New Black (a memoir about a stay at a woman’s prison, adapted into the hit TV show). They also include the chef Julia Childs; first ladies Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush; the two most important feminists of the 60s and 70s, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinhem; the first LGBT person elected to Congress, Senator Tammy Baldwin; and the current representative at large for Vermont. Smith is the most holistically feminine of the women’s colleges.

Apply by 11/15 (EDI), 1/1 (EDII) or 1/15 (RD)

Bryn Mawr College Admit: 29% Size: 1.5k (6k) Price: 15k-26k Bryn Mawr, PA Bryn Mawr was founded to enable Quaker women to gain a rigorous education, which is why it was established in an exurb of Philadelphia (1576k, 30 minutes to visit or take classes at Penn). Despite its size, Bryn Mawr has a coed grad program. It was the first college to enable women to obtain PhDs, and Mawries go on to earn PhDs at a higher rate than students at any other women’s college. It is possible to earn a masters within four years. A shuttle takes students to fellow intellectually grounded, Quaker colleges Haverford (1.5k coed, 1.5 miles) and Swarthmore (7k coed, 10 miles).

Mawries have a reputation for being intellectual, “unfemininely” nerdy and possibly weird, and Bryn Mawr’s identity is rife with symbols of the pursuit of wisdom, from its bust of Athena to the owls on its shield to its motto, “I delight in the truth”. The most popular majors at Bryn Mawr include English, linguistics, international studies, math and sociology.

Its famed alumnae include the first female president of Harvard University; the first female president of any university (the University of Chicago); modernist poets; the author of Crying in H Mart; the person who discovered the biological basis of sex (i.e. the Y chromosome); and a leader of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom during the world wars (winner of the Nobel Prize in 1946).

Apply by 11/15 (EDI), 1/1 (EDII), or 1/15 (RD)

And then there’s. . .

The last women’s college that is a member of the West Mass consortium is Mount Holyoke College. It is the most distant member (a leisurely 30 minute bus ride from UMass or Smith), although the benefit of being able to count all its classes as options can’t be overstated if you have specific interests. It is the most senior women’s college and the most inclusive, admitting trans men and nonbinary males.

Alumnae serve as the highest-ranking woman in the Department of Defense and the president of Agnes Scott.

The worst thing that could be said is that compared to the clarity of the other choices (Wellesley is for upward-striving power mavens; Smith is for lady lovers; Bryn Mawr is for Hermiones), Holyoke doesn’t seem to have as clear a sense of identity. It was the first to accept transgender women, it changes its colors and mascots (plural) every year, and its seal has palm trees (in Massachusetts) because, Psalms, even though those two things don’t have any logical connections. (Yes, it’s a pun.) Perhaps this funsiness (or, if we’re charitable, blank slateiness) could be construed to constitute an identity in itself. I’ll give it the benefit of doubt.

Mount Holyoke offers a beautiful timber-beamed campus, a strong arts program, an equestrian center, immediate access to natural areas (including a pond and paths on scenic Mt. Holyoke), and close proximity to Springfield. It has an association with Emily Dickinson, through which it bestows a poetry award. It is also not quite as competitive to get into (with a 38% acceptance rate), and it is the only affordable normal option in the West Mass consortium for people who are out-of-state and not a woman.

A really great analogy As this book is a publication of Albus Tutoring, I feel obliged to note that a great analogy for these four colleges would be the four houses at Hogwarts.

Slytherin • power-obsessed • dark triad

Wellesley Typical interviewer: “Do you feel bad about all the little children dying as a result of your policies?”

Albright: “No”

Ravenclaw Smith • learning for its own • open curriculum sake • lesbian austerity • intellectual, whimsical (apathetic about men) Gryffindor • heart of gold, brave when it’s difficult • stand up to their own friends

Bryn Mawr • “headstrong”, bold • advocate for peace even when called dissident

Hufflepuff • all the rest • good at herbology

Mount Holyoke • “party school” • good at poetry

They even sound kinda the same. You do have to argue your way to sort Bryn Mawr into Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw, but wait, I have an analogy for that too: “Well, the Sorting Hat did seriously consider putting me in Ravenclaw during my Sorting, but it decided on Gryffindor in the end"—Hermione

Free for first-gen applicants (not without reason) Amherst is one of the academically highest-ranking liberal arts colleges, just below Williams, with which it has a celebrated sports rivalry, contributing to its significant proportion of student-athletes. Unlike Williams, it provides access to the West Mass consortium, has an open curriculum, and produces Nobel laureates at a rate in the top ten of all colleges. It is considered to have the largest party scene in the consortium. Parties are inclusive by law and there are no frats. Its students can seem a bit humdrum.

Hamilton is often compared to Colgate, another school in the central New York valley at the foot of the Adirondacks. Both have beautiful campuses and frequently attract more affluent, prep-school students, though Hamilton is considered to be the somewhat nerdier cousin to the preppy school (it’s named after that obnoxious musical, not the toothpaste company). Students speak of a “light side” and “dark side” (preppy and funky) division to the campus, the former being the historical fraternities, although they continue to operate off-campus. Economics is the most popular major (there is no business major). Art, math, history, and creative writing are popular. There is an open curriculum.

Trinity is the second-oldest college in Connecticut after Yale, and is one of the few LACs near a city. The historically Episcopal school has an elegant campus and a bit of a preppy party school reputation. Alumni include Tucker Carlson, George Will, Jane Swift, Jesse Watters, Rachel Platten, and the writer of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

English, history and the social sciences such as political science and economics are dominant, but it offers engineering, computer science and neuroscience as well.

Admissions to prestigious colleges Selective colleges have a more intensive admissions process. This is generally a good thing, because it means that they will look at all aspects of your application. They are thus worth looking to if you have any exceptional talents or exceptional circumstances that may not be properly accounted for otherwise. Because of their resources, they are usually less expensive, and they may actively recruit socioeconomically diverse candidates or be need-blind.

Having near-perfect grades in challenging courses is usually necessary. In the case that you’re in a school with fewer opportunities to prove your mettle academically, the onus will be on you to make efforts to find ways to challenge yourself. This could include, for example, taking courses at local colleges or taking AP tests at other schools. The SAT or ACT, as a cross-sectional correlate to grades, will also be of heightened importance.

Solid academic performance, however, is increasingly not enough on its own for the most prestigious colleges (with the possible exception of if you’re an athletic recruit), with such a robust band of students getting perfect grades. They will look for achievement in other ways, which often involves leadership roles in or social recognition by the school or the community (such as department awards). It’s useful to have pursued at least one impressive or creative project, role or endeavor that sees significant, real-world success.

Racial affirmative action will no longer be legal beginning with matriculants in 2024 (though it’s unclear how that’ll be enforced), which only means that you should make more of an effort to convey your identity and present a likeable personality outside the checkboxes of your application.

Prestige crosslist Dickinson is a traditionally elite LAC and known for its environmental studies and international programs. Its culture reflects its nature as an old and historical college, one of many in Pennsylvania. Colorado College is a college in an arid, alpine area of the country that is affluent and offers outdoor recreation opportunities, true to its name and its home state. Only one class is taken at a time, which could help you to stay on top of things. Centre has a neat, modern campus and old-school culture in KY that has historically produced leading figures in politics. Hampden-Sydney of Virginia is an unabashedly traditional gentleman’s college, one of the two main men’s colleges in the US. The University of the South, Rhodes and Agnes Scott (women’s) provide ornate, beautiful and scholarly college experiences. Rollins is one of the approximately three more preppy liberal arts colleges in Florida, and has a regional reputation. Social life and faculty mentorship are pluses. Its location in Orlando does not come with beaches but does retain the benefits of a southern climate. Furman in upland South Carolina, like Rollins, is one of the elite colleges of the South. Deep Springs is a two-year philosophical ranch that sends students on to Ivy Leagues. (I don’t particularly recommend attending unless you plan on passive-aggressively heckling the females or accidentally pushing them off a cliff.)

Wheaton is a flagship evangelical college in Illinois, and the College of the Holy Cross is a traditional bastion of Jesuit education in Massachusetts. Kalamazoo and Southwestern are well-regarded by some. Colleges with academic orientations and majors include St. Olaf (MN), Lawrence (WI), Beloit, St. Lawrence (NY), Whitman (WA) and Hendrix (AR).

Intimacy–core

Centre College Admit: 63% Size: 1.5k (17k) Price: 17k-22k Danville, KY Centre’s inconspicious appearance belies its considerable history. The college is so old its name uses the original, British spelling of “center” (the college is at the center of Kentucky and of the eastern United States). Old Centre is the oldest college administration building west of the Alleghenies. It was used as a hospital by the Confederacy and then by the Union after one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Centre alum John Stuart was Lincoln’s mentor and provided him with his first set of law books (he was elected as part of the opposition party during his presidency and voted against the thirteenth amendment at war’s end).

About half of Centre is from inside the state, which is relatively underserved by colleges, and it has long drawn from the strengths of its population. Its alumni include two vice presidents, a chief justice and an associate justice on the Supreme Court, 13 US senators, 43 US representatives, 10 leaders of assemblies of the Presbytarian Church, and 11 governors. As president of Princeton University in 1903, future US president Woodrow Wilson noted that “there is a little college down in Kentucky which in sixty years has graduated more men who have acquired prominence and fame than has Princeton in her 150 years”. 85% of Centre

students study abroad, making it one of the top five undergraduate colleges for study abroad, and the college has produced 70% of Kentucky’s Rhode scholars in the last fifty years. It commits to giving all students at least one offcampus experience such as an internship, research opportunity, or study abroad program, and if they do not graduate within four years, they are given a fifth tuition-free.

Centre was the site of the greatest sports upset of the first half of the 20th century when it became the first school outside the east coast to beat Harvard, Yale or Princeton. It has new athletic facilities, including an Olympic-size swimming pool. It is the smallest college to ever host a national election debate, and the Vice Presidential debates held at Centre have been called two of the best debates ever held. (Students can attend most events at no cost.) Students choose one course among a variety of unusual courses during its three week winter term; a recent course discussed Kant while hiking through the local landscape. Professors are a highlight, and think of themselves as mentors. Popular majors include international studies, history, math, CS, psychology, economics, anthropology, and political science.

It offers 3-2 engineering pathways with Columbia, Vanderbilt, Washington University and the University of Kentucky. Centre’s alumni used to donate to the school at the highest rate of any college’s, though this rate has fallen.

Its town is small but historic, being the site of the signing of Kentucky’s constitution, Kentucky’s first state capital, and the first US post office west of the Alleghenies. It is an hour south of the nearest largest city, Lexington, of 323k people, and an hour north of Daniel Boone national forest.

Apply by 11/15 (ED), 12/1 (EA) or 1/15 (RD)

Ripon College Admit: 81% Size: 800 (8k) Price: 15k-19k

Ripon, WI

Ripon is located in a small town equidistant between Madison and Green Bay (1 hour 20 minutes away) that is believed to be the site of the founding of the Republican Party, though its own historical society has noted that “the idea that a meeting in... a tiny rural town... actually led to the creation of a national political party that nearly won a national presidential election only 18 months later is so mind-boggling it seems almost unbelievable”.

It is just steps away from the Ceresco Conservancy, which expanded the last 6 acres of oak savannah in the county into a hundred through replanting in an area known for pheasants, sandhill cranes and river otters. It has an open curriculum and guarantees graduation in 4 years. Popular majors at Ripon include psychology, biology, political science, business and communication. It offers a 3+2 engineering program with larger universities. Its Speakers Bereau program allows communication majors to serve as spokespeople for nonprofits they are interested in. Almost all students are able to find a job six months after graduation, and it ranks highly for grad school placement and incomes.

Alumni include the founder of the largest high school speech and debate organization, the actor who portrayed Hans Solo and Indiana Jones, and a communications director for the Republican Governors’ Association and Mitt Romney.

Apply by 1/15 (free application) or later for $30.

Eureka College Admit: 87% Size: 600 (5k) Price: 18k-25k Eureka, Illinois Eureka is located in an even smaller town that nonetheless offers playing fields, a homemade ice cream shop and a lake with boat rentals, and is 26 minutes east of Peoria, a city of 108k.

It is where Ronald Reagan, an Illinois native, got his start. He served on its board after graduating and said that “everything good in my life began here”. It is the smallest college to graduate a US president. Other alumni include 42 college presidents and 7 governors and congressmen, as well as a Grand Canyon explorer. Speakers have included Abraham Lincoln, Booker Washington, Cornel West, Ray Bradbury, William Buckley, Sarah Palin and Sandra O’Connor. The nuclear disarment treaty with the Soviet Union was announced at its gym.

Popular majors include business, criminal justice, elementary education, psychology and exercise science. Graduation in 4 years is guaranteed. Pre-law, nursing, med, ministry, art therapy and music therapy students receive guidance to faciliate entrance to grad schools. It organizes free intramurals and tournaments in bowling, video games, basketball, football and paintball. From its founding by abolitionist Disciples of Christ as the third coed college in the US, to the speech that marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War (and with it the curtain call of the saga of the world wars), Eureka has played an unlikely role in history.

Apply by 8/15 before the fall you plan to enroll.

William Woods University Admit: 68% Size: 1k (13k) Price: 24k-25k Fulton, MO William Woods was founded to shelter girls orphaned by the Civil War. (Today it plays host to a dozen incarcerated girls at the charitably named Rosa Parks Center.)

It resides in a town that is at the heart of Little Dixie (an unusually northern belt of southern culture) and was the subject of Kings Row, a coming-of-age novel about small-town secrets and scandulous behavior. The novel’s (censored) 1942 movie adaptation gave Ronald Reagan his favorite and most critically acclaimed role as an actor. A decade later, he gave a moving speech about “the American idea” to the college, prophesying his presidency.

Unlike some LACs, WW takes pride in being future-minded.

Originally a teacher’s college, it pioneered online learning in the 1990s. Its majors include business and biology, as well as specialties in sign language, equestrian studies, and criminal justice with homeland security emphasis. William Woods encourages its students to be engaged through a program where they are required to participate in a number of activities, such as plays or speaker events, to get a $2,000 annual award and a free course over the summer.

Apply by 12/1 (preferred) or 8/14 (latest recommended)

Westminster College Admit: 97% Size: 600 (13k) Price: 21k-23k Fulton, MO Westminster is at the center of the town of Fulton, a ten minute walk from the Calloway county library. A wooded trail following a creek runs between its buildings and its playing fields, ending near William Woods. Half of men and a third of women participate in its robust Greek culture. The college ranks highly for economic mobility and graduate earnings.

Winston Churchill coined the term “iron curtain” to describe the division between the First and Second Worlds at Westminster a year after WWII, marking the start of the Cold War. The speech has been described as a masterpiece, and the National Churchill Museum is located at the college.

Ronald Reagan dedicated a piece of the Berlin Wall at Westminster at the War’s end. Each September, the Hancock Symposium offers two engaging days of panel discussions and presentations by experts on a theme of global interest.

Speakers have included Robert Kennedy Jr. (2007) (the most prominent third party candidate in 2024) and Bernie Sanders (2017) (the surprise challenger in the Democratic primary in 2016). In 2019, Margaret Albright gave a prescient speech warning that democracy worldwide “appears to be in retreat”, generating a thousand headlines and reaching 150

million viewers worldwide. This theme would attract more attention after the January 6th “insurrection” and become a warning oft-repeated by Biden in his midterm campaign, which was widely credited for producing the surprisingly favorable results of the 2022 national elections soon after she died. The unraveling of post-WWII “special relationships” that she warned about came to be seen as a possible threat to the West’s security when the Russo-Ukrainian war began in the spring of 2022, and the West approached the war with unprecedented solidarity in what was interpreted to be a sort of counterreaction to that trend. The interventionist vs isolationist debate (and unfortunately those are the sides of the debate) has only become increasingly important in the 2024 elections as concerns about WWIII loom. Westminster speeches can be explored at bit.ly/westspeech.

The most popular majors include business, biochemistry, exercise science and political science. The first year experience (including “The Leader Within”) helps students explore their opportunities at Westminster. The honors program (applied to by essay, usually requiring above a 3.5 GPA) lets students take classes with other honors students, as well as work with a mentor to conduct research, find external activities (like presenting at academic conferences), and prepare for employment or grad school. They serve as lunch and conversation hosts for Symposium guests. A degree-in-three program allows students to take summer workshops to earn their degree (and a certificate in global leadership) in only three years. Professors lead trips across Mongolia, Vietnam and the Amazon, among other places, allowing students to form memories with their classmates.

Apply before classes start on 8/28 (sooner is likely better)

Westminster College Admit: 92% Size: 1k (2k) Price: 17-22k New Wilmington, PA Westminster is equidistant between Pittsburg (1 hour south) and Cleveland (1.5 hours west). It is located in a modest, historically Amish town. It is ranked as the best college in PA for its contribution to social mobility. The most popular majors are business, nursing and education. A pioneer in coed and laboratory education, it has been described as the best college for women in STEM compared to men. The same study found that St. Mary’s University in MD is the best for minorities in STEM. Its most famous alum is the president of the Mises Institute.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/16 (EA), or well before 5/1 (RD).

Westminster University Admit: 76% Size: 1k (200k) Price: 22-26k Salt Lake City, UT Yes, another one. (Presbytarian colleges are called Westminster in the same way Methodist ones are called Wesleyan.)

This Westminster is located 10 minutes from Salt Lake City, known for its Mormon ethic and tech jobs. Popular majors include nursing, neuroscience, public health, communication, and IT. It is the official education partner of US Ski & Snowboard, its alumni making up as much as 10% of the US’ Winter Olympics teams. (Paul Smith’s College is the partner of US Nordic.)

Apply by 12/1 (EA), 2/1 (RD) or by 8/19 for consideration.

Excerpt from “America the Beautiful” Thank you President Swearingen. Members of the graduating class of 1952, your school mates, ladies and gentlemen. This is a role, which believe me, I approach with more fear than I have ever felt about any role I have played and certainly with a great humility and awareness of my unworthiness to participate in this ceremony. When you add to that the fact that less than a generation ago the people of my profession could not even be buried in the churchyard, you can understand why my knees tremble. . .

It has been said that America is less of a place than an idea, and if it is an idea, and I believe that to be true, it is an idea that has been deep in the souls of man ever since man started his long trail from the swamps. It is nothing but the inherent love of freedom in each of us, and the great ideological struggle that we find ourselves engaged in today is not a new struggle. It’s the same old battle. We met it under the name of Hitlerism; we met it under the name of Kaiserism; and we have met it back through the ages in the name of every conqueror that has ever set upon a course of establishing his rule over mankind. It is simply the idea, the idea that deep within the heart of each one of us is something so God-like and precious that no individual or group has a right to impose his or its will upon the people.

I, in my own mind, have thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land. It was set here and the price of admission was very simple; the means of selection was very simple as to how this land should be populated. Any person with the courage to attempt and dare to live in a strange and foreign place, to travel half across the world was welcome here. And they

have brought with them to the bloodstream of America that precious courage, the courage that they alone in their family, in their community or in their nation had in the first place to come to this land, to the unknown, to strive for something better for themselves and their children. I believe that God in shedding his grace on this country has always kept in this divine scheme of things kept an eye on our land and guided it as a promised land for these people. . .

I think, in talking about this personality that is America, someone once during the war marveled that we seem to be the only people that could laugh and fight at the same time. I don’t think it comes from any love of fighting, it just stems from the rich warm humor that comes from confidence in the belief in all that is good, that is inherited in all of us. . .

It is said to you and to all of us that this is a man’s world. You young ladies are getting ready to set foot into this man’s world. I am not going to take issue with this particular belief or this claim. It’s been said for as long as men have been compelled to say anything. But a few years ago following World War II a new word was coined in regard to this man’s world, the term “momism.” Many articles were written deploring the fact that a large number of the young men have been unable or unwilling to face the test of war in behalf of their country. I am not going to take issue with this...

These are the boys that you are going to marry. You are going to teach and heal and mother their sons.

It’s easy to see from this speech how the 1950s grew organically out of the initial assessments of the wartime and post-war 1940s. Of course, its assumptions about the motivations behind, and the innocent passivity and constraints of, the role of women are perfectly perverse.

Manchester University Admit: 76% Size: 1k (4k) Price: 16-19k North Manchester, IN Manchester was founded by the Brethens, which like the Quakers are one of the peace churches. It established the world’s first undergraduate peace studies major in 1948, forseeing the issues that would be created by the failure to respect Palestinian rights, and hosts conferences through its institute. It counts among its alumni Cordier, who helped found the UN, and through whom Manchester became the only college in the United States to hold NGO status in the UN. MLK gave his last campus speech at Manchester before his assassination amid the fraught context of the late 1960s, during which Cordier was brought in to Columbia to pacify its students. 1962 graduate Johanson was founding fellow of the Institute for Peace Studies at Notre Dame and a president of the World Policy Institute, and 1980 graduate Ikenberry is the “world’s leading scholar of the liberal democratic order” (2021). (Peace studies is far behind exercise science, biology and business among its popular majors, but I would prefer to encourage differentiation.) The Fast Forward program allows earning a degree in three years.

Manchester is ranked highly for undergraduate teaching and civic engagement. The college is 45 minutes from Fort Wayne, an “All-American City” in the Rust Belt with a distinctive culture and the country’s lowest cost of living.

Apply before school starts 8/26, preferably the fall prior

Hanover College Admit: 65% Size: 1k (12k) Price: 18-21k

Hanover, IN

Indiana’s first private college, Hanover is equidistant between Louisville (1 hour) and Cincinnati (1.5 hours). The campus overlooks the winding Ohio River into Kentucky with scenic views. Trails exploring waterfalls go down to the river. The campus is 15 minutes or 10 miles from Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge, an important habitat with otters, coyotes, bobcats, endangered amphibians, and sought-out birds such as golden eagles, Kentucky warblers and one of the world’s largest populations of Henslow’s sparrows (an extremely exacting inhabitant of meadows), which is relatively understudied and unexplored. Hanover has the country’s 9th highest participation in Greek life, but 60% don’t participate.

Clifty Falls State Park (10 minutes away or 30 minutes by bike) offers camping and swimming opportunities, and the picturesque town of Madison (12 minutes) contains the US” largest National Historic Landmark District downtown.

Hanover offers a four year graduation guarantee and locks in tuition. Exercise science, communication, business and biochemistry are popular, and engineering is offered. It offers several teaching licenses with a 100% placement rate.

It is host to the Rivers Institute. Alumni include Mike Pence, the present governor of IN, and the founder of Whitworth.

Apply by 10/1 (start in Jan.), 11/1 (EAI), 12/15 (EAII) or 2/1 (RD)

Depauw University Admit: 66% Size: 2k (10k) Price: 14-20k Greencastle, IN The top liberal arts college in Indiana, Depauw has historically centered its life around Greek societies, though they have declined somewhat since 2015 (as has been the case nationally for frats). 60% of students still participate, making it behind only Washington & Lee among major colleges. It is home to the two oldest continuously running fraternities, and its female students founded one of the first sororities in 1870 shortly after being admitted. The Society of Professional Journalists was founded here.

The most popular majors are economics, communication, and computer science. International health and creative writing are sizeable. Media fellows are trained in the practice, not only the theory of media, spending semesters interning at sites like The Today Show, The Colbert Report, USA Today and the White House, and can attend a speaker series.

Depauw’s radio station is the oldest college station in the US, and its newspaper is the oldest in the Indiana. Students can also become management or science fellows, and students of any major can learn how to apply technology to their field of study. It has the oldest private collegiate music school.

Alumni include the founder of ESPN, novelist Barbara Kingsolver and anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Apply by 11/1 (EDI/EAI), 12/15 (EDII/EAII) or 2/1 (RD)

Transylvania University Admit: 91% Size: 1k (320k) Price: 23-26k Lexington, KY Transylvania was founded in 1780 as the first college west of the Alleghenies. It predates the founding of Kentucky and is named after a proto-state pioneered by Daniel Boone.

(Transylvania means “across the woods”, à la PA, and would have been one of the US states had the founding succeeded.) Unfortunately, the school’s mascot today is a vampire bat, which is undoubtedly a desecration of history.

Transylvania attracted faculty from across the world to “the Athens of the West” and educated the region’s elite, building the first Greek revival structure on a college campus. As the region became occupied with the tensions that would cumulate in the Civil War, it declined to near non-existence and was eventually converted into a hospital for dying students. During its heyday, it was the most influential school in the United States, educating Lincoln’s opponent in the election that led to the Civil War, the president of the Confederacy, abolitionist Cassius Clay (who secured Russian support for the Union), and “the Great Compromiser” Henry Clay. Students today participate in fraternities at the third highest rate among major colleges, and its digital liberal arts initiative teaches students how to apply technical skills.

Political science, business and digital art are popular.

10/31 (EAI), 12/1 (scholarship), 2/1 (RD), or after (as available)

Dickinson College Admit: 35% Size: 2k (20k) Price: 4-13k Carlisle, PA Dickinson received its charter six days after the US secured its future as an independent country from Britain (in 1783; the commonly given starting date of 1776 doesn’t make sense given that plenty of random people, for example, me, make declarations of independence that don’t amount to anything). It would make sense to call it the oldest American college, as Harvard and its ilk are more so British. It is in one of the many anodyne (Biden-favoring, Taylor Swift-producing) exurbs that Pennsylvania has peripheral to the Mid-Atlantic.

It is 12 minutes from Waggoner’s Gap hawk watch (one of the top hawk migration-watchings spots with 15-20,000 passing through every year, known especially for being a bottleneck for golden eagles), 30 minutes from Harrisburg (the state capital of 50k, home of the State Museum, the National Civil War museum, with exhibits and reenactments, and the headquarters of the Sons of Union Veterans), 1 hour east to Amish country and another hour east to Philadelphia (1576k), known for Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

The college was born out of a conversation between Benjamin Rush (a founding father and highly primitive, highly superstitious physician who thought blacks were mentally

inferior only as a result of slavery and had dark skin only as a result of disease) and William Bingham (the richest person in the country at the time), and named in honor of “the Penman of the Revolution”. Its alumni included Taney (who ruled in Dred v. Scott, a referendum-like case, that slaves were property and not people, and avoided abolishing slavery in act of fiat that would fecklessly overreach the legitimacy and soft power of the court, though with an attempt at arbitrary reasoning as justices typically do when explaining the inapplicability of rights instead of simply bluntly stating the extralegal reasons; with the start of the war the government began simply ignoring his rulings), and Buchanan, the first known gay president, who assured the ruling in Dred v. Scott and attempted to preserve the union by promoting a general amendment prohibiting interference into relations between persons endorsed by Lincoln. (Both are hated by historians, although historians are notoriously stupid, prone to judging by results instead of effects and, relatedly, prone to whinily demanding socioemotional vibes of greatness from leaders).

Dickinson is one of 3 LACs, along with Bowdoin and Amherst, to have graduated a chief justice and a president.

Since then, Dickinson has not been known for that much. Its majors include business (with an international emphasis), political science, and psychology. 59% of students are women; 7% of men and 36% of women are in Greek life (two fraternities were shut down recently, though the college also has “hat societies” for seniors that nobody likely wants to join). The Clarke Center for Contemporary Issues organizes lectures on annual themes (2019 was “masculinities” and 2022 was “failure” (not really a contemporary issue)).

Apply by 11/15 (EDI) or 1/15 (EDII, RD).

Washington & Jefferson College Admit: 88% Size: 1k (13k) Price: 22-29k Washington, PA W&J dates its history to 1780, when a Princeton graduate established a cabin to spread the gospel on the frontier. Another graduate with the same idea established a similar college, inciting a contest as each sought to merge by bringing the other to its own location. They eventually merged at Washington (known for featuring the first revolt against the US government) after the Civil War decimated their students, though not without the other party suing all the way to the Supreme Court.

Over a third of students are involved in Greek life, but it has a robust culture of literary societies and the vast majority participate in informal athletics (it is one of the few LACs to have a general requirement in PE and it has been named one of the fittest colleges by Men’s Health). The college excels at preparing students for graduate and professional programs.

90% of students who apply to law school or med school are successful (compared to less than half nationwide), and it is one of the top producers of lawyers, doctors and engineers per capita. It focuses on actively creating a strong environment in STEM for undergraduates, who do not only publish research in undergraduate journals but co-author papers with faculty that publish in top journals, and conduct research at various other institutions through internships.

Chemistry and psychology emphasize labwork.

As at most liberal arts colleges, the average class size is small (17) and no classes are taught using teaching assistants. Popular majors include business, political science and psychology. During the three-week intersession in January, students have the option to study abroad (as the majority do at least once), do an internship, or take a niche course (the faculty occasionally organize an Integrated Semester in which the college as a whole studies one theme). Students can earn money doing service in the community, and the college ranks 30th for federal work-study money spent allowing students to working with other organizations. (Those not eligible for work-study can apply for one of 600 jobs across 50 departments or in the community. Most of them pay the $7.25 federal minimum wage.) Those who want to pursue a project can write a proposal and budget. If and when it is accepted, W&J “provides funding so that you can set sail in the summer months, exploring a passion, an interest, an internship, a study abroad opportunity, a research trip, or all of the above. You're out of the classroom, learning the ropes of whatever you've set your sights on. It could be right around the corner or right around the world.” The college is 34 minutes from Pittsburgh (300k).

Students are required to live on the campus. It has a Pet House where they can keep their pets (not including large dogs) if they need to. Its meal plan (as with other colleges, required for on-campus students) contracts with one of the better and healthier dining services, Bon Appétit.

Apply by 12/15 (ED), 4/1 (RD) or later (as space is available)

Washington College Admit: 75% Size: 1k (5k) Price: 11-22k Chestertown, MD In 1753, William Smith, a 26 year-old immigrant to the new world, wrote a book detailing a utopian college, called “A general idea of the college of Mirania [the land of marvels]”. This book and an essay arguing in favor of establishing Columbia in the city impressed Benjamin Franklin, who invited him to serve as the UPenn’s first provost. His difficult personality, however, led to his expulsion, so he set about establishing Washington College and modeling it upon the vision he had set out decades earlier, collecting sponsors (including George Washington, who served on its board) to do so.

Business, environmental science and international relations are popular majors, and Washington awards the country’s largest undergrad literary prize. Physics and math majors receive guaranteed admission to and discounted tuition at Washington University in St. Louis’ engineering program.

Similar programs exist for nursing and pharmacy with the University of Maryland and for environmental science with Duke. Its students are required to live on campus (it has nicer dorms). A quarter are involved in Greek life. Kayaks, paddleboards and boats are available for students’s use, along with fishing rods. Washington is 1.5 hours from Baltimore and DC across the iconic bay bridge.

Apply by 11/15 (ED or Jan. admit), 12/1 (EA) or 2/15 (RD)

Union College Admit: 44% Size: 2k (67k) Price: 21-27k Schenectady, NY Union was the first college to be founded on a secular basis in the United States, formed in 1785 and made a college during the presidency of George Washington. Its name is meant to reflect its freedom from religious denominations.

The college reflects Enlightenment-era ideas of fraternity because of its founding, with its pagan motto (“Under the laws of Minerva, we all become brothers”) in French rather than Latin. The modern fraternity system (a unique feature of American colleges) began at Union in the 1820s with the founding of the first three chapters. In 2000, cognizant that educated applicants saw frats as a drawback, the college began de-centering life away from the frats by displacing those on campus and creating a non-exclusive social forum.

Union was one of the first colleges to offer study in the natural sciences. It offers accredited engineering degrees, including biomedical and environmental. Common majors include economics, psychology and political science.

Undergraduate research occurs across all fields. Notable alumni include 14 governors, 90 college presidents, Seward (of the Alaska purchase), Presidents Arthur and Carter, and the editor of the Washington Post during Watergate. It resides in a pretty New England (technically New Netherland) town 45 minutes south of the Adirondacks.

Apply by 11/1 (EDI, EA, medicine), 1/15 (EDII, RD, law)

Wofford College Admit: 60% Size: 2k (40k) Price: 23-30k Spartanburg, SC Wofford, which ranks just behind Furman as one of the best liberal arts colleges in South Carolina, is one of the few Southern campuses that survived the Civil War (although so many students enlisted that only 8 remained and it lost its entire endowment in war bonds). It became the first white college in the South to invite a black speaker to its campus in 1886, when its president, a slaveowner and delegate to South Carolina’s secession convention, invited the founder of Livingstone College (an HBC today) to speak on “the Future of the Negro”. It became the first college in South Carolina to desegregate voluntarily in 1964.

About a third of its students participate in fraternities, making it one of the top ten or twenty in the country for participation. It founded the only German Studies honor society in the United States (currently headquartered at Washington and Jefferson), and in 1941 it was awarded South Carolina’s first chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (the oldest honor society in the country) at a private college. It is one of the top colleges in the nation for study abroad participation.

Foreign language and international studies are popular.

Students are required to live on campus; seniors can live in the Village, which has balconies. Wofford gets a plus in my book for its perky, woofy mascot and nice-looking stadium.

Read about its talented students at bit.ly/woffordstudents.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/15 (EA) or 1/15 (RD)

Furman University Admit: 70% Size: 2k (71k) Price: 21-26k Greenville, SC Furman is the top college in South Carolina, as well as the oldest, though as with Wofford, its president was a delegate to the secession convention and one-third of its students died, causing its faculty to move over to the local college for females. It did not truly revive until 1924, when it was named one of the beneficiaries of the Duke Endowment. The school integrated in 1965. Its campus, known for its beauty, small lake and its Asian and courtyard gardens, is 15 minutes from Greenville (one of the fastest growing small cities in the country), 1.5 hours from the Great Smoky Mountains (the single most biodiverse area of the country), and 2 hours from any sizable population center.

The top majors pursued are in exercise science, political science, communication, history and music. Furman is a good college for undergraduate research and it funds summer internships. Students feel supported by the faculty; Furman’s undergraduates go on to earn PhDs at the highest rate of any South Carolina college. Furman alumni include the founder of behaviorism (a school of thought assuming behavior is conditioned not ingrained), governors, Clinton’s secretary of education, Mark Sanford (an eclectic libertarian Congressman displaced by Trump), a namesake of Frito-Lay and “the Queen of Christian Pop”.

Apply by 11/15 (EDI), 12/1 (EA), 1/15 (EDII or RD)

The University of the South Admit: 52%* Size: 2k (3k) Price: 17-20k Sewanee, TN The University of the South is centrally located in the white South. It is commonly called Sewanee. The university was founded by delegates from southern diosces of the Episcopal Church (historically the most agéd/ genteel/intellectual denomination) to free southern higher education from northern influences at the height of tensions preceding the Civil War. Many of its founders became influential in the Confederacy, serving as generals, and one founded the Southern Episcopal Church before dying in battle. It remains affiliated with the southern diosces of the Episcopal Church and is host to an official seminary, which has educated three of the last five presiding bishops of the Church. It made news when it chose to keep Charlie Rose’s honorary degree out of a desire to “not condemn the individual”, although it then backed out. A mace dedicated to the founder of the KKK and featuring the Confederacy’s battle flag was retired from formal processions in 1997. In 2020, it released a statement rejecting pro-Confederacy sentiments.

The campus has a party scene, and dining is buffet-style.

The school retains distinctive traditions related to Southern culture. For example, male students generally wear coats and ties to classes, and faculty and honor students may wear academic gowns. Half of male students are in fraternities (the first fraternity house in the South opened at Sewanee in 1880), and two-thirds of female students are in sororities.

Sewanee Review is the oldest continuously publishing literary magazine in the US. The campus has been a residence for notable writers, such as Shelby Foote, a historian of the Civil War. Popular majors include economics, political science, philosophy, neuroscience and sustainability.

It is a top producer of Rhodes scholars and Watson fellows and is rated highly for internships, career guidance and alumni networks. Alumni include the inspiration for the film The Dead Poet’s Society, the father of Joshua Bell, a chief strategist for Obama’s 2012 campaign, an Oxford moral philosopher, and Jon Meacham, the author of The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels and the foremost influence on how Biden thinks about the significance of his presidency and his 2024 rematch.

The campus is located atop the Cumberland Plateau, the world’s largest hardwood-forested plateau, known especially for the biodiversity of its streams, and trails around the school explore waterfalls and caves. It is 1 hour from Chattanooga (182k) and 1.5 hours from Nashville (693k).

Apply by 11/15 (*79% EDI), 12/1 (EA), 1/15 (EDII) or 2/1 (RD)

Excerpt from The Soul of America “This is a brilliant, fascinating, timely, and above all profoundly important book.”—Walter Isaacson THE FATE OF AMERICA—or at least of white America, which was the only America that seemed to count—was at stake.

On the autumn evening of Thursday, October 7, 1948, South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond, the segregationist Dixiecrat candidate for president of the United States, addressed a crowd of one thousand inside the University of Virginia’s Cabell Hall in Charlottesville. The subject at hand: President Harry S. Truman’s civil rights program, one that included anti-lynching legislation and protections against racial discrimination in hiring. Thurmond was having none of it. Such measures, he thundered, “would undermine the American way of life and outrage the Bill of Rights.”

Interrupted by applause and standing ovations, Thurmond, who had bolted the Democratic National Convention in July to form the States’ Rights Democratic Party, was in his element in the Old Confederacy. “I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen,” Thurmond had said in accepting the breakaway party’s nomination in Birmingham, Alabama, “that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, into our churches.” The message was clear. He and his fellow Dixiecrats, he told the University of Virginia crowd, offered “the only genuine obstacle to the rise of socialism or communism in America.” Civil rights, Thurmond declared, were a Red plot against the Free World: “Only the States Rights Democrats—and we alone—have the moral courage

to stand up to the Communists and tell them this foreign doctrine will not work in free America.”

Nearly seventy years on, in the heat of a Virginia August in 2017, heirs to the Dixiecrats’ platform of white supremacy— twenty-first century Klansmen and neo-Nazis among them— gathered in Charlottesville, not far from where Thurmond had taken his stand. The story is depressingly well known: A young counter-protestor, Heather Heyer, was killed. Two Virginia state troopers died in a helicopter crash as part of an operation to maintain order. And the president of the United States—himself an heir to the white populist tradition of Thurmond and of Alabama’s George Wallace—said that there had been an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides,” as if there were more than one side to a conflict between neo-Nazis who idolized Adolf Hitler and Americans who stood against Ku Klux Klansmen and white nationalists. The remarks were of a piece with the incumbent president’s divisive language on immigration (among many other subjects, from political foes to women) and his nationalist rhetoric.

Extremism, racism, nativism, and isolationism, driven by fear of the unknown, tend to spike in periods of economic and social stress—a period like our own. Americans today have little trust in government; household incomes lag behind our usual middle-class expectations. The fires of fear in America have long found oxygen when broad, seemingly threatening change is afoot. Now, in the second decade of the new century, in the presidency of Donald Trump, the alienated are being mobilized afresh by changing demography, by broadening conceptions of identity, and by an economy that prizes Information Age brains over manufacturing brawn.

This is a well-intended, mellow kind of book, not as dramatic as I expected, and I didn’t manage to hate it as much as I anticipated. It certainly skirts, in a genial sort of way, the points of American history that remain points of contention and haven’t yet fully devolved into platitudes on both the left and the right. For example, it focuses entirely on first-wave feminism instead of the more well-known second wave (much less the third wave actually pertinent to Trump), and Vietnam goes virtually unmentioned as a flaw in LBJ’s presidency that might have something to tell us about the markings of good and evil. There is, in fact, nothing in this book to suggest the existence of any unresolved issues to which the solutions would be more than a matter of amplifying the obvious and applying past lessons, apart from the muse about “Information Age brains over manufacturing brawn” that he appended to his original article. If this is what Biden was inspired by, that’s pretty sobering, and it might explain his expectations at the start of his Idiocracyarchetype presidency. Now, I appreciate whatever of Biden’s even-keeled and restrained personality was inspired by this work, but faint, wheezing chuckles aren’t going to save us as his administration tanks like a failing ship at the brink of the end of the world. (Embracing Dark Brandon memes and attacks on MAGA isn’t likely to help that much, either.)

The core fallacy of this book is that it implies that the issues of our day have been foretold, and all we need to do to solve them is to stand stoutly by what the conventions of our moment of history already know is right—that this is what to heed “the call of history,” indeed, means. The good, however, is not some social standard everyone would acknowledge “if only they were honest to themselves.” It is something we discover by questioning our beliefs. There is no preexisting,

popularly acknowledged good that will triumph by defeating an external evil—only one that may potentially be formed through its own interrogation. The method of history is not the brave stand for the obvious and what everyone already believes, but the ability to see past the mentality of the current hegemon to something greater. History repeats itself by not repeating itself. In the same way that the task of history in 20th century was not to perceive the threats of the 19th, but those of the 20th, the task of history in the 21st is not that of the 20th, but its very own. History is—by definition— novel; it concerns solely those phenomena that rupture the paradigms of the past. It requires addressing newly raised issues, which are to be addressed not by the lessons of the past, but by lessons learned anew. That is why it was not enough when “There came [wholesome-ly unananimous] words of denunciation in a time of national crisis over hate and extremism” and “The same spirit animated George W. Bush when, six years later, he insisted that America’s war on terror was not a war against all of Islam. ‘The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself,’ Bush 43 said. ‘The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.’” No mention is made of how the war itself was not a good idea. No analysis is made of how the popular views of good and evil prevailing then were unreliable, how the fidelity to the former caused issues, and how the triumph of good was enabled by the subversion of this presupposed vision of good. The problem here is that Biden is trying to mirror Bush’s limp phrases of inclusivity, as if that’s all he has to do to capture the better impulse of America, instead of trying to prevent the war that is the mistake itself.

Rhodes College Admit: 48%* Size: 2k (628k) Price: 24-26k Memphis, TN Rhodes, probably the most beautiful college in the country, came to its campus 10 minutes from downtown Memphis and by a city park in 1925. The city is famed for creating the blues and being where Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin and Justin Timberlake emerged, as well as for hosting the National Civil Rights Museum (although the region as a whole, at the intersection of the river delta/hillbilly foothills, is considered to be in the poorest backwaters of the country). (The college is named after the 1948-1964 president who oversaw it during its post-WWII boom, not to be confused with Cecil.)

The ”Search for Values in the Light of Western History and Religion” course, known as “the Search”, has been required for entering students since 1945. Students take at least one class from the “Search” or “Life” course in each of their first three semesters. Half of students participate in the Greek system.

More than 80% participate in community service, and the college has the oldest college chapter of Habitat for Humanity and longest student-run soup kitchen in the country. It has been named the top college in the country for the number of hours students spend in service, and each student must sign an honor code. Rhodes is among the top five colleges in the South for students who

go on to earn PhDs. 95% of students are able to be admitted to law and business schools and 90% to medical schools (a rate which is twice the average). It has a partnership with the George Washington University School of Medicine in DC that guarantees admission to students maintaining their grades.

Biology and business are popular, along with IR, history, English, chemistry, CS, environmental science, and music.

Rhodes is highly rated by students for the accessibility of its professors, and as with Sewanee, for its internship and career guidance. Its alumni have included Alison Grimes, the pro-choice secretary of state for Kentucky until 2020, and Amy Barrett, the pro-life justice (to whom Diane Feinstein once said “the dogma lives loudly within you”) appointed to the Supreme Court in 2020.

11/1 (EDI), 11/15 (EA), 12/1 (for scholarship) or 1/15 (EDII, RD)

Baylor University Admit: 46% Size: 15k (140k) Price: 30-35k

Waco, TX

Baylor was created in the last congressional session of the Republic of Texas (back when it was a country along with the US and Mexico). This makes it the oldest college in Texas. It is located at the heart of the state, equidistant between Dallas and Austin (1.5 hrs each).

Waco is known primarily for becoming the site of the largest battle on US soil since the Civil War when the government invaded a complex housing a religious society in 1993, which instigated the modern American militia movement.

Baylor is the largest Baptist university in the world, which tempers the liberalism found in most colleges. It is known for its school spirit, featuring the nation’s oldest homecoming celebrations with the nation’s oldest and longest collegiate parade, which has fueled its ambitions. About 30% of students participate in fraternities. Popular majors include nursing, biology, communication, pre-med and business, and it ranks highly for teaching and research. The honors program, in addition to the usual classes with other honors students, features Great Texts classes, a Colloqium where you read and discuss interesting books, and a Senior thesis.

Alumni include Rand Paul, a libertarian politician, Ken Paxton, the current and colorful attorney general of Texas, Fox news host Trey Gowdy, Christian musicians, and industrial CEOs. 11/1 (ED, EA), 11/15 (start in Jan.), 2/1 (RD) or later (contact)

Texas Christian University Admit: 46% Size: 11k (936k) Price: 29-36k Fort Worth, TX TCU was founded with the intent of embodying Christian values while remaining nonsectarian and open-minded. It is located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolis, which is behind only NYC, LA and Chicago in size with 8 million people. It is sometimes called “Silicon Prairie” and has 23 Fortune 500 companies. It would have the 20th largest economy in the world if it were a country. The metropolis has more Christians than any other in the US. Fort Worth is a cultural capital of the Southwest with a cowboy heritage.

Applying is free for first-generation students or $50 otherwise. (I included this college on accident whatever.)

Nearly half of students participate in Greek life, putting it fourth among general private co-ed colleges. It enjoys a high freshment retention rate of over 90%, which is more than for many more selective colleges. Women make up 60% of its student body, outnumbering men 3 to 2, which is typical for universities of standard selectivity. The party, Greek and dating scenes are a prominent part of TCU’s image. Pre-med is popular (in addition to business and psychology) and students receive acceptances to med school at high rates.

Its most well-known alumni are national debate moderator Bob Scheiffer and doctor-turned-politician Miller-Meeks.

11/1 (Jan. start), 2/1 (nursing, EA), 4/15 (financial aid), 6/1 (RD)

Hillsdale College Admit: 20% Size: 1.5k (8k) Price: 20-30k? Hillsdale, MI Hillsdale isn’t just a college; it’s a power player in the culture wars, and one of the right’s top think tanks and policy institutes at a time when education has become increasingly fraught. Its president has described its goal as “world conquest”. Today, it serves as a lone shining sentinel and alternative model for what education could look like to conservative pundits across the country, and it has proven only too willing to be engaged in that role, creating and promoting K-12 curricula and free online courses.

The college’s unusual character has its roots in its founding by the Free Will Baptists, a group of Christians who believed that true religious belief could only exist as a result of free choice, and consequently advocated for religious liberty, becoming the principal formulators of the “separation of church and state”. Their liberatarian views caused the college to accept black and female students from its opening in 1850, when it became the first college in the country to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion or sex in its charter. In 1854, its leaders played a role in founding the new Republican Party, and its growing reputation for staunch abolitionism attracted speakers such as Frederick Douglass to its campus. When the Civil War came, its students enlisted in the Union at a higher rate than that of any other college in the region. While the majority of colleges failed to survive the war, Hillsdale relied on the

clarity of its principles to appeal to the generosity of donors.

Its quixotic, religiously-tinged commitment to its personal theory of equality came in conflict with the government in 1970, when it was ordered to identify its students by race for the purpose of ensuring compliance with affirmative action legislation. After a legal battle, it decided to stop accepting aid and rely on private donors instead, a decision that helped to thicken its dense ties with players in the small world of the right-wing intelligensia. In 2000, the founder of the Claremont Institute (a think tank regarded as unsually open to the newer currents and intellects of the right) became its president, and came to play an important role in marshaling the right’s support for Trump. In 2020, President Trump enlisted Hillsdale to form a “1776 Commission” countering the 1696 Project in one of his last acts as president, foreshadowing the turn to concerns about education that would mark the next few years (Youngkin and DeSantis would both consult Hillsdale). In 2021, it founded an institute on the censorship of science with the help of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration, an anti-lockdown letter that was endorsed by the Trump administration.

Hillsdale alumni have served as speechwriters for Trump and Pence, counsels to the administration, and chief of staff for its Department of Education. They have also founded the country’s largest private army, pardoned for war crimes by Trump. Its faculty include Trump’s national security official (the writer of “Flight 93”) and the editor of The Federalist.

Sitting Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas is a visiting fellow. Hillsdale students take a curriculum based in “the Western tradition” and the “core principles” of science.

11/1 (leadership aid; spring), 12/15 (merit aid) or 3/15 (RD)

Liberty University Admit: 99% Size: 15k (79k) Price: 27-27k Lynchburg, VA Liberty is located in the central Virginia city of Lynchburg, founded around a 17 year-old’s ferry service, which Jefferson chose as the site for his retreat home, Poplar Forest, when Monticello began to attract too much attention. He said of Lynchburg that “I consider it to be the most interesting spot in the state”. As tensions over slavery arose, it came to be led by one of the most prominent religious leaders of a later generation in the South that had come to accommodate the institution of slavery. (Religion was always a tool for political order, more so than the other way around, for the bawdy people of Lynchburg.) Unlike Hillsdale, it was one of the last holdouts of the Confederacy. John Breckenridge (the South’s nominee for president before the war, now a disabled veteran) led a team effort among the citizens, women and prostitutes of the town to deceive the Union into thinking its fighting forces were larger than reality. It surrended only after the Confederacy lost its final battle and Lee surrended to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, 20 miles away. The presiding Union general made a visit to one of the Confederacy’s generals, a descendant of the founder of Lynchburg and his friend and former classmate, as he died of his wounds from the battle, easing the transition of power.

Liberty University was founded, from segregated beginnings, with the start of the rise of the modern right in 1971 by Jerry

Falwell. Falwell had founded a megachurch in Lynchburg and risen to influence as a prominent televangelist, proponent of segregation, and opponent of MLK (at the same time that Hillsdale was refusing to interact with schools practicing segregation). Falwell went on to found Moral Majority in 1979, an organization that more than any other was symbolic of the country’s shift from the sixties and was credited for the election of Reagan over Carter in 1980. Falwell was not personally religious in his private life. In 2001, Soulforce (a group seeking to free gays from religious oppression) was founded in Lynchburg by a close friend. In 2005, after a major operation for a disease that would soon lead to his death, Falwell told then-MSNBC host Tucker Carlson that he wasn’t troubled by Republican Chief Justice nominee John Robert’s volunteer work for gay rights, saying that he would have done the same, also speaking out for equal rights as “basic rights, not special rights” and “an American value”.

His son (also not particularly religious) took over the college, which serves an evangelical constituency and abstains from drinking and sex, following his death. He caused outrage after becoming the first evangelical leader to endorse Trump, which eventually led to his nomination over Cruz (a Texan evangelical who was then leading the primary) but also to his demise, as alumni conducted take-down investigations alleging a throuple with a pool boy (bit.ly/falwell-fall). As with Hillsdale, Liberty transcends the usual bounds of colleges; its virtual school is one of the largest, pioneered back in 1985, and Falwell’s sucessor has said that “getting people elected” is one of its goals with its Standing for Freedom center.

Liberty has strongly shaped politics over the last 50 years.

Apply by 11/1 (best for honors, spring), 12/15 (RD) or after

A word of warning Liberty University’s name can be an appealing beacon to students who are experiencing teenage angst at their leftist community and are all too aware of the repressive culture that has made headlines at colleges in recent years (and, in their innocence, may not be fully aware of how Christian schools work). If you define liberty as cussing and/or drinking underage, however, you should be aware that Liberty is not for you. New students have to pledge “the Liberty way,” which includes not having sex, listening to music with lewd lyrics, or cohabiting. While Falwell did much to foster Liberty’s image of Trumpism, his beliefs have always existed in sharp contrast to its students; only 8 percent of their votes went for Trump in the primary. One of the major scandals of his presidency concerned how he wore a mask with a photo of the Democratic governor in blackface and standing with KKK cosplayers. After he was booted in 2020, he proclaimed himself “free at last.” Students at the typically sane Virginian school have rallied to move it away from Trump and toward religion in a normie resistance movement (bit.ly/libertysturn), leading to the renaming of the Falkirk center (named in part for Charlie Kirk, a folk hero for railing against the campus status quo). The school, which requires theology courses and advertises that it creates champions for Christ because that attracts paying chumps, is described as a having a stifling “culture of fear.” One thing you needn’t worry about is its selectivity (Liberty draws students for other reasons, and its honors program, with hundreds of students, admits people with SAT scores of 1460 or ACT scores of 34 on average). An asterisk to “no fee” is that there is no fee if you don’t enroll, making it null for relevant purposes and questions of risk.

Whether events like these will continue is up to question.

General note on religious colleges Most colleges that make religion central to their mission apply for an exemption to Title IX to avoid being sued for their policies on LGBT students. This is although they do not receive exemptions for discrimination against women or minorities (a fact that causes some to become fiscally independent for religious reasons such as excluding the unwed with children, in addition to secular reasons), a discrepancy that presumably exists for the same reason that “personally” being homophobic is considered to be a fair, civilized stance that there is an eminent free speech interest in respecting in a way that doesn’t seem to apply to other offenses. (A common talking point among liberals is that to state that transphobia or homophobia is evil in an objective sense of the word without room for other views is radical and disturbing, or an inversion and perversion of history, as if civil discussions over tea are how we’ve progressed to the today.)

Grove City College Admit: 71% Size: 2k (8k) Price: 20-30k? Grove City, PA Grove City, located in the steely heartland between Pittsburgh (1 hr), Cleveland (2 hrs), and the Alleghenies, allied itself with Hillsdale in the case that tried to exempt them from Title IX requirements, proving its right-wing bona fides. Today it no longer accepts financial aid from the government, allowing it not comply with federal regulations. Its base tuition is lower than for most colleges (it points out that inflated base tuitions are just a way to make some students pay a surcharge), which is good news mostly for wealthier students, though it does offer need-based aid.

Using the disciplinarian ethos of its locale to resist the tide in higher education, Grove City became the highly-connected bastion of the conservative movement and is the most holistically right-wing college in the country today. It has been called the campus most nostalgic for Reagan, the statesman who more than any other represented the right’s synthesis of free market and religious values in opposition to the godless and communist Soviet Union in the 20th century.

The lecture series of its Institute for Faith and Freedom include the annual Reagan lectures, in which its executive director (a Reagan scholar and biographer who released the biopic Reagan in 2023) interviews someone who is in some way connected to Reagan (it featured the writer of the “tear down the wall speech” in 2010 and Newt Gingrich, the leader

of the 1994 Republican Revolution, in 2022), the biannual series “The Conservative Mind: Lectures on Understanding Conservatism and the Foundations of Freedom” (its first speaker in 2022 was Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism and the former editor of the National Review, the top conservative magazine in the country), and the quarterly Foundations of American Leadership luncheon.

The National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise and the Property and Environment Research Center attempt to address the traditionally liberal domains of social ills and environmental issues through a free market based approach (the latter claims to be “America’s oldest and largest institute dedicated to original research applying market principles to environmental problems” and represents a major branch of the environmental movement). The college has ties to the Mises Institute, and several members of the Institute hold faculty positions. Its alumni have been presidents of the State Policy Network, which creates state-level think tanks modeled on the Heritage Foundation, and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan, the largest state-level free market think tank in the country and the one that coined the concept of “the Overton Window” (the means by which radical ideas can be made mainstream), as well as leaders at the John Locke Foundation (active in North Carolina) and the Conservative Partnership Institute (hosting strategy sessions with conservative Congressmen), and the first black holders of positions at Carnegie Mellon (the Institute for International Relations) and George Mason (another libertarian, albeit public university). It sends 40-50 students to CPAC (the top conservative political action conference), where they can network and listen to the right’s best-known

politicans, each year (most trips are partly self-sponsored).

The core curriculum of Grove City is based in Christianity and Western civilization. Popular majors include engineering and business, and its economics program is known for its Austrian economics (alumni include the editor of the Review of Austrian Economics and director of the Hayek Program at George Mason). Grove City has been coed from its founding in 1876, and it is a top destination for homeschoolers, named as the best school for homeschoolers by a number of publications. Students are expected to attend chapel services once a week (in addition to whatever church they may attend). Living on campus is required. Greek organizations are independent of national networks, and housing groups of students with similar interests can request block housing. Numerous varsity and club sports are offered, as are College Democrats and Students for Ethnic Awareness and Diversity (which show that it has a more traditional political approach than the populist alternatives).

It has high student retention rate and six-month job placement rate. The admissions office encourages students to submit their SAT, ACT or CLT test for optimal consideration for admission and scholarships, and recommends them to do so if they are applying to be CS or engineering majors. The college plans to expand its national outreach and DC presence through its Institute for Faith and Freedom (the name of which recalls the most mainstream rightist faction), which not only offers public courses but has a charming, sheep-festooned Liberty Junior Youtube channel that provides “alternative programming” for children.

11/1 (EDI), 12/1 (EDII), 1/20 (RDI), 3/20 (RDII) or later (as available). Interview in-person or virtually for free application.

University of Austin Admit: TBA (low) Size: 1k (964k) Price: varies Austin, TX With the unprecedented amount of attention that higher education is receiving, it is little surprise that a college has recently been established out of discontent with the current methods, much as new institutions have been founded in past times of change.

Many colleges fall apart in their early years (survival bias should not deceive us of that fact), but the University of Austin has hefty backers, with donations pouring in in the wake of the purported ethical bankruptcy of elite colleges on the Israel-Hamas war, and an all-star board of directors.

The school was brainstormed at the home of Joe Lonsdale, a centrist civic entrepreneur who co-founded Palantir (the contractor now providing AI services to Ukraine) with Peter Thiel, in Austin, which is also the site of Joe Rogan’s mansion and Elon Musk’s plans for his own university and “planned community.” (Where this budding utopian hotspot will go with climate change remains to be seen.) The president of St. John’s in Annapolis was recruited to become the president of UATX in the summer of 2021. The network it draws on is a Who’s Who of the classical liberal discourse that has been on the rise over the last several years. Bari Weiss, who resigned from the NYT because of “bullying” and subsequently made bank as Substack’s third-most subscribed writer, introduced plans for the university in November 8, 2021. Other original

founders include Niall Ferguson, the rationalist who predicted Trump’s demise a record number of times, and Heather Heying, a colleague of Bret Weinstein. It counts among its contacts exiles from academia such as Peter Boghossian and Kathleen Stock, and popular intellectuals such as Steven Pinker, Jonathan Haidt, Andrew Sullivan, Tyler Cowen, Caitlin Flanagan, Nadine Strossen and Lex Fridman. It originally claimed the participation of figures cozier with the establishment, Robert Zimmer and Larry Summers, though they have since distanced themselves from its radicalism.

Leading reductionist Richard Dawkins has since joined the project. Through these associates it has connections to all the standard-fare strains of the IDW, including new atheism, techno-utopianism, the anti-PC backlash, and the larger discourse about the significance of nature in addition to nurture (considered to be heretical vis-à-vis one of the cornerstones of the post-WWII moral code because of its implication of differences, even when statistical not innate).

This makes it a truer coalition of contemporary critiques of academia than Hillsdale, which to an extent still draws from traditional conservatism by being a Christian college.

The founding papers of UATX are many, but the most useful is a behest that Bari Weiss made in the summer of 2022, thefp.com/p/the-new-founders-america-needs which is a comprehensive survey of the classical liberal view of these times. Its orientation can also be found in the courses taught at these seminars, uaustin.org/forbidden-courses, which certainly seem more in-touch than the gerontocratic media and smack dab in the center of the zeitgeist, with a greater focus on long 21st-century (post-1990) issues of gender and sexuality than legacy issues of race or old ideological (SR/EL

or conscious-level) divisions, and a robust presentation of evolutionary biology (which holds a position of prominence in newer strains of liberal thought that critics seldom seem to fully recognize). The first class of 100 students will enroll in the fall of 2024, receiving full-tuition scholarships, and the college hopes to eventually enroll 250 students a class. All students will take foundational courses during their first two years and then move into a concentration. The choices are Arts and Letters, which is a grounding in an understanding of the Western heritage, Economics, Politics & History, which is about economics as a tool of social change, and STEM, which is principally about quantitative abilities and skills in using data and code. Each major has its own “center,” which is a combination of research institutes, think tanks, and startup incubators. They will benefit from the talent network, “a group of hundreds of forward-looking U.S. businesses and entrepreneurs who have proudly agreed to partner with UATX as we forge a new path in higher education”, which “will help connect students to the innovation world”. These include Chase Koch, the CEO of Koch Industries, and Peter Thiel, the right-wing titan of Silicon Valley. In addition, every student will pursue a financially supported Polaris Project, an in-depth application of their studies similar to a thesis.

If you want to be on the cutting edge of society, there may be no other college better suited for learning from and making connections with it than the University of Austin. Although there are inherent risks to a new institution, especially one that hasn’t had a single class, the amount of talent that has been poured into it is truly impressive, and it is likely to become a growing presence and influence in the future.

Open as of April 2024. Free for fall of 2024 matriculants.

The historic, art deco Scarborough building is in the heart of Austin

Inside Scarborough (L). Students stay in nearby buildings, whese amenities include a fitness center, workshops on life skills, and mentoring courtesy of the talent network. The college is walking distance (sub-mile) from the library (R) and riverfront parks.

The problem with Bari Weiss Weiss complains about anti-Israel professors not being fired by Columbia in 2005. (Columbia was the first college in the Ivy League to ban SJP shortly after Oct 7 in 2023, followed by Penn in April 2024.)

In her inaugural speech to the University of Austin, Bari Weiss described the rise of the cultural shift associated with “deplatforming” and “cancel culture” as “What I started to witness many years ago as a student at Columbia University.”

I am unaware of anything she could be referring to other than her pioneering, historic and seminal campaign of harassment against members of the faculty, which forced them to take leaves of absence and was seen as the worst threat to academic freedom in decades. The committee report on the affair found that the pro-Palestinian speakers were heckled by students who frequently attended their classes to harass them (rather than out of any interest or requirement), disrupted the ability of other students to learn from their lectures, and misreported the speakers for distressing comments that they made. Even in the case that her complaints were founded, that wouldn’t be far off from how students harass speakers for being hostile to students of color, which we tend to characterize as a different matter from whether they should be allowed to speak at all.

An unadvisably compressed primer on the epistemologies of postmodernity People often support free speech in the position of advocating it with qualifications. Their conception of free speech, however, is always premised on a flawed distinction.

In the popular view, the world of truth is divided into two spheres. One of these is the sphere in which truth is debated, and thus unresolved. Any opinion that is held in comparable and pluralistic proportion in this sphere can be advocated. In fact, to claim the objectivity of any one of them is considered to be inimical to free speech. Your opinion can only be your opinion of “your opinion” (the knowledge of what your belief is), not your opinion of “factual reality.” This is, of course, a recursive paradox. What could your opinion be of, if not of what reality is and of what it literally is, not just of what it is “according to your opinion”? The idea that your opinion is true, and then that this is not only your opinion but actually the case, is seen as audacious when it is the tautological implication of your opinion. The individual who asserts their view as objective is accused of acting like they can make it true just by saying so. No, of course not. There’s a reason that it’s true, they’re not saying it’s true because they said so.

What the accuser cannot conceive is that truth or reasonability is not determined by people saying things, and thus by what people in general say, but by reason.

The accusation propounded by believers in, as they call it, objectivity (defined as a lack of favor for your own opinion, which is not any different, externally, from how others hold opinions after all), is ironic because it is itself that conflates belief with reality. As long as an issue is unsettled in public

opinion, they believe, it is unsettled in reality. The moral state of it, right or wrong, is unsettled just as the value of the cat, dead or alive, is in Schrödinger’s box. The reality is that it is settled in one position or the other and totally so, regardless of what public opinion currently is, as every truth already is.

To hold a position that is not unqualified is therefore already a fallacy in and of itself. What is maddening is the smug humility, the aura of generosity and above all, the assumptions and sense of moral safety underlying their affect of how it’s only fair to say what they say that they hold; the gratification they take in being hated by both sides. It is okay if one side hates them, in their view, as long as the other side is criticizing them too; after all, they’re making the same claims and they couldn’t elevate one over the other. They take comfort in this external mutuality, but the only implication of a mutual contradiction of two views is ever that one is right and the other is wrong. There is nothing to be determined externally, because truth is not a construction of voices but a property of objective reality. There is a voice that must exist without any other voice telling it to. (This is why people frequently fail to distinguish between act, which inherently acts as if it is literally not metaphorically reality, and reality, because there is no such sovereign voice.)

It is believed that as long as views are in the realm in which the construction of objectivity has not yet been attained, they must be permitted because they are not objectively anything. The justification for the protection of the ability to say a belief is thus based on affirmative statement about the nature of the belief, not a neutral one. They cannot imagine what it is for something to be unknown, so the unknown must be asserted as a known, an ambiguity must be posited

as a definite value in itself. This premise for the protection of speech that it is in some way not untrue is dangerous, not least because they could not imagine a justification for allowing speech if it were simply false, and there are some things, they say, that are just objectively true or false. This is a distinction that they draw. Of course, the reality is that everything is “just” objectively true or false. It is irrelevant if speech is false, that we believe that it is false, (and “believe” is not a belittlement it usually is here), because the proper rationale on which we allow speech is not that it is true.

Thinking we allow speech because it is true is alike thinking things are illegal because they are actually wrong, that concocted justification for people too low in ability to justify things, and then saying that if it is wrong it must a priori be illegal, as in, for example, the case of qualitative due process, or the Nuremberg trials, which fumbled the moral lesson that legal things can be wrong, as a case of that fallacy of focusing on strenuously justifying A is B to justify A is B is C when the point in contention is the assumption that B is C. This view of speech is often enhanced by motive attribution, as is the view of mores for sub-objectivists (who attribute, and are occupied by, the motive of doing something because one wants to, as if that were an exclusive matter and couldn’t be for a reason). A prime example of this in recent days has been the controversies over so-called book banning in public school curriculums. In the witless and illegally idiotic worldview of a sub-objectivist, they can shrewdly connect the dots, ah and nod, smiling extremely obnoxiously and slyly in understanding. It is only after attributing a motive that the situation is all-clarified and they can understand everything; they have no capacity to analyze a situation on its own terms.

By identifying a motive (or an indicator), they can connect a situation to a heuristic and then read that heuristic, instead of reading the situation in front of them. In fact, any situation is confusing and incomprehensible and simple gibberish until they are able to attach a heuristic and read it, which is when their eye finally, and extremely obnoxiously, alights. (Signs that one is attaching motives include euphemistically calling a topic “controversial” or “offensive” or “inconvenient,” which is the lens through which the nature of any opposition to it will be understood.) Even favoring an opinion that supports your own is “bias,” is pointed to feverishly as smoking-gun evidence of your motivation by your opinion, as if there could be a chain of causation in a tautology.

This affliction is obnoxious stupidity because the stupidity is not merely passive, but asserts itself as intelligence; it operates through a method it sees as conspirational insight, as getting the better of someone or something. On the moral dimension, the afflicted individual affects a grand internal struggle for their own audience as they now know their biases, the modus operandi of their own cognition (for amazingly they surmise this through heuristics rather than simple observation as well), and then conclude they must hold to a belief or a stance despite impulses against it. This stance at hand is never anything genuinely controversial. In fact, the more convenient it is to hold to, the more likely they are to summon, imagine and foster baser impulses against it (such as being “terrorized”) into existence, precisely so that they can then make a virtue and show of overcoming them, socially constructing courage and defiance for the purpose of cowardice (see 9/11, Ukraine and milquetoast IDW). This performance is so obvious it is a wonder it is never called out.

There are certainly sub-objectivists who, after becoming exposed to different cultures and realizing the greater difficulty of conciliating them in a globalized age than in a parochial one, recalibrate their evaluations of what exists in “fairly pluralistic and contested proportion.” They are postmodernists in that they understand the necessity of conciliating objects that exist outside the current subobjective construction. They are, however, as committed as ever to the underlying premises of sub-objectivity and its reliance on judging what exists hegemonically, and may even be seeking to preserve it in response to its crisis. The correct response to postmodernity is realized by the objectivist who is aware of the inadequacy of the local construction, but rather than merely recalibrating their judgements of what exists with subjective objectivity, rejects its significance altogether, justifying their beliefs without claiming the existence of support for them by subjective objectivity.

The single greatest subject of recent intellectual dialogue may be how objectivist movements on the left and the right have been on the rise as the power of the establishment media to convey reality, with its reassuringly bureaucratic, corporate tone, crumbles and disintegrates. Virtually all of the commentary on this phenomenon has been from the point of critiquing it in a flood of thinkpieces that remain unanswered on their own terms. That is, for now, its opponents hold the meta position, the position that anyone who tries to justify and rationalize their stances must agree with. However, objectivism has the organic advantage as the impulse of history, as what distinguishes the now from the then, and those who oppose it are, if not ahistorical, antihistorical reactionaries, figures who can only stem the tide.

St. John’s University Admit: 50% Size: 500 (41k) Price: 19-26k Annapolis, MD Admit: 54% Size: 500 (88k) Price: 27-30k Santa Fe, NM The third-oldest school in the US by descent, St. John can be considered to have been born in 1936, when its dire financial state compelled it to make the innovations that would give it the most extreme liberal arts curriculum in the country, focusing on reading classics and becoming the only source for translations of the likes of Ptolemy. During WWII, the male-serving institution was once again nearly emptied of its population, and it fought to avoid being seized by the military in court. If its approach was controversial then, it is even more so now, and critiques of the Western canon and the decline of the humanities make it a countercultural choice.

The college and its New Program only came to sound footing after the war, when similarly grand and conciliatory programs and outlooks saw a burst of popularity (within the period of 1945-47, UChicago, Columbia and HWS started their West Civ/Great Books courses, the first of these established the GBs Foundation, and Harvard wrote General Education for a Free Society). In 1948 it became integrated (becoming one of the first in the cultural South to do so), and in 1951 it became coeducational. As it expanded, it began considering multiple locations in California for its second campus. By a twist of fate, its second campus was established at Santa Fe

instead of Monterey, and began enrolling students in 1964.

At St. Johns College today, all students must take the same four year course of classes (with some very limited choice in their upperclassman years). These classes discuss “great works” of science and philosophy, most of them from hundreds of years ago (bit.ly/stjohnscurriculum), in studentled discussions where everyone calls each other by their honorifics and last names. Grades are given by participation and occasional papers and not shown except by request.

Oral examinations and conferences reflecting on their performance in class are mandatory.

St. Johns states that 100% of its law school applicants have been accepted to law school. However, its absence of courses giving you relevant, practical knowledge in math and science is likely to be a problem for other pursuits, as the only labs it has are dedicated to solving “great works of math” such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Though there are many jobs and graduate programs that merely require a degree, you will not be able to major in something specific for any job that requires it, and it appears unlikely you could easily be accepted to medical or scientific graduate programs with the courses they normally offer.

The Annapolis campus, located on the west side of Chesapeake Bay, is preppier with sailing and croquet, in addition to being right in a city an hour from DC or Baltimore known for its marine fishing and cuisine, its concentration of 18th century mansions (higher than anywhere else in the US), and the US Naval Academy. The Santa Fe campus is located in an area known for its diverse cuisine and Native American and Mexican culture, and is at the foot of a mountain near “the City of Enchantment”, the third oldest in the country

and the oldest in the west. It is considered slightly more liberal and laid-back (with an Eastern studies option), is thought to have slightly better labs, and is close to trailheads in the mountains (think tan rocks and pines). It is not in walking distance of downtown (8 minutes by car, 1 hour by foot). While it lacks mansions, it is built in a revival Pueblo style that suits the nature of the school as a scholarly abode and retreat. The high elevation of the city (at the base of the Rockies) means that its temperatures are manageable in the summer, maxing out at an average high of 85 in the summer, and below freezing in the winter. Despite its latitude, it is even slightly cooler than Annapolis, and its temperatures are more dynamic because it’s inland. The Santa Fe campus is close to skiing, rock climbing, and mountain biking opportunities and offers water sports. Students can rent tents, bikes and snowshoes for free. Whereas Annapolis is closer to the standard metros, “This is road trip territory. Hit the mountains of Colorado, the canyonlands of Utah, the music scenes of Austin, and the beaches of L.A.” You can always switch, even before you enroll, and many students spend two years at both campuses, but it’s easier to transfer from Annapolis to Santa Fe (which has more singles and less of a housing crunch) than vice versa.

St. Johns has an unusual application option where you can “talk your way” into being admitted, and even with its regular route it puts more emphasis on essays than on tests.

Associates of its Annapolis campus include never-Trumper Senator and college president Ben Sasse, who wrote The Vanishing American Adult (2017) and (the unbelievably trite) Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal (2018) (compare to How Fascism Works: Us versus Them), the Prime Minister of Latvia (who has claimed that “Russia will not stop as Ukraine [because that wouldn’t be melodramatic and that wouldn’t make sense]”) in 2023, and Michael Anton (a Machievelli scholar and Claremont Institute fellow).

Alumni include from Santa Fe have included an award-winning writer, who wrote poetically about his experience in the New Yorker (bit.ly/findingstjohns). He writes, “I didn’t know what I was doing or what I believed in, except the United States of America and the Cleveland Browns .. . Early senior year, a girl in homeroom passed me a brochure that a college had sent her. The college’s curriculum was an outrage. No electives. Not a single book in the seminar list by a living author. However, no tests. No grades, unless you asked to see them. No textbooks—I was confused. In place of an astronomy manual, you would read Copernicus. No books about Aristotle, just Aristotle. Like, you would read book-books. The Great Books, so called, though I had never heard of most of them. It was akin to taking holy orders, but the school—St. John’s College—had been secular for three hundred years. In place of praying, you read. My loneliness was toxic; the future was coleslaw, mop water; the college stood on a desert mountain slope in Santa Fe, New Mexico, fifteen hundred miles from home; I could

never get into such a school; my parents couldn’t pay a dollar.

And I loved this whole perverse and beautiful idea. I would scrap everything (or so I usefully believed) and go to that place and ask them to let me in . .. By senior year at St. John’s, we were reading Einstein in math, Darwin in lab, Baudelaire in French tutorial, Hegel in seminar. Seminar met twice a week for four years: eight o’clock to ten at night or later, all students addressed by surname. On weekends, I hung out with my friends. The surprise, the wild luck: I had friends. One sat in my room with a beer and “The Phenomenology of Spirit,” reading out a sentence at a time and stopping to ask, “All right, what did that mean?” The gravity of the whole thing would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so much fun, and if it hadn’t been such a gift to find my tribe.

In retrospect, I was a sad little boy and a standard-issue, shiftless, egotistical, dejected teen-ager. Everything was going to hell, and then these strangers let me come to their school and showed me how to read.”

In other words, St. Johns is an ideal entry for this category. It has a military sort of discipline; a religious sort of authority.

Apply ED (11/1), EA (priority aid) (11/15), or ED/RD (1/15)

Perspectives in the humanities debate What’s so Great about Great Books Courses? The humanities are in danger, but humanists can’t agree on how—or why—they should be saved. Critics argue that academic careerists have derailed the true purpose of college—the pursuit of self knowledge. Louis Menand, the New Yorker, December 13, 2021.

The humanities do not have a monopoly on moral insight. Reading

Weinstein and Montás, you might conclude that English professors, having spent their entire lives reading and discussing works of literature, must be the wisest and most humane people on earth.

Take my word for it, we are not. We are not better or worse than anyone else. I have read and taught hundreds of books, including most of the books in the Columbia Core. I teach a great-books course now. I like my job, and I think I understand many things that are important to me much better than I did when I was seventeen. But I don’t think I’m a better person...

Weinstein won’t even call what students learn in science courses “knowledge.” He calls it “information,” which he thinks has nothing to do with how one ought to live. “Life is more than reason or data,” he tells us, “and literature schools us in a different set of affairs, the affairs of heart and soul that have little truck with information as such.”

Why does knowledge need to be taught by schooling? Why shouldn’t schools only be for information (except insofar as they are life in the anthropologist’s perspective)? Yes, the humanities are important; things that you define as meaningful are, in fact, tautologically important (arguing for or against that are equal fallacies); but people always seem to elide the fact that this hardly means that the institutional humanities are important. Doesn’t it only make sense for these things to be studied in the course of life itself?

Yes, the Great Books Make us Better People. John McWhorter, December 17, 2021.

Scholars of Montás’s perspective are empirically correct, not oldfashioned, in treating these books as vehicles of self improvement, of the kind to which the sciences generally lend only more

obliquely. Books like “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” teach us much. Aristotle, Rousseau and Kant teach fundamental lessons.

Why do you say that books like these (which are, in fact, increasingly oriented toward moral lessons) aren’t great books? What then would be the great books of today to generations similarly positioned to the present as it is to the past? Why are you judging “historical significance” by how much it smacks of the historic, when the proper analogy would be to how the past’s historic entities, by the definition of the historic, were not like what was so in its own past?

The Wisdom Deficit in Schools. New education standards emphasize technical reading skills over an appreciation for literature and values. Michael Godsey, January 22, 2015.

(Also, I hoped literature would help me understand girls.)1 I’m not saying teachers should include the Bible in their classes in any way, but it feels strange to bite my tongue and instead teach simple skills like "interpreting words and determining technical meanings."

Meanwhile, research suggests that a significant majority of teens do not attend church2, and youth church attendance has been decreasing over the past few decades. This is fine with me. But then again, where are they getting their wisdom?

Most people get their wisdom from their own lives and their own thoughts and their own experiences; doesn’t it say a lot about you that you’re asking that question? damning 2in fact—common sense indicates that the vast majority of people across the first world do not attend church 1

Deep Springs College Admit: 5% Size: 26 (155) Price: 0-2k

Deep Springs, CA

Deep Springs was founded by hydropower inventor Lucien Nunn in 1917 in a remote desert valley miles from civilization (along with other self-governing academic communities called Telluride associations at Cornell and Michigan) with the intent of educating America’s elite leadership. Its 26 students control admissions and faculty hiring and run its 4 miles-square cattle ranch to raise their own food. They are expected to stay year-round (with a short break) for two years, after which they often continue their education at top schools. Originally intended to allow for a boyishly irreverent (rather than manly) atmosphere, it caved and ended its "shocking" male-only admission policies in 2018 in a profoundly regressive and illegal change.

As you might expect, the college tends to attract obnoxiously quirky individuals. Although the applicants have normied in recent years with increased exposure, as can be inferred from the questions they ask, it remains unusual, with several essays required. Second-round applicants must visit the ranch (travel is paid for). More than anything else, the inhabitants of Deep Springs tend to be dynamic, eccentric and philosophical (bit.ly/cowboyscholars). Students attempt to cook French cuisine, impale cows to cure disease, and are run over by tractors. Past professors have attempted to communicate with aliens, organize militias to defend against

their “external enemies”, and strangle students. The academics are not for the faint of heart; its students respond enthusiastically to reading assignments in the thousands of pages. The social experimentation of its community, where chefs chafe at Lacanian power structures and dances are named after Heidegger essays, has been said to leave its mark on the students when they leave its isolation; nonetheless, its students are said to find success after attending, both academically—4 in 5 go on to be juniors at Ivy League-tier colleges (1 in 4 choose to go to Harvard), and 1 in 5 take a year of service (5 students have won Truman scholarships in 3 years)—and socially if they so choose.

Alumni from Deep Springs have included a co-founder of the CIA; an attorney who advised Robert Kennedy and served as ambassador to the United Nations; the chief foreign correspondent for CBS from 1964 to 1975, who was the first reporter to enter North Vietnam; a spy, economist and smuggler who rescued underground Russian art during the Cold War; a Luthern pastor to Eskimos; the founder of n+1, a literary magazine decried for its youth and hyperbole (and praised for its sincerity and enthusiasm); the author of Bullshit Jobs; and the founder of Stand Up America, a post2016 organization, and the director of the Freedom to Marry.

Apply by 11/5 (first-round)

Warren Wilson College Admit: 84% Size: 700 (94k) Price: 23k-23k Asheville, NC Nestled in southern Appalachia, Warren Wilson is ideal for people enthusiastic about crafts cultures and the outdoors. It is only 16 minutes from Asheville, a hipster, often atheistic city in an upland region that has consistently affiliated with the north over the plantation south due to its lack of cultural and economic ties, and was the home base of Billy Graham. In 2020, its board voted unanimously to pay slavery reparations. The region as a whole, the largest population center in western North Carolina, has elected some controversial politicians such as Mark Meadows (the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus leader) and Madison Cawthorn (the ex-youngest representative, subject to diverse scandals).

Warren Wilson offers a uniquely holistic experience and all-around environment for growth, much like other workbased colleges. Warren Wilson states that “By the time you graduate, you will have: solved problems in a professional environment, developed your leadership on a team, calculated the impact of your decisions in a workplace, and delivered on your commitment to your supervisor and colleagues.” If you’re someone who sees benefit to pushing yourself out of your comfort zone on multiple dimensions, Warren Wilson will offer you more than the opportunity to

contribute in classrooms (the odder work choices include blacksmithing) without being as extreme as Deep Springs (which has a more spartan take on the Thoreau-isque instinct to make your own living). The campus, landscaped with native grasses and flowers, is an ecosystem and thriving cottage industry of its own. The forest supplies its sawmill, the garden supplies vegetables, honey and natural dye, and the farm supplies meat, in addition to serving as a laboratory for veterinary and enterprise studies. Students are required to work one or two hours a day to help run the school as well as volunteer in the community or abroad.

The core curriculum is expansive, and an undergraduate research sequence, typically undertaken in senior year and often leading to publication, is required for all BS degrees.

The spread of majors is focused on those central to Warren Wilson’s identity. The most popular choices include environmental studies, creative writing, biology, psychology, art, and social work. Science communication, Appalachian music, outdoor business, Spanish in context, archeology, neuroscience and data studies are options. The mountain biking and XC biking teams are nationally reknown. The campus includes a farmer’s market, a rotated climbing wall and kayaks. Tents can be checked out at the library. The college offers numerous Adventure Programs for students.

Many writers and poets are among Warren Wilson’s alumni (most of them graduates of its MFA writing program).

Warren Wilson is six miles from the former campus of Black Mountain College, a progressive college prototype. The Great Smokies is the most biodiverse region of the country, as well as home to its largest artisan community.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/15 (EA/S), 2/1 (RD) or after

Hampden-Sydney College Admit: 40% Size: 840 (2k) Price: 18-23k H.S., VA The oldest private college in the South, Hampden-Sydney was founded by the more radical faction of the Founding Fathers shortly before the Declaration of Independence. Named after advocates of liberty under the King in England, its board members included James Madison and Patrick Henry, both anti-federalists; the former was instrumental in creating the Bill of Rights and the latter is known for saying “Give me liberty or give me death”.

This pedigree, which included graduating President Harrison and producing people who would become the founding presidents of Union and Hanover, attracted the sons of the elite South to the college. The culture that it drew on (as well as the fact that its students were captured during the Civil War, which did not ruin the college unlike many in the South), helped it to maintain its single-sex status. Today it remains perhaps the sole true representative of the culture and tradition of the Southern elite as it used to exist; it maintains an honor code, a Western culture program (introducing students to great works and events from Greece and Rome to the present), and an emphasis on rhetoric (which dates back to when it was modeled on Princeton, “save, that a more particular Attention shall be paid to the Cultivation of the English Language than is usually done”). Amusingly, freshmen are provided a copy of To Manners Born, To

Manners Bred: A Hip-pocket Guide to Etiquette, which covers how to greet and introduce people and what colors of socks to wear, though the only hard rule is that they should “behave as a gentleman in all places and at all times” (a notion that, conceived of as a duty rather than a proffered accomodation, has been better preserved than that of the lady). Student government elections are more contested than at most schools; they include elections to the Honor Court, which hears cases regarding code violations.

However, the leaders of the College Democrats and College Republicans at the school claimed that they were able to maintain their civility even after the 2016 election and called their ideas “complementary”, which is unheard of these days.

Tailgating before football games, which some students attend wearing suits and ties, is central to Hampen-Sydney’s culture each fall. Many students are passionate outdoorsmen (hunters and anglers). 40% of students are members of fraternities. The school benefits from the female single-sex schools in Virginia, including Sweet Briar, which sends students by the busload to its weekend parties.

Popular majors include business, economics and government. It has the nation’s “third-best” alumni network.

Alumni include the author of Sounder; Stephen Colbert (transferred to Northwestern); Scott Cooper; opinion editor for The Washington Times and Chief Europe correspondent for Politico; national political correspondent for the NYT and the author of This Will Not Pass: the Battle for America’s Future (2022); and politics editor for NewsNation.

Submitting test scores and interviewing is encouraged.

Apply by 10/15 (EAI), 11/1 (EDI), 12/1 (EAII), 1/15 (RD)

Wabash College Admit: 61% Size: 840 (16k) Price: 17-20k Crawfordsville, IN One of the last three men’s colleges, Wabash was founded in the fraternity state by a group of Dartmouth ministers and today participates in fraternities at the second-highest rate (55%). As with Hampden-Sydney, its code states that “The student is expected to conduct himself at all times, both on and off campus, as a gentleman and a responsible citizen”. Popular majors include rhetoric, economics, history and theology. Its alumni network, career services, and professor accessibility are rated highly. Graduates have six-month placement rates close to 100% and have high mid-career earnings (144k).

Students at Wabash can choose to live in a fraternity house, which has its own dining room and chef, or a residence hall (with single rooms, unlikely to be available for freshmen), in which case they will eat at the Sparks Center’s “Great Hall”, with buffet lines, a large salad bar and ice cream station.

Classes are not scheduled between noon and 1 to ensure that students can eat lunch. Crawfordsville has a vital local culture; it is smallest city with multiple local newspapers (which have declined elsewhere relative to Facebook) and hosts an annual strawberry festival and Oktoberfest. Alumni have included an attorney defending the Clintons and first amendment and nonexcessive punishment rights, the Pulitzer Prize-winning director of the Office of Censorship during WWII, and the author of the Christian novel Ben-Hur. Apply by 11/15 (ED), 12/1 (EA, scholarship), 1/15 (RD) or after

Morehouse College Admit: 58% Size: 2k (496k) Price: 26-29k Atlanta, GA Morehouse was founded after the Civil War for newly liberated slaves in the burned-down city of Atlanta. It is the fifth-ranked black college (the 2% that aren’t black are generally from black social environments), the only black men’s college, the largest men’s college, the only trans-inclusive men’s college, and the top producer of PhDs and Harvard grads for black men. Its 1940-67 president Benjamin Mays is credited with laying the intellectual foundations of the Civil Rights Movement, closely mentoring Martin Luther King Jr. and turning the school into a feeder for African-American firsts.

The campus is adjacent to Clark Atlanta University (the first black college, 76% female, 3.5k) and Spelman University (top black women’s college, 2.5k), and 4 minutes from downtown Atlanta (an overrated, bland city most distinguished by its perpetually harassing panhandlers and vigilante business owners). Its general education requirements explore black achievement, protest and social justice. Popular majors include business, sociology and biology. In 2022, it started the Black Men’s Research Institute, the only center of its kind, and the Center for Broadening Participation in Computing. Alumni include MLK, Spike Lee, Senator Warnock (the first black Democratic Senator from the South), Hermain Cain (chair of Black Voices for Trump), and the pragmatic mayor of Birmingham (also from Samford).

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 1/1 (EA) or 2/1 (RD)

St. Benedict and St. John’s Admit: 88% Size: 3k (7-69k) Price: 20-25k St. Cloud, MN St. Ben and John’s merged in 2022 out of two Catholic colleges (1.5k each) ten minutes apart in the center of Minnesota. St. Ben’s (women’s) is in a small town on the outskirts of St. Cloud, and St. John’s (men’s, shown) is surrounded by lakes, forests, and fields. A bus connects the campuses. Together, they constitute the biggest private liberal arts college in the US. As at other liberal arts colleges, classes are taught without using graduate assistants. All students are required to live on campus to create a residential experience. A weekend bus to St. Cloud stops at a theater, mall and grocery.

The sports life is big but not overwhelming at St. Ben and John’s, with football games well-attended and opportunities for casual participation through intramurals or pick-up games (club sports, which include clay shooting and hockey, have a no-cuts policy), and it is easy to form or join clubs. St. John’s has a robust outdoor activity program, with free canoes for use on its lake, a wide array of gear rentals from tents to sports gear to ice fishing poles, and 24-hour bike rentals. The lands around its campus host loons, a velvetine diving duck whose haunting songs are associated with wilderness, and American elms, an elegant once common tree (bit.ly/stjtaxa). The study-abroad program has a high

participation rate, and the college produces Fulbrights at a high rate. It used to offer a peace studies major that was cut amid the refocusing shift found at most smaller liberal arts colleges following the pandemic, although it has added more professional programs. It is not uncommon for Johnnies and Bennies to end up marrying one another.

The general education requirements include two courses in the humanities, one each in the social and natural sciences, a course on the Christian tradition, an upperclassman seminar on ethics, and an unusual requirement of a course on gender.

Communication, biology, accounting, and political science are popular majors on both campuses. Teaching, nursing and art are popular at St. Ben, while economics, environmental science, computer science and biochemistry are popular at St. Johns. Engineering partners with WashU, with a 3.25 GPA requirement for entry and an acceptance rate over 90%.

Alumni include Eugene McCarthy, the prominent antiwar challenger who caused incumbent LBJ to drop out of the race in 1968 (“get clean for Gene”), Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff and Biden’s secretary of veterans affairs, Paul Nakasone, the commander of the US Cyber Command from 2018 to 2024, a public radio pioneer with founding roles in APM and NPR, and Youtube vlogger Connor Franta.

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 12/1 (EA), 1/15 (RD) or after (R)

Hobart and William Smith

Admit: 68% Size: 1.5k (12k) Price: 20-31k Geneva, NY Hobart College (male) and William Smith College (female) share a campus in the Finger Lakes, known for its vibrant small-town culture. HWS ranks highly for study abroad and is a top producer of Fulbrights.

Economics and communication are the most common majors (there is no business major). Environmental studies, earth science, architecture and history are also popular. The college hosts a writer in residence, and the Seneca Review publishes poets. Celebrations of its traditions are held each year, and its recent president (former director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics) started a series bringing Dukakis, McGovern and the Clintons to the college. The students, however, are described as more preppy than woke.

The college has ties to Union, its archrival in football. It was the first to be criminally charged for campus disorder during the late 60s. HWS alumni include Brad Fulchuck (Glee, American Horror Story), the haiku poet who inspired The Color Purple, Taylor Lorenz (an internet culture warrior who claims to have “severe PTSD”), a Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Prize winner (TIME’s “100 most influential” in 2023), WSJ and MSNBC members, a statistical optimist and neoconservative speechwriter for LBJ, and the first American abstract painter. It became one of the first colleges to offer a women’s studies degree in 1969. In 1998

it established a gender center and the first men’s studies degree. It has experienced Title IX-related controversies.

11/15 (EA, ED), 1/15 (ED*), 2/1 (RD) *dibs on housing

Brenau University Admit: 87% Size: 1.5k (44k) Price: 19-25k Gainesville, GA Brenau (brennen, “to burn”; aurum, “gold”) consists of an undergrad women’s college (800), coed undergrad college (500) and a coed grad school (1.3k). It is one of the few women’s colleges with Greek life and has the most sororities. It is the most diverse college in GA. The college emphasizes professional preparation (nursing, education, art and business are popular majors) and the liberal arts (the student-faculty ratio in the women’s college is 9:1, and its classes have sub-20 women each).

The women’s college features a women’s leadership program, culminating in a certificate or minor, in which you will “develop leadership skills informed by gender awareness”. Only four classes are required—gender studies, leadership, an elective and an internship. Students can continue their studies with the Executive Women’s MBA, which will brace and steel them for “the gender-specific challenges facing their careers” through case studies, team tasks, intense simulations and lectures.

Apply by 1/03 (Jan. entry) or 7/29 (the year you’re attending)

Agnes Scott College Admit: 67% Size: 1k (496k) Price: 12-16k Decatur, GA One of the Seven Sisters of the South, Agnes Scott admits women as well as those nonbinary and male at birth. It is an 18 minute drive (it hosts a rentable car) or 13 minute subway ride from Atlanta. One third of its professors teach at least some women’s, gender and sexuality studies classes. The most popular majors are creative writing, psychology, and international relations.

Interdisciplinary studies is also common. The majority of its students are from Georgia and it is about equally black and white. Students are expected to live on campus.

Agnes Scott is known for its Writers’ Festival, in which undergrad students throughout Georgia are invited to submit poetry or prose, and finalists participate in the festival through lectures or readings of their works. Robert Frost visited the campus, noted for its beauty and a common setting for movies, to read poetry annually from 1945 to his death in 1963. The college has been ranked number one for most innovative schools and first year experience among liberal arts colleges nationwide. In their first year, students take a leadership seminar and take a faculty-led course at a global destination; in their second, they take an internship in Atlanta and select a Career Community to join. They are guided throughout by peer and professional advisors.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/15 (EAI), 1/16 (EAII) or 3/15 (RD)

Sweet Briar College Admit: 78% Size: 500 (2k) Price: 18-30k Sweet Briar, VA Sweet Briar has a core curriculum focused on leadership (including classes on design, creative thinking, ethics and finance). It has a 3-12-12-3week structure, its three week terms allowing for focus on intensive classes, study abroad or research. Popular majors include biology, environmental science, psychology and business; more unusual ones include engineering, sustainable agriculture, equine studies, pre-vet, and dance and theater education. As with many women’s colleges, it has a strong alumni network.

The school is known for its horseback riding program.

Students can participate in outdoor expeditions organized by the school, including hiking, fly fishing, caving, rock climbing and (on a weekly basis) kayaking and skiing. The college is a 22 minute drive south to Lynchburg. Its devoted alumni include the founder of TaskRabbit (originally Runmyerrand), an unqualified ambassador to Hungary, a feminist eugenicist who advocates for reducing males to 10% of the popuation, the first female mayor of Columbus, GA, an archeological and ethnographic conservator at the Smithsonian, and Molly Haskel, a feminist film critic who wrote Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies (which is remarkable mostly for managing to directly describe a number of highly relevant phenomena without appreciating their significance).

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/15 (EA) or 8/15 (RD)

Hollins University Admit: 72% Size: 700 (99k) Price: 22-29k Roanoke, VA Hollins is in the suburbs of Roanoke (15 minutes away) in western Virginia and right next to Carvin Cove Recreation Area, the nearby foothills of the Appalachians with a valley lake.

It is Virginia’s first women’s college, and historically was limited to Southern women. It has a (coed) grad program and unlike Sweet Briar, which mandates that applicants’ birth certificates say that they are female, started accepting trans women in 2019. (Keep in mind that no women’s college has gone so far as to take measures to avoid discrimination.)

As with Sweet Briar, Hollins has a 9:1 student-faculty ratio. It was a pioneer with its study abroad program in Paris, started in 1955, and with its January term (4-1-4 structure), started in 1968, in which students decide to do an independent study, take a vacation or take an internship (the majority intern at least once). The Jackson Center for Creative Writing is famous for producing a number of accomplished writers, including Lee Smith (Fair and Tender Ladies), Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) and Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss), including recent Pulitzer winners and the 2012-2014 national poet laureate. It has been called “the most productive writing program in America” by Creative Writing in America. Popular majors include English, art (studio, theater, film studies), economics, math, chemistry, and IRs. Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/16 (EA) or 2/1 (RD)

Bennington College Admit: 48% Size: 800 (15k) Price: 23-28k Bennington, VT Located in the countercultural Berkshires at the intersection of NY, VT and MA, Bennington has made bold choices throughout its history.

Students at Bennington, who outnumber faculty only 8 to 1, plan their own course of study from the moment they arrive. The college does not offer academic majors because that would constrict their learning and force them into pre-existing paths; instead, they are encouraged to lead their own education. It thus has a far more open curriculum than those that advertise a lack of gen eds. Students explore fields in their first year, and in the second they submit an essay summarizing their interests and describing how they could concentrate in one broad area such as “society” or “the environment”. They receive graduate-style advising from a faculty member who assists with finding internships. They are required to do an internship (a “Field Work Term”) every year to gain professional experience, which can inform their career planning and lead to job opportunities immediately after graduating; Bennington is the only college that instituted such a requirement with its founding.

Strong programs at Bennington include the arts and languages. Students can benefit from Bennington’s model in STEM subjects as well. Bennington’s has one of the nation’s

best part-time writer residency programs after Warren Wilson, with 22 award-winning writers acting as faculty, and support for artists working in social justice. Festivals at Bennington include the 24-Hour Play (in which plays are written and performed in one day) and Sunfest (a day-long music festival). 63% of its students are female. Among its high school-sized population of students, it has experienced about one suicide a year (although some of them may have been “neurodivergent” to begin with). Not unrelatedly, so many people have gone missing in southwest Vermont that it is known by cryptologists as “the Bennington Triangle”.

Bennington alumni include Judith Butler, a prominent gender theorist who has criticized Israel and TERFs (and has occasionally been satirized for her abtruse language); Andrea Dworkin, a neurotic known for her anti-pornography activism (aka sentimentalized rape fantasies); Brat Pack member and American Psycho writer Bret Ellis; Donna Tartt, the elusive and reclusive writer of The Secret History, which is based on her time at Bennington and popularized the dark academia genre, and The Goldfinch; Joan Hinton, a physicist who helped create the nuclear bomb and subsequently became a Maoist; and a number of actors. The school has hosted prominent faculty, such as Camille Paglia (another eccentric gender theorist), literary theorist Stanley Hyman (whose wife Shirley Jackson wrote a story about a student descending into madness based on Bennington); Martha Graham, who helped found its school of dance, which became a national model and was the wellspring for the rise of modern dance (bit.ly/dancerevolution); and a number of artists. Bennington is the most bohemian college in the US. Apply by 11/1 (Jan. start), 11/15 (EDI), 12/1 (EA), 1/15 (EDII, RD)

Hampshire College Admit: 70% Size: 500 (38k) Price: 24-32k Amherst, MA The common brainchild of the rest of the West Mass consortium in the 1960s, the “New College” was started as a progressive experiment that would meet the trends of the times by granting students independence and encouraging them to self-direct their learning. In fact, it describes itself as “experimenting” instead of “experimental” to emphasize that it is actively continuing to experiment (to somewhat chaotic result). Its core principles include the use of projects, rather than courses, as the building blocks of education; mentorship through feedback instead of grades; and a curriculum driven by student interests and passions. Students design a contract detailing their personal course of study and defend it in their second year. Diplomas say “Bachelor of Arts.”

Hampshire does not have departments within its schools, which are haphazardly organized into natural science, cognitive and computer science, critical social inquiry (economics, history), cultural studies (film, music, dance, architecture), and art (writing, theater). It holds Learning Collaboratives in which the campus as a whole seeks to find solutions to hot button issues (the current collaboratives are in climate change, white supremacy, disinformation, and trauma), and houses the consortium’s program in peace and security studies. Popular areas of study include creative writing, art, and film. Unique areas of study include

psychoanalytic studies, queer studies, agriculture (check out the farm’s insta), and animal intelligence/culture. Students can take any of the thousands of courses in the consortium using the bus that transits between campuses and around the area of the valley. All dorm rooms are singles by default.

The abortion rights organization Collective Power was started by its president in the Reagan era (it now offers a certificate in reproductive politics), and a cultural village of independent nonprofits resides on campus. The college was the first to be 100% powered by solar, the first to divest from South Africa in 1977, and the first to divest from some Israeli companies in response to protests in 2009 (though it denied that this had anything to do with BDS in a now-inaccessible letter from the president). The American flag was promptly burned after 9/11, along with a vote to condemn the war on terror, at a time when Bush’s approval rating was at 88%. It was also burned following Trump’s election, leading to a viral reaction from him on Twitter. The nature of the college as an experimental laboratory is kept alive by students who are drawn to its mission and push to “reradicalize” it. Its alum Ken Burns called it the perfect American place, analogizing to how the US said “We will govern ourselves”. Other alumni include the CEOs of Seventh Generation and Stonybrook Farms; Biden economic advisor Heather Boushey; the writer of Into the Wild about a college student’s spiritual journey as a tramp; the photographer of “How Race is Lived in America”; actress Lupita Nyong’O; and Eugene Mirman (who studied comedy and delivered a performance as his thesis).

Athletes are called the Black Sheeps. A quarter of students join startups, and they earn PhDs at high rates.

11/1 (spring), 11/15 (EDI), 12/1 (EA), 1/1 (EDII) or 1/15 (RD)

New College in Exile: Hampshire College

By Lex McMenamin (not the bestest writer) November 7, 2023 Teen Vogue The changes started when DeSantis replaced the New College Board of Trustees with what Kali Holloway in The Nation calls “six political cronies,” including Christopher Rufo, a conservative firebrand. The new board members quickly got to work: They, Holloway wrote, “fired the college’s president, appointed a DeSantis ally in her place” — Richard Corcoran — “voted to end the gender studies program, signaled the sunsetting of tenure, and aggressively recruited male students to undo what right-wingers call the ‘feminization’ of American colleges.”

Rufo is known for essentially launching the anti-critical race theory campaign in 2020; when DeSantis announced his appointment, he credited Rufo with “[leading] the fight against critical race theory in American institutions.”

A few weeks before the publication of this story, Rufo announced a “culture war” fellowship at the Manhattan Institute, hoping to “[address] critical race theory, gender ideology, higher-education reform, crime and policing, and civil rights law.”

Rufo lists himself as an alumnus of Harvard University, where he technically graduated from their extension school; his framing of his educational background has been called into question. [[see: spat with Hochschild]] Unsurprisingly, Rufo and the rest of the new administration at New College have a clear view of what the changed school should be; included in this view are specific notions about the students who should attend it. State officials say they hope to turn New College into the “Hillsdale of the South,” referring to the private Christian conservative college in Michigan. Earlier this year, The New Yorker reported that Hillsdale has an education model that “some scholars consider dangerously incomplete,” which “communities across the country are looking to adopt.” [[Perhaps more concerningly, “How a Conservative Christian College Got Mixed Up in the 2020 Election Plot” reports that it makes grades viewable to parents]] It was based on these developments that Hampshire College — a small liberal arts school in western Massachusetts that teetered on the brink of closure in 2019 and is currently fundraising on its steps to protect academic freedom — offered admission to New College students and to match their tuition costs.

“This opportunity is in response to the continuing attacks on New College of Florida intended to limit intellectual exploration, turn back progress toward inclusion, and curtail open discussion of race, injustice, and histories of oppression,” Hampshire announced in March, accusing New College of “impos[ing] a narrowly politicized curriculum… its current students [[by not adding requirements commonly found at other colleges]]”.

The standardized assessment controversy 2020 struck the world of education through two main channels. The first of these was the BLM movement, which pushed colleges to create committees and issue reports examining their ties to slavery, decenter education requirements from the West, and found centers dedicated to the study of race. The counterreaction to this movement has proven to perhaps be an even more enduring legacy, as attention was directed to the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion and its woke epistemology taking over education as opposed to “legitimate” intellectual pursuits. The SCOTUS, which is utterly devoid of hard power as the only government body with no enforcer, found added comfort in this milieu when ruling in 2023. The second was the lockdown, which in addition to interacting with the former by giving everyone more time to direct their energies to longsimmering tensions heightened by the coming election, forced colleges to experiment with distance learning and announce test-optional policies, and was an impetus for the College Board to streamline the SAT. The controversies launched in this moment and their mutual dialectics are still far from being resolved (or widely understood).

The cross-pollinating and recursively-credentializing nature of academia means that colleges generally act as one, as members of a liberal hegemony. Virtually all colleges made the SAT and ACT after the pandemic, and they have been reluctant to remove them absent another collective-action impulse provided by a magical reverse pandemic (not having requirements increases applicants because with rampant grade inflation, scores tend to discriminate colleges more than GPA ranges). Many of them claimed to have had

personal and independent epiphanies about how standardized tests have had long-running issues in making these policies permanent. The near simultaneity and suspect timing of these revelations, however, gives lie their claim, and a far more compelling explanation would be that colleges tend to follow the tide and scramble to be within the ranks of their peers (not unlike how nearly every major college added Black Studies and became coed within a very narrow band of approximately two years around 1969 and 1970). Zeitgeists play a role, but they develop much more gradually than do the policy positions of colleges, which are obviously based on nervously side-eyed assessments of the status quo.

What is remarkable is that none of these colleges ever attempted to address the main reason, that is the only one apart from the limp assertion of “cultural bias” backed up with one example about a regatta then called the “notorious” example to cover up the feebleness of only having one, that they invoked to claim the SAT is biased, which is that wealthy applicants can take it multiple times and prepare for their sittings using expensive resources, by ending their policy of only looking at the best of their sections. (In fact, the very few colleges that attempted to address this bias by requiring submitting all tests included Yale and Georgetown, which have brought back test requirements.) Neither did any of these colleges consider simply normalizing test scores to remove demographic discrepancies, as the reason that grades are less subject to discrepancies is nothing more than that there are demographic variations across schools to a degree and grades are standardized within schools to a degree. Also left unmentioned was the possibility of the applicability of any of their criticisms to grades.

If even standardized tests are biased because of systemic inequality, then surely so are take-home tests that are taken on students’s own schedules in the set of circumstances and accomodations they have, with whatever financial and social resources they have, with no measures to prevent the buying of answers or assistance, and that are not graded blindly, corroborating rather than counteracting whatever biases they already face in their lives (and indeed teachers with strong favorites and strong opinions of which students are poor performers and runts dislike tests and trivialize them because to the extent they cannot fudge them they disagree with their own assessments of what they should be getting), to the extent that the discrepancy between grades and performance on tests is theoretically impossible to surpass as a comprehensive metric of socioeconomic oppression.

Neither (obviously since actually thinking instead of taking for granted that thinking is an act would have been comical) did they think to mention issues such as the fetishistic practice of giving zeros for unsubmitted work (because it’s “nothing” and you can’t “give” something, as if grades are absolute point totals), which is a wild fallacy according to mainstream science because grades are a non-interval measure and it doesn’t compute unless you drop a 100 to a 35 for a tiny decline in quality, and which makes earning high grades a matter of whether you can be inhumanly consistent, which not only lacks an imagination for the breadth and drama of the human condition itself but is anachronistic in its priorities, and which contributes to a system of total human captivity over the course of each citizen’s whole developmental period by affirming the dystopian system of a single government-assigned decimal attached to individuals to rate them and determine their prospects.

Antioch College Admit: 83% Size: 130 (4k) Price: 21-26k Yellow Springs, OH Founded on the remains of an Owenite colony 30 minutes east of Dayton, named after a local glen, Antioch was nonsectarian and “afforded equal privileges to both sexes” from its beginnings in 1850. Among its faculty were the first woman to teach and be paid on an equal basis with her peers, the to-be founder of the Women’s Education Association, and “the Father of American Education”. It admitted two black girls shortly after its founding and became the fourth college to admit blacks on an equal basis with whites (preceded only by Hillsdale, the Oneida Institute, and Oberlin, all institutions of the Democratic Ascension). During WWII, it educated Japanese Americans interned in concentration camps, offered scholarships through its Race Relations committee (among the recipients were Coretta Scott King), and became the first non-HBC to appoint a black person as chair of a department.

Afterward, it faced pressure from the House’s Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950s and was targeted by the FBI during the 1960s, when it became a center for student activism (MLK, then a more controversial figure, gave its commencement speech in 1965). Riots by students concerned about financial aid in 1973 (many had been recruited specifically for their poverty) reduced its reputation and started its decline. In 1993, a protest by the

“Womyn of Antioch” caused it to adopt the nation’s first anticipation and sensory awareness-heightening (“triggering”) affirmative consent policy, which was satirized by the media, causing its demise (although in a bit of vindication, these policies were then widely instituted during the 2010s, including at public colleges in Michigan, California and New York). The college has experienced enrollment difficulties in the 21st century, but is attempting a turnaround.

Every student designs their own major in one of its five areas of focus, critical cultural study, creative practice, global engagement, social enterprise, and sustainability. Students are required to take courses on gender and sexuality studies, critical race and ethnicity studies, and dialogue across difference, as well as spend a fourth of their time in application (working or researching, often abroad). They receive guidance finding jobs on the campus and in the surrounding community. The college’s literary journal, founded in 1940 and recently revived, is the storied Antioch Review. Alumni include the first official female cleric in the US, the president of the NYS woman’s suffrage association, the first woman trustee of the Unitarian church, the chairman of Communist Party USA from 2014 to 2019, Socialist Action’s candidate for president in 2016, the current East Timor president (a Nobel Peace laureate), the founder of post-WWII world government advocacy organizations, the popularizer of the term “globalization”, the creator of leadership studies, a refugee rights activist, the founder of the small schools movement, the actor portraying Spock in Star Treck, the creator of The Twilight Zone, the current mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts and the first openly lesbian black mayor in a US city, the author of the biography

A Beautiful Mind, the president of the American Association of Professors from 2006 to 2012, the vegan author of Diet for a New America, the founders of Natural Grocers, one of the 2007 “knockout gene” Nobel laureates, a president of the American Sociological Association, Stephen Jay Gould (the evolutionary biologist who was the most prominent opponent of sociobiology, or the application of biological substrates to explain human behavior and often the roots of racial and sexual differences or moral beliefs, and the author of The Mismeasure of Man as a misostatistical creed against standardized tests), the first openly gay psychiatrist in the US, and the frontsmen of punk and indie-oriented bands such as Asleep at the Wheel, There Might be Giants, Jefferson Airplane and The Gits; faculty have included the first presidents of the American Psychological Association, Clark University, and Ohio State University.

10/15 (Jan.), 11/15 (EDI), 1/2 (EDII/merit), 2/1 (priority) or later

Earlham College Admit: 73% Size: 600 (36k) Price: 18-29k Richmond, IN The third Quaker college, with the first Quaker seminary in the world, and the second recognized coed college after Oberlin, Earlham bases itself in Quaker (Friends) values and sets itself apart with the sincerity of its sincerity and its commitment to the broader social good. Everyone at Earlham addresses each other by their first names, without titles such as Dr. or Professor, in keeping with its conception of respect and equality.

EC has strengths in biology, chemistry, and having an international focus. Business and biochemistry are common majors. Peace studies is also popular. Every student is guaranteed an experience to explore their career interest, such as a faculty-led trip (bit.ly/ehprograms). Earlham students have high medical school acceptance rates (86%).

Among Earlham’s unique features are its students from 77 nations and the nation’s only equestrian program run by students. It hopes to revive its football team (bit.ly/ehfutbl).

Alumni include a Native American activist, the woman who coined the term “software engineering”, techno-utopian and environmentalist Michael Shellenberger, the writer of Diet for a Small Planet, a leader of the open access movement, and the current mayor of Columbus, who studied conflict resolution in North Ireland and interned at the Carter Center.

Apply by 11/1 (EAI), 12/1 (EAII), 3/1 (priority RD), or 5/1

Susquehanna University Admit: 88% Size: 2k (16k) Price: 25-28k

Sunbury, PA

Originally founded by the Lutheran church, Susquehanna offers a homely environment. Its traditions include move in day, a Thanksgiving dinner with the faculty and the president, a Christmas candlelight service, and a Twas the Night before Christmas reading and cookie/PJs party. The college has a student-run nightclub, TRAX, and runs its own radio station.

A variety of housing options are available (including singles), and graduates have a 96% six-month placement rate.

Common majors include business, communication (incl. publishing) and biology (incl. biomedical), CW, GD, PS, and IR. Its only-of-its-kind program in luxury brand management (for “a career that’s extra”) boasts professional mentors, a strong alumni network and a 98% placement rate. Every student is required to participate in the global opportunities program to expand their cultural horizons, which gives it one of the highest study abroad rates in the nation. Students take a course preparing for the international trip and then a course after reflecting on their experiences. Susequehanna also has a broad core curriculum. Its honors classes dwell on fundamental topics such as “the process of arriving at a thoughtful position”, “distinctive attributes of science and pseudoscience”, logic, and “how creative processes align with canonical traditions or oppose and dismiss them”. Read more at bit.ly/sque (though The College Tour is unhelpful).

Apply by 11/1 (EAI), 11/15 (ED), 12/1 (EAII) or 2/1 (RD)

Lycoming College Admit: 75% Size: 1k (28k) Price: 19-22k Williamsport, PA Just north of Susquehanna (“muddy river”) is Lycoming (“sandy stream”), which was founded as a high school for Dickinson and became a full college after WWII. It resides in a central PA college town that is shared with Penn Tech (5.5k, 64% male). Starbucks, Panera and a Wegmans are all within walking distance. The mountains and the Little League World Series Complex are across the river. Traditions include a Christmas candlelight service and a faculty-served Thanksgiving meal. Living on campus is required, though the dorms aren’t as bad as they usually are. Academic buildings are open 24/7.

99% of recent graduates have entered employment or graduate school six months after graduating. Business is a popular major, as are crimonology, astronomy and astrophysics. Lycoming’s interdisciplinary neuroscience major gives students training in technical lab skills and research opportunities from their first year, unlike at most colleges. Its cooperative pathways include engineering with Binghamton and law with Widener. Alumni have included the president of Common Cause, a government watchdog group originally founded by LBJ’s secretary of community health in opposition to the Vietnam War, since 2007, and the director of the Government Accountability Office (which has declined to endorse the accuracy of the figures in every federal budget ever issued) since 2008.

Apply by 11/15 (ED), 12/1 (EA or Jan. start), 12/16 (RD) or later.

Juniata College Admit: 76% Size: 1k (7k) Price: 23-31k Huntingdon, PA The first college founded by the Brethens, Juniata emphasizes the liberal arts as a way of knowing rather than a canon of knowledge.

“Connections” courses are taught by professors from disparate fields, as “experts must know the limits of their discipline and when situations benefit from varied expertise”. Juniata has “programs of emphasis”, without stringent requirements, rather than majors, allowing for nuance and flexibility in one’s study (it has 11 different business POEs and 4 different conflict res.

POEs). Every student meets with two advisors, forms a portfolio, and completes a senior capstone project (a feature normally reserved for honors students at other colleges).

Popular programs include biology, environmental science, chemistry and teaching. The Baker Institute in peace and conflict studies, established in 1971, hosts symposiums (2023 was the New Cold War and 2022 was on the war in Ukraine) and sends students to global conferences. Juniata’s spirited traditions include Lobsterfest (at homecoming, when you can also explore clubs), Madrigal (a faculty-served Thanksgiving meal confusingly combined with Christmas caroling), Mountain Day (when classes are surprise-canceled and everyone flocks to a state park for a picnic lunch, crafts, music and tug-of-war), and a goofy, choreographed pageant.

11/15 (ED), 12/1 (EA), 1/5 (merit), 1/15 (EA), 3/15 (RD) or call

Saint Vincent College Admit: 71% Size: 2k (10k) Price: 22-25k Latrobe, PA Operated by monks at the oldest Benedictine monastery in the America, Saint Vincent is located in the hometown of Fred Rogers, an hour east of Pittsburgh. The area is a biodiversity hotspot, with field trips offering the chance to see bugling elk and barred owls. The core curriculum focuses on great texts of the West, including Aristotle, Aquinas and some theology.

Business and biology are popular majors, and SVC offers an accredited engineering degree with mechanical, chemical, material and environmental concentrations. Honors students participate in discussions with guests and special trips.

Freshmen are roughly organized into pods of 20 students based on their preferences and interests. Traditions include Founders Day (shortly before Thanksgiving), with a candle-lit turkey dinner in the gym, Zambelli fireworks, a campus light up and Christmas-themed music by the band. The college’s fight song takes inspiration from the quote "Forward, always forward, everywhere forward! We must not be held back by bad years or by the difficulties of the times." The Pittsburgh Steelers training camp is at SVC. Sports Illustrated has praised it, saying “On a misty or foggy morning, standing atop the hill at the college, you feel like you're in Scotland.”

Apply by 1/5 to start in January or before class starts on 7/29

Intimacy–periphery My college journey or the lack thereof Before we launch on what will be the largest section of this book, I’d like to take a brief intermission. If you’re enjoying this book, probably the most ambitious attempt ever made to present institutions of higher learning in the United States (as amazing as that may be), or finding it helpful in your or your child’s college search, which you are, you should consider making a donation (see the End Matters).

As desperate as I am to sound normal and professional and legitimate, since I’m already failing, I might as well make note of the fact that this book is not a project with a typical background. Its most immediate origin is in the tutoring business that I decided to start (mostly for the SAT as the best credential I owned in this market was my score report) after observing with some alarm that I might expelled from my college because I was failing too many classes.

Part of the reason I found myself in this situation was that I felt far more concerned with studying college—as a humanist, I believe in studying the institutions of our society and the circumstances I find myself in—than whatever my major was supposed to be, a fact that you will undoubtedly feel grateful for (and indebted to) if you find this book helpful.

The most important reason, however, that I found myself struggling was that I was still occupied with the book that I’d been working on since the late 2010s, or since my first intellectual project (an innovative work on regional identity that anticipated the approach of this guide with its analysis, for example, of how xxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxx fell apart because of my limitations at the time.

I was having trouble completing it as a peculiar matter of my psychology, because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to begin the enormous feat of arranging my thousands of pages of notes in constant consideration of all their interconnections until I was in a position of long-term security. This was distressing primiarly because I believed it had metaphysical significance as a founding religious text for our society. (Even works like this one come at a cost, as I don’t take well to looking at anything in an artificially limited frame.)

I’d always felt a sense of urgency with this book, but that feeling became all-consuming by the spring of 2023. I found the stupidity of the commentary in the establishment (not to mention a certain person making horrific Harry Potter analogies) so eye-clawingly and intolerably distressing that I essentially became paralyzed stiff in a barely wheezing, fetal position, which contributed to the failure of all of my classes that semester and put me on probation the next.

My commitment to this project has been causing serious issues for me for years. The high point of my crisis came during the COVID pandemic, because I needed mental space to work on it and definitely didn’t have any under my parents.

I had no plans on going to college. My parents threw out all my mail. Applying was an unmitigated disaster. It was only after I’d turned 18, and while I was considering the logistics of opening a bank account and renting without a credit history, among other factors, that I decided to attend.

This book means everything to me, and my most fervent hope is that someone will take interest in me or take pity on me (I’ll take either) and allow me to work on it full-time. You can consider this message to be an SOS in the case that this guide doesn’t completely work out as a financial Hail Mary.

Albion College Admit: 67% Size: 1.5k (8k) Price: 15-20k Albion, MI The elder child of Spring Arbor, Albion still resides in the neck of Michigan, 30 minutes from the small cities of Jackson and Battle Creek.

Albion’s self-presentation is uniquely generic, an impression that is furthered by its honoring of Gerald Ford and Barbara Bush, making it look like a safe centrist choice for most students. Living on campus is required. Popular majors include business, biology, exercise science, and communication. Honors classes include Patterns in Nature, Civil War Mythology, and Sex and Gender: Nature and Nurture. Alumni include suffragists, the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and founder of Guys Read, the chairman of the Obama Foundation, the manager of Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential run, the CEO of Detroit Economics Club, the chairman of the American Airlines Group, and the director of the Stockholm Peace Institute until 2012. They also include chief editor of Newsweek (known for its presentation of contending viewpoints) from 1984 to 2008, succeeded by Jon Meacham (99). The NYT states that “In what was once a restrained, Northeastern, Ivy League-credentialed workplace, Mr. Smith was seen by his colleagues as a breath of fresh air. A native of Detroit and graduate of Albion College in Michigan, he was big, rumpled, avuncular and sometimes loud.”

Apply by 12/1 (EA), 1/10 (Jan), or 7/20 (RD)

Kalamazoo College

Admit: 79% Size: 1k (73k) Price: 22-26k Kalamazoo, MI Students at Kalamazoo, the oldest college in Michigan, graduate and go on to earn PhDs at high rates. The “K-plan" rigorously guides students and ensures that they are engaged, while lacking typical distribution requirements. The LandSea orientation is optional. The majority study abroad in Junior year, and Seniors complete a capstone project. Bio, CS, chem, social science, area studies and language are popular. Classes are surprise-canceled and students are taken to the beach an hour away in the spring.

Apply by 11/1 (EA, ED) or 1/15 (RD)

College of Wooster

Admit: 56% Size: 2k (27k) Price: 22-27k

Wooster, OH

Wooster is a “premier college for mentored undergraduate research” and “the most internationalized in Ohio”. Sophomores can apply to be paid research assistants to faculty, getting their names on papers, or work in teams to solve problems for local businesses.

Seniors complete a capstone. Political science, chemistry, and research psychology are popular majors, and students successfully apply to grad school at high rates, including for STEM. Wooster is an hour south of Cleveland and has a Scottish heritage (also see Alma College in Michigan).

Apply by 11/1 (EDI), 11/30 (EA), 1/15 (EDII) or 2/15 (RD)

Allegheny College Admit: 70% Size: 1.5k (13k) Price: 20-26k Meadville, PA The oldest college west of the Alleghenies if you don’t count Transylvania after its rebirth, Allegheny’s deep heritage shows in how it guides students through their four years with advisors and well-developed programs. Students speak, write and research frequently in their freshmen year, delve into their specific interests in sophomore year, acquire technical skills in junior year, and produce an intensive comp that is representative of the level of work they will do as a professional in their senior year. They are asked to choose both a major and a minor from a different division. The faculty (one for every eight students) actively mentor the undergraduate students and involve them in their research because there aren’t any graduate students as a buffer.

Majors popular among Allegheny students include sustainability, global health, international relations, English, HIST, PLSC, art, CS, PHYS, CHEM and earth science.

Allegheny is known for its rigor, and there are few classes that give room for slacking off. The ENVI program is called one of the best in the nation; all students complete at least three real-world projects, and its professors have expertise in climate change. Freshwater ecosystem courses are offered. Biology is ecology-focused. PHYS, CHEM, dance, music, PLSC, PSYCH, and COMM course offerings are good.

Unusual majors include public humanities and industrial

design (although it is to be noted that these “interdisciplinary” majors are usually cobbled together from courses in other majors, with few that directly and specifically address the topic). The college is 2 hours from Cleveland, 1 to 2 hours from campgounds and scenic areas in the Alleghenies, and 1 hour from Erie, Lake Erie and Presque Isle (not to be confused with the Presque Isle in Maine). [*unrelated*] Presque Isle is a biodiversity hotspot, named Important Bird Area no. 1 and Important Mammal Area no. 1 in Pennsylvania, with its taxa including 45 state-wide endangered or threatened bird species and nearly half of the endangered or threatened plant species in the state, which represents a greater concentration of rare taxa than anywhere else in it overall.

The freshwater piping plover, freshwater sharp-tailed sparrow, cerulean warbler, rusty blackbird, and black tern are among the inhabitants of this almost-island. This is although, being so narrow, it is only about 5 square miles. Allegheny offers well-organized international programs, and students can stay a semester at James Cook University in Australia or at the Duke University Marine Lab (for a minor fee).

Allegheny gets a plus for how it incorporates its school colors, gold and an unusually handsome navy (alligators are blue-black not green, that’s a social construct, dammit). It is not lacking in pride, historically having taken exception to other things naming themselves after the Allegheny, although it is a natural feature like the Mississippi.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 12/1 (EA, spring), 2/1 (EAII), or 2/15 (RD)

Allegheny’s amazing branding

Knox College

Admit: 73% Size: 1k (30k) Price: 22-25k Galesburg, IL Knox was founded in western Illinois as a manual labor college by the founder of the Oneida Institute. It has a football rivalry dating to 1888 with Monmouth, and both have old fraternity systems. 9 classes are taken over 3 terms. Majors include creative writing and computer science. Knox alumni include John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the founder of the leading liberal think tank, and humanitarians in the third world. They often start their career through its experiential program, and donate back at high rates. The Lincoln Studies Center honors Knox’s deep history.

Apply by 11/1 (ED, EA), 12/1, 1/15 (priority RD) or around 3/1

Coe College

Admit: 72% Size: 1k (136k) Price: 16-21k Cedar Rapids, IA Located in a top college town, one that I find quite to my taste though it’s terrible at symbolism, with a pretty library and the nation’s Czech and Slovak museum, Coe ranks highly for its accessible professors and career services. Nursing and physics are common choices. Students can take summer classes on ecology in the Boundary Waters. All students are guaranteed an internship or study trip, and half double major.

Internships abound, including at three medical centers within walking distance, and grads have high placement rates.

Apply by 11/15 (ED), 12/10 (EA, Jan), or 3/1 (RD)

Buena Vista University Admit: 77% Size: 1.5k (11k) Price: 17-21k Storm Lake, IA Buena Vista is on the shores of the 5-mile Storm Lake, noted for its walleye fishing, parks with miles of connecting trails, and campgrounds. “The shores of the lake are a perfect place to study.” The rec house allows students to check out canoes, paddleboats, camping and fishing supplies, ice skates, and sports equipment for free seven days a week. The town offers a (very small) waterpark, award-winning dining, and various businesses owned by alumni for internships. Although in rural northwestern Iowa, it has diversity owing to its immigrant populations from SE Asia and Oceania, and can be politically significant.

Students commonly study business, human services, elementary education and criminal justice; other options include agriculture, digital media and general studies. Honors students conduct research with faculty and receive funding for their endeavors; students can also take travel courses in May. Alumni post interning and job opportunities to Beaver Tracks. Students can attend the American Heritage Speaker Series; “these lectures may become this nation's definitive statement on the evolution of freedom in America”. The 2023 speaker was Walter Isaacson. Wozniak, Blair, Butto, Albright, Rice and Powell have spoken. Alumni include the current editor of The Cut for the New Yorker, formerly the youngest-ever editor of Teen Vogue. bit.ly/tourbvu Apply by 12/11 (spring) or 7/28 (fall)

Dakota Wesleyan University Admit: 75% Size: 700 (16k) Price: 22-22k Mitchell, SD Founded when Dakota was still a territory, Dakota Wesleyan (known simply as Dakota University until 1904) was the largest college in the state for many decades. The motto endowed by the founders, Christians and pioneers, is sacrifice or service.

Every student organization is required to incorporate community service into their activities at least once a semester. DWU maintains closer ties to its Methodist roots than most while remaining a secular university.

George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic nominee for president known for his anti-war stance and support for UBI (then an idea floated by both parties), was the class president at DWU and won the state oratical contest while at college. The college today promotes civic engagement and depolarization. Common majors include nursing, business and elementary education. 100% of nursing graduates receive placements. Education majors can start gaining experience in the elementary school on campus starting in their first year. Other choices include Christian leadership; digital design, which offers a 24-hour lab, internships and the ability to transition into a job upon graduation; general science; general studies; nonprofit administration; and wildlife management, which could find you working at a ranch, zoo, fishery, law enforcement agency or national park.

Apply by 1/8 (spring) or 7/29 (fall)

Augustana University Admit: 66% Size: 2k (200k) Price: 22-26k Sioux Falls, SD Augustana is descended from the Norweigan faction of the oldest Scandinavian college in America.

Today it is the largest, top-ranking private college in South Dakota, residing in its main city, a great city for renters and job-seekers.

Nursing, biology, business and elementary education are common majors. The school has a 100% placement rate for nursing graduates, benefiting from the healthcare systems in the city, and a 90% success rate for pre-med students applying to grad school.

Majors include medical laboratory science, bioinformatics, chemical or engineering physics, communication disorders, health, physical, special, instrumental or vocal education, sign language, social work, creative content production (video, music, audio), journalism, classics, religion, and theater. Minors-only include aging studies, crimonology & deviance, youth studies, family studies, coaching, public history, science writing, brewing, northern plains studies, and political philosophy. Career exploration courses and preprofessional programs in chiropractry, genetic counseling, and mortuary are offered. One course for understanding Christianity and another on theological debates is required.

Augustana College

Admit: 61% Size: 2.5k (480k) Price: 14-19k Davenport, IA The Swedish sister of Augustana University, Augustana is in the Quad Cities, one of the largest metros in the Upper Mississippi or Driftless Area, on the Iowa-Illinois border. As with Knox, it gives each student a 2k fund for experiences. They can also pitch startups and receive funding. Prominent majors include communication disorders, public health and graphic design.

Other programs include disability, interreligious dialogue, aging studies, business intelligence, multimedia journalism, film, food studies, Scandinavian studies, and GIS. Apply by 1/14 (S), 11/15 (ED/EA), or 7/1 (RD) (AU continued) The Center for Western Studies (technically as in the American West) is located at Augustana. In its broader role of service to the region, it has hosted forums by NYT columnist and (milquetoast) conservative sociologist David Brooks (’24), the director of the WHO (’23), the US ambassador to Russia (’22), a geopolitist on genomics (’21), the Watergate journalists (’19), and Rice on national security (’18). Alum and Democratic representative at-large for South Dakota until 2011 Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, president since 2017, has plans to move the college to Division I athletics.

The dining is relatively nice and the outdoor program offers free equipment rentals, including kayaks and climbing shoes.

Apply by 1/28 (start 2/2) or 7/26 (start 7/30)

Luther College

Admit: 75% Size: 2k (8k) Price: 21-25k Decorah, IA Established as a Lutheran seminary by Norwegian settlers, Luther is situated in the hilly Driftless Region, not so monotonous as the plains, with woods and waterfalls. (There used to be a cave with year-round ice nearby but it has largely been blocked.)

Decorah has a Nordic Fest each summer and the NorwegianAmerican Museum, the largest museum in the US dedicated to a single immigrant group, started by Luther College. The town is an hour from little-seen spots of the Mississippi and from La Crosse, Wisconsin, a scenic town. Luther has many outdoor programs with free equipment and classes provided, including XC-skiing, foraging, cave-exploring, camping, buck and pheasant hunting, trout fishing, canoeing, skating, and backpacking. Half of students participate in intramural sports. Luther has a rivalry with Wartsburg, further in Iowa. Both offer courses taught abroad (Luther during the mid-year January term, Wartsburg during the endof-year May term) and students at both engage in research with faculty. Nursing, environmental science, design and music teaching are prominent at Luther; other programs include identity studies, law and values, museum studies, Nordic studies, social welfare, social work and visual media.

Apply by 1/29 (spring) or 7/27 (fall)

Pacific Lutheran University

Admit: 89% Size: 2.5k (219k) Price: 19-27k Tacoma, WA The craggy Pacific Northwest is home to a minor concentration of Scandinavians. PLU, at the base of Puget Sound (17 minutes south of Tacoma, 42 south of Seattle, 1 hour west of Mount Rainier National Park and 1 hour east of Olympic National Forest) is sponsored by Lutherans in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. PLU describes itself as dedicated to “transformative care,” which shows in how it gave a tuition-free year to make up for the remote learning of the pandemic, although it had to cut several programs (including Nordic studies) as a result. It has a Scandinavian cultural center and has hosted royalty.

The most popular major is nursing, though the program is criticized by some as too sociological. In addition to the usual spread of majors, PLU has a significant computer science program. Other programs include Chinese studies, French studies, Hispanic studies, Native American studies, critical race studies (can be combined with gender and sexuality), Holocaust & genocide studies, nonprofit leadership, social work, dance, early Christian studies and earth science.

Students can apply to research with faculty over the summer (paid enough to cover housing and food). They complete the Peace Corp Prep program at high rates.

12/8 (spring), 12/15 (scholarship), 2/15 (art scholarship), 7/8

St. Olaf College

Admit: 56% Size: 3k (21k) Price: 13-22k Northfield, MN Founded by Norwegians, St. Olaf is picturesque, less than an hour from Minneapolis and adjacent to a prairie preserve. 90% of students participate in internships or research projects. It lists numerous exclusive opportunities to intern or network with alumni or partnering organizations, and career coaches help guide students on particular careers. Students are politically conscious. Norwegian, Nordic studies, social work are offered and math PhDs are earned at high rates. The world’s only undergrad journal on existentialism is published by its official Kierkegaard library.

Apply by 11/1 (ED/EA) or 1/15 (ED/RD)

Gustavus Adolphus College

Admit: 74% Size: 2k (20k) Price: 17-25k St. Peters, MN Named after the famous Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus was founded

by Swedish settlers and is the oldest of the many Lutheran colleges in Minnesota. It is an hour from Minneapolis with forests, prairies and a river. Students can borrow bikes to explore. Environmental science and communication are popular, and Scandinavian studies and peace studies are offered. It hosts the annual Nobel Conference. Students are called friendly and affable.

An alum is the creator of Primer, a science Youtube channel.

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 1/30 (spring) or 5/1 (RD)

Damn St. Olaf is so pretty * * * * * 1. The residence halls 2.

View at nightfall 3. Single star in the evening sky 4.

The surrounding pastures *

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St. Olaf’s setting is ideal for people for whom cold expanses and rustic river towns hold appeal. Interiors feature modern architecture and stained glass. Northfield, a mile across with Carleton (2k, founded by Congregationalist New England settlers) on the other side of town, has enough remove for a sense of community during your four years. (Living in a small town can be a practicum in resourcefulness and being carpe diem with yo uhave.)

Concordia College Admit: 66% Size: 2k (209k) Price: 22-23k Moorhead, MN Concordia is located only a half mile from ND in the fertile Red River valley, which has the largest Norweigan and Lutheran populations in the US, and a libertarian lean. The city of Fargo, with a thriving economy and vibrant cultural scene, is shared with Minnesota State University-Moorhead (4k) and North Dakota State University (14k). Fields of sunflowers welcome new students in August, and the city hosts the National Buffalo Museum. The college is an hour east of Sheyenne National Grassland, the nation’s largest tallgrass preserve, home to greater prairie chickens, which gather for communal dances at dawn, as well as endangered orchid and savannah habitat.

An hour to its east are the northern woods of Minnesota, with flocks of trumpeter swans, wolves, porcupines, otters, and golden-winged warblers, and the White Earth Reservation associated with Winona La Duke.

The founding of the college had connections to St. Olaf, and its Lutheran heritage lives on in its 19 music ensembles and internationally touring choir. One in three students are involved in music and one in four are athletes. Homecoming features a giant bonfire and fireworks and the college has a four-day, engaging orientation. The dining is award-winning and ranked as the best in Minnesota. Students have free access to the bus system and can check out bikes at the

library. Opportunities to research with faculty and co-author papers are available. Students are required to complete at least two Pivotal Experiences in Applied Knowledge (bit.ly/peakoptions). Students can access the career center as alumni, and purchase gold class rings at a high rate.

Concordia has the best nursing program in Minnesota. 92% pass the licensing exam for nursing after graduation, and 91% of students pursuing medical school are accepted.

Concordia operates Nordic and Asian language villages that can provide opportunities for internships and research.

Other programs include music education, art education, music composition, voice, applied physics, clinical laboratory science, nutrition, global studies, classics, museum studies certification, international business with foreign language, multimedia journalism, and social activism. Wellness and religion courses are required. In 2024 it started a program making tuition free for families earning 90k or less.

Alumni include Kevin Cramer, a Trump ally and North Dakota’s representative-atlarge until 2019 (now a senator), several Republican politicians in MN (including the first female majority leader), director of the Yale glee club, Carter’s ambassador to Norway, and the first biologist to study wolves in the wild.

1/10 (spring), 1/15 (talent scholarship, early nursing), 5/15 (summer) or 7/26 (fall). Community engagement is a plus.

Lewis & Clark College Admit: 69% Size: 2.5k (641k) Price: 24-30k Portland, OR Nestled in the largest natural area in Portland, Lewis & Clark is only a few steps away from the sole city state park in Oregon, a rugged temperate rainforest landscape with hiking, biking and horse trails and inhabited by owls, salamanders, trout and salmon. L&C has an inviting aesthetic, with a campus that looks like a fairytale clearing and residence halls that resemble lodges. Program offerings are status quo although with a robust international perspective (courses topics include the global south and the democratization of the developing world).

90% of students participate in at least one of the outdoor programming trips, which tend to be on the milder side.

Equipment rentals are available for a significant fee. Many students study abroad, but program costs in addition to tuition can run in the thousands of dollars. The Pioneer Express offers limited services running from the campus to downtown. Science students can work as paid research assistants over the summer in a program that L&C hypes up as graduate-level. The graduate school includes one of the top environmental law programs in the world. Females outnumber males 1.7 to 1, and students have the generic hippy reputation found in the region. The library offers views, a fireplace and 24-hour access 5 days out of the week.

Apply by 11/1 (ED 80%/EA) or 1/15 (RD)

Willamette University

Admit: 81% Size: 2k (178k) Price: 25-29k Salem, OR The oldest college in Oregon or the West, Willamette is centrally located between Portland and Eugene (each an hour away). It is just across the street from the state capital, where students can earn credit as political interns. Economics, psychology, biology, and environmental science are popular choices. Willamette seems rather lacking in alumni, but its student-athletes have included both the first female and the first out college football players. It has accelerated graduate tracks in data science and forestry.

Apply by 11/1 (Jan. entry), 11/15 (EA, ED), or 2/1 (RD)

Whitman College

Admit: 48% Size: 1.5k (34k) Price: 30-30k Walla Walla, WA Whitman is in SE Washington (i.e. greater Idaho), near the most remote region of the country, and provides great outdoor programs.

Its faculty is supportive, internships are paid for and students join learning communities such as climate change in their first year. Alumni include Nate Cohn (the writer of “The Upshot” for the NYT), John Markoff (tech writer for the NYT), the secretary of state for Colorado, the director of land management under Obama, & Will Douglas, a SCOTUS justice known for his civil libertarian views.

Apply before 12/1 for free. 11/15 (EDI), 1/10 (EDII), 1/15 (RD)

College of the Atlantic Admit: 60% Size: 380 (5.5k) Price: 16-26k Bar Harbor, ME The College of the Atlantic is located on a sprawling, lightly inhabited 108 square mile island that stands behind only Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard in size on the eastern seabord and is dotted with inlets, cobble beaches, coves, lakes, campgrounds and ancient carriage roads. It served as a retreat for the Morgans, Fords, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Astors during the late gilded age. The expansive and dynamic terrain of the island includes Acadia, the first national park established in the east and the only one in the northeast, which has the tallest mountain on the Atlantic coast, reknown for being the first place in the US to see the sun rise. The campus is only a ten minute stroll from the park’s boundaries, easily qualifying CA as the college located closest to a national park.

The College was founded in the heyday of the 1960s (1968-1972) by a Catholic priest and his former football teammate from the island’s high school with the help of some local residents. It was originally intended to be named Acadia Peace College because its founder was involved in the peace movement. The CA claims to offer a single “major,” human ecology, which is meant to study human affairs from an ecological perspective, although it is taken to

be a perspective more than a field proper. Its thrust is that “There is a tendency, especially in the academic world, to carve life into ever smaller pieces in order to make sense of it. All too often, the people who do this come to believe that is how the world really is. The aim of human ecology is to remind us that we are part of a complex and interactive living world.” The term “major” may be considered to mostly be a reference to and refutation of the usual modalities found at other schools; in practice, the major of human ecology serves as a placeholder and blank slate for you to study your own course of study without any limitations to its definition.

(This approach may best be compared to Bennington’s.) All of the course offerings are unique and include: the Cold War, World Trade Politics, Globalization and Anti-Globalization, Immigration and anti-Immigration; Quantum Physics, Chaotic Systems, Neurobiology, Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, Geneaology, Ethnographic Methods, Pandemics, Differential Epidemological Modeling, GIS; Legal Processes, Elections, Wildlife Law, Documentary Video and Photography, Audio Journalism, Audio Production and Podcasting, Narrative, Acquiring New Languages, Community-based Conservation, Practical Community Leadership Skills, Group Dynamics, Educational Policy Negotiation, Changing Society and Changing Schools, Adolescent Psychology, Origins of Underground Youth Culture in the 1990s, Educational Innovation, Qualitative Evaluation Methods, Curriculum Design, Writing for Nonprofits, Teaching Gender and Sexuality; Contemporary Choreography, Music Videos, Songwriting, Film Production, Advanced Percussion, Guitar; Farm Management, Weed Management, Sheep Farming, Fisheries, Organic Gardening, Organic Poultry Practicum,

Running a Microbrewing Business, Terrestrial Politics, Marine Politics; Sculpting Heads, Outside the Lines: Innovative Painting, Contemporary Artist as Researcher and Activist, Zoological Field Sketching, and Drawing Mineral and Botanical Matter in the Forest of Maine. Many courses seek to educate students through engagement with the community or through the medium of projects. A recent course on the West convened in California and took a road trip through deserts, icebergs and valleys before participating in a historic conference. Students have consulted elders in Maine’s Wabanaki tribes and worked in teams of dozens of people to dissect thousand-pound whales. Education courses collaborate with area schools as well as museums, park agencies and a therapeutic riding center. Most education students do not pursue certification because they are interested working outside of a formal setting. Students with an idea for a non-profit or for-profit, local or scalable business can apply for a position in the startup incubator, which gives them “the opportunity to move from ideas to action” and “walk the entrepreneurial high wire with a safety net and support”. CA claims that this program is unique (in what way?) among liberal arts colleges.

Ecological thinking is frequently intertwined into courses, which include ones on ecological economics, environmental history, environmental activism history, American conservation movement history, ecological psychology, ecological religion, ecological philosophy, ecological AI and ecological crafting. CA has been ranked the most environmentally conscious college in the US by multiple outlets. It regularly sends students to the UN Framework

Convention on Climate Change, where they can engage in the process of negotiations and strategize with youth activists from across the globe. (As the college says, “We don’t do model UN, we do actual UN.”) A full slate of courses is available on climate justice, climate protest, climate change politics, climate change policies, climate change ecology, climate change anthropology, climate change education, and climate change diplomacy. Students learn about the engineering and physics of renewable energy and install plants; talk with experts and professionals working in environmental technology; design innovative climate change solutions in collaboration with the government; and produce policy analyses with social movements or nonprofits, before attending relevant forums such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, where they can form professional relationships. Faculty members have a vast array of connections to the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and national and international governments, and a dedicated website exists for alumni networking.

All students must complete at least 450 hours of internships and 40 hours of community service, in addition to writing a reflection on human ecology. A student’s college career is roughly divided into three parts, proceeding through introductory courses, self-studies, and then advanced studies such as residencies. Grading is generally based on research papers and projects. Students must complete a significant intellectual endeavor or work that brings together the skills they have earned in their college career. Projects can be pursued outside CA, but avenues for research through the college abound. Students at the Island Research Center on Great Duck learn how to apply GIS and GPS to

real-time conservation efforts. Inhabitants of the island include guillemots (the parallel evolution of penguins in the northern hemisphere) and eiders (ducks with plumages that outstrip the artistic sensibilities of Picasso). Great Duck hosts the eastern American coastline’s largest population of the Leach’s storm petrel, a mysterious, swallowlike bird that lays a single egg on inaccessible ocean islands, lives for decades, and is so noctural it does not appear on moonlit nights. Alumni have gone on to use the skills they gained to study different species such as Florida Scrub Jays and Caspian Terns. Select students are paid to watch whales and collect specimens for the herbarium as a naturalist. Through the GIS lab, students can provide mapping and analytic services to nonprofits and state governments. Funding is provided for study abroad and research by the college, and additional funding can be solicited from NASA. There are no frats and students go to the YMCA for sports, though open mic nights and house parties are common.

Annual bystander training is mandatory. Men apply and are accepted at lower rates but choose to attend at twice the rate for a 2:1 F:M ratio. According to admissions officers, applicants should heed the nature of the CoA as a liberal arts institution and express an understanding of what it offers.

(There are no dolphins. Go to Eckerd for dolphins.) 23% of students are international, and 4% are from Maine. Students are described as diverse in personality and non-cliquey, and reside in cottages with different temperaments. The dining is top-ranked and locally sourced. Alumni (“alumnx” even though alums is gender neutral) include Bush-era Common Cause CEO and Maine representative Chelli Pingree.

Apply by 11/15 (ED), 12/1 (EA), 1/15 (EDII) or 2/1 (RD)

Concordia University Admit: 69% Size: 3k (732k) Price: 17-18k St. Paul, MN Admit: 70% Size: 3k (23k) Price: 25-27k Mequon, WI Admit: 91% Size: 2.5k (8k) Price: 20-24k Seward, NE Admit: 69% Size: 2k (309k) Price: 26-28k Irvine, CA Admit: 86% Size: 1.5k (964k) Price: 22-25k Austin, TX Admit: 93% Size: 1.5k (2697k) Price: 18-20k River Forest, IL Admit: 70% Size: 1k (122k) Price: 24-25k Ann Arbor, MI Concordia University is operated by the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, which is more conservative than the Evangelical Church affiliated with the previous colleges, especially on gender and sexuality issues. Its California campus is a center for the conversion therapy movement and hosted the annual conference of Exodus International, an ex-gay Christian organization, until it disbanded in 2023.

The relatively mild Wisconsin campus kicked out a professor after he criticized it for being woke because it used words like “diversity”. (He subsequently published a book about “Woke Marxism in Lutheran Higher Education” in 2024.) The Wisconsin campus has taken control of the Michigan campus. The Texas campus voted to become independent of the church in 2023 in order to focus on its professional programs, and is currently engaged in a lawsuit.

Students can enroll at any other campus for one year. St. Paul and Mequon have graduate populations as large as their undergraduate populations, and Irvine and Chicago have larger graduate than undergraduate populations, giving them about 5k students total. Most campuses have a 2:1 female to male ratio, apart from Nebraska. Texas has a multiracial population that is equally Latino and white. Grids

of programs and sports available at each campus can be found at cus.edu. The WI, NE, TX and IL campuses are each 30 minutes from the major cities of Milwaukee, Lincoln, Austin and Chicago, respectively. WI and CA are shown.

Apply by 11/1 (priority spring), 12/27 (spring), 12/1 (priority fall) or 7/28 (fall) for Minnesota. Deadlines are similar for other campuses. Texas does not accept the Common App.

College of St. Scholastica Admit: 97% Size: 2k (114k) Price: 20-25k Duluth, MN St. Scholastica is the only private college in the anchor city of north Minnesota, a region that holds steadfast to its Democratic politics (one assumes in a working class way, to iron as WV is to coal, but also a hippy VT way) and is one of the hotspots for Green Party politics along with New England (West Mass), parts of KS, MT and CO, and the Pacific NW (NoCa coast). Its wooded grounds are ten minutes from downtown and the western shore of Lake Superior.

Scholastica has nicer dorms offering singles. Students are described as high energy and outgoing but grounded and mature. Notes one student, “If your that kid that likes to bully kids, well it just makes you look stupid in college.” Females outnumber males 2 to 1. Nursing and social work are popular programs. Deaf culture and sign language and leadership (taught by active-duty Air Force officers) are among the more unusual minors. The Ojibwe language program can lead to interesting lines of work. (The language is endangered as with most Native American languages, which could lead to the loss of orally transmitted knowledge, and is mostly spoken in the northern Great Lakes and south-central Canada.) Training with the Backcountry Saints can lead to professional outdoor certification in canoeing or climbing instruction. Pursing internships is encouraged.

Apply by 1/14 (S) or 7/26 (F-R)

Duluth has been called a climate change-proof refuge. Lake Superior offers hawk-watching and duck-watching.

The other colleges in the north Minnesota woods, which is sparsely populated, include the 2:1 male to female Ely campus of Minnesota North College, in Superior National Forest and next to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, which offers certificates in park management, fisheries management, water quality operations, wildlife ecology, park rangering, backpacking and outdoor leadership, and outdoor therapy (which is part of the local economy) at affordable rates.

St. Lawrence University Admit: 63% Size: 2k (7k) Price: 17-24k Canton, NY St. Lawrence is in the St. Lawrence River valley marking the Canadian border along with Ottawa and Quebec. Upland are the Adirondack Mountains.

As you might expect, ice hockey is a prominent sport. There is no business major, but St. Lawrence has large numbers of communication, English, history, international studies, natural resource conservation, philosophy, geology, political science, economics and math majors. Psychology, Africana studies, art, computer science, sociology and anthropology are also sizeable programs.

As the quintessential college of the North Country, SLU had one of the first outing clubs in the United States, following the lead of Dartmouth, Bates, Vermont and Middlebury when the outdoors were being recreationalized (or commercialized, depending on your view) for the masses. Climbing, paddling, and skiing programs cater to both beginner and advanced students and travel locally, nationally and internationally. SLU rebates gas costs, making road trips easy. The North Country offers varied terrain, including Whiteface Mountain with the greatest vertical drop east of the Rockies (on skiing terms), and the campus environs include the Grass River, woods and fields, the town with modest eateries, and a discount grocery

plaza, all of which is small enough that there isn’t much of a residential-commercial or built-wild division and everything is within walking distance. Redpolls, great horned owls, snow geese and golden-winged warblers are possible sightings.

Gen ed is minimal (one course each in six areas). Paid research opportunities, including summer projects and self-proposed international projects, are inclusive of all majors. Walk-in peer tutoring, career services and the alumni network are highlights. Students can apply for a fellowship to learn web coding and “AI/VR” (the most recent class of fellows was 100% women and 56% black, so you can infer the etiquette). Data science and film are majors. Pre-med majors include biomedical science, chem, public health and neuro, and several grad school partnerships including for engineering exist. Course offerings have an international focus and ethnic studies (including on France, Canada and native America) and peace studies are offered. St. Lawrence has sought to develop its emphasis on environmentalism with a dedicated center and a scholarship program. Even the library has trees. The Outdoor Studies minor allows students to stay in yurts in the Adirondacks. St. Lawrence has a decades-old program in the capital of Kenya with a monthlong field study, rural and urban homestays, and mandatory courses in Swahili. The year is alive with special events.

Alumni have included journalists, songwriters (bit.ly/crosbyxmas, bit.ly/grace-potter-good-time), and Susan Collins, the aisle-crossing Maine Senator considered to be one of the most powerful members of the Senate. Overall it is a solid choice that can seem a bit pat (Canada is no doubt an influence).

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 12/1 (EA) or 2/1 (ED/RD)

Northland College Admit: 68% Size: 500 (22k) Price: 20-24k Ashland, WI Northland bills itself as “the environmental liberal arts college.” It is on the shore of Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands, a state park, and near the Porcupine Mountains wilderness, the greatest extent of northern old-growth hardwood west of the Adirondacks (it counts itself as being near “a million acres of natural forest”).

The Sigmund Olson Environmental Institute, established at the start of the environmental movement after the first Earth Day, researches common loons and promotes nature writing. Students, about equally male and female, are described as warm and welcoming or “a new kind of kind”.

Most of the courses have an environmental bent. There are practically oriented courses, such as chainsaw certification, wildland firefighting, fur-bearer ecology and management, wolf conservation, conservation of large carnivores, forestry, fisheries, community-based management, sailing, canoeing, wilderness navigation, sea kayaking, telemark skiing, rock climbing, outdoor living skills, technical outdoor skills, winter travel and living skills, paddling instruction, climbing instruction, and issues in outdoor education. There are courses circumnavigating Lake Superior, teaching ecology to middle schoolers on Apostle Islands, and studying geology in

Wyoming. There are also sociologically oriented courses, especially on gender and feminist theory. Nature writing and Eastern spirituality have broad course offerings, as does Native American studies (including Ojibwe language), and Northland maintains relationships with nearby Native American communities. Specialized courses on psychology and sustainability are offered, as are relatively straightforward business courses. Research can be pursued with faculty or with the many nonprofits and agencies in the area (though I find it difficult to stomach the idea of any kind of nature study at college because I’m a purist who believes these things should be pursued on one’s own instead of through a filtered lens trained on human objects and language). Students have conducted research on recycling plastics, set nets to collect data on young fish, documented tree frogs 70 feet above ground level, used camera traps to count ocelots, and made a discovery about fluorescence in flying squirrels that was covered by the NYT and Nat Geo. The surrounding area offers prime hiking and biking opportunities, with animals such as porcupines, moose, wolves, cougar, river otters, fishers, martens and minks, bobcats and lynx, black bears, and the slight, wiley-eyed gray fox. Students have completed projects hiking hundreds of miles for course credits. They can earn credits at the National Outdoor Leadership School, Outward Bound and the Wild Rockies Field Institute. Northland is part of the EcoLeague meaning students can spend a semester in a different part of the country and a different way of thinking; these include College of the Atlantic, Alaska Pacific, Dickinson, New College of Florida and Prescott.

Apply by 12/15 (winter) or 7/7 (fall) or contact.

Lake of the Clouds

Apostle Islands

Northland is the archetypal environmentally focused college in the US, with a more conventional structure than the countercultural and extremist College of the Atlantic (Hampshire is the hippy archetype, and Oberlin is the counterculture archetype, to the ascensions of the Promethean and the Democratic respectively).

As of April 2024, Northland was pending closure but not closed.

Unfortunately, this was a development post-writing its profile.

St. Norbert College Admit: 84% Size: 2k (107k) Price: 22-24k Green Bay, WI St. Norbert is in a town with a Festival Foods and amenities. 11 minutes north at the mouth of the river is the downtown of Green Bay, a conservativeleaning city with lower housing costs and a bar scene. The Green Bay Packers train on the campus. Sports are prominent, with winning hockey and football teams, and students call themselves happy. Business is the most popular major, and PS, sociology and economics are well-attended. The course offerings are standard with stronger offerings in history.

Apply by 1/11 (S) or 7/28 (F)

Lawrence University Admit: 72% Size: 1.5k (75k) Price: 17-20k Appleton, WI The top LAC in Wisconsin, this riverfront college is located in a liberal-leaning town, in the same Fox River valley as Green Bay known for the accessibility of its alcohol. Students go on to earn science PhDs at high rates. Funding is generously given for research, internships, and business pitches. 1 in 4 students are in its conservatory of music. Lawrence has an interesting, large and well-chosen array of courses.

International studies such as Russian, French and Asian studies are available. All majors have the opportunity to complete a senior experience, an extended inquiry of their own into the subject. Lawrence hosts a different visiting professor of international or political prominence each year.

Lawrence’s dining, which is all-you-can-eat, sounds relatively fancy and is catered by Bon Appétit. The college is next to downtown but most of Appleton is suburban sprawl, so it can feel a bit insular and small at times. Student groups can visit the Björklunden beach retreat over the weekend. The highlight of the college is the ease with which you can pursue a cool project or independent research opportunity. The school runs on a trimester system meaning you take three sets of classes, not including a flexible December term that may be devoted to a class or an outside pursuit. This may result in a greater pace of change than the system where you take a set of classes in the fall and another in the spring.

Apply by 11/1 (EA/ED), 12/1 (EA), 1/15 (RD) or after

Beloit University

Admit: 66% Size: 1k (50k) Price: 15-23k Beloit, WI Beloit is one of the oldest colleges in Wisconsin, founded in 1846 on the same week as Carroll (Lawrence was founded coed the next year, the state the next). The riverfront campus includes traditional, pretty buildings and large refabbed industrial spaces. It lies on the Illinois border, along a 40 mile line of settlement from Janesville to Rockford that was settled by western New Yorkers in the first ascension and had an abolitionist streak, and 1 hour from Milwaukee or Madison or 1.5 hours from Chicago. Students are geographically diverse for WI and described as free-spirited. Its color is an elegant slate blue.

CHEM, ANTH, PLSC and CW are popular majors. Chemistry majors engage in project-based learning from their first course and become competent in running research-grade instruments, instead of sitting in 101 lectures with hundreds of students. The effigy mounds on campus and museum may pique the interest of Anthro students. Geo students study in the field, Econ students go on a networking trip to Chicago, and journalists are required to intern. The critical identity studies program has an unusual anthropological and constructivist bent. A third of students double major and 40% study abroad. Gen ends are limited. Residencies provide for noted thinkers, artists, businessmen and activists to visit each year. Free shuttles and special trips are offered.

Apply by 11/1 (EA, S), 12/1 (EA), 2/15 (RD)

Rockford University

Admit: 55% Size: 1k (148k) Price: 23-23k Rockford, IL Rockford is in a culturally rich city that is the largest in IL outside of the Chicago area. The college has a number of early women’s activists as alumni, including Jane Addams, the namesake of its civic center. Community-engaged learning courses are offered in fields such as medicine and teaching. It is has more typical nursing and exercise science major numbers than the previous LACs but flexible gen eds.

Computer science and theater are also popular.

Apply by 12/31 (S) or 7/24 (F)

St. Ambrose University Admit: 74% Size: 2k (250k) Price: 20-24k Davenport, IA In the suburbs of a Mississippi city, St. Ambrose has nice dorms and a warm atmosphere. Faculty and students are helpful and upbeat. Dinners are early and described as basic and blasé. The petty visitation rules are criticized by some students. The mascot is the bee. Courses are standard. Business is popular as are the usual professional programs. Mechanical and industrial engineering, book art, art teaching, and multimedia journalism are offered.

Apply before 7/25 (F-R)

North Central College

Admit: 61% Size: 2.5k (149k) Price: 21-22k Naperville, IL North Central lies in the suburban outskirts of Chicago, an hour or so from downtown. The greatest distinctions of the college on the national stage are its robust first-gen programs, which serve 40% of its student body, and the great books program of Shimer College, which was formerly affiliated with the University of Chicago until the latter dissolved its Great Books program in 1958, and has been part of North Central since 2017.

Shimer has long attracted students with an unconventional dedication to self-governance and intellectual pursuit—so much so that its professors and students borrowed trucks to move the school to abandoned houses over Christmas when it faced financial difficulties in the late 1970s. Students have gone on to graduate schools at high rates and praised their experience. As a Socratic-style co-op, Shimer could be considered to have been a cross between Reed and Deep Springs, true to its UChicago roots, during its period of independence in the 1960s, when it ranked highly for its sex and drug scene and for its “political incorrectness.” Today it offers degrees in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences (reading original works that changed science), and liberal studies (a combination of all) within the more traditional environment of North Central. The books that students read across all of its programs—more interesting than St. John’s in my view—can be seen at bit.ly/shimerlist.

North Central looks like a straightforward Methodist college at first glance, but it offers a wide array of business, communication, and social science programs, and some unusual ones as well. A common theme is bringing a more practical orientation to the traditional liberal arts. Its programs in business, computer science, and engineering (a hundred students in the mechanical, electrical and computer engineering fields) offer holistic courses while emphasizing internships and research opportunities. Automation, robotics and quality of life are strengths of the engineering program.

Physics majors gain lab skills and can intern at the nearby national laboratories. The biology major “engages you in authentic science” from your very first course with research into the West Nile virus, and research can be pursued during the school year. The environmental studies major has tracks in environmental policy, energy and climate change, and sustainable business. The neuroscience program, which rivals biology in popularity, gives students access to a sleep lab and treadmill lab, uses tools such as computers and special dyes to investigate brain networks, and encourages working with faculty on individualized projects. Students in the diagnostic sonography, nuclear medicine technology and radiation therapy programs complete their senior year at Northwest Memorial Hospital. The exercise science and nutrition programs lead to licensure. NCC does not award bachelors in nursing, but has a dedicated pre-nursing major providing directly relevant experience.

Majors that are relatively popular in addition to the above include organizational communication, radio and television, multimedia, journalism; English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German and Chinese; sociology, economics, anthropology,

psychology; and graphic design and theater. Chicago, classical, global, and Middle Eastern studies, history of ideas, and gender and sexuality are offered as minors. The general education requires one course each in the usual subject areas, four courses that explore issues through an interdisciplinary lens, and career prepartion courses.

Because many courses at Shimer are of the sort that would be needed to fulfill gen eds anyways, the “significant majority” also earn a conventional major in the general college. The courses can be seen at bit.ly/shimercourses, and the reading lists in each can be seen at bit.ly/shimersyllabi.

The lack of knowledge-testing exams at Shimer means that it can be relatively stress free, although the student-propelled discussions require eager participation, and two exams test their analytical skills with texts they haven’t seen before.

They also complete a thesis based on a personal interest in consultation with faculty. All in all, this is a lesser-known, safer option than St. Johns with more flexibility. It has had high attrition rates, but this may be because students have come from unusual backgrounds (bit.ly/pathstoshimer).

The campus is located in “downtown” Naperville and Springbrook prairie and woods are nearby. One of its residence halls has a large in-house rec center. Its most prominent alum is someone who got rich from co-founding Github, took to car racing and broke his back. Shimer alumni include the founder of Education for Employment (I wonder why), the most-cited author in political science courses (After Hegemony), an international relations scholar focusing on the Middle East, pioneering ethnographers, gender and sexuality activists, and the teacher of Amelia Earhart.

11/1 (honors priority), 2/8 (Montaigne scholarship) or 7/28

Shimer: the worst college in America? Jon Ronson 2014 The Guardian Out in the open lounge students lie scattered around. One of them – Jibran Ludwig – recounts to me the strange tale of how he ended up here. One night two years ago, when Jibran was 15, he was sitting in an Amtrak station in upstate New York reading Plato’s Republic and getting annoyed by the translation. The Greek gods had been given capital Gs, which struck Jibran as an erroneous Christian reinterpretation, and so he decided to abandon the book and try and find something closer to what Plato had intended. It was election night. The woman sitting opposite Jibran had an iPhone. So he went over to ask her the results.

As he approached her, his Plato in his hand, she looked alarmed. “Oh,” she said after a moment. “I thought you might be one of my students and I didn’t recognize you and I felt embarrassed.” She explained that she was Susan Henking, president of Shimer, “and Plato is the kind of thing we read”.

“If the president of this college thinks I might already be there,” Jibran suddenly thought, “maybe it’s where I should be.”

After that night, Shimer was all Jibran could think about. And now, two years later, he’s made it. They accepted him without a GED certificate or school diploma, which is lucky because he hadn’t gone to high school. He lived in an eco village in Missouri called Dancing Rabbit and his education consisted of him walking around the village asking people to teach him. Some of them agreed, he says, but a lot said no because they were too busy with administrative meetings, and Dancing Rabbit has a lot of administrative meetings.

“The day after I arrived,” Jibran tells me, “I was sitting here, surrounded by people I could relate to, talking about interesting things, and I just noticed that I felt completely at home.”

There’s Kara, who was homeless before coming here, living out of her car for a while. ‘I was lucky enough to get a Shimer pamphlet in the mail in middle school,’ she later emails me. ‘I carried it around throughout high school. The idea of reading books all day for credit was very appealing to a girl who was constantly in trouble for reading when she wasn’t supposed to. It was the only school I applied to.’

None of the students I speak to seem especially concerned about the worst college ranking. But the teachers are. This is serious for them. They’re struggling to stay afloat. Faculty members are taking pay cuts. A ranking like this might tip them over the edge.

“Just today I got another Google alert about it,” Isabella says. “It keeps getting picked up by other news organizations.”

“What was the mood like at school the day it was published?” I ask her.

“Panic,” she says, “a little bit, I would say, in the leadership.”

“This is a small place,” the college president Susan Henking tells me. “If we lose it, we lose a genre. And it’s fragile. So I got upset.” She pauses. “Do I think I should ignore those numbers? Obviously not. I don’t like that ranking and I hated being at the top of one where my values are very centrally located, around underrepresented people’s ability to go to college. My God, I hated being at the top of that.”

Everyone here agrees that it’s unjust to reduce this strange, tiny, madly intellectual place to statistics. Isabella says that since 2008 they’ve lost between eight and 10 students per year, for various reasons like health, family, finances. One dropped out because they were offered a job as a musician. Even Ben Miller, the list’s compiler, seems remorseful that Shimer topped his list. ‘I think their story is at least partly due to small sample sizes,’ he emails. Then he reiterates this twice more in other emails to me...

Shimer wouldn’t be a college for me. All that Socratic dialogue would bewilder and exhaust me. I’d want somewhere more practical. Plus it would be nice to have a couple of clubs to join. And so, as the day progresses, I feel myself side with those who bailed on the place, propelling it to the top of that unhappy list.

But then – just as I’m about to leave - something happens to make me change my mind.

I get talking to Albert Fernandez, a professor of cultural history and humanities. He has the intense demeanor and indeterminate European accent of a Slavoj Žižek. He leads me into a classroom as austere as he is and tells me how angry he is about the list.

“What we do at Shimer,” he says, “is difficult. It’s difficult to sit in a small room with six or eight students and have your beliefs challenged. If a school is hard to graduate from for reasons to do with an attempt at educational quality – that should be taken into account. The writer said nothing about that”...

Arizona State is currently Washington Monthly’s 28th best college in America and Playboy’s No4 party school.

Places like that, Albert says, “are all about getting good grades and getting a degree and becoming well integrated into the American economy.” He pauses. “I can’t completely thumb my nose at people valuing college as a good investment. People are worried about the economy, and here we are studying ancient and medieval sources and we don’t have textbooks.”

But, he says, if that’s the only way you look at universities, you’re missing something critical.

As my son turns 16, I’ve noticed that he and his friends are wondering something that would never have crossed my mind at his age: is it even worth going to college? What’s the point?

Carthage College Admit: 82% Size: 2.5k (99k) Price: 21-21k Kenosha, WI The heritage of Carthage lies in a college founded by Lutherans in IL. Lincoln sent his son to the college and served on its board during his presidency until the Civil War began. The college was emptied by the war, but its former faculty members founded Carthage a few years later in its namesake city, where the Latter Day Saint movement had briefly settled before killings forced it to flee to Utah.

Carthage moved once more to its current campus, chosen for its location between Milwaukee and Chicago, in the 1960s. Its new home city, which may be familiar from the news in 2020, hosts 4 Smithsonian museums, a beaux-arts library and German and Italian populations. Rare prairie and dune preserves protecting many endangered species and a Ramsar-designated wetland are nearby. Its athletes have a subtly modern and synthetic name, the Firebirds, and a mascot named Ember, which somehow goes well with the college’s Greco-Roman name, recalling ivory pillars and the Punic Wars. (It’s definitely better than what it replaced.)

The forward-thinking college seeks to intertwine career development throughout its four years. Its highly developed program, called the Aspire Plan, can seem gimmicky, making use of leaderboards and doling out stickers, and I’m skeptical that identifying difficult-to-pin-down qualitative skills like “critical thinking” as goals could be any more helpful than all

those strategic plans, learning standards and mission statements used by schools and businesses. However, Carthage is also highly enthusiastic about students seeking experiential opportunities that can help them clarify their vision and bolster their resumé. Research is expected of all students, not just reserved for the select few. Entire classes can be structured around original research. For example, its first year biology course, Molecules, Cells and Organisms, uses phages (viruses that infect bacteria) to teach students experiment design and data collection, analysis and interpretation. Neuroscience students use a rodent colony to study and even perform surgery on animal subjects, with applications for treating PTSD in humans. Many professors see the students they mentor instead of the articles they publish as their pride and joy, and are available to guide students through their chosen and independent projects.

All students must participate in the J-term, in which they study one course or experiment outside of campus for a month. Formerly, they took a Western Heritage course during freshman year, but this has been replaced by a semester-long Intellectual Foundations course reading a diverse sampling of great texts since the BLM moment in 2020. Students study abroad at high rates. Business, voice, music and theater, Japanese and Chinese, graphic design, political science, neuroscience, chemistry, environmental science, criminal justice, nursing, engineering, psych, and communication are popular. The senior thesis is an important part of its baccalaureate programs, paralleling the role of the dissertation in doctorate programs. Carthage is more open to green-lighting self-designed majors than some colleges.

Apply anytime after Junior year; J-term 1/6, S 2/3, F 7/29

Carthage College programs (more info) Carthage is the headquarters of the the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium. The physics program has a nationally recognized undergraduate program in space science, whch allows students to be funded by NASA and researchers worldwide. Students conduct experiments in zero gravity (bit.ly/carthagespace) and design experiments to launch on rockets from a NASA facility in Virginia. They are currently developing an imaging satellite to launch to the International Space Station and study carbon sequestration in tropical forests.

The computer science program has small class sizes and focuses on preparing students for lifelong learning in a rapidly developing field. It emphasizes “hands-on, project-based coursework”. Students complete a software development project as their senior thesis, which serves as a highlight in their portfolio for potential employers, and are placed in internships. They have access to the computation and visualization lab for computational research projects.

Associate-level certification in game development is offered.

91% of pre-med students are accepted to med school, compared to 41% nationwide. The accredited engineering program features two to three years of project experience.

Note about applying free: use code BRIGHTFUTURE for the fall 2024 application cycle. Search for a fee waiver on Twitter or Instagram around July to September as a rising Senior.

The lake views (bit.ly/carthagescene) The lakeshore campus does still have a bit of a beach, though it has been receding, so the beach chairs are on the lawn. The train to the Windy City is $10 per weekend (unlimited rides).

Lake Forest College

Admit: 60% Size: 2k (50k) Price: 22-28k Lake Forest, IL Lake Forest takes its name from a forested suburb 40 minutes north of Chicago in the affluent North Shore. It is walking distance to the beach, the site of its homecoming bash, and close to many preserves, including Middle Fork savannah forest preserve (with oak savannah and sedge meadows, which attract the most subtle and recherché of species, and 0.04 of the last square miles of the rarest type of grassland, known mainly from ancient diaries) and Fort Sheridian, a bluff overlooking the largest public beach in the area, which is known for its bird migrations. 10 minutes north is North Chicago and the National Museum of the American Sailor.

Neuroscience and experimental psychology, economics, sociology, international relations, political science, art and philosophy are some of the popular majors at Lake Forest.

Communication and philosophy degrees can be earned in three years instead of four, and cooperative arrangements for graduate degrees exist with colleges including the Monterey School of International Relations. The college ranks 27th (between WashU and UMichigan) in the WSJ’s outcome-focused rankings and 1st in socioeconomic mobility among liberal arts colleges. The Forester core curriculum requires one course each in major subject areas, and Lake

Forest encourages taking advantage of the relative flexibility of its curriculum to double major. Extensive research opportunities are offered with faculty and students regularly appear as co-authors on their papers. A quantitative data research scholarship complements Lake Forest’s urban archeology and anthropology programs in Chicago. Students can stay downtown and take classes at partner institutions for a semester, as well as take classes that travel to the city.

A strength of Lake Forest is its experiment-based psychology and neuroscience programs. While these majors are often based in lectures and revolve around social theory at other colleges, students at Lake Forest learn about how the brain works and how to conduct research, and many are inspired to continue their studies in grad school. The majority of courses are lab-based. Students are encouraged to contact a professor whose lab suits their interests to conduct research (bit.ly/lfneurolabs). They can pursue further research at other institutions and are expected to complete a thesis researching a topic of their choice. The neuroscience program is also its locus for cognitive science, the holistic study of the mind from multiple perspectives. Numerous talks and speeches are given on the topic of neuroscience.

Other majors include social justice, religions, publishing, new media art, digital design, urban studies and American studies. Alumni include the director of the Guggenheim.

Apply by 11/15, 1/15 or 2/15, supplement for nursing

Bradley University Admit: 75% Size: 4k (112k) Price: 18-25k Peoria, IL A college with a party-school reputation, strong business and communication schools, and a commitment to equal access by both sexes from its founding, Bradley might remind some of a college in central New York.

Students are laid-back and come from the southern midwest (the suburbs of Chicago and St. Louis and the Quad Cities). One of its highlights is the Turner School, the first independent school of entrepreneurship, which allows students to work across campus and not only with business majors, and emphasizes experiential learning.

(The Close School at Drexel was founded three months later in December 2012.) The Big Idea Competition allows any student to submit a two-page description of an idea to be evaluated by a panel of judges. (Similar programs are found at Cornell and Brigham Young.) Bradley founded the first school dedicated to sports communication. It has strong animation, interactive media, game design, journalism and public relations programs, and the nation’s top speech team.

The well-known engineering program includes civil, industrial, mechanical, electrical and construction majors, although its namesake has fled to Texas. Sizeable computer science, nursing, psychology and art programs are offered, though reviews vary. The food is unremarkable. Peoria is a typical American city, ideal for market testing and ventures.

Apply by 7/1-11/1 (R: EA), 2/1 (R: RD), or 4/1 as available

Valparaiso University

Admit: 94% Size: 2.5k (35k) Price: 22-24k Valparaiso, IN Valparaiso, so named for the town of “Valpo” on the bend of Lake Michigan, is 30 minutes from the striking and expansive slopes of Indiana Dunes, the state’s only national park.

The resilient institution has been coed from its founding. Its campus has striking geometrical architecture, including a cube glass library with fireplaces. Students research extensively with faculty, so much so that half are inspired to go on to grad school. In one lab, students create experiments to probe the question, “How do plants choose which mates to create seeds with?” (“That research area is, from an agricultural perspective, world-changing. It is also paradigm-shifting for many students.”) “In our curriculum, we begin to give students more and more control over the scientific endeavor until, by the time they’re seniors, they’re operating as scientists”. The engineering program (civil, electrical & computer, biomedical) is a highlight, with its 400 students and its co-op partnerships, scientific computing education and labs being strengths. The highly recruited meteorology program has extensive electives, a spectacular lab and storm-chasing vehicles. 85% of students are accepted to med school and 99% of nursing students find placement. Psychology has an emphasis on social fieldwork.

Apply by 11/1 (F, S priority), 7/26 (R) or 1/1 (S)

Special programs at Valparaiso Valpo has one of the oldest honors colleges in the US, established in 1967. It offers excellent advising and students go on to top grad schools. Honors students are exempt from the core curriculum. Instead, they study great texts, create a play and participate in ethics debates, and attend addresses.

A scholarship is offered to attend a semester at Cambridge.

At the end of their four years, honors students attend a senior banquet where they reminiscence about memories.

Prospective students who are first-gen or eligible for a Pell Grant can apply to the two-year Access College program, which provides support to students who might struggle otherwise. They receive an associates degree in University Studies and can continue their education if they wish.

William Penn University

Admit: 58% Size: 1.5k (55k) Price: 21-23k

Oskaloosa, IA

Named after the prominent Quaker, William Penn stands out for its “positive learning environment.” A tour can be seen at wmpenn.edu/a-william-pennuniversity-story. For a small college, it has a robust sports scene, with teams including bowling, wrestling, shotgun sports, and cheerleading and dance for both sexes. The most common major is elementary education, followed by business, crimonology and new media. Human services, CS, SE, nursing and industrial technology are offered.

Apply before August (R) (not on Common App)

Culver-Stockton College Admit: 97% Size: 1k (3k) Price: 21-25k Canton, MO A college of the Christian Church, a liberal and syncretic denomination of the first ascension, Culver-Stockton was founded by a church leader who would go on to also found Eureka and Columbia (MO): “Here on the summit of two of a circle of hills, divided by a vale so virgin in its primitive luxuriance... are to arise the structures dedicated to the equal culture of the male and female mind.” It is in a Mississippi town across the river from the floodplain forest and slow-moving backwaters of the Great River National Refuge, with nesting red-shouldered hawks and bald eagles and flocks of finely scalloped ducks.

Its police department has a loose reputation. CSC promotes experiental learning, including through its Idea Center, and has a familylike atmosphere with the president described as a “grandfather”. Gen ed requirements are one course in each subject area, skills courses, and events. Student life is Greek-centered and dining is basic and homestyle. CSC involves itself in the economy of the region through the Great Rivers Institute, students are involved in research (including in genomics), business courses emphasize tech application, and the honors program is highly personalized.

Apply by 7/27 (fall) or 1/3 (spring) (hear back in one week)

Principia College

Admit: 48% Size: 300 (500) Price: 10-20k? Elsah, IL The nation’s only college of Christian Science, Principia has a lower admit rate in part because it attracts applicants who know it is their top choice.

It does not promote its religious nature, however, with only one Bible studies class, and an admonition to follow the Golden Rule. Although small, it is well-loved by its students, and its 6:1 faculty-student ratio allows it to offer a full spread of majors and activities. The charity of its donors makes it a top 10 best-value LAC according to US News, ranking it with 10% admit rate schools (along with St. Olaf). The historical campus, which has yielded mammoth tusks, is pretty in a New England way and in a wooded area 1 hour from St. Louis.

Digital media & journalism majors are required to intern and benefit from Principia’s relationship with The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning publication known for coining the term “McCarthyism”. Experiences in radio broadcasting and photojournalism are offered. The center for entrepreneurship allows students to bounce ideas off business professionals and win prizes. Engineering majors complete their studies with distance learning (with in-person proctors) from North Dakota to earn an accredited degree in civil, chemical, electrical, mechanical, or petroleum engineering. Art, dance, and environmental studies are prominent, and canonical courses in philosophy, political science, international relations, and sociology are offered.

Dwindling numbers of Christian Scientists have caused Principia to advertise that it has “students from a variety of faith backgrounds”. Its finances are certainly sound, with its endowment per capita with the likes of Rockefeller (grad school), Harvard, Stanford and Amherst.

The dorms are cottage-like with a village green.

Apply by 12/1 (EA) or 3/1 (preferred RD)

Loyola University Maryland Admit: 83% Size: 4k (576k) Price: 24-29k Baltimore, MD The first Jesuit university to be named after the founder of the Society of Jesus, Loyola is in a suburban area with courtyard gardens and 12 minutes from Baltimore and 5 minutes or a 30 minute walk from John Hopkin’s library. Loyola excels at advising, including on the nature of different majors. Every first year chooses a course pairing (two introductory courses from different fields) to take. They can attend a fair where they will meet with chairs from every major and minor at Loyola and even declare their major that same day.

Loyola stands out for outcomes, with high return on investment and 98% of graduates employed within their year of graduation. It has a dedicated alumni networking website, Loyola Connects. Science students can apply for a summer research fellowship. The core includes Theology Matters and Foundations of Philosophy. Honors students take a curriculum based on great texts (the Human Drama).

Engineering, applied physics and math, international business, forensic science, digital media and journalism are offered (business and speech pathology are popular). The housing and dining are highly rated. Overall the college is somewhat quirky, preppy and focused on guidance. A fee waiver is sent when you visit through loyola.edu/visit/virtual.

Apply by 11/15 (ED/EA/spring) or 1/15 (ED/RD)

Loyola University Chicago Admit: 79% Size: 12k (2697k) Price: 32-36k Chicago, IL One of the largest Catholic universities, Loyola is 16 minutes north of Chicago and ranks the highest for undergrad teaching in the city. It is close to trails, a Whole Foods and multiple beaches, including Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary. All students are required to take a course that takes place outside the classroom, and service-learning, research-based and internship-based courses are offered. They receive a transit all-pass. F:M is 2:1 Apply by 12/1 (scholarships), 1/6 (spring) or 4/1 (as available)

Loyola University New Orleans Admit: 78% Size: 3.5k (377k) Price: 19-22k New Orleans, LA Loyola features castle-like architecture and palm trees. Its campus is contiguous with Tulane's and as with Tulane (7.5k), it is across the street from Audubon Park. Loyola’s art program is prominent and its alumni include top-selling jazz artist Harry Connick. 1 in 2 Loyolas are in-state compared to 1 in 4 Tulanians. F:M is 2:1 (Tulane does not fare much better).

11/15 (EA), 12/1 (Jan.), 2/15 (scholarship), 4/15 or as available

Marquette University Admit: 87% Size: 7.5k (569k) Price: 15-20k Milwaukee, WI The first coed Catholic college and the largest private college in Wisconsin, Marquette takes its faith seriously, hosting a chapel from Renaissance Italy. It is at the heart of Milwaukee and a 5 minute drive or 30 minute walk from the shore, with a beach and lighthouse. The college emphasizes experiental learning and an ethic of doing good. 3 in 4 students complete internships and 4 in 5 participate in community service. Service-learning courses, allowing students to take classes within the community, are offered. Marquette maintains expansive lists of research oppportunities, both inside the college (bit.ly/marquette research) and outside of it. Honors students can take honors versions of courses and apply for special research fellowships. The unusual Marquette core curriculum focuses on civic responsibility and awareness. Students take five special foundational courses such as “methods of inquiry” and “principles of sociology”, choose one field to do a deep dive into (which could be fulfilled through their major), and take one course on how their studies could be applied to enduring issues. Marquette has a large engineering program with co-ops and a strength in electrical and computer engineering, and business, nursing and communication are prominent. It founded a center for peacemaking in 2008.

The library is open 24/7, and Marquette has a top art

museum. There are diverse residence options (bit.ly/marquettedorms), and the dining is decent. Men’s basketall is successful and competes in Division I with other large Catholic colleges in the northeast. Marquette has not had a football team since 1960. A rather large variety of club sports are offered, including curling, horse-riding, boxing, fencing, gymnastics, ice hockey, Quidditch, climbing, skiing, sailing, spikeball, water polo, waterskiing, wakeboarding, log rolling, jiu-jitsu, tae kwon do, and kul sool won. (It directed me to an inspirational speech when I queried the latter.)

Alumni from Marquette include the conservative chief justice of Wisconsin since 2021, Obama’s ambassador to Ukraine and then Russia, controversial libertarian Wisconsin governor Scott Walker (2011-2018, now serving as president of Young America’s Foundation), the director of economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute (noted as “the most important conservative reformer” in 2013), the caucus whip of the Congressional Black Caucus and the dean of Wisconsin delegation to the House (also the first black woman from Wisconsin), the first Latino in the Wisconsin Legislature and the first Latino in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals since 2023, the Republican governor of Guam from 2003 to 2011, the founder of ShoreBank (“Let’s change the world”, the largest community development bank at the time of its closing after the Great Recession), the star of the reality TV show The Profit (saving small businesses, running until 2021) and the CEO of RV companies Camping World and Good Sam Enterprises, a founder of Texas Instruments, and infamous Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was central to the Red Scare during the Cold War. Apply by 11/1 (spring), 11/15 (EA) or 1/15 (RD)

Creighton University Admit: 67% Size: 4k (487k) Price: 27-31k Omaha, NE Creighton touts its accounting program. Students receive free membership to the Nebraska Society of CPAs and 100% of graduates are employed by the fall of their graduation. They can earn a masters of accounting in four years, the same time frame in which other students would be earning a bachelors.

Nursing graduates have a 93% NCLEX pass rate.

Creighton has an established pipeline for students to indicate interest in participating in research, with spreadsheets of current opportunities with faculty (bit.ly/creightonresearch). Half of students conduct research, and completing internships is de rigeur for all students.

Creighton is the highest-ranking college in Omaha, which has multiple Fortune 500 companies (although Milwaukee has the most per capita, and the Rust Belt, Connecticut Valley and Silicon Valley predominate), and is no. 1 for Goldwater (science research) scholar production among Catholic colleges. A third of students are involved in fraternity life.

Alumni include far-right representative Gosar, the senator preceding Ben Sasse, the founders of TD Ameritrade (one of the big four brokerages) and Guggenheim Partners (owners of the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers), a pioneering black businesswoman, and Bernie’s 25 year-old press secretary, who went on to serve as Biden’s youngest advisor.

11/1 (EA), 12/1 (priority, scholarship), 12/15 (spring), 5/1 (final)

Regis University

Admit: 76% Size: 2.5k (711k) Price: 21-23k Denver, CO Regis has an eclectic history and has long been a pioneer in nontraditional education. Half of the students attending college at Regis are family firsts. Three year programs in biology, social work, interdisciplinary studies and psychology with minors are offered, with the option to earn a masters in counseling or communication in four years.

Regis has one of the state’s top nursing programs, which coordinates with Creighton for clinical placements. High schoolers can apply for direct admission for pharmacy, which means they will complete their graduate studies at Regis and become a doctor in five years (instead of having to apply to grad school and taking eight years). Regis’ computer science program is accredited, which is not necessrily common at LACs, although engineering is dual-degree. Regis hosts a startup competition in which ten teams win funding and working space. The core curriculum is comprehensive. 13 Nobel Peace laureates are reputed to have spoken at Regis since 1996, though it makes information obscure and centers seem to have gone defunct. Ocean Vuong visited its Center for the Study of the War Experience in 2023. Alumni include the founders of Focus on the Family and the Heritage Foundation (the main conservative think tank), and the lieutenant governor of Colorado (serving with Jared Polis).

10/1 (ED), 12/1 (nursing), 1/12 (spring), 4/22 (scholarship), 7/26

Carroll College Admit: 78% Size: 1k (33k) Price: 16-23k Helena, MT The college of western, mountaineous Montana, Carroll is just a 30 minute 2 mile walk from the trailhead of Mount Helena, and nearby the vast wildernesses of the northern rockies. The Carroll Adventure and Mountaineering Program offers fly and ice fishing, mountain biking, skiing and the like.

Carroll is the top college in Montana (a state with a total population comparable to Dallas or Austin). Helena is the state capital, giving students opportunities for internships in the state government and in wildlife agencies. It has a comprehensive core curriculum with two philosophy and religion courses required each. The honors program is a secular Great Books curriculum examining the search for knowledge and meaning, with discussion-based courses on Greco-Roman thought, Christian-medieval thought, Renaissance thought and Restoration and Enlightenment thought. Animal therapy is a popular major, and Carroll had the first anthrozoology program for undergraduates in the US (offered in some form at Earlham and Canisius as well). It focuses on dog-human bonds and horse-human bonds. Jobs may be found in zoos, wildlife rehabilitation, police and the military, or animal training. Computer science has an applied and project-based focus, and civil engineering is offered.

11/1 (EA, direct entry nursing, spr.), 12/15 (spr.), 2/1 (RD), 6/15

University of Scranton Admit: 84% Size: 4k (562k) Price: 29-34k Scranton, PA As Joe Biden so often reminds us, Scranton is a working-class, average-joe sort of place, with a coal-mining heritage. It is the fatherland of both Biden and Hillary Clinton’s avidly conservative father (although it is to be noted that Biden earned his degree at Syracuse, which has more of a party-school reputation, because of his then-girlfriend). The vague and non-noteably northeastern location of Scranton may be why it was chosen as the site of “The Office”.

Nursing, criminal justice, human services and political science are among the popular majors. Electrical and computer engineering are offered. Scranton has many honors societies, including a chapter of the Jesuit national honor society, founded at Marquette. It has a comprehensive core curriculum. The honors program “stresses independent work, giving our most able students the opportunity to work one-on-one with professors. Students develop tutorials and projects that are uniquely theirs.” Scranton is next to a brookside path, and near a path around wooded Lake Scranton and up a heath barren preserve. It has decent dining and dorms. 80% of students are accepted to med school. Alumni In the popular imagination include Dunder Mufflin employees Ryan Howard and Jim Halpert.

11/15 (EA, med majors), 12/15 (spr.), 12/15-7/27 (as available)

John Carroll University

Admit: 82% Size: 3k (487k) Price: 25-28k Uni. Heights, OH Named after the first American bishop, who administered the American Catholic church from 1789 to 1808 and founded Georgetown, Carroll is located in the sprawling exurbs of Cleveland, walking distance from Target, Whole Foods, Walmart and other markers of civilization, and 30 minutes from downtown. It has solid undergraduate teaching and the majority of students intern. Common employers can be viewed at jcu.edu/outcomes.

Apply by 11/15 (EA), 2/1 (scholarships and aid), or 7/21

Xavier University

Admit: 67% Size: 5k (309k) Price: 26-27k Cincinnati, OH Xavier is on the outskirts of Cincinatti, a city known for its quality of living and affordability at the intersection of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. It is 10 minutes from downtown and the 2nd largest public library in the US. Honors students can take honors classes in any subject or in the data science, business, or politics, philosophy & the public program, and have access to the quiet honors lounge.

Xavier’s business programs are highly rated. Its nursing is “holistic”, along with Augustana’s (99) and Duquesne’s (99).

Apply by 12/1 (nursing, honors, scholarship), 1/5 (spring), 7/21

Canisius University

Admit: 78% Size: 2k (277k) Price: 18-21k Buffalo, NY Canisius is in Buffalo, the largest city in Upstate proper, and a symbol of westward industrialization with an iconic art deco city square. It is across the street from a .5 mile square green space and 10 minutes from downtown, the Niagara River and Canada or SUNY Buffalo. It has top CPA pass rates and an 86% med school admit rate. Peace studies and zoo biology are offered and it hosts WNY’s ROTC hub. Alumni include a Nat Geo mapper.

Apply by 1/15, 3/1 (late) or later as space permits.

Le Moyne University

Admit: 78% Size: 3k (146k) Price: 24-25k Syracuse, NY Coed from its founding in 1946, Le Moyne has a focus on women in STEM and has had the first laywoman president of a Jesuit college since 2014. It is 8 minutes from Syracuse, walking distance from Trader Joes, Panera and home improvement stores, and near vast natural areas, including a personal favorite, Green Lakes State Park.

It is 62% female and its first dean of women founded the UN Development Fund for Women. The dining and dorms are relatively nice and diverse. Engineering partners with ’cuse.

Apply by 11/15 (EA), 12/1 (spr.), 3/1 or later as space permits

College of the Holy Cross Admit: 36% Size: 3k (30k) Price: 18-34k Worcester, MA The oldest Catholic college in New England, Holy Cross looks like it belongs in Britain, with dark brick, ivy-covered buildings and a lofty Romanesque chapel. The Jesuit school has been called “the cradle of the Catholic Left” because of its emphasis on social justice and liberation. The College of the Holy Cross has maintained its focus on holistic developmental preparation for a cohort of students by remaining an undergraduate-only college (making it the only Jesuit college to do so, and putting it in contrast to other elite Jesuit institutions). Students are not allowed to bring cars to its campus as lowerclassmen, accentuating its boarding school II feel, though stores are walking distance and a limited number of free shuttles are run. The culture on campus is described as active and fun-loving, despite its lack of Greek life (perhaps with that ingenué you tend to see in blissfully unscarred homeschooled or insular Catholic school students), and students root on the Crusaders, its Division I sports teams. In spite of or perhaps because of its ethos (about as WASP as an Irish Catholic college can get), Holy Cross does make an effort to reach out to and mentor underserved communities, and it has been led under its first

black and first lay president since 2021, but some say that its saviorism hasn’t helped its sense of exclusivity. The majority of students participate in community service, and among Jesuit colleges, Holy Cross has the highest percentage of graduates who go on to serve in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

The social sciences, such as PLSC, ECON (there is no business major), SOCI, PSYC, PHIL, and classics are popular.

CHEM and BIO are also robust, and CS is offered. Alumni include Bob Casey and Peter Welch (Democratic senators representing PA and VT), Jon Favreau (the speechwriter who helped establish Obama’s early reputation as an orator), and Clarence Thomas (who has been the most anti-affirmative action justice on the Supreme Court in part because of his college experiences). It held influence during the 1960s with the author of The Other America (a founder of the DSA or Democratic Socialists, affiliated with Bernie and The Squad, and with chapters across college campuses), the leader of violent religious opposition to the Vietnam War, and the best-known figure of its psychedelic subculture (“turn on, tune in, drop out”). In 2022, Holy Cross named its science center after its alum Anthony Fauci—a choice that will surely be endearing to students who went through the lockdown, and a move that is bold to make given that he has been a flashpoint for controversies as the leader of the Fed’s response to AIDS and COVID-19 (although the endearment resulting from latter controversy has helped smooth over the former one for a liberal establishment that never truly saw eye-to-eye with the LGBT movement). Some viewers may double-take at this honoring of an advocate of technocracy (“Dr. Fauci could have said a lot more”) and bioethics.

Apply by 11/15 (ED) or 1/15 (ED/RD). See FI.

Seton Hill University

Admit: 78% Size: 1.5k (15k) Price: 25-27k Greensburg, PA An hour or so east of Pittsburgh, on the site of the first national convention of the Republican Party, Seton Hill is named after a pioneering female saint, the first saint born in America. Seton Hill offered new students iPads when they were first launched in 2010, and now gives every student a Macbook Air to keep. Art is prominent (students complete a fieldwork experience, the art campus is shown below), as is its successful physicians assistant program. Histotechnology majors, lab specialists who learn to prepare tissues for examination, take their fourth year at UPittsburgh. Students describe each other as friendly.

Females outnumber males 2:1 (it became coed in 2002 but already has successful and full-fledged men’s sports teams).

It has top-flight dining with dishes such as beet and orange salad, asiago bisque and banana pudding, and some dorms have large windows. Seton Hill built the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education in response to Pope Paul’s advocacy and offered free Holocaust education training in 2023. It has the only dance education program in the state.

Apply by 1/14 (spring) or 7/26 (fall)

Seton Hall University

Admit: 75% Size: 6k (307k) Price: 25-27k Newark, PA Seton Hall was one of the first Catholic colleges in the US, established by the Diocese of Newark (the first diocesal college) after the Council of Baltimore sought to create Catholic colleges in 1852. It is 8 minutes from South Mountain Reservation with a waterfall, 20 minutes from Newark and 50 minutes from NYC. South Orange is a picturesque-ish, liberal town, with gaslit street lamps.

Seton Hall is a commuter school, meaning it is quiet on the weekends. Labor and industrial relations, health law, criminal justice, social work, international relations, international and homeland security, journalism, IT, and special education are popular. Catholic studies, creative writing, Asian studies, quantitative economics are also offered. Numerous nursing specialties are offered and students have a 95% NCLEX pass rate. The engineering and AI dual-degree programs partner with the Stevens Institute of Technology. The journalism program includes digital, sound production, film and TV specializations. The career center and diplomacy and politics schools offer internships. Dorms are decent. The honors program is based in great texts (shu.edu/honors).

Alumni include governor and 2024 pragmatic Republican candidate Chris Christie, and professor Samuel Alito became a fiery conservative/post-libertarian SCOTUS judge.

Apply by 11/15, 12/15 (EA), 2/1, 3/1 (RD), or 12/1 (spring)

Alvernia University Admit: 59% Size: 2k (95k) Price: 28-29k Reading, PA Reading is the hometown of Taylor Swift and John Barasso (the Republican Senate chair), known for its miles of bike trails, many pretzel bakeries and railroads. It had the first outlet store (store selling its own branded merchandise) in the United States. It is one hour from Philadelphia. Half the students are in nursing, and lab science, healthcare, HR and CS are offered, as are some liberal arts majors such as philosophy and theater.

The downtown center houses Alvernia’s business incubator and the labs for its new electrical, industrial and mechanical engineering programs, selected through consultation with the needs of the community. Engineering majors work on design projects for local industry partners from their first year, and complete a semester or summer-long internship.

Lunch-and-learns feature local industry members looking for interns and local engineers giving examples of their work.

The program features small class sizes and athlete-friendly scheduling. A Franciscan university, Alvernia has a comprehensive core curriculum including two religion and philosophy courses each and fourty hours of community service. Students describe themselves as welcoming, helpful and supportive. The dining features classic and Millennial fare. Student can apply to research over the summer.

Apply by 12/1 (occupational therapy), 1/25 (spring) or 7/28

Albright University Admit: 85% Size: 1.5k (95k) Price: 20-27k Reading, PA Half of students combine majors at Albright, a school known for its arts (including fashion, game, and music technology) and nationally reknown theater programs, as well as its programs in neuro (one of the first), industrial psych, soc, and child and family studies. Other majors include cybercrime, sustainable business, American civilization, evolution, Holocaust studies, marine studies, urban affairs, and black music. Its philosophy program is more casual and less classical than Alvernia’s.

The course requirements for some majors can be low (seven, barely more than the six that may be required for minors at other colleges), putting less pressure on students for their completion. The general education requirements are relatively limited and interesting. Students take seminars (such as neuroethics, psychoanalysis, perfect children—the new eugenics, community politics in Pennsylvania), 12 events such as current commentary, presentations or plays, and one class each in several subject areas. Students can pursue unusual research with faculty by in January or the summer and publish their results. It is a top performer for social mobility. Alumni include community activist/senator John Fetterman, the mayor of Lancaster, the manager of Atlantic Records, a public artist, a cultural biographer, a creator of the parlor game Six Degrees and a founder of Youtube.

Apply by 1/16 (spring) or 7/26

Clark University

Admit: 50% Size: 2.5k (206k) Price: 24-26k Worcester, MA Worcester (Woohster) is the largest population center between West Mass and Boston, surrounded by woods and lakes. It is known as the industrial heart of the commonwealth, has a diverse and international population and invented the yellow smiley face. Many undergrad students at Clark can take a fifth year on a full scholarship to earn a master’s degree. Psychology, the social sciences (economics, political science and sociology), the arts (interactive media) and environmental science are sizeable.

One of the first graduate or research-focused schools in the US, Clark was the site of Freud’s only lectures in the country, and its first president founded the American Psychology Association. Masters students have included the chair of the Council of Foreign Relations and president of Columbia (succeeded by Cordier), and a Berkeley activist who founded the nation’s Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Other alumni have invented the rocket, birth control pill and wind chill factor. Clark offers decent dining and its meal plans are allyou-can-eat. It emphasizes opportunities to learn your major through experiences in the area. It lacks fraternities and 68% of students live on campus. Students can seem down to earth (or a bit sour and jaded if you like), and many Mass or NE schools have students applying for no particular reason.

Apply by 11/15 (ED/EA) or 1/15 (ED/RD)

Bellarmine University

Admit: 88% Size: 2.5k (629k) Price: 19-24k Louisville, KY Founded in 1950 with the Catholic University of America studied as a model, Bellarmine is Kentucky’s primary Catholic college, 15 minutes from its largest city and adjacent to sizeable green areas, including the Louisville Nature Center.

It has rapidly expanded in the 21st century, transitioning to Division I sports. It was associated with Thomas Merton, the mystic known for his 1948 book Seven Storey Mountain, emblematic of the late 1940s (with its struggle to answer a spiritual call and go out into the world to make a change), and holds 50,000 Merton-related items at its Merton Center.

Bellarmine offers a standard spread of majors and minors, and students can take two classes per term at seven other colleges in the area. It emphasizes student outcomes, including how 98% of graduates report being placed in jobs or grad school by the fall. The computer science program reports being offered more internships by companies in the area than they can fill. Bellarmine offers a specialty in psychology for organizational and business settings, which requires an internship in a human resources position. It has won the Kentucky Psychological Association’s Psych Bowl 10 times in the last 12 years. Alumni include Frank Schmidt, the best known industrial and organizational psychologist.

EA: 11/1, Scholarship: 12/1, RD: 2/1, PT/honors: 3/1

Benedictine College

Admit: 100% Size: 2.5k (11k) Price: 24-27k Atchinson, KS The only “faithfully Catholic” college in Kansas, Benedictine is in a small town on the Missouri River known for being the headquarters of free-state guerillas during Bleeding Kansas and the childhood home of tomboy Amelia Earhart, an hour north of Topeka, KS and Kansas City, MO. It is known for its engineering (100 students, mostly mechanical) and architecture (12 students) programs. Business, elementary teaching, nursing, theology, criminology and art are common choices. It has a 100% med school acceptance rate and is the top college in Kansas.

Students of any major can enroll in the Great Books program, guided by its director. The faculty is praised, and students can participate in research projects, with those completing multiple projects across years becoming Discovery Scholars.

Constitutional fellows intern in DC, freedom fellows intern in King’s Scholar Program, media fellows are assisted with finding internships, and John Paul II fellows intern in Poland; all participate in special events and projects. The initiative Transforming Culture in America seeks to combat the “posttruth” era. Benedictine has a new science center and library.

Its semester program in a villa near Florence is 2-3k. Since 2000, alumni achievements have included winning the Nobel Peace Prize and serving as bank presidents 13x, college presidents 7x, and Kansas commerce secretaries 2x.

EA: 11/15, RD: 12/1, spring: 1/10, include senior grades: 7/27

Belmont Abbey University Admit: 97% Size: 1.5k (15k) Price: 21-24k Belmont, NC Belmont Abbey is the first and only Catholic college in North Carolina, founded by monks from Saint Vincent.

The small and devoutly religious college is in the wooded suburbs next to the Catawba in central Carolina, 20 minutes west of Charlotte (one of the fastest growest cities in the US and the largest banking center outside NYC), close to the National Whitewater Center, and walking distance from Aldi and Walmart. Internships are provided through the career office’s networking. It includes a great books college.

Apply by 10/31 (EA), 12/24 (Jan entry), 7/31 (rolling)

Queens University of Charlotte Admit: 71% Size: 1.5k (880k) Price: 25-31k Charlotte, NC Queens University is the main private college in Charlotte, and located in Myers Park, an affluent, tree-lined suburb with historic architecture. 100% of students intern and complete a capstone and community experience. Nursing, communication and art (interior design and creative writing) are popular. Queens is 1.7:1 female to male (as a residual of being women’s only until 1987, or its name, although many things are figuratively female, or majors). Alumni can access career services for life.

ED, EA, nursing, scholarship: 11/15, EA: 1/18, RD: 3/15

Catholic University of America Admit: 86% Size: 3k (713k) Price: 24-31k D.C., DC

The second Council of Baltimore (a national meeting in the city of the sole Catholic state in America) planned a national Catholic college for the United States, and the Catholic University of America was established in the third council with the support of the Pope. It is next to a green area and Brookland, the D.C. neighborhood adjacent to Maryland that is known as “Little Rome” because it has 60 Catholic institutions.

The CUA was the first college to integrate in D.C. apart from HBC Howard. It maintains campuses in Rome and the Hispanic Southwest. The college controversially bans speakers who have expressed support for abortion (it even tried to prohibit the formation of a chapter of the NAACP because the organization is pro-choice) and in 2009 banned political candidates from speaking on campus altogether.

80% of students are Catholic. The location of CUA is a great strength for finding internships and other experiences.

Students are placed in learning communities with whom they can go on excursions and dinner events in D.C. Honors student study “the crisis of the contemporary political morality ushered in by the social sciences as they developed during the 19th century from assumptions of rationalism and modern scientific naturalism”, the analysis of data in the

social sciences using computers, the relationship of the family and the market, the history of Christianity in stages (Jesus and Muhammad, Charlemagne and Chaucer, Nietzsche and Wagner), Aristolinean philosophy, environmental policy, and the traditions underlying and crises affecting the Church today. The core curriculum is simple, including religion and philosophy but only requiring one course in each major subject area otherwise.

Architecture, philosophy, political science and history are prominent in addition to its sizeable business and nursing programs. It has a significant engineering program, including mechanical, aerospace, civil, construction, structural, transportation, biomedical, electrical and environmental engineering. Other majors include archaeology, medieval and Byzantine studies, art history, Asian, Africana, Arabic, Islamic, Hispanic, Irish, Italian and European studies, business and public policy, business and society, big data for economics, data analytics for business, environmental chemistry, computer science, conducting, bass, harp, organ, sculpture, digital art, dance, crime and justice, global migration & refugees, Greek and Latin, health policy, HR management, music education, international business and economics, space weather, Spanish for healthcare or international service, video production and digital storytelling, world politics, sustainability, and technology management.

Senator Casey from PA (JD), the education director at the Cato Institute, and Maureen Dowd, a NYT columnist known for her acerbic humor and moderate-veiled-as-sharp views (apart from perhaps her critiques of Hillary) are alumni.

Apply by 11/1 (EA/ED), 2/1 (RD/ED) or 11/15 (spring)

Christendom College Admit: 85% Size: 550 (15k) Price: 19-23k? Front Royal, VA Christendom college was founded as a reaction to the liberalization of Catholic colleges in the 1960s, part of a broader societal movement around its founding in 1977. It is described as an enterprise of Triumph magazine, founded by a devout, first-generation Catholic (the faith is often stronger in converts than in legacies) who was dismayed by the politics-first stance often taken by right-wingers, such as those at the National Review, that one could take exception to the Catholic Church’s policies (which are often left-leaning on issues of economy and community compared to Protestants’s). The definitive guide to Catholic colleges says that “While some colleges in this Guide may match its Catholic commitment, it is unlikely that any exceeds it”. Christendom is one of the few colleges that refuse to take funding from the government.

Christendom notes how the religious affiliations of colleges have often become token, secondary to their mission as research universities, with no more than two courses in “religious studies” and two in philosophy required of the undergraduate while other subjects are virtually the same as at secular universities. It decries how “the deep wellsprings of Christian virtue, which should animate common courtesy between men and women and civil decency between individuals of diverse background, were replaced on most college campuses by the oppressive atmosphere of ‘political

correctness’ – the power politics of gender, race, and ‘lifestyle’”, and sees moral relativism and puny ideological discommitment in the Land O’Lakes statement of 1967, which declared autonomy from the Catholic Church and was the marking post for the majority of Catholic colleges to disaffiliate themselves over the next few years.

Like most conservative colleges, Christendom exists in a countercultural position, but in a way that may appear less activist and more insular than most. It has extensive general requirements, including six religious and six philosophy courses, which often involve reading great texts. It is an enthusiastic proponent of the power of the liberal arts, and attempts to allay the fears of those who may find them less than resonant or legitimate in the modern world (not unlike how it defies the embarassment of having faith in magic things in a modern world). It does not provide internet access in dorms, hinting at the risk of “bad things,” and opposite-sex visitation is prohibited, although it has seen its share of scandals. In-person rather than virtual interaction is encouraged—"Education takes place not only in the classroom but also in the chapel, at mealtime, in leisure time, and throughout the day”—and Catholic traditions such as Mass are respected and well-celebrated.

The most popular majors are history, philosophy and political science. It does not offer scientific or applied disciplines, which it calls “disciplines that came… later” in the same way “getting a job is all good and fine, but has to come… later”.

Christendom is in a pastoral area an hour west of DC, though it does not appear to take advantage of this location.

ED: 12/1, RD: 3/1. Not on the Common App.

Thomas Aquinas College

Admit: 85% Size: 500 (31k) Price: 22-23k Santa Paula, CA A Great Books-only, Socratic-style college, Thomas Aquinas was founded in 1971, “a time when many Catholic institutions were straying from their loyalty to the teaching Church.” The radically counter-(counter-)cultural founding and governing document of Thomas Aquinas dates to 1968 and calls for the pursuit of universal truths with intrinsic value.

TAC prides itself in fostering deep thinking. All classes are roundtable discussions. TAC does a nice job of displaying information on its website: “Seminal documents” discusses its philosophy, “Why we study...” justifies its choices of works, and “Syllabus” lists them. Most of the works are of secular interest. Scientific works like Elements of Chemistry and Plant Hybridization and classics like Divine Comedy and Metaphysics are the bulk of its choices, but there are also some literary and religious works. Chapel is held multiple times a day, but attendance is not required. The second campus at the intersection of MA-VT-NH is on the riverside and legally only accepts Catholics. There are no transfers.

Apply by 11/1 (priority) or later

Thomas More College

Admit: n/a Size: 89 (26k) Price: 11-12k Merrimack, NH A summer-camp sized college three miles north of Nashua (91k) and 16 miles south of (115k), Thomas More (named after the Utopia author) resides in a small lot of five or so buildings between industrial operations like BAE systems (??) in a wooded area with a river and a lake. It is the sole survivor of three tiny Catholic colleges that some idiot, an alum of Saint Vincent, kept starting for unknown reasons. A single degree in the liberal arts is awarded. The curriculum is Great Books based, but has actual courses and is more holistic in its approach than most. The first year includes courses on Euclid’s Elements, astronomy, natural history (the local white pine-red oak ecosystem and New England nature writers), Gregorian chant, Latin and Greek. Sophomores spend a semester in Rome (built into their tuition save the transportation). “Guilds” offer instruction in woodworking, homesteading, foraging, sugaring, hunting, and music.

Apply well before start of classes on 8/24 (R)

Wheaton College

Admit: 88% Size: 2k (60k) Price: 20-24k Wheaton, IL The Midwest’s and maybe the nation’s evangelical standard-bearer, with a strong social ethic, Wheaton continues to have some of the highest retention and doctorate-earning rates in the nation. It was founded by evangelical abolitionist and anti-Masonist John Blanchard, a Middlebury grad who revitalized Knox (another evangelical abolitionist project) and was offered professorships at Grinnell and Oberlin. The college is modeled after Oberlin, and had a black student graduate in the antebellum era (who went on to enlist and be institutionalized for insanity). It has outlawed secret societies from its founding, although it has a controversial history of hazing. Students and employees sign a convenant outlawing homosexuality, and as with many Christian colleges, it has sought to strike a balance of providing support for LGBT students without affirming them.

Employees have resigned or been expelled after becoming Catholic, divorcing, or stating that people of other religions worship the same God. Drinking is banned at Wheaton, but it nonetheless has a vibrant student culture. Students are described as “type A”—forward-driving and socially oriented go-getters. Its dating culture is not nonexistent as at some Christian colleges, but does emphasize serious, long-term relationships, with many students finding life-long partners.

English, communication, international relations, Spanish,

economics, math, philosophy, the natural sciences, and music are prominent programs. Earth science courses were required from its founding to acquaint students with God’s creation, and it has the best geology program at a Christan college. Theistic evolution is accepted. Studies of classical and Middle Eastern sites and Hebrew are offered. Peace and conflict studies, social welfare and family studies certificates reflect its orientation toward building social cohesion, as do its many humanitarian institutes dedicated to both urban and third world regions. Other institutes seek to integrate faith with societal topics such as economics, disability rights, and gender & sexuality. The ROTC has a significant presence at Wheaton, with courses on military science and leadership available. It has a large football team and successful women’s teams. The sports complex includes a pool and climbing wall, as well as a sizeable weight room. While the residential suburbs can make it feel like a bubble, the nearby train to Chicago is five dollars round-trip on the weekends.

As with many Christian colleges, Wheaton has a strange obsession with J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and it also holds the largest collection of L’Engle’s works. Alumni include many innovative theologicians, and Billy Graham, “the” evangelical of the Cold War, and a religious consort of LBJ known as “the Great Legitimator” who topped America’s Most Admired lists and preached the gospel to more people than anyone else in the history of Christianity. Its stringent ascensionist tack recently manifested in a neoconservative speechwriter for Bush who coined the catchphrases “armies of compassion” and “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” and adapted Frum’s “axis of hatred” into “the axis of evil”.

Apply by 10/15, 11/15, 1/15, 2/15, or 7/1 (R), or 11/1 (S)

Montreat College Admit: 68% Size: 800 (8.5k) Price: 23-25k Montreat, NC Founded in 1897 by a Yale grad, Mountain Retreat was initially a conference center. A visitor wrote that "I wish I could tell you of the scenery... People who have travelled say it is only equaled by Switzerland", high praise from an Ithaca resident. The interdenominal and loosely Presbytarian college was the home of Billy Graham. The college is on the border of the rugged Pisgah National Forest, with three trailheads leaving from its campus. It is 3 miles from Black Mountain, and 18 miles down the highway is Asheville (100k).

The largest programs at Montreat include cybersecurity, outdoor education, and psychology.

Conservation law enforcement, ecology, criminal justice, human services, forensic accounting, data analytics, applied biochemical technology, music business, and outdoor counseling and ministry are among the other programs. [Fuck this formatting]

The majority of students are athletes and track is popular.

Dorms vary but some have large windows. A precollege summer camp acclimatizes students with treks, a fair and activities like a blacklight dance. Montreat is liberal enough that there was some faculty pushback when it introduced a convenant affirming the sanctity of marriage between “one man and one woman”, the norm at Christian schools, in 2017, and students are more laid-back than at most, but chapel is mandatory about once a week. Some complaints have been made about the overall administration and upkeep of the school, but it is considered to be on the upswing.

(1) Montreat has a lodge-like environment (2) One of the nicer dorms—mold has been an issue (3) The paddleable pond with a resident swan (4) Montreat is the site of a local baseball camp directed by Montreat’s head coach

Apply by 7/31 (R). Free on own app. Auto admit GPA>2.75.

Ouachita Baptist University Admit: 72% Size: 1.5k (10k) Price: 22-24k Arkadelphia, AR Better-run than you might expect, Ouachita is in a small river town in the south Ozarks.

It offers AACSB-accredited business, engineering (civil), teaching, family services, and art, music and theater. Dining is fine with healthy options and dorms are nice with outdoor patios or terraces. 34% and 57% M & F are Greek. Computer labs are open 24/7. Career assistance and job recruiting are emphasized. Alumni include former governor Huckabee.

Apply by 8/15, not on Common App

John Brown University Admit: 57% Size: 2k (60k) Price: 19-22k Siloam Springs, AR A Christian college 10 minutes east of Natural Falls State Park, chosen as the shooting location of Where the Red Fern Grows, John Brown offers nicer dorms with diverse housing options (the men’s hall has built-in athletic facilities). The dining has homestyle and Mexican options. Engineering (electrical, mechanical), family services, business, art (graphic design, film, illustration) and AI are offered. Construction mgnmt is well-recruited. UArkansas and the Walmart HQ are nearby.

11/1 (scholarship), 2/1 (early events), R, not on Common App

Union University

Admit: 53% Size: 2k (53k) Price: 27-30k Jackson, TN Formed out of the merger of four Baptist universities, Union is governed by the Baptists of Tennessee, and on a tributary to the Mississippi. While far from major cities, it is ideally situated next to a woodlot with trails, and in walking distance of Walmart, Target, sports, home improvement and pharmacy stores, several diners and cafés, a used clothing shop and a barbershop. Students including freshmen can live in singles and have easy access to shared kitchens due to its expansive apartment complexes. A three-story library is the centerpiece of its campus. Dining is homestyle and Mexican.

Attending chapel weekly is a requirement. Union left the CCCU after two Mennonite colleges announced they would hire even non-celibate homosexuals in 2015. Students often find their marriage partners at Union. 36% are nursing majors, and a range of pre-med options exist including guaranteed admission to pharmacy. Business has a strength in organizational leadership. Public relations, journalism, social work, digital media, and art (including ceramics and pre-therapy) are offered. Biology offers conservation biology, botany, zoology, and cell and molecular biology majors. Engineering offers mechanical and electrical engineering and a minor in computer engineering.

Waiver code 8/1-9/31 and 2/20-2/24. 11/1 (EA/ED/med), 1/15 (RD/ED/3-year pre-law)

Birmingham-Southern College

Admit: 57% Size: 1k (99k) Price: 19-27k Birmingham, AL The merger of two Methodist universities, Birmingham-Southern was long the top producer of future PhDs in the South, and is still the top producer in Alabama. In 2023, it was denied funds under a bill created to give it funds by an alum, and will close or stay open in 2024 depending on its lawsuit. Historically, it had a reputation as “a small school that gives bright young people from rural areas a good education” and built leadership as a participatory and not spectator institution. (This makes it a prime cultural specimen of the trope of wizened Southern tutelage of a more conservative but mind-opening background, although only the architecture of its campus has been designated as historically significant as a result of the events that have occurred in them). The school is considered relatively liberal for AL, striking a stark contrast for students who choose to attend it compared to the rowdy mainstays like the large state colleges in AL and MI, known for their crowd sizes.

BSC has clean-looking dorms and the dining serves comfort food with limited options. History, film, music, physics, philosophy, pol-sci and language are strengths of its course offerings; studio art, sociology and business are popular. It is known for its Greek life and academic engagement.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/15 (D), or 2/1 (D priority).

Centenary College of Lousiana

Admit: 64% Size: 500 (184k) Price: 29-32k Shreveport, LA Sited halfway between Jackson and Dallas, Centenary is the oldest LAC west of the Mississippi River, though moving to its current location after the war. Its pleasant suburban campus is three miles from downtown or the river. The college is called lower in racial diversity than its environs, though it has some political diversity and a gay community.

Football was reinstated in 2023. Political science, English, history, music, theater, environmental science, biology and neuro are prominent choices. Chem students have opportunities for paid research programs over the summer.

Pre-med has an admit rate that has been upwards of 90%.

Entering students can take a trip to Paris to form relationships with their peers and faculty (something like a more ambitious version of the cross-country field trips you might have taken in high school). 3 in 4 study abroad at some point in their college career due to Centenary’s cultural exposure requirement. Exchange partnerships with other colleges that charge the same tuition as Centenary (with their own housing and food costs) and domestic opportunities are offered. Students can earn a bit toward additional fees by attending on-campus events, which give 25 to 100 “passport points” (redeemed for dollars).

Apply by 12/15 (EA, priority aid), 2/15 (RD) or later

Presbytarian College Admit: 59% Size: 1k (8k) Price: 23-24k Clinton, SC The well-groomed, slate blue college of Piedmont SC is distant from large cities. PC is a solid school with caring professors, though you won’t be able to just slide by in its classes—its motto used to be “where men are made” until 1965. A quarter of students participate in frats, with a nearly equal male participation rate. (As at other colleges there has been a great decline from the former numbers.) All students sign the honor code in its convocation ceremony, and violations are judged by a council of students and faculty.

Presbytarian competes in Division I and sports include football, wrestling (men and women) and gymnastics (women). There is a small track and XC team. English, history and political science are large majors, with the business, biology and psychology programs being the largest as usual. A scholarship contest asks students to make a plan to solve a problem in their community. Alumni include a detective novelist, the first/only female combat pilot to be killed (subject of a book), and a political strategist of 1968.

Apply by 12/1 (EA), 2/1 (RD), or 6/15 (R)

Anderson University Admit: 45% Size: 3.5k (30k) Price: 19-23k Anderson, SC The largest private college in South Carolina, Anderson is affiliated with the Baptists and requires attending eight events per semester. Interior design is nationally reknown, and elementary education, nursing, and art are large programs. Divisions include cybersecurity, engineering (new), criminal law investigation, and health professions. It has a new football program.

12/1 (merit aid), 7/1 (R) or later as available

Patrick Henry University Admit: 76% Size: 400 (79k) Price: 20-30k? Purcellville, VA Founded in 2000 by the legal leader of the homeschooling movement (which has only been fully legal since the 1990s), this D.C. area college acts as a pressure cooker for the politically ambitious, with a reputation on Capitol Hill for staffing placements. It takes religion, which is core to its mission, seriously; all media and lessons must pass purity tests (an underground culture exists to varying extents). Madison Cawthorn attended.

Apply by 11/1 for free (priority), 7/1 (R), 12/1 (S) or 4/1 (SM)

Emory & Henry College

Admit: 70% Size: 1k (32k) Price: 20-24k Emory, VA A pretty school of nocturne blue and spangled gold, Emory & Henry was founded in 1836 in western Virginia, and features a townhouse village, a bouldering crag, an off-campus horse stable, a stained-glass chapel, a center for the arts, and even a duck pond that is heated year-round by a natural spring. It has a strong athletics program, including football, and the center for outdoor studies offers training in backpacking, whitewater paddling and rockcraft. Courses include an overview of adventure sports and a planning and marketing an adventure program.

The backcountry leadership degree can prepare students for a career in the outdoor industry. Emory & Henry is the only college to give credit to students for attempting a thru-hike or long section of the Appalachian Trail (Semester A-trail).

The curriculum is “project-based”. The core consists of one course in each subject area and three civics courses. Minors in Appalachian studies, civic innovation, animal studies, food science and military science are offered. Equine studies and therapy is a popular major, as are social studies education, history, communication organization and advocacy, sociology, political science, economics and theater. The new CS major is taught by one professor. Hispanic studies and biliteracy certification are offered. The dining has elegant options and housing is on the nicer side in my own opinion.

Apply by 11/15 (EA/S), 12/1 (S), 1/15 (EA), 7/24 (R)

Roanoke College

Admit: 80% Size: 2k (99k) Price: 24-29k Roanoke, VA Located in the largest city of west VA, nominally Lutheran Roanoke is four miles from the access point to the steep Havens forest preserve.

A fourth of students are on a sports team, and excursions offer mountain biking, climbing, skiing, whitewater rafting, and hang gliding. Living in one of the 27 halls is required and the Greek life system is olden. The chef offers cooking classes, and dining features a hearty menu with dishes such as brioche french toast, chopped steak, trout, snapper and rockfish, and rotating international dishes.

The fitness center has views and hosts group classes.

Roanoke’s core curriculum consists of ten dedicated courses of general interest, such as mathematical and scientific reasoning, human heritage, and a contemporary issue capstone with extensive research and writing and an oral defense. Participating in a May term (one class on or off campus) is required once. Fulbrights are earned on the most regular basis in VA. Students can apply for a paid summer research residency, including in the humanities and social sciences. An alumni networking site aids in obtaining internships and career advice. History, math, environment, politics, and communication are common majors. Students can lean conservative, and nearly half go on to grad school.

Apply by 10/15 (EA), 11/15 (ED/EA), 2/1 (ED), or 3/15 (RD)

Rollins College Admit: 50% Size: 2k (309k) Price: 22-27k Orlando, FL Rollins is a preppy LAC located in exurbia interspersed with lakes and gardens, 14 minutes from Orlando, the theme park capital of the US, known for its music scene (which produced the Backstreet Boys and NSync, the two omnipresent boy bands of the 1990s) and huge malls. Business is by far the most popular major, and Rollins has the top ranked program in Florida. Other common choices include communication, psychology and music.

The professors at Rollins are known as “mentors”. Students have the chance to collaborate as equal partners, not only as assistants, on research projects with faculty over the summer. Its engaging classes include ones on globalization, emerging technologies, “physics for future presidents”, and 30-second elevator pitches. Students are required to study abroad. Living on campus is not required although the dining is award-winning. Paddleboards and boats can be checked out at the boathouse. Alumni include TheBlaze host Eric Bolling, Betty Friedan’s lieutenant for the National Organization of Women, the first female mayor of Orlando, the founder of NSync, the chief of content for National Geographic and adviser for Al Gore, the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court, the mayor of Oakland until 2023, the founder of the Sarasota school of architecture, the leader of the India’s main opposition party until 2019 and the current leader of its Youth Congress, and Fred Rogers.

Apply by 11/1 (EDI, scholarship), 1/5 (EDII, spring) or 2/1 (RD)

Stetson University Admit: 94% Size: 2.5k (39k) Price: 20-22k Deland, FL Stetson is the one of the oldest colleges in Florida along with Rollins, and likewise ranks highly for its undergraduate teaching. The town of Deland is surrounded by wildlife refuges and less than an hour from Orlando to the south or from the beach to the east, including Canaveral National Seashore, the longest beach in Florida, preserved as buffer for NASA during the Space Race.

Business and health professions are popular at Stetson, and the music school is reknown. Similarly to Rollins, Stetson allows students to propose a research project to complete under faculty mentorship over the summer and present it at a conference. Stetson has the top-ranking trial advocacy (mock trial) program in the nation, and instituted the nation’s first mock Senate program. Students are required to live on-campus (seniors are exempt). The college ranks highly for community engagement and service. Stetson athletes compete in Division I, compared to Rollins’ Division II teams.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/15 (EA), 1/15 (priority) or later

Florida: the alternative Zion Barefoot Beach; a grocery lot; Sanibel Island; Ava Maria

Florida isn’t just for retirees; it’s also great for college students. The culture here has a wild combination of tropicana and Americana that you won’t find anywhere else, and the dramatic and stormy yet toasty climate, which complements its sand and palm frond-strewn environment, does something to make Floridians more laid-back, eclectic, and outgoing than what you’ll generally find elsewhere. Plus, it has exotic fauna different from the domestic fare you’re used to, with lizards instead of chipmunks, iguanas instead of squirrels, and 3 foot, pure white egrets instead of robins strolling its turf. Depending on the kind of person you are, the subtropics might do wonders for your mood.

St. Thomas University Admit: 65% Size: 4k (111k) Price: 27-31k Miami Gardens, FL A Hispanic, Catholic university minutes from the Miami Dolphins stadium and less than an hour from the beach, including Florida’s foremost nude beach and a number of buildings named after Trump. It is the only university affiliated with the Archdiocese of Miami and recognized for its specializations in justice, theology, sports administration, international business and science, and mission of “developing leaders”.

Apply by 1/1 (spring) or before 7/28 (fall)

Barry University Admit: 60% Size: 4k (440k) Price: 18-21k Miami Gardens, FL In dense suburbia 24 minutes from the beach and 19 from Miami, Barry is a multiracial college that, with its large graduate population, is one of the largest Catholic colleges in the southeast. Business, health and criminal justice are popular majors. Alumni include the superintendent of the Los Angeles school district (formerly Miami-Dade), Shaquille O’Neal, Flo Rida (briefly), a Bahamian attorney general and “family” advocate, and pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer.

1/8 (January entry), 5/1 (May), 6/15 (June), or 7/27 (August)

Florida Southern College Admit: 57% Size: 3k (120k) Price: 24-29k Lakeland, FL Located in Lakeland, a leafy residential neighborhood with the first-ever Publix and Red Lobster stores that is also home to the nation’s largest Assemblies of God (Pentecostal) college and Florida Polytechnic, Florida Southern is home to the largest concentration of architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright. The odd construction of the buildings is known to pose accessibility issues. The campus is on the densely populated shore of Lake Hollingwood, an urban pond with tropical wading birds such as gallinules, shorebirds such as plovers, avocets and stilts, winter terns and spring warblers. River otters are occasionally seen. Kayaks can be checked out.

Some of the popular majors at the 1.7 to 1 female majority college, which tends to attract a preppier and more conservative crowd, include art (film, music, theater, digital), environmental studies, family practice nursing, CS (including AI and cloud computing concentrations), public relations, business (including horticulture and land management), biology (marine biology and oceanography, ecology and evolutionary biology, biotechnology, molecular). Engineering partners with WashU and nursing, teaching and exercise science are robust programs. Internships are available, including in DC, and it is common to study abroad Junior year.

Daily highs range from the low 70s to the low 90s; August, September, October, April and May are typically above 80 degrees.

Biotech has a first-semester research course on finding antibiotics in soil bacteria and features courses on tissue culture and cloning.

Centers are dedicated to Florida history, polling and policy, accounting, teaching, and enterprise. Students who want to start a startup can easily contact the college’s entrepreneur-inresidence, who has “consulted with over 450 student led startups that are now valued at over $150 million dollars,” and business majors can seek internships at startup companies. A variety of Greek societies are offered and there is a Greek Village on campus. There is no football team, but there are water ski teams for both sexes, and horseriding and ice hockey are among the club sports.

The Tampa shore is 37 miles away, and Disneyland in Orlando is 55 miles away. A shuttle service (albeit one that is on-demand, not on a regular route) can drive students to anywhere in Lakeland on Saturdays. Honors students complete an extensive, two-year project with faculty.

Apply by 11/1 (EA/ED, S-R) or before 3/1 (R)

Ave Maria University Admit: 44% Size: 1k (28k) Price: 16-21k Ave Maria, FL The college of Ave Maria and the planned community around it, somewhat in the middle of nowhere, was built by the founder of Domino’s Pizza, an ardent Catholic, in order to serve the magisterium immediately after he retired from the business in 1998. The town was originally planned to be free of porn, contraceptives and pre-maritial sex, to the effect that it has been dubbed “Catholic Jonestown”. In 2012 it filed a successful suit, joined by Notre Dame, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not force it to provide birth control to its employees. Both the college and the community have plans for rapid expansion.

Ave Maria’s president from 2012 to 2020, the former director of faith-based initiatives under Bush, came to the institution after creating controversy at Saint Vincent and oversaw its growth. As with other activist, anti-academic establishment colleges, Ave Maria has released free courses; some have to do with its founder’s interests in J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The core curriculum centers on the Western heritage and theology. Popular majors include theology and business. Half of its students participate in athletics, and Ave Maria has aspirations to become a Division I school. It is 30 minutes north of the Florida panther wilderness area and an hour east of the Florida coast, including world-reknown shelling destination Sanibel Island, and aquatic preserves.

Apply by 1/5 (spring) or 7/26 (RD)

Biola University Admit: 57% Size: 3.5k (1287k) Price: 23-29k La Mirada, CA A nondenominational Christian college, BIOLA has a history of fundamentalist advocacy as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, and grew into its present form during the 1960s.

Attending religious services is required twice a week—chapel 20 times and conferences (fairs) 5 times a semester. The very extensive gen ed requirements include ten theology courses (fewer for some majors, and waived for honors students, who take a Great Books curriculum that includes Paradise Lost, The Fairie Queene, Antigone, and selected speeches by MLK).

Although Biola has been ranked by a 2023 guide as the most thoroughly Christian college in the US (in large part because everyone receives a minor in biblical studies), students also describe it as hipster. They are 3:2 female. Film-making, biz, nursing, theology, and psych are popular, as are the social sciences (SOCI, PLSC, HIST, ENGL). Biola has a glitzy new facility giving the relatively few natural science students plenty of hands-on training. Science honors students pursue their own research project and receive special mentoring as well as training in coding. CS, DS, STAT, ENGI, robotics, journalism, screenwriting, commercial music, marriage therapy, and speech pathology are majors. Alumni include

This dude cave looks like its home to a pretty chill Jesus

Residence halls include Alpha and Sigma and can have balconies

high-ranking and relatively level-headed SD senator John Thune and wack post-Jan 6 Michigan GOP chairman Kristina Karamo. Nancy Yuen was a professor of sociology until 2022.

Apply by 11/30 (EA), 1/15 (EA), 3/1 (RD) or 8/15 (R)

Eastern Nazarene College Admit: 64% Size: 500 (101k) Price: 18-19k Quincy, MA Eastern Nazarene, right by the beach and 30 minutes from Boston, is the flagship of the colleges (along with Boise and Nashville locations) associated with the Nazarenes, who placed a large emphasis on education. Professors are required to be Christian, chapel attendance is required and non-maritial sex is prohibited. It has an unusual synthesis of religion and education (even for a Christian college), being both highly religious and successful in academia (its first president said “there is no conflict between the best in education and the best in Christian faith”). It is distinguished by its track record of success in integrating the two, as best demonstrated by alum Timothy Smith (who has been called the first evangelical to gain prominence within secular academia).

The courses at Nazarene are conscious of the interface of religion and secular science; for example, some of them investigate how evolution is not be exclusive with belief in God, and core curriculum courses on Western culture explore the tensions between the religious and secular worlds. Students in its engineering program gain experience with lab work and internships (two on average), and make an original contribution in their senior year by conducting patent research, designing a product, and publishing a paper in a peer reviewed journal. The vast majority of students are accepted into medical and law schools when they apply.

Apply well before 7/27 (R)

Gordon College Admit: 92% Size: 1.3k (141k) Price: 16-21k Wenham, MA Gordon College, which claims to be “New England's top Christian college © Copyright 2024. All rights reserved,” is in a wooded and swampy area with trails two miles inland of the beach, five miles up from Beverly or thirty miles up the coast from Boston.

Students praise Gordon for its community and supportive atmosphere. Its school color is sky blue with a sun gold accent, and its branding is adorably wholesome (reminiscent of a daycare). The student and faculty body is multidenominational although primarily Protestant. As a Christian college, Gordon requires abstinence and regulates inter-sex dorm visitation.

Dining is on the nicer and healthier side, catered by Bon Appétit. The major choices are fairly even and typical (business, communication, teaching), and includes international relations, youth ministry, art and CS. As with Eastern Nazarene, Gordon does more to ensure that students are prepared for careers than many fundamentalist colleges. Its tight-knit community means that it has a strong alumni network. Alumni include an HIV/AIDS activist, the Democratic representative of Ford’s former district, the linguist who coined “emic” and “etic”, and the author of the 1960s-based The Wednesday Wars.

Apply by 11/1 (honors), 12/1, 2/1 or 3/15

Samford College

Admit: 68% Size: 4k (1149k) Price: 28-32k Birmingham, AL As the top college in AL, and a Baptist, Samford has disinvited more liberal denominations. Its core curriculum focuses on the Western heritage. Honors students study great books, epistemology and calculus in small groups; they can also co-design electives and teach courses. Programs for high-achieving students exist in business and computational biology, and there are myriad service opportunities for students focused on religion. A DC career and networking trip is offered to select students.

Medicine and business (particularly finance and marketing) are popular, as are journalism, family studies and interior design. Centers include ones for science and religion, sports analytics, and protecting children.

Research funding is available for honors students, and faculty can help connect them to research programs at many large universities in the South over the summer. During the welcome weekend, a team of over 100 upperclassmen lead students through events such as popsicles at the president’s house, a neon dance, and trips exploring Birmingham, 11 minutes away. The campus is very close to Target, Walmart and Whole Foods. LGBT students are prone to describing themselves as somewhat oppressed and/or underground.

12/1 (highest scholarship), 2/15 (scholarship, aid) or 5/1

Millsaps College

Admit: 68% Size: 600 (145k) Price: 27-29k Jackson, MS Millsaps is the top college in its state, albeit one that is the poorest in the United States. It is located in the suburbs of Jackson, the largest city in Mississippi, led since 2017 by a mayor who describes himself as “a political revolutionary”. Students explore careers through its pathways course and can take hands-on classes (bit.ly/engagems); honors students can do research. They work closely with faculty. Biology and business are popular. Alumni include Johnny Carson, known for his late-night TV show, and governor Tate Reeves.

Apply by 12/15 (January entry) or 6/15 (RD)

Hendrix College

Admit: 60% Size: 1k (65k) Price: 21-25k Conway, AR The top college in Arkansas, Hendrix is a top producer of science PhDs, earning more per capita than many Ivy League colleges. Biology, psychology and economics are popular majors.

Students complete three odysseys (projects that they propose). Hendrix does not have Greek Life. Students can go on rock-climbing expeditions in the Ozarks and Little Rock (202k) is 37 minutes away. Alumni have included the author of Slavery by Another Name and the campaign manager and chief of staff for Bill Clinton.

Apply by 11/15 (EAI), 2/1 (EAII) or 3/1 (RD)

Randolph-Macon College Admit: 85% Size: 1.5k (8k) Price: 26-27k Ashland, VA 19 miles north of Richmond, RM is one of the two oldest Methodist colleges in the US. Named after model statesmen of its time as with Hampden-Sydney, Randolph-Macon has long had a close relationship to the former school, and they share the oldest small-school football rivalry in the Southern United States. As a men’s college in Virginia, it founded Randolph-Macon women’s college in response to the perceived need for the development of women (the women’s college integrated after a guerilla-style resistance).

Randolph-Macon has the first gym in the South and was the first in it to mandate physical education (two classes are required to this day). Its other innovations include being one of the first to offer English and biology as studies of their own and helping to establish computer science as an academic field in the 1960s.

The majority-female (11:9) school has a number of traditions that reflect its identity as a Southern historically men’s college, including a matriculation where every freshmen takes an honor pledge and a day of service instituted in 2006. A newer tradition includes signing Randolph-Macon’s

four-year guarantee; 95% of students graduate within four years, a testament to its support of its students. Traditions like a carnival day, a Thanksgiving feast and a ring ceremony reflect the tight-knit feel of its campus and student and faculty body.

Randolph-Macon ranks highly for career services, and 100% of students complete an experience outside the classroom. Students in all fields have the opportunity to conduct research. Majors include classics, political science, English, chemistry, and CS, in addition to nursing and engineering. Archeology, black, Asian and women’s studies, German, French, Greek and Latin are majors, and ethics, journalism, Japanese and astrophysics are minors. A sizeable spread of courses are offered.

Philosophy includes comparative courses on East and West and the modern and postmodern, and PS has a focus on campaigns and comparative politics. RMC is in an affluent north Virginia district neighboring D.C., which has moved from lean Republican to tilting Democratic as it becomes the party of bourgeois morality, and has been represented by Abigail Spanberger since 2018. In 2014, two professors ran against each other as the Democratic and Republican Party candidates (one is a sociology professor and the other is now at Liberty University.)

Apply by 2/1 (RD) or ASAP (R)

Mary Baldwin College Admit: n/a Size: 1.5k (26k) Price: 18-19k Staunton, VA Located in the southern uplands of the Midatlantic, Mary Baldwin is far from any large cities but resides in the historic town of Stauton (home to the American Shakespeare Center, Heifetz International Music Institute, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, and Museum of American Frontier Culture). It was one of the few colleges founded before the Civil War to survive, a fact that has been attributed perhaps unparsimoniously to the unusual resourcefulness of its founder and namesake. Today it can claim to be the oldest Presbytarian college for women in the world, and through the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership, it is home to the nation’s only all-female corp of cadets (about half of whom join the military, with many being placed in leadership, more administrative roles).

In addition to starting the state’s first adult degree program, Mary Baldwin has started an early admissions program for “the exceptionally gifted” that allows those as young as 13 to apply for admissions. They reside in their own house, but otherwise attend classes and earn degrees with the rest of the students. Students older than 16 can apply to enter the college through its regular admissions system. These special programs notwithstanding, Mary Baldwin has struggled to

attract sufficient students as single-sex colleges drop in popularity (it has open admissions, and although it is short on details for its undergraduate colleges, admissions to one of its masters programs is automatic if you have a 2.0 GPA). In 2017, it became coed with the expectation that continuing to be predominantly female would preserve its culture, while creating the option to join a “woman’s college” that would best be described as a themed living community. MBC rightly does not consider hostility toward students on the basis of their gender or sexual identity to be a reportable or actionable violation of its code of conduct, at least in the case of men.

Social work, criminal justice, and health sciences are among the common majors. Degrees in clinical laboratory science, business economics, healthcare administration, and arts management are also offered on campus. Alumni have included Tallulah Bankhead, the 20th century actor, a hotelier who was once the richest woman in the country, the founder of Mothers Day, and the chair of the Virginia Democratic Party.

Its unusually adorable mascot, which appears to be a chipmunk but is technically a flying squirrel, looks ready to bust some moves on the playing field.

Apply by around 7/28 (R)

Austin College Admit: 54% Size: 1k (45k) Price: 20-26k Sherman, TX The second oldest college in Texas, Austin is named after the “father of Texas,” a Transylvania graduate.

The last two presidents of Texas (the country) were founding members of its board of trustees. It is 1 hour north of Dallas-Fort Worth, 20 minutes south of the Oklahoma border, and very far from Austin. Its mascot is a kangeroo, something of an anatopism.

Every student is assigned a faculty mentor to help guide their career path. They can switch their mentor after their first year. Students are required to live on-campus except in their last year. Austin has a typical general education curriculum (which includes two courses each required in the social sciences, natural sciences, and equity), and it has a mandatory January term for specialized experiences.

Scholarships are offered for ones abroad. Experiences can also be pursued at the end of the year in the May term.

Austin can border on inflexibility (such as with GPA requirements for independent study). It is best known for its pre-med program, with a 68% success rate (higher than UT Austin’s, and around 90% with above average GPA or MCAT).

The graduation rate is similar and it serves a half nonwhite population. PPE is offered, and the pol-sci department can fund a semester in D.C. Student life (and on-campus living) receives mixed reviews, but faculty and students are close.

Apply by 11/1, 2/1 (EA, scholarships), or 3/1 (RD)

Southwestern University Admit: 45% Size: 1.5k (75k) Price: 25-26k Georgetown, TX In a fast-growing city 30 miles north of Austin, Southwestern is one of the oldest colleges in Texas and prides itself in offering undergraduate research and internship opportunities.

Business, psychology, economics, political science, anthropology; English, history, math, and environmental science are common majors.

Southwestern has nicer offerings in chemistry, history (“U.S. Western”, “Texas”, “Rise of the Right”, “Game of Thrones”), politics, Spanish, music, art and philosophy but they can be not as expansive as you would hope. Psychology courses are research focused. Economics is not pure but business oriented.

German, Greek and Latin are offered. Southwestern has significant sports participation including in football, baseball, soccer and lacrosse. Intramurals can include blacklight dodgeball and water polo. SWU has the most Hispanic population of any top 100 LAC at 27% and is socioeconomically diverse. 1 in 4 are in frats. The city has a lagoon and riverside trails. Alumni have included inteprid activists and the founder of the NHI. Apply by 4/1 (aid) or 7/1 (as available), or 10/1 or 11/15 (spring)

Colorado College Admit: 16% Size: 2k (484k) Price: 13-30k Co. Springs, CO Colorado was founded by an abolitionist after the Civil War for “both sexes and all races”. It is located in Colorado Springs, a conservative city 1.5 hours south of Denver often contrasted to liberal Boulder (although Colorado has seen mass influxes of basic-ass trail-happy, Northfacewearing and commodity-prepared immigrants in the contemporary era and become Democratic territory in the Biden and Trump era of politics). Over 50 national sports organizations are headquartered at Colorado Springs, along with the National Olympic Committee, National Olympic Training Center and the World Figure Skating Museum. The environs feature the Garden of the Gods, a landscape of large vertical red crags, and the city is situated at the foot of Pikes Peak, a mountain in the Front Range (so named from a pioneer’s viewpoint) that is taller than any peak to its east and was the site of a gold rush (“Pikes Peak or Bust!”) in 1859, leaving behind a ghost town. (The ethos of “making it out west” is to be found today more so in Las Vegas, Silicon Valley and Hollywood.) Upon summitting Pikes Peak, Kathleen Bates, a professor traveling west from Wellesley, was inspired to write “America the Beautiful”: “O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties... America, from sea to shining sea”.

The view from Pikes Peak (which takes half a day to summit). The song inspired by this view (bit.ly/americawasbeautiful) is an ode to the original ethos and telos of America—an expansionary project championed and pioneered with precious courage.

In 1968, amid the ferment of experimentation and restlessness in America at the time (and nearing it own centennial), Colorado College formulated the innovation now known as the Block Plan. The genesis of the plan was reportedly when a professor asked, “Why don't you just give me 15 students, and let me work with them?” The idea was that they would work intensively with a few students, over the whole course of each school day, in a mentorship role, instead of summarily with different classes. Students, for their part, would take one class at a time before moving to the next. Although classes would be compressed, they would be more motivated and focused during their duration.

This unusual plan has been kept to this day, making it one of the few survivors of the pedagogical experiments of the 1960s along with the likes of the open curriculum at Brown.

Each class lasts only 3 ½ weeks, a timeline that has been said to work well for ill-motivated or attention-deficient students. Each class is followed by four days to relax or take an excursion. The block program enables a student’s college experience to be split into 32 distinct eras, each one telling them something about their passions and interests before they choose their next class. A list of community-engaged courses are offered, allowing students to take a course in the form of a project or other form of engagement.

Popular major choices at CC include biology, political science, economics and environmental science. Other majors include classics, history & politics (a counterpart to the usual philosophy, economics & politics), international political economy, and southwest studies. Minors include journalism (including an internship), psychoanalysis (unconscious archetype studies), renaissance studies, West

resource systems, revolutions, the ancient world, Africa, African-American studies, contemporary French studies, indigenous studies, European studies and non-violence.

Colorado has an extensive outdoors program. Students can become certified leaders in CCOutdoor Education, developing their leadership skills. Trainings and promotions can allow them to lead rock climbing and skiing expeditions.

The program offers certifications in swiftwater rescue, avalanche rescue, and climbing wall instruction, which can lead to job opportunities after graduation. Workshops are available to develop skills such as navigation, paragliding and raft guiding. A large array of recreational equipment can be checked out for free or for reasonable prices, from inflatable duckies to avalanche probes. Transportation is provided in a small radius with free student-run and city-run shuttles, and a free city-wide bike share program (the bikes are electricity-boosted, meaning you can ride them without pedaling should you wish) is available 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Most students study abroad, which costs 5k extra for a semester. Hockey is the sole Division I program.

The median income at CC, 278k, is higher than at any other college, and the majority of its students come from the wealthiest 5%, which may mean that it has more resources to distribute. The privilege of its student body manifests primarily in its emphasis on diversity and antiracism. Alumni include Lynne Cheney, the chair of the Jan 6 committee known for her heavily, breathily TV soap opera-influenced understandings of history (not unlike someone else I could name), the current dean of Colorado’s congressional delegation, and Obama’s moderate Secretary of the Interior.

Apply by 11/1 (ED/EA) or 1/15 (ED/RD)

Cornell College Admit: 79% Size: 1k (4.5k) Price: 20-26k Mount Vernon, IA On the periphery of the driftless region, Cornell is close to a wooded ravine with wildflowers, which features a barn painted with a mural of the American Gothic (the actual house the painting is based on is further south), and 20 minutes from Cedar Rapids, which is where the painter lived as a boy. It has the only college library that is also the official public library.

Cornell was one of the rare few colleges to graduate and hire women on an equal basis in the 19th century, although the external claim that it had the first female professor is inflated (Cooke was hired as an assistant at Cornell only after Pennell had become the highest-earning professor at Antioch). It leads the oldest football rivalry west of the Mississippi over Coe, and its wrestling team is very successful. Since 1978, it has had a program enabling students to take one class at a time, which makes it easier for students to take internships.

Common majors include engineering, exercise science, (biology, psychology), computer science, political science and creative writing. The engineering program is accredited.

Students can start using computer design software and 3D-printing designs in their first year. One recent student commented, “This system is the closest you can come to replicating the daily life of an engineer whose job is mostly project-based. Real-world job training does not take place on

a semester plan, so why not learn in the way you will be expected to work?” The department dedicates time to developing application materials for students, and the program has a focus on internships and project learning.

Students have a high 76% med school acceptance rate.

Majors offered also include international relations (which can lead to jobs in the U.S. Foreign Service), teaching (leading to licensure), civic engagement, data science, sustainability & climate change, and ecology & evolutionary biology. Cornell offers a number of majors typically offered in more serious liberal arts colleges, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, classics, dance, medieval studies, and Russian. Every student is required to complete at least two internship experiences (because as Cornell astutely notes, it’s not easy to convey your educational experiences on an application, and you can make a resume-citeable impact with internships), and they can apply for a paid research position or consult advisors for other opportunities over the summer.

Alumni include the Chief Technology Officer of Obama’s unusual and seminal 2012 election campaign (who still serves on the board), an astronaut and doctor, Lincoln and Holocaust scholars, the bishop of Davenport, and quixotic activist and eccentric street performer Grimes Poznikov.

The biggest drawback to Cornell is its name, which predates Cornell University but is inconvenient and has the potential to be awkward. This may seem superficial, but we live in a world that goes by superficial indicators, not AACU-endorsed “critical thinking skills [you already have]” that aren’t likely to show up in your job application or be measured by a bureaucratic economy. (Fund my startup for heaven’s sake.)

Apply by 2/1 or later as available

College of Idaho Admit: 56% Size: 1k (60k) Price: 22-22k Caldwell, ID The oldest LAC and top-ranking college in Idaho, the College was founded with the mining company town of Caldwell. Although 30 minutes from Boise, it is in the most remote region of the country as a whole (outside of Alaska), and the country’s first designated night sky preserve is in the state. 15 minutes south is Lake Lowell, and 60 minutes south is a deep, stark canyon with thermal updrafts that hosts the greatest concentration of breeding birds of prey in the world, including prairie falcons. Its location is ideal for those who take their greatest pleasure and inspiration from low-key scenes and fresh air.

In 2010, noting that general education “duplicated the high school experience and students didn’t seem very excited by it”, the College replaced distribution requirements with a system where students would choose three minors they are interested in in addition to their major. Receiving multiple degrees is thus the norm rather than the exception, which is advantageous because “A student... may well, in the years to come after graduation, find themself drawing more on a minor than a major to take advantage of presently unforeseeable opportunities”. There is some fine print, namely that one of the minors must be in the non-field of

foundations and professional preparation, which contains miscellaneous requirements (such as a writing course and a capstone project), and that the other two minors (or major and minor) must be in fields distinct from one’s major, so that if you majored in a science the other degrees would have to be in the humanities and in the social sciences, respectively.

Nonetheless, this structure provides considerably more flexibility than you would normally find. Popular majors include international political economy, psychology, art and design, environmental studies, biomedical science, math, and history. Concentrations to choose within majors include conservation, illustration, theater and outdoor education.

Minors in the humanities include philosophy, journalism, and Spanish; in the arbitrarily distinguished social science division they include classics, Judaic studies, and a teaching certification; and in the natural sciences they include geography, health studies, and scientific computing. There is sizeable participation in sports and a tenth of students are on the football team. The robust outdoor program offers many trips—$15 for tubing (epic snow sledding), hot springs, and climbing at Black Cliffs, and $30 for overnight whitewater rafting, yurt camping, and beginner downhill skiing—courses in adventure education, internships, and an intensive and interdisciplinary winter wilderness experience in the Sawtooth Mountains.

Research projects with faculty have collected data on trout populations and created cultural documentaries in other countries. Students are expected to live on campus apart from senior year. Singles are available for freshmen. Dining is interesting, comfort-oriented, and highly rated.

EA: 11/15, EA: 1/16, RD: 2/15

Vistas around the College of Idaho

The trail around Lake Lowell

Lowland Idaho has an expansive and austere landscape

Alumni include a co-founder of Patagonia and national park philanthropist, the founders of Albertsons groceries, Merkel’s ambassador to the United States, and justices and governors, including the governor of Idaho until 2019. Nearly 100 nations are typically represented, including Nepal, Eswatani, South Africa, Ethiopia and Iraq, which have similarly arid expanses.

Lake Lowell is above; below is Lake McCall in the region between Whitman and the College of Idaho. I imagine that there would be several quiet spots to be found along the shore in such an empty place. Internet connection is up to question. (A cheap inflatable raft with a sun roof would also work, although the lake is open to motorized boating and water skiing.)

Linfield University Admit: 89% Size: 1.5k (35k) Price: 25-29k McMinnville, OR Equidistant between the Portland metro and the rainforests of the coast (each an hour away) is Linfield University, in the center of Oregon wine country. The “warm and welcoming” town features a skate park and top cuisine. It hosts a turkey barbeque each year, and the international Pinot Noir festival is held at Linfield. You could even forage for berries and mushrooms in Oregon’s lush parks. The center for wine studies offers a unique major in “wine studies” for undergrads. Though it’s unlikely you’ll develop a passion for wine if you’re following the law, this could be a good choice if you want to combine your entrepreneurial spirit with food and a bucolic setting.

Sports is big at Linfield, which has the football team with the most consecutive winning seasons. Intramurals include water polo and wrestling. Linfield has recently focused on nursing (enrolling half of its students, contributing to its 1.8:1 F:M ratio) and business. CS, creative writing, international relations, communication, and the arts are also majors.

Biology offers conservation biology, bioinformatics and research courses. The warmly lit campus has pretty brick dorms and welcoming and engaged students. The dining is comfort-oriented and there is a grab-and-go snack bar.

EA: 11/1, event/scholarships: 12/1, RD: 2/1, R: as available

George Fox University Admit: 92% Size: 2.5k (26k) Price: 23-27k Newberg, OR The largest private college in Oregon, George Fox is a Quaker college emphasizing guidance and a supportive environment.

It has a “be known” commitment, and suspends classes for a day of service each year. Its core curriculum consists of twelve dedicated courses of general interest (a fourth rather than a third of your classes), to which APs can be applied. Only two are directly related to Christianity. Chapel attendance is required. Sex is not allowed. A football team was added in 2013 and has a full roster of players. Baseball is also big.

Athletes are called the Bruins. Newberg, between McMinville and Portland, has a conservative streak that has made recent national news, and a world-class skate park.

George Fox has strong engineering and arts programs. Civil, mechanical, biomedical, computer and electrical engineering are offered. CS has a concentration in cybersecurity. The interdisciplinary major option is oriented toward those who want to double major without a higher workload. Students can enroll in the honors program, which replaces general education requirements (apart from taking one math and one science course) with one Great Books seminar each semester. The diverse and particularly chosen reading selection can be seen at bit.ly/gfgreatbooks.

EA, spring, scholarships: 11/1, RD: 2/1, R: 3/15

George Fox is one of several religious colleges in California, more unorthodox choices than those in the Northeast.

The library at Linfield, which is praised for the parklike beauty of its campus. Something to note is that nursing is not offered on the main campus, but students can apply to the Portland campus after two years (with a 3.0 GPA in gen eds), or take a fifth year to earn their second degree in nursing—although several such accelerated bachelors programs in nursing or teaching for people already with a bachelors are offered at other colleges.

Pacific University

Admit: 92% Size: 2k (26k) Price: 31-33k Forest Grove, OR Founded in 1849 and 40 minutes west of Portland, Pacific spends twice as much on research than any other private college in the NW. It enrolls more Hawaiians than any other mainland college and has a 3:2 F:M ratio. Its mascot since 1896 has been a Chinese folk creature. Majors include public health, dental hygiene, CS, outdoor leadership, bioinformatics, applied theater, dance, environment (science, bio, chemistry & toxicology, policy), and journalism.

Psychology focuses on community and morbidity issues.

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 1/15 (priority) or later as available (R)

Heritage University Admit: n/a Size: 800 (9k) Price: 9-14k Toppenish, WA Although Heritage is on the Yakima reservation, it is an independently operated private college. The campus is a lot of buildings forming a courtyard in farm fields, 4 miles from the town. 6 in 8 are Latino, 1 in 8 are American and 1 in 8 are other.

Women outnumber men 3 to 1. A second campus in urban, riverside Kennewick, which opened in 2023, allows you to study for two years before transferring to the main campus.

Apply in a “timely manner” for aid

Ursinus College Admit: 82% Size: 1.5k (5k) Price: 29-30k Collegeville, PA 30 miles or an hour from Philadelphia, Ursinus is in a pastoral, sprawling villagelike setting, across the creek from a wooded park, 3 miles from Wegmans and 10 miles from Valley Forge National Historical Park. The main buildings are made out of cobbled fieldstone, and a village of dozens of homes (basically an entire neighborhood taken over by the college) houses upperclassmen. The mascot of the college is ursuline, and its color scheme is tasteful, giving the college a distinctive look. Half of students participate in sports, including track, wrestling (men) and gymnastics (women). A legendary field hockey coach gave the college a reputation in women’s sports and her descendants include many more coaches. Popular majors include environmental science, applied economics (it has no business major), political science (including philosophy and comparative perspectives), international relations, and English. CS, biochemistry, neuro, communication, physics, and history (including ethnic histories) have robust representations. Ursuline has a reputation in pre-med. A writing contest (with the submission of a few pages) gives

students the opportunity to live in the dorm of J.D. Salinger, author of classic teen angst lit Catcher in the Rye (who transferred after one semester). Engineering partners with WashU and Columbia, business with Rochester, nursing with Villanova. The students are described as fun-loving and the faculty as unusually dedicated to their students. Even administrators are seen as accessible.

The educational mission of Ursinus includes helping students find and pursue a sense of purpose. Every student must participate in a learning experience such as an internship, research or study abroad, and the college provides meaningful work opportunities. One of the distinctive features of the Ursinus experience is the Common Intellectual Experience. This is a one year course where students will read the same great texts. It differs from other Great Books courses (St. Johns, Columbia) in that it makes an effort to be inclusive of contemporary readings, and that students are encouraged to think about how the books speak to themselves and the world, not only work within the text. The U-Imagine Center allows students to pursue their entrepreneurial visions.

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 12/1 (ED), 1/26 (scholar.), 2/1 (ED/RD)

Great Books Can Heal Our Divided Campuses Colleges need more programs where students of different backgrounds can wrestle together with the big questions posed by the humanities.

Andrew Delbanco, 2023 – In 1850, when Herman Melville wrote that “a whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard,” he meant that he had been educated by the “miscellaneous metropolitan society” he found at sea—Blacks, whites, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders; believers and unbelievers; high-spirited adventurers and men laid low by poverty and squalor. . .

People of all political views should acknowledge that, once students enroll, most universities have done too little to make diversity an educational asset. . .

In today’s university, with the number of humanities majors plummeting, the most likely place for students to encounter perspectives different from their own is the “general education” program. e concept of general education first arose about a hundred years ago, following the abandonment of the old compulsory curriculum, heavy on theology and the classics, that had stipulated pretty much the same course of study for all students. As the old lockstep approach gave way to proliferating electives and specialized majors, and student bodies changed with the influx of Jews and other immigrants, colleges began looking for ways, in the words of one Columbia dean, to maintain some “common, if not always uniform, intellectual experience for all students for at least a portion of their undergraduate years” . . .

Bell condemned this piecemeal approach, typically known as “distribution requirements,” as an “admission of intellectual defeat,” by

which he meant that colleges had given up trying to agree on any subjects, texts, methods or ideas with which all students should engage before dispersing into this or that specialty. By the mid-1970s, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching described general education as a “disaster area,” and so it has largely remained ever since. . .

Five years ago, Purdue University, a giant STEM-centric institution where the percentage of students taking history or literature courses had been dropping toward single digits, launched the “Cornerstone” program, which includes a sequence of first-year seminars for which faculty select half the readings from a collaboratively developed and continually revised list of “transformative texts.” e idea is to give students a shared vocabulary for talking about perennial problems— the joys and risks of freedom, the competing claims of rights and responsibilities, the distinction between love and desire, the inevitability of loss and mourning—that feel fiercely present in their lives regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or any other limiting ascription. . .

Dan Edelstein points out, with W.E.B. DuBois’s credo that “the true college will ever have one goal—not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes” . . .

Edelstein explains: “When more than 1,000 first-year students are grappling with the same ideas, reading the same texts, writing the same assignments and engaging in the same activities at once, the walls of the classroom start to dissolve. Debates about what it means to disagree in good faith carry on in the residences themselves; discussions of the good life continue over dinner.”

At our centrifugal moment, we have an opportunity—and an obligation—to rethink general education.

Saint Mary’s College of California Admit: 88% Size: 2k (70k) Price: 23-23k Moraga, CA As a Lasallian school, Saint Mary’s has a typical requirement of two courses exploring religion. Students are mostly mild, eager, hard-working and upbeat. 31% are Latino and 16% are Asian.

SMC is in the relaxing and beautiful hills of the eastern San Francisco Bay area, which can at times remind one of the Italian or Spanish countryside with a climate to match. It is 14 miles to Oakland across a redwood ridge, and 23 miles to SF across an elegant bridge. Students receive free transportation by bus to nearby towns. Lyft is subsidized but expensive, and students may favor paying bus fares further afield (or trying SF’s cable cars).

During each January term, students must take one class meeting for 2.5 hours four times a week. This is typically a period of in-depth exploration outside their major. One course each in the five basic subjects and two language courses are requirements. Four courses based in Great Books, such as ones by Plato and Darwin, are required and bring students out of their comfort zone (mostly because they tend to get lost, which one professor helpfully described as “parachuting into a fog-shrouded forest”). “alumni often say that seminar prepared them for their lives

and careers better than any other coursework”. Instruction using the Great Books began in 1941 at the very start of the second ascent, anticipating the post-war boom and growing out of its strong sense of social ethics and tradition of Catholic social activism, reflected in how it presents itself to this day. SMC also has a full Great Books college of 200 students embedded within it, perhaps the best one I’ve seen (bit.ly/smc-GBs), with heavy readings instead of tests.

Business is the largest major. ENGL, health science, PLSC, ECON, SOC, ANTH, PSYCH, COMM and theater are popular.

It has small CS and DS programs. Engineering partners with WashU. Women’s and ethnic studies and classical languages are majors. ECON, CHEM, physics, PSYCH and ENVI have strong offerings. Many world culture courses are offered.

Saint Mary’s recruits heavily for athletics and is in Division I. Rugby (no football), basketball, and soccer are generally excellent. Dining is interesting and homestyle, not the most expansive. Dorms are doubles first year, singles second year, and off-campus or in townhouses afterward.

Apply by 11/1(EA), 1/15 (RD), 12/1 (S)

Saint Mary’s has many club sports. Although it is only 56% female, the athletic opportunities tend to be especially nice for women.

Excursions are organized, including to the city and to ski slopes.

Guilford College Admit: 84% Size: 1k (298k) Price: 22-25k Greensboro, NC In a green area of the central Piedmont city of Greensboro, known for its civil rights history and Quaker settlement, Guilford was on a stop run by the Father of the Underground Railroad.

It was founded as the first coed college in the South and the only Quaker college in the South and the second overall. The area is a higher ed hotspot, and students can take classes at seven colleges in the Greensboro consortium, including Elon University and Agr & Tech.

Students have historically had an activist and hippy orientation, as much as that is possible in the South, although the administration has been building athletics and cutting some majors. Community justice, creative writing, art, environmental science and criminal justice are popular majors, as are psych, econ, pol sci, languages (incl. French, German, Japanese), xs and business. Forensic biology, business analytics, experience design, public health, international studies, sustainable food systems, and gender studies are among the other majors, and it is feasible to have an individualized major. 40% play sports including football.

Dining is organic and free trade. Guilford attracts notable speakers each year and alumni include business executives.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 12/1 (EA, sprg) or 5/1 (R)

Otterbein University Admit: 84% Size: 2k (39k) Price: 20-23k Westerville, OH On the outskirts of Columbus 15 miles away, by a creekside grove and near lakes and woods, Otterbein admitted women and blacks from its founding in 1847 and was active in the abolitionist movement. In 1970, the same year as the Kent State massacre, it became the first college in the United States to elect students and faculty to its board of trustees. Westerville has been named one of the best suburbs for its cost of living and low crime and is dry.

Large majors include art, music and acting, wildlands management, equestrian and pre-vet, nursing and health services, health communication, biochemistry, crimonology (broader justice perspective), early childhood education, engineering (mech/systems), CS (project-based), and business (finance and big data). Its lauded curriculum incorporates custom career planning and a professional experience for every student. Professors are welcoming mentors and close with students. The lax requirements are one course each in eight areas of civic emphases. It is not uncommon to double major. Sample internships and the interesting course offerings are must reads. Track, football, wrestling, lax and soccer are among the sports.

Apply by 12/15 (ED), 3/1 (R) or 12/20 (sprg, R)

Ohio Wesleyan University Admit: 52% Size: 1.5k (43k) Price: 22-24k Delaware, OH Ohio Wesleyan isn’t a university and it hasn’t been very Methodist since the 1930s, but it keeps its name for the swag acronym. As with many Ohio colleges, it was active in abolitionism shortly after its founding in 1842 and experienced unrest during the 1960s and especially 1970. It has maintained a focus on inclusivity, most recently on LGBT issues and in a partnership with Wilberforce. The mascot is a bishop that has become increasingly rogueish over time.

OWU has long had a bit of a party school reputation, with Greek life and sports drawing some interest. It is an old college of traditions, which shows in its campus (including gnomic buildings, a stained glass atrium and an observatory). It has diverse housing options, including colorful, sunny-looking residential houses for upperclassmen and residential frats, and resides in a personable town with a homemade ice cream shop. Art, theater, ENVI, CRWR, IR, PLSC, data analytics, CS and special education are among Ohio Wesleyan’s programs, as are Asian and women’s studies. OWU has a large zoology program and a variety of relatively unusual biology majors, including botany, neuroscience, microbiology, and genetics.

It states that it “offers an uncommonly wide range of options for the study of biology, because it is one of only a few small

colleges with two related departments [merged in 2020]... which allows us to offer a larger diversity of special courses in sub-disciplines”. It is in the sparing minority of colleges to offer a “real” neuroscience major with a few dedicated courses instead of only compiling it out of other programs, though students can also take courses in the psychology program established in 1917. The PLSC program, which was established in some form in 1845, focuses on political thought and is rather basic. OWU’s student newspaper is one of the oldest. Other majors include PHIL, HIST, CHEM, and astrophysics. Students can research with faculty during the school year or apply to join one of the predetermined and posted research projects over the summer, receiving 4k in addition to free housing (more than the usual 2 or 3k), typically receiving co-author credits on papers. They receive funding if they decide to pursue a signature project. Myriad subsidized travel courses are offered, and have studied the Galapogos Islands for biology or stayed with former Viet Cong fighters for history. Grants for self-proposed study abroad projects are offered. The Delaware entrepeunerial center is the only such partnership between a city and a LAC. One class each in nine liberally fulfilled and not very distinct areas is required. Every student also receives assistance finding a learning experience such as an internship. The classes taken by all freshmen include “How to change your world” (one word artfully removed from the idiom) and college writing. Dining is catered by the AVI Fresh dining service, always unlimited and 24/7. It can seem lacking in variety and vegetable-based options (although as at most dining halls there is always a salad bar and deli bar).

Apply by 11/15 (ED), 12/1 (EA), 1/15 (merit), or 3/1 (RD)

Baldwin Wallace University Admit: 77% Size: 3k (35k) Price: 24-28k Berea, OH The college of BWU, along with the town of Berea, was founded by immigrants from areas of Connecticut destroyed by the Revolution. It has accepted students without regard to race or gender since its founding in 1845.

In 2019, it disaffiliated with the Methodist church after it passed LGBT-exclusive policies. It was the first college in the state to use geo-thermal heating and cooling in dorms, offer undergraduate degrees in sustainability, or install a turbine on campus. One of its residence halls has a vegetative roof.

Baldwin Wallace emphasizes close faculty mentorship.

Students of any major can pursue research with faculty. A fifth of students major in the arts, including music and acting, at its acclaimed conservatory. Biology and neuroscience students have access to labs from their first year. Chemistry students can do an intensive thesis in their last two years.

Digital marketing, human resources, hospitality and tourism, public health, and applied and public history are specialties.

CS and engineering are offered. Political science has a minor in national security. Psychology and sociology can lead to a one-year masters in social work from Case Western.

Football, XC and racquetball are successful. BWU is near expansive green areas and 20 minutes from Cleveland.

R: starting 10/1, merit aid: 11/1, priority: 5/1, then as available

Heidelberg University Admit: 71% Size: 1k (18k) Price: 22-24k Tiffin, OH Heidelberg’s unique German studies program takes place mostly at the elite University of Heidelberg in Junior year, leaving time for a second major. A similar program exists with Ulsan in Korea. CS, engineering and theater are offered. Watershed science, bio and chem have research opportunities at the National Center for Water Quality Research. Lacrosse, football and wrestling are prominent. A fifth of students are involved in Greek life.

Honors students have 24/7 access to an exclusive suite.

Apply by 7/24 (R)

Wittenberg University

Admit: 94% Size: 1.5k (59k) Price: 20-23k Springfield, OH Residing between Dayton (30 min) and Columbus (50 min), Wittenberg has a parklike setting and vibrant, tight-knit campus and offers a cost-equivalent semester abroad in Wittenberg, Luther’s hometown (it is Lutheran). A costequivalent program to DC is also offered to all majors. East Asian studies includes Chinese and Japanese. A third of students are involved in Greek life and the numerous sports teams include football. A diverse, healthy menu is offered.

ED: 11/1, EA: 12/1, S: 1/8, R: 5/1 or as available

Eastern Mennonite University Admit: 99% Size: 1k (51k) Price: 19-28k Harrisburg, VA A smaller college with a strong sense of community two miles from downtown Harrisburg or a short trek from national forests and the mountains, EMU has required cross-cultural study since the 1970s and has well-developed programs overseas. One student notes it is “a little different from most study abroad programs because it emphasizes full submersion into the culture. I lived with a Palestinian family for 3 weeks, then we stayed in kibbutzes in Israel. It is a very holistic and enriching experience. You get a true sense of the culture... You even get a week to go anywhere on your own”.

Student blogs can be seen at emu.edu/now/intercultural.

The graduate-level Center for Justice and Peacebuilding has global alumni, including a 2011 Nobel Peace laureate and the president of Somalia. The foremost pioneer of restorative justice and the first white graduate of Morehouse, Howard Zehr, is a professor and the director of the Zehr Institute, which will be hosting “Towards a Relational Masculinity: Restorative justice in response to sexual harms perpetrated by male-identified people” for 2024. Honors students receive hefty scholarships, are mentored by professors, and participate in seminars and social gatherings. Outdoor recreation, including bicycling, and intramurals are popular, and the college is known for its sustainability efforts.

Over 70% students are not Mennonite. 30 religious traditions are represented, and students are entrepeunerial.

See bit.ly/emu-moving-in. Nursing and business are common majors, as are social work and environmental science, and mechanical/computer engineering and CS are offered. The aviation program is in Lancaster. Students have the option to live in Healthy Living apartments (singles, 4 to 5 to a suite) at Millersville University, a public university with 6k students giving them access to a traditional undergraduate social life.

Although there are hefty additional fees (read the Reference), they will have “access to the cockpit from day one,” complete a 15-week internship in a real-life flying situation, and benefit from visiting recruiters and pre-arranged job pathways. Classes are one day a week and flight training is three days a week, allowing students to hold a job instead of choosing between starting a job and college.

Research and internships are a focus in EMU’s programs, with most requiring learning in the field. Biochemistry students start research on day one, including extensive training with faculty, and culminating with advanced lab experience. Professors have taken students to places like Guam and Hawaii “to study the use and development of attractants to control insect pests.” Business students can fulfill requirements with international business internships or a stay at its Washington center; 83% of internships result in jobs upon graduation. The artsy digital media program has impressive faculty with connections to Nat Geo and Discovery. Global development, peacebuilding, and public health (data analytics & coding or environmental) are offered. “Conservation photography” is a featured course.

Apply by 6/1 (F) or 10/1 (S)

Goshen College Admit: 94% Size: 700 (35k) Price: 19-19k Goshen, IN Goshen is near the eastern headquarters of the Mennonites and their primary seminary (in addition to the one at EMU). It houses the most complete collection of documents related to Mennonites and publishes the oldest journal on the subject. Although 74% of the students, 1.6 F:M and 29% Latino, are not Mennonite, the college has a stern sense of ethics. “America the Beautiful” is played in lieu of The Star Stangled Banner, and Goshen and EMU became the first colleges in the Council of Christian Colleges to allow faculty to be gay in 2015, leaving it under pressure. Goshen is fourth in Washington Monthly’s alternative rankings, which measures contribution to the public good, and its motto is “culture of service”. It produces humanities and education PhDs at a heightened rate.

The campus has an understated beauty and is next to a corridor of woods, the river, a pond and a cabin reservable by student groups. It is 12 miles from Elkhart (54k, 40 minutes by the pretty Interurban Trolley with a bike rack, free for students) and 30 miles from South Bend (103k). Goshen offers intentional living communities for upperclassmen, though there are no predesignated themes; groups of students must be approved and propose a theme with a plan for execution to claim a house, though many live off-campus anyhow. The intercultural requirement can be fulfilled

through free domestic courses or trips taken with classmates abroad, often in humbler settings that require adjusting to the different customs and lifestyles. Other requirements include a course on peace traditions such as “child welfare” and “gender violence” and on religion.

Majors include nursing, environmental science, sustainability studies, and social work, and it is easy to request a custom major combining three areas of concentration.

Film majors can work a department-run company producing advertisements for local organizations, spend a semester at a Hollywood studio or make documentaries abroad. Goshen has a marine biology lab in the Florida Keys. Restorative criminal justice, food systems, deaf studies, sign language interpreting, journalism, broadcasting, writing, religion, physical education, pre-architecture (with an internship) and engineering physics (masters at Notre Dame, Valapraiso, or Case Western) are among Goshen’s other majors.

Molecular biology is available as a major, and the med school acceptance rate is 90%. Minors reflect its focus on social transformation on a local and global level (theater education, development, etc).

Apply by 12/15 (merit aid), 4/15 (in-state aid) or later (R)

Intimacy–praxis At this point in the book, you might wonder why there’s an intimacy–praxis section, making for three intimacy sections and one praxis section, instead of two of each. The reason is that the organization of this book is (has post ex facto been determined to be, after I analogized the first two sections to the thesis and antithesis of two well-known books) an allusion to a theory in which the process of ideation manifests in three discrete stages, which when subdivided into a further level of detail in a work that is popular (engaging with its times), typically does so fractally in threes.

The prestige section coaxes the reader through the reinvention (the brainstorming stage). The intimacy section is the restructuring (the conciliating stage). Here this has been further divided into the reinvention of restructuring (or the alienation), when the nature of the different sides and their oppositions are clarified, the restructuring of restructuring (the appraisal), when rebuttals are made to comparitive claims on their own terms, and the florescence of restructuring (the assessment), when a solidified understanding of how they compare can be used as a standard to judge the acceptability of concrete ideas, and which is endowed with a sense of necessity. (This was my original vision. It may not perfectly reflect the book because of intervening events that took place before I organized the intimacy–praxis and praxis sections out of their profiles.)

The praxis section is the florescence, or the complex conciliation that finds harmony in oddness, the relaxation when the resultant idea can be interpreted. It is when the resultant idea can be fully applied and exegated in relation to

matters. (The stage prior to it becomes increasingly like it while remaining as qualitatively sovereign as ever, as when something made of many increasingly approaches being, but never is, made out of one, and indeed, many colleges in intimacy–praxis, in which the dash denotes not an intermediate form but the qualitative relation for which a colon might be more typical, appear to be extreme examples of the nature of the intimacy section.) This is not intended to make sense to you as a reader in 2024 or 2025. These are placeholder words. They will make more sense, undoubtedly, when the work that they allude to exists.

Resources for learning about colleges Some of the colleges that follow are on the obscure side.

Most guides are directed at affluent populations that are involved in the college preparation process, but I have attempted to be more inclusive in my coverage (and have in mind students who are deciding whether to go to college at all, and may be more inclined to be independent or have a different set of priorities). It is, in any case, important that you do your due diligence before enrolling at any college.

The catalog is a handy tool for technical information. The net price calculator, if a college has one, is a must-see. Most colleges offer virtual tours, some more limited than others.

Larger colleges will have tours on YouTube, whether official or by students or visitors. They may also have an Instagram account. Very large colleges have subreddits that are useful for asking students questions. You will want to do research into fields you are interested in as well. A pilot license might cost 6k if you go to First Flight Corp or 200k elsewhere, but the latter might have partnerships with employers.

Berry University Admit: 66% Size: 2k (38k) Price: 18-23k Rome, GA The single most breathtaking campus I’ve seen, with a sprawling acreage larger than that of any other college in the world and twice the size of Manhattan, the truly movie-worthy estate of Berry University has a fairy-tale castle, fields of deer, tree-lined drives, and 24 miles of woodland at the southern tip of the Appalachians (see its video at youvis.it/Wwzeza).

The origin of Berry University dates back to the 1890s, when the daughter of a wealthy local businessman began inviting the poor children of the surrounding area to her log cabin to

read stories from the Bible for entertainment.

(This project and others mirrored the settlement house movement in urban areas, demonstrating the expansive reach of the Progressive movement of the late and decadent industrial period.) In 1902, a trade school for boys was founded, with students helping to build and run it in turn for their education, and in 1914, work became an integral part of its experience. With the encouragement of Theodore Roosevelt and funding from Henry Ford, both leading Progressives, it became a four-year college in 1930 with the impressive architecture we see today.

Berry remains distinctive for guaranteeing every student the opportunity to work during the school year, which is made possible by how it hires students instead of outside employees to run most of its operations. First years are placed in their first job based on information collected about them over the summer, and work one hour a week for $9/hour. They have the opportunity to apply for more advanced positions in a variety of settings, including with some off-campus employers, after their first year. (Given that many of these jobs are similar to paid chores, and the expectation of comparable pay induces inflexibility in wages, I find it problematic that Berry doesn’t set out how it avoids pigeonholing students into roles or, perhaps, publish statistical breakdowns for the benefit of full transparency. Also viz. Deep Springs.) It is possible to apply for a competitive scholarship where you will receive a full ride, similarly to the situation at Deep Springs, in exchange for extended working hours, including over the summer (the fact that it will give you a place to stay and work over the summer will be a plus for many people, though it may interfere with plans for outside internships for others).

It is something of a pleasant surprise that Berry has a comprehensive spread of majors, with all the usual subjects and high success rates for med or law school applicants, but its animal science program is something that it touts. Berry

states that “there is no better place to prepare for a career (and life) in animal science.” The animal science program is dedicated to animal husbandry (veterinary medicine and agricultural operations), and allows students to learn how to manage each type of livestock. PSYC, COMM, business, nursing, early childhood teaching, music, Spanish, CRWR, CHEM, PLSC, and HIST are among its disparate spread of common majors. A solid course selection is offered in dance, PE, math, PHYS, and entrepreunership. Majors include creative technologies, CS, and data analytics. Engineering partners with Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State. Studentfounded and faculty-guided enterprises on campus are common. The general education requirements are sparing but do include language for B.A.s. The requirement of attending cultural events and taking one physical course reflects its priorities (“head, heart, and hands” is how it describes them). The honors program, as typical, focuses on intellectual history in small seminars.

Like the manor it is, the campus is next to hunting grounds, a camping site and a lake that offers fishing and a swimming beach. It is remarkably close to civilization, for something of such sprawling natural amenities, only a few miles from a strip of stores, including Walmart, Jerusalem Grill, and national chains. Student life is not as cushy as at some high-flighted Southern schools.

Apply by 11/1 (EA/S-R) or 1/15 (RD)

Another great thing about Berry is that the college is “private,” and so not subject to the bureaucratic idiocies—such as misguided political correctness—characteristic of state schools.

[State schools are more laissez-faire in my experience. Even when they’re regulatory there’s less commitment put into it.]

(It’s true that we’re more than a bit touched by such stuff by the necessity of being accredited. But no college can avoid that.)

Our curriculum is not particularly Christian at all. It’s what you’d might find at similar four-year colleges, and faculty aren’t chosen for their religious beliefs (or, for that matter, for their lack thereof). Well, our range of majors is actually larger than most small colleges; we’re great at animal science, for example.

Our student body—partly because we’re in a very Christian part of the country and party because our campus is dry, is free of fraternities and sororities, and actually has dorm visitation policies, and so forth—is probably mostly pretty seriously Christian, although there are more than a few student skeptics.

There are lots of active religious organizations. No one Christian denomination dominates, though.

These peculiar characteristics actually turn out to be good for intellectual freedom. At Berry, for example, it’s actually possible to discuss in class whether Roe v Wade was righly decided. They’ll be students on both sides, and none of them feels afraid to speak up.

This is the opinion in October 7, 2011 of a conservative political philosopher who was a professor and wrote Allergic to Crazy: Quick Thoughts on Politics, Education, and Culture (2014) and American Heresies and Higher Education (2016).

The strange reference to accredition could be a reference to the school’s Title IX struggles, as it was adding a football team at the time (with some delay as the initial site for the stadium was taken by a nesting pair of bald eagles). An article in The Campus Carrier on December 11, 2011 states:

The newest addition of football raises many questions, including whether or not Berry will remain Title IX compliant with the addition of a men’s sport. . .

In 2002 a complaint was filed about Berry’s equality from a female coach who was replaced by a male. After that complaint the Office for Civil Rights conducted an audit that ended in September 2010.

Brooks said due to the audit Berry has taken steps to become compliant by adding six female sports: golf, volleyball, swimming, lacrosse, softball and the equestrian club moved to team status.

According to the Equality in Athletics Data Report, which gives a detailed description of Berry’s athletic participation number, as of last year female athletes outnumbered males...

As [head volleyball] coach at Berry, Robinson said she feels the addition of football will only help ensure that Title IX is met because she has seen that athletes at Berry support each other. . .

While the addition of football will not affect Title IX compliance, [Dean of Students and VP of Student Affairs] Heida said constant consideration of the law is needed.

Berry currently maintains a 63 to 37 (or 1.7 to 1) female to male ratio despite its addition of a football team, as men both apply and are accepted at considerably lower rates.

Berea College Admit: 25% Size: 1.5k (16k) Price: 5-3k

Berea, KY

Berea has long been the most radically inclusive college in the South. Its founder, the son of a slaveholder who had attended Lane from 1842 to 1843, established the town of Berea (named after an open-minded town in the Bible), the one-off “Union Church,” and Berea College in the early 1850s with the land granted to him by Cassius Clay on the western edge of the Appalachians, 40 miles south of Lexington. Berea recruited heavily from Oberlin and was envisioned to be “to Kentucky what Oberlin is to Ohio, anti-slavery, anti-caste, anti-rum, anti-sin”.

Berea was the first racially integrated and first coed college in the South—not only taking in the odd black person but having equal numbers of black and white students during its early history. In 1904, segregation was mandated by law as a result of the “scientific racism” of the Progressive era, which it unsuccessfully sued to the SCOTUS to prevent, and remained until 1950. The focus of Berea grew to include addressing the educational needs of poor whites at this time.

Today it only admits students who are eligible for its financial aid program (you would need an income below $76k in a household with two parents and one sibling, or have special circumstances) and charges no tuition, with everyone working at least 10 hours a week. Furthermore, the tuition-

free policy is separate from the work that they do, for which they are paid ($6-10/hr, as at Berry, on a somewhat utopiansocialist paygrade). This means that it essentially costs negative dollars to attend, unlike any other work college, providing money to also pay for rent and food. About half of students are first-gen. It hosts students from 70 countries (limiting itself to one from each). You can see eligibility by family size at berea.edu/admissions/financial-eligibility.

The town of Berea is “the Folk Arts & Crafts Capital of Kentucky,” and the college owns and operates a 500-acre organic farm. The jobs that students get include pottery, woodworking, farmwork, groundswork, photography, and web design, and are described as not overly taxing and easy to slack off on (students have recently filed to create a labor union, expressing a level of entitlement that wouldn’t be tolerated for a second at, for example, the CofO). The historic Boone Tavern is owned by the college and 15% staffed by students. Berea has a broad liberal arts curriculum that includes fitness and religious literacy courses. Common majors include comm., busi., bio., agriculture and natural resources, engineering technology, English, elementary teaching, Spanish, nursing, peace and social justice studies, psych. and art. Gender studies, French, German and Asian studies are majors as well. As you would expect, Berea prioritizes maintaining a supportive environment. Every student receives a Dell Latitude, and one senior is selected each year to receive $40k for a trip to go out into the world.

Alumni have included the director of the NAACP from 1977 to 1992 and LGBT activists. bell hooks served as a professor and founded its bell hooks center.

Apply by 11/15 (EA), 1/31 (EA) or 3/31 (RD)

Blackburn University Admit: 64% Size: 380 (6k) Price: 20-24k Carlinville, IL Blackburn has the only student-led work program in the United States, which allows students to work their way up to managerial positions on the campus, giving them what it calls a “four year head start”. “Blackburn students literally help plan, manage and run the facilities” in a confidence and resume-building endeavor. Blackburn has a conventional spread of majors, with elementary teaching, crimonology, business, graphic design, creative writing, and biology being common choices. Computer science students complete a senior project and can stay over the summer.

The town of Carlinville is an hour from either St. Louis or Springfield. It has homestyle diners and a Walmart and is surrounded by a patchwork of woods and fields. The college is notable for having graduated a number of naturalists, including Charles Robertson, who conducted the largestever study of flower-visting insects at a single locality in Carlinville, which continues to be a useful source of historical data, and pioneering sociobiologists. The work program contributes to its personable and warm community. Most of the staff, including security, consists of students, and teachers are described as flexible and supportive.

Apply by 8/1 (F-R) or 12/31 (S-R). Auto if GPA>2.75.

A sampling of publications by alumni, including the entomological study that most recently had a follow-up study in 2009-10. Alum Lois de Fleur was the first female teacher in the US Air Force and president of Binghamton University from 1990 until 2010.

Hiram College Admit: 93% Size: 1k (1k) Price: 15-20k

Hiram, OH

Hiram is its own little residential town, midway between Warren-Youngstown (20 miles) and Cleveland (40 miles). It is surrounded by a patchwork of woods and fields, with nearby locales including waterfalls, a lake and a skydiving site. It resides with John Johnson’s farm, which is where Joseph Smith lived between his stays at Rochester and Carthage, shortly before Hiram College was founded by the Christian Church as the Western Eclectic Institute (eclectic meaning accomodating many denominations). One of its first students included James Garfield, also a janitor, preacher, and later teacher and principal (his little white church still stands as the political science department), who went on to serve in the Union and in Congress as a staunch abolitionist, playing a leading role in tightening conscription laws, and then as president of the United States.

Hiram’s excellent overview video can be seen at bit.ly/wearereal. The structure of the school is refreshingly unique. A school semester consists of three months followed by a break of one week and then a focused three week study in one class. This mixed-used plan will appeal to creative planners who can fit different initiatives into the sections of its schedule. Many of the options during the three weeks take the form of a special, in-depth experience on campus, on a job or abroad. The ability to “work one-on-

one with faculty is often reserved for graduate students and upperclassmen”, but at Hiram, “our faculty relish the opportunity to work with undergraduates to perform the same level of work. The result for our students is excellent preparation for graduate school and laboratory careers”.

Students can even get their names on published papers.

Hiram has a nice biological field station that offers paid work.

Students can learn trail maintenance and grounds keeping, assist with small construction projets, run nature education programs, and care for animals in its wildlife rehabilitation program. They can also propose and conduct independent research projects to fulfill their capstone requirement. The relative literacy of Hiram’s environmentalism shows in how it seeks to prevent the succession of its grassland into woodland to provide “nesting sites for ground nesting birds such as bobolinks, meadowlarks, and savannah sparrows”.

Hiram requires one course each in six areas and has dropped its language requirement. In their first year, students gain a foundation and take a seminar exploring enduring questions.

In their second year, they discuss possible careers in-depth with advisors and choose a major as a function of their aspirations. In their third year, they gain a greater understanding of their field through hands-on experience and participate in an team-taught seminar on urgent challenges. In their fourth year, they complete a capstone project, which is presented publicly to feedback from the community, family and/or friends. Among Hiram’s unique features giving further flexibility to the student are its 3-year degree programs, available in most popular majors, which still includes an experiential learning opportunity. They can also take courses online through its consortia to fill in credits

where they need them. Hiram has a significant honors program that comes with many perks, including your pick of a class before they’re open for most, registering for extra classes at no cost, dining with visiting scholars, networking with alumni, and encouragement for interdisciplinary work.

Accounting, sports admin/management, integrative exercise science, nursing, medical humanities, psychology, creative writing, political science, crimonology, and computer science are the most common majors. CS has multiple tracks.

Neuroscience has a computing concentration. Hiram was a pioneer in environmental studies (a rare minor in natural history, with field-based courses, is offered). The writing program, with its own center located in “an 1892 Queen Anne house, offering students a rare studio environment in which to learn and work; and Bonney Castle, a former nineteenth-century inn offering cozy classroom and discussion spaces,” specializes in creative nonfiction. It brings in visiting writers, runs writing contests, and works closely with students to identify and apply for internships.

They can serve as editors of the Hiram Poetry Review, which as with other literary journals at Ohio LACs has significant clout. Public health, sociology, social science, physics, performing arts, business specialties including esports, international studies, history, chemistry, biochemistry, art and English are additional options of majors, and minors include medieval studies, economics, entrepreunership (supplementing its center for entrepreunership), ethics, leadership, film studies, French, Spanish, gender studies, philosophy, and writing. Degree plans are simple and straightfoward. Hiram has 3+2 plans with WashU and Case Western for engineering and social work.

Artists and academics number Hiram’s alumni. They include the founder of the first national LGBT rights organization, which played a pivotal role in the movement from 1973 to 2015; the leading figure of Princeton’s African-American department and an anti-hereditarian scholar; the creator of Victorian cursive, seen in the Ford and Coca Cola logos; and the president of William Jewell College (to become president of Washington & Jefferson in the summer of 2024). Dining is

by AVI Fresh with a decent array of options. All students receive an iPad, Apple pencil and keyboard (to keep after graduation) and, reportedly, hiking boots. (Poor reviews appear to mostly be a matter of fit, as most of its students go to it because it’s nearby, not for its particular identity.)

A town that is a college. That’s an idea you could elaborate on.

Apply by 6/1 (fall), 12/1 (starting Jan) or 5/1 (starting Jun)

Sterling College Admit: 93% Size: 100 (1k) Price: 22-17k

Craftsbury, VT

Grown out of a former boy’s prep school and Outward Bound program, Sterling has a “back to the land” philosophy that sees students cultivating much of their own food on its campus in northern VT. Sterling makes the distinction clear: “Many colleges have a farm. Sterling College is a farm.”

Along with the premier sustainable agriculture program in the country, Sterling teaches practical, outdoor skills such as using hand tools and navigating the wilderness. Every student works 5 hours a week in crews such as ones for the kitchen, grounds, and farm.

Only a four-year college since 1994, there is evidence that the 3:2 majority female institution is rapidly changing and has become less hardcore in its emphasis on manual skills.

The only degree options are two-year or four-year degrees in environmental studies, though students can work with their instructors to develop an area of focus such as education, agriculture, or climate justice. Wednesdays are reserved for day-long activities such as field trips, and afternoons for working on long-term projects. The library and pantry are open 24/7, and students live in residential houses.

Apply by 12/15 (priority), 3/1 (RD) or 7/15 (as available-R)

Maryville College Admit: 70% Size: 2k (32k) Price: 20-24k Maryville, TN 17 miles from Knoxville (193k) and 20 miles from the Great Smoky Mountains, the most biodiverse region and with a large artisan community, in the hometown of Lamar Alexander. Mountain Challenge LLC offers programming. Every student completes a Senior study. Majors include sign language, counseling psychology, and wellness. Minors in Appalachia and fermentation are offered, and art, music, horseriding and MC LLC scholarships. Sports include football, baseball and soccer. See a review on appalachiabare.

Apply by 10/15 (EA, priority reg.), 11/15 (RD) or 8/1 (RD)

Lees-McRae College Admit: 91% Size: 1.4k (7k) Price: 21-21k Banner Elk, NC The highest-elevation college in the East, Lees-McRae was voted the top adventure college in a contest (as with Maryville). Wildlife biology is the largest program (followed by human services and criminal justice). It emphasizes field experience, and every student completes a research project. Outdoor management and wilderness rescue and medicine are majors. LMC was founded by Edgar Tufts and named after two women he admired for their perseverence.

Apply by 12/15 (merit aid) or 4/1 (R)

David & Elkins College Admit: 75% Size: 650 (7k) Price: 19-20k Elkins, WV Located in northern WV on the border of a national forest, D&E is one of the most scenic colleges I’ve ever seen. It accepts 98% of female students and 48% of male students, but males choose to attend at a higher rate, creating a 1.5:1 F:M ratio.

Dorms are to my liking. The campus includes the historic homes of David and Elkins, two significant Gilded Age Senators who represented West Virginia. The college seeks to create students who “communicate effectively, think critically, live meaningfully and act as responsible citizens.” It provides “unparalleled access to winter sport centers and other forms of extracurricular recreation: camping, biking, canoeing, hiking, skiing and snowboarding.”

Clubs go whitewater rafting and rock-climbing. Elkins is a

small community reknown for its folk art, scenery and recreation, with a concentration of cultural institutions, and is the site of initiatives to conserve the heritage of the region. Division II sports include golf, wrestling and track but not football.

D&E has the usual spread of majors including BBP and NE. Nursing is in demand, and students can complete their degree in three years with paid summer terms. Guaranteed placement pathways with scholarships are available, and 100% of students have been placed by the fall for the past three years. Crimonology, English, environmental science, biology and acting have solid, standard courses, as do chemistry, communication, philosophy and political science. Specialties include wilderness resource management and outdoor recreation management. Associates are offered in business, criminal justice, forest technology and nursing.

Hospitality & tourism management can be pursued as an associates or bachelors degree. Students are required to complete an internship at places such as “The Greenbrier, Hershey Park, or Disney World” and “work-study positions are available on campus in event planning, catering services, lodging and restaurant operations through D&E’s Hospitality Services and unique Graceland Inn and Restaurant”.

Classes begin 8/15. Decision within 24-48 hours.

University of Pikeville Admit: 91% Size: 1.4k (7k) Price: 21-21k Pikeville, KY The leading higher education institution of central Appalachia, a region better known for its trailers and huts, UPike exists at a higher level of development than any college in an approximately hundred mile radius. It even has its own medical school. The village of Pikeville, winding around the curves of a steep valley, is home to the Pikeville Cut-Through, which is second only to the Panama Canal in the vastness of its artifice in the Americas and was proudly called “the eighth wonder of the world” by its proponents.

One of the moonshots of the 1960s, it remains a testament to the town’s spirit of progress and transformation.

UPike has standard majors (business, biology, teaching, criminal justice), and is best known for its pre-med tracks.

Social work, filmmaking, and history & political science are also options. Freshmen traditionally climb the impressively long and steep staircase up the hill to the residence halls and the administration

building. Pikeville celebrates the semi-satirical Hillbilly Days in April, and the Appalachian Wireless Arena, with a capacity of 7k, draws sporting and cultural events. General education requirements are framed by how “At the University of Pikeville, we seek to understand this thing we call place… history, connection to the land, connection to people, and understanding of our own unique calling.”

Apply before classes start on 8/24 (R)

Alice Lloyd College Admit: 98% Size: 500 (0.5k) Price: 16-18k Pippa Passes, KY Founded in 1923 by two gritty, entrepreunerial women who arrived to the area from Boston and Syracuse in 1916 and 1919, and granting bachelors degrees since 1982, Alice Lloyd is in the heart of deepred Appalachian Kentucky and charges no tuition to residents of central Appalachia. Pell grants can be applied to room and board. To help run the college, all students are required to work at least 10 hours a week. The net price for those outside the central Appalachian area is up to $21k.

ALC is in an extremely rural, quiet, uninhabited valley. Living on campus is required, not that there would be other options.

Elk and blackberry bushes are among the main amenities of the location. Opposite sex dorm visitation occurs during scheduled, publicized open houses with rules of proper conduct that are “explained”. Athletes and sports are a valued part of the community. Biology, communication, crimonology, sociology, and history are popular majors.

Graduates with at least a 3.0 GPA receive free housing while attending the University of Kentucky for grad school or scholarships if they go elsewhere. This support, and the optional leadership program, is intended to aid the development of Appalachia by developing local leaders.

Apply as early as possible before 8/15 (F-R) or 1/5 (S-R)

An “environmental” health advisory Alice Lloyd might seem like a perfectly healthful place to go to clllege, but satellite imagery shows that the surrounding area is scarred by strip mining. A search predictably reveals that “Nationally, Kentucky ranks first in cancer incidence and mortality, in part because of the high rates of cancer in its eastern Appalachian region (Southern Medical Journal), and you ((obviously)) can’t trust scientists or the government for safety guidance (“Why cancer is so hard to fight in eastern Kentucky”—"Cancer is epidemic in eastern Kentucky, a result of medical illiteracy... There's got to be more to it than just a little bit more smoking, that causes this gigantic increase in lung cancer rates. And the reasons for that are probably, we don't clear carcinogens as well as the next group,” “The Cancer Capital of America”—“Eastern Kentucky is poor, remote, and inadequately serviced, and those factors have led to alarming rates of cancer”) since environmental issues are defined only as those physical issues that there are cognitive biases against perceiving rather than on any peculiar material basis. The effects of stabbing someone with a knife, for example, would properly be categorized as an “environmental issue” (“that needs to be holistically considered as one factor in any responsible analysis”) if processing its causation were cognitively demanding, and if stealing a TV were difficult to perceive, economists would say it’s okay because you could buy it back if you valued it more than they do (Medema 2014), magically forgetting the entire purpose of property rights which is to incentivize production and replicate returns (there’s really no argument to make, they just omitted one on their end), or suggest fancy “Pigovian taxes” instead of “fines for illegal activities.”

Young Harris College Admit: 64% Size: 1.5k (.8k) Price: 19-22k Young Harris, GA Located at the very southern tip of Appalachia, Young Harris is 4 miles from the NC border in GA. Established to serve a rural area and originally funded by student work on a farm, Young Harris is near mountains and a lake, and a short walk from the sprawling Cupid Falls in a beautiful glen. It has graduated a number of statesmen, including Zell Miller, who served GA as Senator and Governor as the last of its old school Democrats, and acclaimed poet Byron Herbert Reece. Students are described as friendly.

Gen Ed is minimal but substantive, including two composition courses in the first year. In addition to business and biology, creative writing, theater, English, communication, public policy and law, and outdoor education. Interdisciplinary studies requires only taking at least three courses in each in three subjects.

Housing options include the Freshmen Pods and the Village.

Apply early to select courses or before start 8/19 (R)

Lincoln Memorial University Admit: 78% Size: 1.5k (4.5k) Price: 19-23k Harrogate, TN At the intersection of KY, TN and VA and two miles from the Cumberland Gap, LMU was founded to reward the impoverished youth of the most loyalist area of the country after the Civil War by General Howard, who worked on it after founding Howard University. A course on Lincoln’s life is required. The college hosts the Lincoln Library and Museum.

The honors program provides the opportunity to delve into independent projects. There are 4k grad students in addition to the undergrad population. 70% of undergrad students are female. Common majors include nursing (though the program is called disorganized), conservation biology, vet assistant and social work. CS and engineering (civil/mech) and associates are offered. Sports include bowling, golf and volleyball in addition to soccer, lacrosse, track and baseball. Meals are creative if limited.

Alumni include the founder of the Museum of Appalachia.

Apply by 7/26 (R) or 1/3 (spring)

Paul Smith’s College Admit: 85% Size: 700 (700) Price: 23-26k Paul Smiths, NY If the idea of living and learning in a lodge in the Adirondacks sounds like a dream, Paul Smith’s might be for you. The remote and nature-bound setting of this tightknit college in the High Peaks wilderness, a campground-like campus by a lake, lends it toward a hands-on experience. Culinary students run the college’s cozy restaurant and bakery, and forestry students gain experience operating equipment on its miles of grounds. In addition to basketball, soccer, bowling and golf, Paul Smith’s has nationally competitive teams in ice hockey, skiiing, bass fishing, timbersports and marathon canoe, and is near world-class facilities at Lake Placid.

Paul Smith’s offers a variety of majors related to natural resource management. The state-funded Adirondack Watershed Institute is operated by PSC and is thus amenable to hiring upwards of a hundred students from the college each year. Professors at the college view students as colleagues and equal partners in their research projects.

Students who major in fisheries and wildlife science take courses such as natural history, genetics, icthyology, and watershed management. Forestry students can concentrate in operations, management, or biology (studying forest ecology or entomology). They manage the college’s 10,000 acres of woodland and its sawmill. Recreation and leisure management students design and go on excursions to faroff national parks, and have the opportunity to lead daytrips with paying clients. The scope of the program isn’t limited to the North Country—students can also study abroad in places like game preserves in Uganda.

The college is one of the very few that offers culinary training on a traditional campus. It also offers a psychology major (though no one graduated from the program in its most recent year). Sports and events, hospitality, or esports management students have internship opportunities nearby, and can even work with Olympics professionals. Minors include wildfire fighting, craft beer, and maple syruping.

Two-years associates degrees include hospitality, culinary, landscaping and forestry. Many students choose to design their own degree. Housing is on the roomier side in woodsy facilities. The campus is majority-male and described as more conservative-leaning. The administration has been criticized as too laissez-faire, and the dining as inadequate.

Apply by 11/15 (EA), 3/15 (RD), 7/28 (R), 12/1 (S) or 1/16 (S-R)

Lenoir-Rhyne University Admit: 81% Size: 1.5k (44k) Price: 20-26k

Hickory, NC

Lenoir-Rhyne is in the foothills of the Appalachians. Business (finance and accounting) and nursing are the most common choices, and human services, American politics and American studies are options as well. The general education is moderate, and in its upper level courses you will “select research topics, produce your work and, ultimately, complete your capstone requirement by means of a public presentation.”

Apply by 10/15 (priority) or 7/1 (R)

Brevard College Admit: 40% Size: 800 (8k) Price: 22-25k

Brevard, NC

At Brevard, students sit down to discuss their career goals before their first class and shape their college experience to meet their goals. The Brevard Career Advantage, which originated in a department that had a 100% career placement (not only job placement) rate, means that faculty and staff are supposed to work with students of all majors to help them find jobs and internships and refine their resumes. As Brevard astutely explains, “Most colleges offer career services and career checklists. These

approaches are passive. This program is different. It is an active commitment.” A student in the theater program expressed satisfaction knowing that “I won’t just be bumbling around knowing that I’m good but will know how to get a job.” Another praised Brevard as “personable,” noting how the president lives steps from the freshmen dorms.

Outdoor education, environmental science, history, theater and the arts are specialties at Brevard, as are health science and criminal justice. Its setting in the mountain town of Brevard, south of the population center of Asheville, gives it access to trails up lush mountains with streams and redspotted newts. The Sierra Club praised Brevard for becoming the first college in the South to divest from climate change-causing fuels in response to student activism. The 12 to 8 male-majority school is an all-around success, with its football team competing with Huntingdon and Maryville at the top of the South Division. The living-learning community options include the Institute for Women in Leadership, and students can earn a minor in Gender Studies and Leadership. The robust honors program gives students access to special interdisciplinary classes like Cold War Literature and Culture Wars in the Modern Age. Applied physics is oriented to pre-engineering students, and a CS major was added last year. The integrated studies major requires only taking at least six classes in two different fields and completing a senior project.

Apply by 7/28 (R) or 1/8 (S-R)

Tusculum University Admit: 81% Size: 1k (16k) Price: 21-20k Greeneville, TN An east Tennessee college near VA and NC, Tusculum has a brick and wood-paneled campus. Creamy Cup (café), Old Oak Taproom (restaurant) and Chik-fil-A are among the eateries nearby. The Andrew Johnson presidential library is on campus, Davy Crockett’s birthplace is just 8 miles down the road, and Lamar Alexandar Rocky Fork State Park features mossy waterfalls 38 miles upland. The oldest college in TN and the first to be integrated, it is distinctive for offering a schedule where students take a single three-week course four times a semester. Associates are offered.

Business is the most common major. ENVI promotes and supports internships including in the forest service and at zoos and parks. Field experiences are incorporated into courses.

Students made the news in 2023 for discovering a new crayfish species on campus. Appalachian environmental studies, CS, history (tourism, museum studies), and arts community outreach admin are among the majors. The oldest TN college, Tusculum has a highly successful creative writing and editing program and acclaimed literary journals.

Apply by 7/28 (R), 1/15 (S-R), or 7/15 (SM-R)

Randolph College Admit: 95% Size: 500 (79k) Price: 23-26k Lynchburg, VA The former sister college of Randolph-Macon, on a wooded rivershore and 3 miles from downtown, Randolph has a schedule where students take only two classes at a time and have Wednesdays free, making it easy to schedule work and extracurriculars. The innovative American Cultures program is an affordable alternative to study abroad. This spring course features overnight and day trips with allexpenses-paid travel. (The course has specific single theme and an application is required.) Students work closely with professors, including in research, with many going on to grad school. Randolph operates an honor code—students take finals on their own—and students are asked to self-report themselves alike confessing their sins to a priest. (The problem with these codes is that even if you were perfectly moral, you wouldn’t self-report yourself, and morality shouldn’t be so extraneous that it operates through guilt.) Randolph has a dedicated major for interdisciplinary interests that can be selected like any other, as with Tusculum, and an excellent range of course offerings, which is expanded by access to Lynchburg and Sweet Briar.

Apply by 11/15 (EA), 3/1 (RD) or after (R)

Huntingdon College Admit: 66% Size: 800 (197k) Price: 24-25k Montgomery, AL Founded in the antebellum era as a women’s teaching college by the governor, Huntingdon today has a balanced gender ratio (56% male) and is known for its homey sense of place. One student says “I have all of my professors personal cell numbers and have been to their homes on multiple occasions. The professors are what make Huntingdon unique. They care so deeply about their students and push them in academics when it matters.” Teachers are described as nice and helpful, rooting for their students’s success.

Students are described as outgoing and eager. Huntingdon shows its school spirit at football and baseball games, and has nice branding (a sleek red hawk as its mascot). Lowerclassmen live in doubles (men’s and women’s dormitories) and have more options as upperclassmen. The dining uses a meal swipe system. The library has a space that is open 24/7, and the college has

three-day weekends (classes are scheduled to fit into Monday to Thursday) to give everyone more simultaneous time off (what it calls “Flex Fridays”). Amenities include a recreational outdoor pool and neatly gardened grounds with dogwood blossoms in the spring.

Huntingdon’s motto is “building great lives.” Its honors program includes community service in addition to the usual seminars. The presidential scholars program, a subset of the honors program that does not allow participation in sports, mandates intellectual extracurricular participation and provides networking opportunities. The gen ed requirements include old and new testament courses and two religious electives, plus an ethics and vocation sequence. Popular majors include bio (biochem and cell), business, kinesiology, history, criminal justice, and health & wellness. Huntingdon covers book costs and gives free laptops to keep, part of its ethos of fostering students.

Alumni have included Harper Lee (her first year), Jeff Sessions, the wife and son of George Wallace, and the first white field secretary of the SNCC (civil rights student group during the ’60s), the subject of the film Son of the South.

Apply by 12/1 (merit aid) or later (R)

University of the Ozarks Admit: 60% Size: 800 (16k) Price: 15-18k

Clarksville, AR

The first college in AR, and the first to admit women, integrate or develop disability services, the University of the Ozarks enables students to selfdirect their learning with its curriculum, which does not have distribution requirements but requires studying the sciences, social sciences, and humanities or fine arts with a combination of one major and two minors (or two majors and one minor). Every student receives an iPad. Shuttle service is provided to Walmart, and downtown is in walking distance, including through the Spadra Creek trail. Lowerclassmen are required to live on campus. The Ozarks emphasizes access to outdoor recreation and study abroad opportunities.

Regular rock climbing, paddling and camping trips are held with extensive free gear, from tents to canoes to bikes to field guides, and some study abroad programs do not cost additional tuition.

A conventional spread of majors is offered (not including CS), and courses are non-didactic while occasionally appearing limited (for example, it has a single course covering “Nonwestern history”). Dining is all-you-can-eat and has a hearty if limited menu. Professors are described as “kind.”

Apply before 4/1 (priority) or after as available

Drury University Admit: 63% Size: 1.4k (170k) Price: 18-21k Springfield, MO Drury is right by downtown Springfield, the anchor of SW MO known for its quality of living, with gardens and trails and the flagship Bass Pro Shops (founded by an alum), alternately called a “mothership” or “The Grandaddy of All Outdoor Stores" and the top tourist destination in Missouri. The city is shared with Missouri State (18k), with which it has reciprocal borrowing privileges.

In addition to taking at least one course each in seven areas, Drury students pursue three credentials, a combination of majors, minors and/or certificates, which must include one profession and one life (i.e. humanities) credential.

Certificates are four-course sequences such as “intercultural connections” and “cybersecurity” (there is really very little choice offered) that end with a capstone project. This curriculum is meant to be liberating, but frankly, is more of a stifling gimmick. The most common majors include architecture, animation, graphic design, journalism, English, software engineering, psychology, crimonology, and clinical neuroscience. Drury has significant Greek life, and sports include track and wrestling but not football.

Apply by 8/1 (R, notified as soon as 9/1 of senior year)

Marietta College Admit: 79% Size: 1.1k (16k) Price: 17-21k

Marietta, OH

Descended from a revolutionary-era academy, Marietta is located in what was the first town in Ohio (now bordering WV), which is so old it was named after Marie Antoinette in thanks to the French before they cut her head off. Marietta is best known for offering the nation’s only liberal arts based, undergraduate major in petroleum engineering, allowing for speedy entry into this lucrative field typically requiring advanced studies. The competitive program taught by faculty with industry experience offers opportunities for hands-on experience in internships from their first year, preparing them for a field that can be international in scope. Marietta was also developing strengths in environmental engineering until recently, but it has stated it is no longer accepting students into this program, nor its unique program in land and energy management, after “careful consideration”. Other majors include journalism, industrial chemistry, general science (“neuroscience”) and planetary science. Alumn include the nation’s most experienced astronaut and the namesake of the Dawes Plan.

Apply by 7/27 (R) or 1/12 (S), earlier for scholarships

Marietta Forward Increasingly, students are approaching their college experience as a transactional relationship that guarantees career preparation. Their parents are forthcoming about their expectations for internships, a job with a good salary right out of college, and long-term career success. Such quantification of the college experience depreciates the value proposition of the liberal arts experience… Of even greater significance is the further decline in graduates… This decline, known colloquially as the 2025 Demographic Cliff, will impact many regions… These forces are spurring greater competition among the colleges that seek to educate the next generation of thinkers, leaders, and change makers. Not every college will survive; notice of another college’s closure or merger is now a frequent occurrence.

Muskingum University Admit: 82% Size: 1.5k (2k) Price: 19-22k New Concord, OH Muskingham has a beautiful campus with a classic quad, a pond with a gazebo pier and a bridge over the valley. The largest programs are health science and nursing, but zoology is also popular, and engineering and CS are offered. Zoology can partner with The Wilds, a safari. Earth science, geology, journalism, and neuroscience are offered. Chemistry students can earn their degree in three years. Astronaut and Senator John Glenn is an alum.

Apply by 7/28 (R) or 1/08

Bluffton University Admit: 94% Size: 700 (4k) Price: 19-22k Bluffton, OH 17 miles from Lima (36k) in NW Ohio, Bluffton is a homely school with a sense of community. It took in faculty from nearby Goshen during the lashback against liberal theology in the 1920s, and is now joining a shared system with the University of Findlay. The library focuses on Mennonite collections but books can be borrowed through Ohio Link.

First years take a field trip to the Great Smokies with their classmates, one of the four core classes they will take. In addition they will have to take one class in ten general areas.

The college assists students with “designing their life”. Social work, speech pathology, wellness science, teaching and business are common majors. IT and child development are offered. As at other Mennonite colleges, criminal justice has a focus on restorative justice. Chemistry has a green and nontoxic focus. Engineering offers dual enrollment at OSU-Lima (for tech) or a 2+2 plan with Wright State for electrical. 3+1 medical laboratory science partners with Ohio Northern. Bluffton manages to maintain a football team that as many as a fourth of students are participants in.

Apply as early as 6/1 after junior year or by 7/1 (R)

Hesston College

Admit: n/a Size: 300 (3.5k) Price: 20-21k Hesston, KS Nearby Bethel and the western headquarter of the Mennonites in Newton, Hesston is a 2-year focused college, and enrolls students with a minimum of a 2.5 GPA instead of 3.0. 4 year programs are offered in aviation (including mountain courses), business management, engineering-mechatronics and nursing (100% success rate).

Apply by spring (recommended) or later (R)

Bethel College Admit: 97% Size: 500 (4k) Price: 21-26k Newton, KS 30 miles north of Wichita is Bethel—the first Mennonite college in the New World, founded by immigrants from Eastern Europe in a town Buffalo Bill Cody called “The toughest, cussedest, Wild West town I ever knew.”

Students earn PhDs at the highest rate of any Kansas college. Business students complete an internship. Pre-law is excellent. There is a football team. The campus is adjacent to the Sand Creek trail and community garden and near a sand prairie preserve.

Apply by 4/1 (in-state aid) or later (R)

Lindenwood University Admit: 74% Size: 5k (1k) Price: 15-20k St. Charles, MO The third oldest college west of the Mississippi, Lindenwood is 25 miles from St. Louis and on the bank of the Missouri, along with the St. Charles historic district, “site of the first permanent European settlement on the Missouri River and of the embarkation of Lewis and Clark's journey of exploration along the Missouri. The first state capital of Missouri and over one hundred other historic buildings are located in the district.” Long trails along the river go to Howell Island in the south and Pelican Island in the north. The campus is across the street from Schnucks, the St. Louis-based grocer known for the cheery soldier it has had as its mascot since 1968.

Across the river is Earth City, a tract of industrial businesses, and a radioactive landfill with a subterranean dumpster fire (they say it’s safe, take that as you will).

Students give mixed reviews of the morale of the school, with some saying that the social scene can feel exclusive.

Lindenwood has historically been known for its many athletic teams, which compete as the Golden Lions. It “has one of the largest athletic programs of any college at all levels in the United States.” (On an aside, one wonders why colleges always see their economic interests, seen heuristically as in juxtaposition to the sentimental interests of what they’d “like” to do, as removing their discrepancies from other colleges. No other industry is this relentlessly, strenuously

and effortfully dumb in its business model). The strangest aspect of Lindenwood is its harsh enforcement of a ban on visiting the other sex’s dorms, which results in immediate expulsion pending a hearing, usually followed by a sentence to (what is ostensibly supposed to be) hard moralizing work such as trash duty or lawn maintenance. What the purpose of this is supposed to be is perplexing because it is independent of any denomination and does not make religiosity part of its marketing. It does predictably state that “education is the way to personal freedom and responsibility” because “democracy” and that its JudeoChristian (code for “Western”) values include “belief in an ordered, purposeful universe, the dignity of work, the worth and integrity of the individual, the obligations and privileges of citizenship, and the primacy of truth.” This character can likely be attributed to the presidency of Spellman.

Centers are dedicated to free enterprise, esports, exercise and performance nutrition. Business is the most popular major, and a large number of emphases and majors are offered. Art, game design, and fashion business and entrepreunership are some of the other prominent majors.

Radiologic tech and paramedicine are offered, as are cinema and dance. Interdisciplinary studies enables broader studies than the tracks. Technology-forward courses are offered.

The aerospace minor has courses such as military history, geopolitics and navigation. The ROTC partners with WashU. Apply by 7/28 (R)

St. Louis Public Radio | Lauren Brennecke, senior at Webster The decision was made to better align athletics with peer institutions, according to a statement by the university.

Nine of the 10 teams being cut are spring sports and will complete their final seasons in spring 2024. Those sports are men’s tennis, lacrosse, indoor and outdoor track and field, and wrestling, along with men’s and women’s cycling, women’s gymnastics and women’s swimming and diving.

Women’s field hockey, a fall sport, ended the day of the announcement. Players said teammates and coaches were blindsided by the announcement. Audrey Woods, a freshman, said she’s finished playing collegiate field hockey because of the school’s decision. They’d taken team pictures just a day before the assembly where student-athletes learned of the cuts.

“Our coaches told us they didn't know what it was about,” said Woods. “But then over the next 24 hours, we started talking with other teams, and they started to get scared, and athletic trainers, advisers and coaches had no idea what it was about.

And so the rumor was just kind of that they were cutting teams, but a lot of people didn't think it was going to happen, because there were teams like gymnastics and lacrosse who were in it.”

Several newly cut teams were successful in their sport, as well as bringing in recruits. In April, the Lindenwood gymnastics team won the USA Gymnastics Women's Collegiate National Championship. In 2022, Lindenwood became an NCAA Division I school. It’s since competed in the Ohio Valley Conference — a conference that Lindenwood said no longer aligns with the number of sports offered.

"As an athletics director, this is not a decision you ever want to have to make. Unfortunately, it is critical for the long-term sustainability of the department," said Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Jason Coomer in a statement on the university’s website. "I understand there will be considerable

hurt felt by the ten teams impacted as well as by our staff and coaches.”

Coomer made the announcement to 284 students just before it was released to the public. The announcement took minutes, and Woods said she and others were upset with the manner the cuts were explained.

“Part of the blow was that it wasn't even the president of our school who gave us a speech,” said Woods. “He read it off a paper, and I think the speech was a grand total of three minutes.”

Teams hoped to work with the university to amend this decision.

“We acknowledge Lindenwood University’s decision to discontinue the Men’s Wrestling team at the conclusion of this season. We plan to engage with their administration to explore avenues for reconsideration and a potential reversal of this choice,” wrote Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Administration.

The Lindenwood administration said the decision won’t be reversed. In a statement, officials wrote that donor support would not impact the final decision. The announcement came weeks after signing day for athletes, during finals. Recruits and active players will have scholarships honored, but some are looking to transfer. [so little space for a rant] I get that Lindenwood is having financial difficulties. It could argue that those difficulties are however extreme as they want. That isn’t relevant. The problem here is that this decision is going to hurt their finances. What’s egregrious is that they’re cutting teams to be “in alignment with the usual offerings,” as if that’s the only standard of common sense they have, when what they should be doing is cutting sports that overlap with other schools since the fringe options are the ones the athletes wouldn’t otherwise be paying tuitions for, which would certainly be enough to subsidize their programs. Note the preemptive attribution of explanatory motives to any opposition with “I understand there will be... hurt”, which no doubt fuels, or even, with comical resolve and impenetrable idiocy, primes them to uphold, the stance that they won’t be reversing their decision.

Experience Old-Time Christmas Spirit in St. Charles [You’ll be on break then, but it still has charm] Just 30 minutes northwest of St. Louis, St. Charles is a dreamy Christmas town, with early 19th-century buildings draped in fresh pine garlands and lights glowing above brickpaved streets.

"Everything started in the 1970s, right around the time that Main Street was being revitalized," says Ryan Cooper, festival producer. "A lot of merchants here were in the festive mood, so they put on period attire and just dragged a Yule log down the street."

Since then, the event has grown—a lot. More than 130,000 people come each year to dip in and out of shops, sip wassail and ice-skate, all among roving Victorian characters.

Julia Gokhale/Midwestern Living

William Jewell University Admit: 41% Size: 800 (30k) Price: 16-22k Liberty, MO William Jewell is an innovative, forward-driving college that prides itself in strong mentorship and calls itself “the critical thinking college”. It claims a 99% placement rate over the summer after graduation and guarantees graduation in 4 years. Among its unusual features is its 3 year program (explicitly) offered in many majors, which you can select in your application, and will allow you to compress the time required to earn a BS degree, saving time and money. Many of its professors are willing to be close to students, often sharing their numbers, and students are ambitious and frequently see significant entrepreunerial success. It is next to green areas including fields, sedge meadows, and oak and hickory woodland, 3 miles from a plaza with many groceries, and 16 miles from Kansas City, MO. Traveling to KC may be difficult because the bus route has been canceled and there is no weekend shuttle.

Despite being a small school, WJ has several Division II programs, including football, contributing to its equal gender ratio. It has one of the highest Greek life participation rates at 37% for men and 48% for women. Its core curriculum asks “What is real? What can we know? How should we

live?” It is a sequence of three levels, the first having four courses such as “the Responsible Self”, the second having three courses on societal topics such as “Culture and Self,” and the third being a capstone that is “interdisciplinary, tied closely to issues of public concern, and occasionally teamtaught”. Additionally, two DEI courses and one language course is required (if you’ve taken a second-level course like “Spanish II” as most have, two otherwise).

Students can apply to the Honors Institute by submitting a video about how they want to apply critical thinking to change the world. They will take courses such as Integrative Thinking (“With attention to the psychological concepts of intuitive thinking and analytical thinking, we will explore how these processes are shaped by factors that are ideological, cultural, linguistic, biological and bodily/material”). This is the less academic stat-demanding alternative to the Oxbridge Program (typically at least top 10% GPA and 30 ACT or 1400 SAT). After their first year, Oxbridge Scholars declare a major in (all are Oxbridge versions and prefixed with “Oxbridge”) History, History of Ideas, Institutions and Policy, Literature and Theory, Molecular Biology, or Music. All classes are based in the tutorial style in “one-on-one or small group settings, with a master teacher or tutor coordinating intensive reading and writing assignments”. In their junior year they spend a full year at Oxford University, the UK university that ranks with Harvard and is the site of the Rhodes Scholarship. The courses in the Oxbridge Program are absolutely fascinating and can provide a similar sensibility to Great Books programs without being bogged down in texts. Courses include “Citizenry and the Roman State”, “Modern Europe”, “Arete: the Shaping of Greek

Societies, 776-338 B.C.E.”, “Social and Political Philosophy”, “History of Ideas Synthesis” (preparation for comprehensive examinations), “Moral Psychology”, “Moral Issues”, “Modern Political Philosophy”, “Modern Russian Politics”, “Alternatives to Anarchy in International Relations”, “Introduction to Contemporary Critical Theory” and “Advanced Critical Theory”. Molecular Biology includes extensive lab work with an emphasis on designing and conducting independent projects.

Another unique feature of William Jewell is its many study abroad programs, particularly in Europe, and an open-ended “self-designed adventure” program that awards Journey Grants to “provide the freedom and funding for you to pursue your passions in far-flung places”. Service learning and internship opportunities with alumni in Kansas City are often sought. Students can apply to be Pryor Fellows in the Pryor Leadership Program. With an emphasis on experiential learning, students will build skills in an Outward Bound trip where they put classroom knowledge to the test by leading students in the Florida Everglades over two weeks. They will also complete a Legacy Project for the community, which has included building a community garden and “tiny houses” for the homeless. Many student organizations are offered, including Quiltbag, the LGBT support group, oSTEM, a group for LGBT in STEM, GIFT, the Gender Inclusivity and Feminist Team, the aforementioned fraternities including a National Hispanic Honor Society, Mi Gente, a Latinx group, leadership and philanthropy societies, an acclaimed orchestra, traveling wind ensemble and contemporary choir, and more.

The most common majors are nursing and business, who together make up half of majors. Biology, biochemistry,

chemistry, and physics are small but excellent programs with an emphasis on investigative learning and lab work. Seven undergraduate research labs allow for gaining technical experience. Biology majors can apply to Duke for forestry or environmental management after three years. The civil engineering program offers opportunities for summer internships, from construction to surveying to pallid sturgeon conservation. (3+2 programs with a STEM major are also offered, with WashU, Columbia and Missouri S&T.) The CS program (which is pending approval) has a hybrid schedule, including online app development courses, that gives students more flexibility with work and extracurriculars. The data science program is programming-based and has areas of emphases in Bioinformatics, Business Intelligence, Economic Analysis, Math & Modeling, and Molecular Design. International relations, philosophy, IT, nonprofit leadership, theater, political science, history, psychological science, public relations (all complete an internship) and Spanish are other majors. Courses are available in languages such as Latin and Arabic, and there are women’s studies and integrated health care management minors. Nursing has a 100% NCLEX pass rate, and 85% of students are hired before graduating, which many do in three years. Opportunities for honors designations include the certificate in critical thinking received through the Honors Institute, and Honors in one’s major, received by having a 3.5 GPA and completing a senior project. Traditions include homecoming and a spring field day. Students have free admissions to the Harriman-Jewell Series, which has hosted Yo-Yo Ma and the Russian National Ballet.

Apply by 1/15 (Oxbridge), 1/28 (S) or 7/26 (R)

Ferrum College Admit: 84% Size: 800 (2k) Price: 22-24k

Ferrum, VA

This western Virginia college on the central foothills of Appalachia is known for its sports alumni such as Nick Rodriguez (wrestling/jiu-jitsu and modeling), Billy Wagner (baseball hall of famer) and Billy Joe Mantooth (football), and it uses football as a recruitment tool, though it typically attracts more players than it can accommodate. A slim majority of students play on one of its varsity teams, the Panthers. A highlight of the college is Norton Outdoor Adventures, named after coach Hank Norton, a student-led program that offers classes for ecotourism students, a rock-climbing tower, and free gear rentals such as tents, stoves, sleeping bags, hammocks, canoes, paddle boards, and fishing equipment.

Programming includes caving, mountain biking, ropes courses, whitewater rafting, sailing, skiing and snowboarding, disc golf, backpacking, and climbing. Clubs for fly fishing, mountain biking and rock climbing exist.

Agriculture, environment, nature recreation and tourism, park and leisure studies, forensic science, nursing, political science and graphic design are among its programs. An emphasis on country-related and practical majors reflects its history, and it has a reputation for serving underserved, sometimes less academically committed or stable students

(Washington Monthly, the press that trashed Shimer, singled it out for criticism, saying that “Ferrum proves that you can’t judge schools just by [positive] appearances, and that even low-quality schools have fans”). It was founded during the Progressive Era in a remote place “where the need seemed the greatest” (“Many young people in the Blue Ridge had no practical access to public education, and even where rural schools did exist, attendance was often poor”), and its initial purpose was “the training of young people for country life.” It has a significant honors program for more studious and scrupulous students (which as at most colleges in such areas tends to be mostly women). Honors students have access to events such as free Broadway shows, and they live together in honors residence halls. Small seminars, close connections with faculty, and funding for study abroad are among the perks. The Blue Ridge Institute & Museum hosts the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival each fall, the largest of its kind. The simple motto of the college is “Not for self, but for others.”

Ferrum is the only private school in VA with a full program in agricultural science (with emphases such as agribusiness, animal science, crop science, breeding and genetics, greenhouses and landscaping). The environmental science program is one of the oldest in the nation and is ecologyfocused with its policy coverage limited to natural resources.

The college farm grows flowers, livestock and produce.

Pre-med and pre-vet have dedicated majors, English, social work and journalism are practically oriented, and French, Russian and international studies are minors. Student research is supported. The closest towns include Roanoke (35 miles away, 100k) and Christiansburg (my birthplace).

Apply by 7/30 (R)

Avila University Admit: 68% Size: 1k (508k) Price: 16-20k Kansas City, MO Students at Avila, on the outskirts of Kansas City (the largest metro between Tulsa and Omaha) and near an expansive green area along a riverway, appreciate the accessibility of professors, saying that they can talk to them as adults and outside of class. (One student reported receiving text messages when they missed class.) The size of the student body (3:2 F:M, 27% black, 17% Latino, often but not predominantly Catholic) makes for tight connections, which is said to be useful for group projects. The overall atmosphere is described as great preparation for “life.”

Students are able to participate in research whether they are in the School of Natural and Applied Sciences, the School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, and the School of Social Science. All students are guaranteed a research or internship experience before the graduate. Nursing (with a 97% NCLEX pass rate), hospital administration, radiation therapy, business, CS, communication, social work, crimonology and art are among the common majors, along with psychology and exercise science. Gen ed is one class each in a number of fields. All courses can be seen at catalog.avila.edu under course descriptions. 61% of first year students live on campus. Dining is provided by Great Western and simple but varied. KC transit (which stops at Avila) is free for 2024.

Apply soon after Junior year (SAT>1020 or GPA>2.75)

Dining hall.

Dorms include spacious doubles and suite-style singles.

University of Olivet Admit: 89% Size: 850 (1.5k) Price: 21-21k Olivet, MI Olivet was founded by the same person who founded Oberlin (he died shortly after its establishment). It became the second coed college in the country after Oberlin, and the first to admit applicants regardless of race or gender, along with Hillsdale. The Soronia Society, founded at Olivet in 1847, was the first sorority in the country (or at least a predecessor as the first women’s literary society in the US). Olivet experienced a crisis in the early 1990s that resulted in an overhaul led by the former provost of Antioch College.

Each semester, students take a one-credit seminar in which they learn about internship opportunities, build their resume and portfolio, explore career options and attend career fairs.

Throughout their four years, they gain real-world experience that gives them the edge in the job market and improves their confidence as a fledgling adult. The college’s advisers use their “extensive contact portfolio” to connect students to internship and research opportunities no matter their major. The classes have been called easy, but the science professors receive high marks. Students in the honors program can take honors courses, attend field trips, and study in Oxford over the summer. Living on campus is required. The college is far from major cities, but locals meet to watch the sandhill crane migration every year.

Apply before class starts 12/28 (spring) or 7/28 (fall)

Carroll University Admit: 72% Size: 3k (71k) Price: 22-24k Waukesha, WI Established by the territory of WI in 1846, Carroll is located 25 minutes west of Milwaukee and Lake Michigan. Milwaukee is a city of 569k people (comparable to Tucson and Las Vegas in size), known for its working-class socialism and German-American culture, and a major associate of Chicago.

Carroll calls itself a leader in health science education, and the most popular majors are nursing, exercise science, business, psychology and animal behavior. All animal science students are required to intern at places like the nearby zoo.

Caroll offers the ability to earn your bachelors in 3 years instead of the usual 4, and your masters in 4 years instead of 5 or 6 in a number of fields. It also offers the ability to start gaining professional skills immediately (instead of having to spend 4 years in a vaguely related field to prove your academic wile before applying to study them in grad school) through programs in diagnostic sonography, radiologic technology, neurodiagnostic technology and nursing. Direct admission into masters and doctoral programs allows you to begin taking classes after three years of undergrad study.

The dorms (including apartments) are relatively nice, and living in them is required until senior year. The campus is a 15 minute walk from a trail that goes to Madison, Wisconsin.

Alumni have included recent CEOs of Target and Safeway.

Apply before class starts 1/23 (spring) or 9/1 (fall)

Augsburg University Admit: 77% Size: 2.5k (732k) Price: 22-24k Minneapolis, MN Augsburg emphasizes service learning, which is meant to infuse a sense of meaning and engagement into students’ lives by allowing them to be active participants in the community during their classes. All students are required to complete an experience applying their knowledge—such as an internship or research project—and are encouraged to complete multiple such experiences.

Augsburg operates study centers in Africa, Europe and Latin America through the Center for Global Education, a progressive pedagogical institution designed to help students learn from groups working for social change, which has hosted students from hundreds of colleges. The core curriculum focuses on fundamental life skills, like writing and health and wellness. Students take a two-course sequence inspired by the 1946 book The Search for Meaning “which emphasizes the value of identifying a purpose in life”, including one course on spiritual traditions and an elective of their choice. Centers are dedicated to civic engagement, vocation and meaningful work. At Augsburg, “your education is all about making a living, a life and a community”.

Half of students live off-campus. The first-year seminar explores the college and “engages Minneapolis” to welcome students to the city that will be their home for the next few years. Free bike rentals are offered through the library.

Students can travel around the city using the Auggie Pass, giving them unlimited access to transportation by light rail and bus. Augsburg is located in Cedar-Riverside, which has the largest immigrant population in the Twin Cities (including the largest Somali-American population) and is represented

by Ilhan Omar in the federal Congress, with cultural fixtures like the Mixed Blood Theater and the Cedar Cultural Center (featuring concerts and music from across the globe). It is a 5 minute walk from Riverside Park and across the bridge from the University of Minnesota. It is a 10 minute drive or 15 minute bus ride from the city’s central library and Whole Foods. The combined metro area of the Twin Cities sprawls several miles, and includes the Mall of America, the National Museum of Russian Art, the Mississippi National Recreation Area, and a wildflower garden.

Augsburg’s select major offerings include Native American studies, music therapy, social work, urban studies and international studies. It has a small physics program of a dozen or so students, who are able to work closely with faculty and research space physics and biophysics over the summer. The Office of Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity (so named because the former helps with the latter) pays students to complete research over the summer or during the academic year, and helps identify research opportunities at other universities. Students regularly earn Fulbright and Goldwater scholarships. Nursing requires that an associate degree is earned at a community college before the completion of the one-year hybrid program. Its programs seek to link “the theoretical with the practical” and “the campus with the community”.

Apply by 1/2 (start in January) or 7/28 (start in August)

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The most significant northern city between Chicago and Milwaukee on Lake Michigan, and Seattle and Portland on the Pacific, Minneapolis is the capital of the northern Midwest.

Under a new system adopted after the vagaries of the pandemic, Augsburg automatically admits students with a 2.75 GPA, does not consider test scores and does not require an official transcript.

Applying takes less than 10 minutes, and acceptances arrive within days.

Hamline College Admit: 81% Size: 2k (732k) Price: 19-22k Minneapolis, MN Hamline is considered to be the oldest private college in Minnesota, although it shut down after the Civil War emptied it and physically rebuilt at a different location, which means that St. John&Ben, Gustavus and Carleton may all have superior claims. Its campus resides in the suburbs equidistant between Minneapolis and St. Paul, both cities of more than 300k 12 minutes away. It is part of the Twin Cities consortium, meaning that students can take place one class per term at Augsburg or Macalester.

Hamline is considered to be the birthplace of intercollegiate basketball, as the first basketball game played between two colleges took place at Hamline, and enjoyed a stretch of championships in the 20th century. Today it is known more for its hockey teams, drawing on the regional strengths of Minnesota. Like many Minnesota colleges, Hamline has an international focus, and offers international studies and peace studies majors (the latter more characteristic of the rust belt). Prominent programs include crimonology and legal studies. A number of interesting programs are offered, including computational data science, contemporary music production, digital art, climate studies, ethics and advocacy, forensic science, public health, religion, social justice and social change, STEM education and theater. Its anthropology major offers concentrations in the Anthropocene (internet

studies) and applied methodology (working with museum archives and tourist sites), and students operate its H. Sapiens journal on anthropological research. Education students can specialize in working with special needs or foreign students and intern at its partnering schools.

Hamline claims to be focused on employment and career readiness throughout its branding. Notably, it has a Liberal Education as Practice requirement, meaning that 100% of students complete an internship related to their major. All internships are paid. Its career center has connections to industry leaders in the Twin City area and serves students up to three years after graduation. Students can develop and pursue their own projects with the guidance of faculty, who are also a source of networking, with connections to other colleges. The college offers a checklist of steps to complete each year for career readiness and competitiveness in the job market. It states that it has an “easy-to-complete” general education plan, claiming that “When you attend Hamline University, your general education plan is not just a series of classes to take in certain subjects. Instead, from the Hamline Plan to your major, you'll get a skills-based education to develop the knowledge and skills that employers want.” However, this may be belied by the actual requirements, which includes taking multiple classes each on diversity and the fine arts. It also claims to offer skills-based minors and first year-learning communities, though they don’t seem more practically oriented than what’s offered elsewhere. As at other colleges, its career advising can be somewhat deplete, offering a free MBTI personality test (considered psuedoscientific by some).

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 1/15 (RD, spring) or well before 7/28.

The “para-Canadian” colleges The US is a vast country, comparable to the European Union both in the scope of the whole and the sizes of its states, allowing for effectively foreign experiences within its legal bounds. Many colleges in MN and WA, for example, could in many ways be considered to be part of greater Canada, defined as a cultural sphere. Hamline may appear to be the most para-Canadian college in the US as such, with its somewhat bland and milquetoast emphasis on multiculturalism (a concept that is itself rather dated, more 1980s or 1990s than 2010s or 2020s). Its understanding of tolerance and free speech has been highly contested, such as when it refused to oppose a state-proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2012, which would have been fine except that it released a statement of positive neutrality instead of releasing none at all, managing to cite that opposing or supporting it is a “personal view,” a phenomenon of “civil discourse and civic engagement,” and a matter of free expression, viewpoint diversity and “intellectual inquiry.” (Similar statements were released by the presidents of colleges like Amherst at the time.) The college received greater coverage in 2022 when it fired a professor for displaying an image of Muhammad (prohibited in Islam) during class, which some rather ethnocentric commentators (particularly those relying on the wholesomeness reflex of characterizing the more obvious facts of the case as matters of controversy and then opposing it righteously and courageously) labeled one of the largest free speech scandals in recent history. The president who was responsible for the decision has expressed regret calling the incident Islamophobic and is retiring in 2024.

University of Findlay Admit: 86% Size: 4k (40k) Price: 23-25k Findlay, OH Pre-vet studies, animal science and equestrian studies are some of the most common majors at Findlay after business (which is no doubt bolstered by its sports teams). The health sciences (nursing, cardiovascular tech, diagnostic sonography, nuclear medical tech) are also offered.

Animal science has tracks in agriculture production and research. Art administration, children’s book illustration, white-collar crime investigation, forensic biology, forensic chemistry, medical laboratory testing, echocardiography, journalism and digital media, multi-age education, public relations, social work, and wellness and health promotion are among its application-oriented majors. The program in environment, health, safety and sustainability, which awards a minor and is the only one of its kind in the nation, combines courses in subjects such as toxicology, risk assessment, and rules and regulations with hands-on experience at the AllHazards Training Center, and claims that students will receive paid internships while still in school, multiple job offers after graduation on average, and experience a 100% placement rate. The rust-belt town of Findlay has a strong job market. Findlay is combining programs with Bluffton, 20 miles away, in 2025-26 while maintaining its separate identity, which may give students increased flexibility.

Apply before 7/28 (F-R) or 1/3 (S-R)

Tiffin University Admit: 83% Size: 2.5k (18k) Price: 27-27k

Tiffin, OH

Located in northwest Ohio, Tiffin resides in a pretty small town that is admittedly stranded in the middle of nowhere but is shared with Heidelberg (1k) and has a nature preserve behind the Walmart. Tiffin has thriving sports and arts programs that contribute to its extracurricular opportunities. Its mascot is an emerald-green dragon.

Signature programs include forensic psychology, the application of psychology to the criminal justice system.

Tiffin’s is one of the oldest, and a leader in the field. Forensic psychology is complemented by its suite of programs in crimonology, including contemporary justice, corrections, criminal behavior, criminalistics (using science to evaluate evidence from crime scenes), justice advocacy, law enforcement, national security (“Recruiters and other representatives from the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense, Department of State, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Marshals and more have come to Tiffin University to encourage our graduating seniors to apply for permanent positions with their agencies”), as well as by psychology programs in addiction counseling, cross-cultural understanding, human services, and sport psychology (counseling and coaching).

The music program at Tiffin has a contemporary and commercial focus, and draws on Tiffin’s strengths in applied

technology. Tiffin says that “The program is unique among small private colleges, as TU can give students hands-on opportunities that larger schools may not be able to offer — and is designed for students whose musical experiences, tastes and aspirations have been underserved by other colleges.” Students formed a band and released this incredibly good song in 2022: spoti.fi/42U0dIA. Digital media has concentrations in audio production, video production, storytelling, photography & design, sports, or strategic media.

Computer science allows you to concentrate in networks and systems (IT), software development, video game design or web design. The cybersecurity program at Tiffin is well-resourced and has been successful in national competitions.

In 2022, Tiffin opened a “Drone Academy” that can be applied to different programs and offers an unmanned aircraft systems major.

Business is a popular major, and offers a data-focused concentration. Tiffin has a “real” neuroscience major with a laboratory and internship component, although it appears to be hybrid. An internship is required for many majors, such as cybersecurity and forensic psychology.

Apply by 7/26 (R) or 1/08 (S)

Illinois College Admit: 77% Size: 1k (13k) Price: 15-20k Jacksonville, IL The first operational college in IL, Illinois is 36 miles and about as many minutes west of Springfield. It has many ties to Lincoln. He received tutoring from students at Illinois, and one of its alumni was his law partner. The college was a stop on the Underground Railroad, with its students indicted by grand jury for sheltering runaway slaves, and athletes today are known as Blueboys or Lady Blues in reference to Union soldiers. It retains literary societies (now mostly standard Greek societies that put on occasional readings, speeches, debates and the like) with a strong sense of identity, which historically sponsored speakers such as Emerson, Twain, Greeley and Lincoln. As with many pioneer colleges, Illinois was founded by Yale grads who saw the need to found a college in the area, and its first president was one of the famous Beecher siblings.

Alumni have included several statesmen, with two currently serving as federal judges, and William Jennings Bryan’s initials can still be found carved on a banister of the college.

Illinois has a significant honors college. Members will receive “mentorship and opportunities for research”, and a fully funded BreakAway trip. There are travel awards for stays abroad. 2024 trips include Hawaii, Luxemborg, and Japan (Illinois hosts exchange students from the country and offers language courses). In addition, its literary societies make it “quite possibly, the only remaining college in the country that

includes literary, fraternal and social activities in one organization”. Health sciences, crimonology and agribusiness management are among Illinois’s popular majors. Alcohol and drug counseling and neuroscience are psychology concentrations. Environmental studies & Wildlife management and global studies are sizeable majors. Illinois emphasizes it is a school where students “Graduate Ready” with a simple, straightforward sort of ethic. The town itself is somewhat in the middle of nowhere and somewhat quiet.

The town of Jacksonville, in central western IL, has a Looking for Lincoln trail that highlights the to-be president’s ties to the town. Its layout reflects the spread-out character of Midwestern settlements on flat ground.

Apply by 12/1 (honors)

1 rural town, 2 small colleges and the thin line between death and survival David Jesse (Education Writers Association’s Best Education Beat Reporter, 2018), Detroit Free Press. Feb 12, 2021.

In the strangeness of 2020 and the new year, these two schools stand as potential outcomes for more than 90 small colleges in Michigan and the rest of the Midwest. Illinois College is one of the fastest growing, with enrollment having picked up 30% in the last decade.

MacMurray College is closed and a land auction in midNovember broke up the campus.

The lessons offered by the schools seem simple, but are complex and hard to implement…

The campus was hopping. On Saturday nights after football and soccer games, people would hang out on residence hall floors. Laura would open her dorm room window and hear the teams playing and students congregating on a massive green space in the middle of the campus. There were trips to Leo's Pizza and a local bar that had a great deal on tacos.

Students were blue-collar, more so than at Illinois College on the other side of town, said Peter, who took classes at IC while at Mac. Students at MacMurray studied teaching, nursing, sports management. Students at Illinois College tended to be studying business, premed and prelaw.

The split in occupations played out in donations to the

schools after graduation, with many MacMurray alumni having great careers, but not necessarily the kind that left millions of dollars in income available to be donated back.

That's reflected in each college's endowment — funds schools create for long-term financial protection that function much like savings accounts…

Fitz's prediction on the life span of MacMurray was slightly off, but five years after he left in 2011 it was clear the college was well into the final death spiral…

In August 2019, Rodgers and the board met at a retreat and determined something radical needed to be done. They looked at a project-based learning program heavier on career training and rewrote the school's curriculum in a herculean effort, completing the work in three months.

The school even worked with a developer who would have bought the campus and then leased it back to the college.

Then world events ended it all.

The week the deal went to the bankers, COVID-19 struck full force. The deal was off and the college was dead.

"Our alumni love this place," Rodgers said. "There's always alumni on campus. Shortly after we announced we were closing, I remember walking across campus and seeing a woman sitting on the chapel steps crying. She told me she had been married there. There's an emotional attachment to the buildings, to the campus. It's very sad we had to close it."

Wilberforce University Admit: 45% Size: 600 (26k) Price: 17-15k Xenia, OH The first college for and by black Americans at its founding in 1856, Wilberforce is 20 miles from Dayton and shares its campus with Central State University (5.5k), a historically mixed-race public. A neighbor of Antioch, it was part of the resort area founded around its golden, mineral-rich springs, which hosted a free black and Catawba population. Most of its first students were the mixed-race children of Southern planters who paid for them to receive the education they were denied in the South, and the college closed when they no longer sent students amid the tensions of the Civil War. In addition to being the first black-owned college in the United States (when only five accepted blacks), Wilberforce had the first black president of a college, and the first black teacher at a black college, an Oberlin grad. The college was unusually cosmopolitan (it has connections to South Africa dating to the 1890s), and the Yellow Springs were known for hosting a black elite, drawing noted black scholars to the college. The National Afro-American Museum is in the area.

Most students today study business or health science, but Wilberforce seeks to be tech-forward CS, engineering (computer & electrical), intelligence, and the sciences are offered. Honors students complete a service project.

Selected students work a co-op with Chime Solutions.

Apply by 5/1 (F), 11/1 (S) or later. Code: #BecomeaWUBulldog

Christian Brothers College Admit: 87% Size: 1.5 (628k) Price: 16-17k Memphis, TN Only 10 minutes from downtown Memphis, CBU has a sizeable engineering program praised for the guidance it provides to students, including electrical, civil, chemical, construction, packaging development, and manufacturing technology. Biomedical, health and natural science, computer science, and digital forensics are offered, as are associates degrees in business.

It has faced financial challenges and made forward-thinking changes. Alumni can enroll in a free class each year for life.

EA: 11/1 (scholarship), S: 1/1, RD: 2/1, R: 7/28

Adrian College Admit: 69% Size: 1.5k (20k) Price: 23-26k Adrian, MI Adrian, in SE Michigan, was chartered in 1859 and served as Michigan’s base for the Union. It has thriving hockey teams (founded in 2005), men’s fishing, esports, and rowing teams, and women’s equestrian, acrobatics, and dance teams. Student life is centered around sports and Greek societies. Priority in housing choice is given to honors students and higher GPA students.

Apply by 8/1 (F), 12/15 (S), 4/15 (May) or 5/15 (SM). Not on CA.

Indiana Institute of Tech Admit: 65% Size: 1.5k (268k) Price: 22-23k Fort Wayne, IN Residing in a state known for engineering, Indiana Tech can sound like an appealing option for out-ofstate students who can’t afford tuition at Purdue. As Indiana’s only private institute of technology, however, Indiana Tech has yet to focus its mission and leverage its location into a national reputation; a recent bid to move from a nontraditional school to a position of greater prestige involved starting schools of education and law that quickly lost accredition, and it has a high attrition rate.

Sports is big at Indiana Tech, and although it doesn’t have football, it has archery, esports, bowling, ice hockey and wrestling teams. Athletes make up such a large proportion of students that teams can do double-duty by putting on performances at its theater (called “jock jams”). Indiana Tech has a relatively gender-balanced applicant pool and student body. The computer lab and convenience store are open 24/7, and the rec center is open until 11 PM most days.

Lowerclassmen are required to live on campus. The campus is in suburbs by a river, and the city is 1.5 miles away. The most common majors are business and comm, engineering (industrial, bio, computer), IT and network-related majors, criminal justice-related majors and psych. Health science, addictions counseling, and recreation therapy are offered.

Apply before classes start 8/19 (R)

Anderson University

Admit: 52% Size: 1k (55k) Price: 18-23k Anderson, IN A neat, well-run college that is only loosely affiliated with the Pentecostals (most people are too illiterate to read into “Church of God”) and requires chapel once a week, Anderson has programs in electrical, computer, civil and mechatronics engineering, CS (two internships required), DS, nursing, social work, national security and the arts. It is possible to complete many majors (such as CHEM, BIO, BA in CS, XS, PSYC, HIST, PLSC, PR, math, music business) in three years (CJ in two years for an associates). Double-majoring is not only encouraged, but required, for four-year majors such as BS in CS, BS in DS, humanitarian engineering, PSYCH, Spanish, biz admin and multimedia journalism. You can earn a BA (in business or cybersecurity) and an MBA in business in four years (with preferred admittance if you had a B average). The president, affectionately known as “PJP,” is an alum and former deputy director of the FBI, and alumni include folk singers and actors. The campus, an hour north of Indianapolis and near woods and riverside trails, includes a large sports facility and is well-decorated for Christmas.

Apply by 12/1 (merit aid) or 7/1 (priority-R)

Eastern Michigan University Admit: 83% Size: 12k (120k) Price: 15-19k Ypsilanti, MI 36 miles from Detroit and 6 miles from UMichigan at Ann Arbor, EMU was founded in 1849 as the first school for teachers outside New England and the second oldest college in the state system. During the early 1970s, students at the two universities helped to found the Human Rights Party, which elected candidates in both municipalities. Students report that it is known for having a large black population and being centered on sports and Greek life, but this is not necessarily borne out by the available statistics. (The Greek system is historic but has small chapter sizes of around 20 people and apparently about 5% participation.)

Although it is public, the estimated cost of attendance page gives the same prices for out-of-state and in-state students, which is unusual. The dining is homestyle and not a point of enthusement. Students can live off campus after a year. A limited number of free bus passes are available. It is common for students to design degrees through its customization program, which awards over a hundred degrees each year.

An unusually robust and well-organized spread of majors is available, including in teaching, business, engineering, health

professions, communication, and biology. Social work, construction management, logistics and supply chain management, management information systems, marketing, digital communication, communication tech, journalism, computer science, electrical and computer engineering, computer/electrical/mechanical engineering technician, engineering/industrial management, early childhood and family studies, speech pathology, dietetics, nursing, therapy, history, psychology, crimonology, anthropology, political science, GIS, aviation, entertainment tech, interior design and game design are among the popular choices of majors.

Niche programs include children/YA lit, Japanese and international trade, urban planning, transportation planning, international affairs, brewing, geoteourism, (real) neuro, and statistics. The DS program is essentially a more applied CS than what you’ll find elsewhere. Chemistry “expects students to participate in individual, mentored research with a faculty member.” Gen ed is reasonable and only under broad areas, some of which you can test out of, as are major requirements. EMU’s award-winning publications include the fine arts magazine Cellar Roots and the independent newspaper The Eastern Echo. Alumni include long-serving chief justices on the MI and WI Supreme Courts.

Apply by 3/15 (aid fall), 7/1 (fall), 11/1 (S), 4/1 (SM)

Trine University

Admit: 92% Size: 4k (9k) Price: 20-23k

Angola, IN

On the edge of the small town of Angola and near a wooded pond, Trine is at the intersection of IN, MI and OH and in the heart of the rust belt. Engineering is the most popular choice of major. Trine offers threeyear “full throttle” pathways for most majors, including for those typically not included by other colleges, such as engineering and exercise science.

Something that may or may not be appealing is that after graduation, alumni can enroll in any undergraduate course (and partake in any course discussions or events) for life, for no credit or tuition cost, for reasons of interest or any other.

A variety of engineering majors is taken by Trine students, civil, bio, chem, electrical and computer. Design engineering technology (CAD) is a major. Trine distinguishes between mechanical and general, and between computer science and software engineering. (Minors include metallurgy, plastic, energy, environmental, bioprocess and aerospace.) The unique major in golf management is complemented by the nice residences overlooking a picturesque rolling golf course and the center for sports studies. Honors students receive priority registration and live in apartment-style housing.

Living on campus is required, though upperclassmen can live in fraternity or Christian housing. Dorms are to my taste with clean, homey interiors and nice outdoor seating. There are

options for mega rooms for four people, and golf course apartments in spacious green environs. Dining is catered by Bon Appétit. Trine has significant Greek life participation, including for men. Students are about evenly male and female. A large number of sports teams are fielded, including ice hockey, volleyball, wrestling, golf, tennis and cross-country for both men and women, and a 200-student football team. The library is open 24/7.

Apply by 8/1 (R)

Quincy University Admit: 62% Size: 1k (39k) Price: 18-19k

Quincy, IL

Founded in 1860 by German friars, Quincy is the most prominent Franciscan college of the Midwest, located at the intersection of MO, IL and IA. Programs include forensics and health sciences. Students are “encouraged” to find internships starting their first year, and the facilities and labs are generally excellent. More unusual baccalaureate offerings include multimedia journalism, app development and design, digital forensics, cybersecurity, forensic psych, forensic chemistry, clinical lab science, and business analytics. Aviation students can conduct solo flights by the end of their first semester and will be able to fly to major American cities during their training. Great Books is a minor.

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 12/15 (EA), 2/15 (RD), 3/15 (RD) or later (R)

Merrimack University Admit: 74% Size: 4k (88k) Price: 33-37k

Lawrence, MA

In the bucolic setting of Andover, shared with Phillips Academy (Bush’s high school) and 4 miles from Lawrence, Merrimack is a Catholic college with a Great Books minor and Rome program.

The Warriors at Work program for selected business, science and engineering (with Notre Dame/WashU) students incorporates a six-month internship into senior year, among other benefits. The Warrior Shuttle offers free trips around town and to Boston.

Apply by 11/15 (ED/EA-F/S), 8/1 (R), or 1/6 (R-S)

Saint Michael’s College Admit: 85% Size: 1k (45k) Price: 20-27k Colchester, VT St. Mike is 4 miles from Burlington (five minutes by free shuttle) on its greener outskirts, with its own farm and steps from the village with a salmon fishing hole and restaurants. Unlimited skiing is offered for $115 a year. Adventure programming offers certification. Students are fun-seeking. PSYCH, PLSC, biz, ECON, IR, HS, HIST, ENGL and ENVI are popular. CS, ENGI, STAT, DS, journalism, digital media and equity are majors; American studies is a minor. Dining is interesting and varied.

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 12/1 (EA/S), or 6/1 (R)

Norwich University Admit: 83% Size: 3k (4.5k) Price: 19-22k Northfield, VT Founded following the nation’s formative, ante-Jacksonian Second War of Independence and the writing of the national anthem with the intent to be a counterpoint to an aristocratic officer class, Norwich is the oldest (and only) private military college in the United States and the birthplace of the ROTC. Its selfpresentation is confusing because it does not give the percentage of students who are civilians (it’s about half) nor give an explainer of how it is distinguished from the actual military or better than a college with a ROTC program, despite being sui generis, so I have to assume it is not the best run. Of the information that is easily accessible, only a vague summary without specifics is given: “Joining the Corps of Cadets means combining academic excellence with the intensity of Norwich’s military lifestyle. / As a Civilian student, you’ll get a university experience with the structure and discipline of a military setting. You’ll also have opportunities to develop leadership skills through student government, athletics, clubs, and service projects.” A student has claimed that “Every morning we wake up to a howitzer, which is a cannon, for reveille formation. We wear uniforms every day and we have to salute officers; something you never do in a regular college.” This sounds like essential information but it is unclear whether it applies to civilians as well. Under law,

physical education is required for all students except those who are not in the ROTC and female.

Norwich’s motto is “I will try.” It may even be the origin of this famous catchphrase with a bootcamp ethos. Its central VT campus is 11 miles from the capital of Montpelier (8k). Free rentals of mountain bikes, camping equipment and XC skis encourage outdoor recreation in the surrounding mountains.

Hockey and women’s rugby teams are nationally competitive.

Club sports include hockey (men’s and women’s), skiing, equestrian, shooting, martial arts, boxing and wrestling.

Men outnumber women 2.6 to 1. The climate and dining are character-building. The president was ousted in 2024 for non-specified conduct violations. The students are a bit odd and have a love for role-playing (bit.ly/norwich-rookweek).

Vermont law makes an unhelpful, unspecific exception to its definition of hazing (“humiliating, intimidating, or demeaning”) for “legitimate” and “customary” purposes.

Apply by 2/1 (F) or 12/1 (S)

Vermont's College Grads in Digital Defense Are in Huge Demand Seven Days: Vermont’s Independent Voice, Spring of 2013 As a kid, Catherine Stamm was always interested in police work and criminal forensics, until she realized she couldn’t stomach “the whole blood thing.” But as a high school student in North Babylon, N.Y., she also loved messing around with computers. . .

After Stamm graduates from Champlain this month, she’ll start a job with Kivu Consulting, a small, San Francisco-based firm that does digital forensics and computer investigations. Stamm began interviewing for jobs back in November and was courted by several different firms before accepting Kivu’s offer in February. The 22-year-old’s starting salary: about $60,000 a year, she says.

Jacob Berry, a 21-year-old senior at Norwich University, also had a job in hand for most of the spring semester. When he graduates next week, with a bachelor’s degree in computer security and information assurance, he’ll go to work as a security analyst for the Center for Internet Security, a federally funded research and information center in Albany, N.Y. Berry, who’s from Ossipee, N.H., got his first job offer at the beginning of his senior year and was pursued by at least four different potential employers. They included his professor and mentor at Norwich, Peter Stephenson, who’s also Norwich’s chief information security officer and director of the Center for Advanced Computing and Digital Forensics.

In January, Berry chose the Albany job, which offered him more than $70,000 a year. “I just couldn’t top that,” says Stephenson with a sigh. . .

“I have never had a year since I’ve been here when all of my seniors weren’t employed or considering job offers well before the end of the first semester,” says Stephenson, who’s been at Norwich since 2004.

And it’s not just seniors who are being aggressively recruited. Meg Rioux, a 21-year-old junior at Norwich from Jefferson, Mass., is majoring in computer security and information assurance with a concentration in digital forensics.

Rioux, who’s attending Norwich on a full scholarship from the National Science Foundation, landed an internship this summer at the Center for Internet Security in Albany — and didn’t even have to interview for it.

She says she’ll likely go work there after she graduates next year but if not, “I know the FBI in Albany is also recruiting.”

Rioux’s experience in the job market differs markedly from those of her friends and classmates in other professions.

“It’s like night and day,” she says. “One of my friends is a graphic-design major and is freakishly talented. She’s having such a hard time even getting an internship.” Rioux’s cousin, who’s studying engineering at Norwich and has a grade point average “well above 3.5,” she says, has barely gotten a nibble, either. . .

Jonathan Rajewski is an assistant professor of digital forensics and director of Champlain College’s Leahy Center for Digital Investigation.

The students he teaches are now so highly sought after that many are being recruited while still in their junior year, and sometimes even earlier.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Rajewski says. Earlier this year, three companies visited Champlain to interview his students, including Dell SecureWorks, a security division of the global computing giant. That company hired five of his students “on the spot,” he says. Another firm, defense contractor ManTech International, extended an offer to one of his sophomores — contingent upon his graduation, of course.

As Rajewski explains, his program’s national profile got a major boost in February when SC Magazine, an industry trade publication for IT security professionals, named Champlain’s digital forensics program the best cybersecurity higher education program in the United States.

The day after Champlain got the award, Rajewski says, he got a call from the former chief scientist at Lockheed Martin, whose son is interested in entering the field: “He asked me, ‘Who are you guys? I’d never even heard of Champlain before.’” . . .

Today, Champlain and Norwich stand toe-to-toe with some of the top cybersecurity institutions in the country...

And both schools, unlike cybersecurity programs at other colleges and universities around the country, also offer their students hands-on experience in working on actual criminal cases.

Notably, Stephenson is a member of the nationally renowned Vidocq Society. An elite crime-solving organization composed of dozens of forensic experts and retired law-enforcement workers from around the world, the society meets monthly in Philadelphia to work on cold-case homicides and other unexplained deaths.

As Stephenson explains, his work at the Vidocq Society has become a “feeder” for cases for his students to work on. One, an active investigation about which he can’t reveal many details, involves a 19year-old girl who was killed by a double shotgun blast to her head.

“This young lady lived in cyberspace,” Stephenson explains about the victim’s obsession with computers. “I now have 80 students … all working on this case. It’s their semester project.” . . .

Champlain College also offers its computer and digital forensics students an opportunity to work on actual criminal cases, including investigations for the Vermont State Police and the Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Rajewski notes that the Leahy Center for Digital Investigation is also assisting several “local large corporations and governmental entities” . . .

What distinguishes the two programs? Generally speaking, Champlain is more inclined to groom its digital forensics students for jobs in law enforcement and the private sector. Norwich, the nation’s oldest private military college, tends to funnel its cyber-grads into careers in the military, defense contracting and the intelligence community. (That said, both Berry and Rioux are pursuing careers in the civilian sector.)

Another thing Champlain and Norwich have in common: Both programs have become highly selective in the students they accept. What are they looking for in applicants?

Stephenson says he looks for many of the obvious skills needed in computer work: strong math skills, especially calculus or pre-calculus, as well as computer programming experience. He points out that when Rioux arrived at Norwich, she already had experience programming in five computer languages.

Stephenson also takes a serious look at computer gamers. Why? “Gamers have an analytical way of looking at something. They’re problem solvers,” he says, adding that gamers also tend to look for “the elegant way of doing things” but always keep in mind that time counts.

“If we can refine that, we end up with someone who is quick on their feet, creative, accurate and technical,” Stephenson adds.

“It’s a given that they’re likely to be geeks, but that’s OK,” he adds.

“We’ll socialize them over the fours years they’re here.”

Stephenson also looks for applicants with good English scores, largely because “people in our field are notoriously bad writers. They can’t be, because they’ll be expected to write very detailed, unambiguous reports.”

The Norwich prof has made a concerted effort to seek out qualified female candidates, and not only because the field is still predominantly male. He says that women and men solve problems very differently.

In Stephenson’s experience, the best scenario is to have both men and women on the same team, because they have a higher probability of solving an assigned problem, they get their work done faster, and their answers are more complete, concise and creative.

As for the kinds of students who go into this field, Berry says he fits the classic mold: He was a gamer in high school and, as a kid, loved to tinker with things, taking them apart and putting them back together again.

That skill set, Berry suggests, could be applied to the nondigital world when trying to solve problems such as war and world hunger.

Mercyhurst University Admit: 81% Size: 12k (120k) Price: 19-25k Erie, PA Mercyhurst shares the earnesty of its ethics, rigor and dedication with other Erie-area colleges and, along with Gannon, is the only private one walking distance from downtown. It has simple gen ed requirements (two courses each in five broad areas).

Majors include interior design, fashion merch, dance, hospitality, public health, DS, HRM, Russian, and international business. The School of Intelligence, Computing, and Global Politics started the first intelligence program in the US and provides real-world projects so that students can spend time on research and analysis projects and find internships.

Apply by 7/28 (R), 1/12 (S-R)

Utica University Admit: 76% Size: 2.5k (116k) Price: 19-20k Utica, NY An offspring of Syracuse, Utica emphasizes opportunities for experiential learning and faculty mentorship. Facilities include a cyber range for practicing cybersecurity, biology labs, and a television studio. Majors include critical infrastruture protection, law enforcement intelligence, developmental and child psychology, animal behavior, and health science, and it has a nicer course selection including in philosophy.

Construction management offers internships.

Apply by 11/15 (EA), 12/15 (EA/S), 1/15 (priority, nursing)

Viterbo University

Admit: 72% Size: 1.5 (52k) Price: 20-24k La Crosse, WI Viterbo is in downtown La Crosse, at the center of the driftless area, a progressive and artsy area with the best outdoor activities in the Midwest (hills with views, trout fishing, white pelicans). The F:M ratio is 3 to 1. Half of students are nursing majors, and it also has theater and engineering programs. Students are encouraged to contact faculty for research and the gen eds are reasonable. Dining is all-you-can-eat. Western Technical and UW–La Crosse are also affordable for out-of-staters.

S: 1/5, R: 7/31. Applying up to a year early is encouraged.

St. Mary’s University of Minnesota Admit: 94% Size: 1k (569k) Price: 16-24k Winona, MN This small-town driftless area college on the WI river border, nearby Great River Bluffs State Park and the Upper Mississippi Wildlife Refuge and 30 miles from La Crosse, has an array of professional majors. The most compelling reason to consider it may be its prestigious 3+2 physician’s assistant program with the Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic, the #1 hospital in the US. It has reoriented itself in recent years by cutting most of its liberal arts programs.

Apply by 5/1 (merit aid), 7/1 (R) or 11/1 (S)

Keuka College Admit: 93% Size: 1k (5k) Price: 25-31k Penn Yan, NY Founded by an activist to educate an underserved population, Keuka has survived through the years through its nimble and scrappy moves (including offering degrees to students at foreign colleges) and heavy recruitment despite its remote location, nine miles (AKA over an hour’s walk) from town (5k). (The lake doesn’t have a beach. Needless to say, living on campus is required; dorms and dining are average.)

Keuka’s signature program is its Field Period, instituted in 1942, which requires all students to take an internship or some sort of other self-designed “experience.” This requirement can be completed during January term or summer break. This program takes little more than the form of a requirement, as the college provides minimal assistance finding internships, limiting their availability to those majors for which they are readily available. Keuka is best known for its social work program, as well as its occupational therapy, developmental psychology, criminal justice and business programs, which contribute to its 3:1 F:M ratio. Other students have written Amazon best-selling books during this period, like “Pawprints in the Snow” or “Phases.” Overall, Keuka may be a disappointment if you are drawn to the region. Its mission is “To create exemplary citizens and leaders to serve the nation and the world” and its vision is “To bring strength to our nation and help to humanity.”

Apply before 8/26 (R)

Elmira College Admit: 96% Size: 600 (8k) Price: 20-25k Elmira, NY Elmira, coed since 1969, was the first women’s college to provide serious studies at the level of men’s. It hosts Mark Twain’s retreat, where he wrote Huckleberry Finn, and is a center for Twain studies (a curiosity for most of its students). Elmira gets docked in my book for having an eagle instead of a raven as its symbol despite being in the Alleghenies, having connections to literature and American Romanticism, and even having a logo that looks distinctly more like a raven. Alumni include the second woman elected to Congress, an antifeminist, and the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.

The most popular majors at Elmira are far and away nursing and business (like many colleges with falling enrollment, it has attempted to become an institution of practical appeal).

Among its more unusual programs are ones in cannabis and forensic science. Education and nursing students start working in classrooms and clinics, respectively, in their second year, complete a career-focused internship in their fourth year, and can start working after sitting for the NY Teacher Certification Exam or NCLEX. All students must complete 60 hours of community service within 50 miles in their first two years. Most complete their hours in Elmira, a small and pretty riverside town with a Wegmans. Classrooms close in March; in April and May, students apply their studies by interning and traveling abroad.

Apply by 11/15 (EA), 1/5 or later (Jan start), or 7/28 (RD)

McPherson College Admit: 66% Size: 800 (14k) Price: 23-26k McPherson, KS Established by the Brethren for western settlers in 1887, McPherson is located in central Kansas between Salina and Wichita (an hour away).

It awards the nation’s only degree in automotive restoration, a tradition it has maintained despite its sparing spread of programs in part because its draw for wealthy donors with a hobbyist’s love for vintage cars (such as Jay Leno) has granted it resources rivaling those of elite LACs, which has bankrolled new facilities coming in 2025.

3 in 4 students secure a job before graduation, and 4 in 5 complete an internship. Students are encouraged to work part-time while attending (KS does not have a minimum wage, possibly making entry-level jobs more available), and the career office can connect them to local employers. The Student Debt project matches 25% of what they earn, pairs them with a mentor, and runs financial literacy workshops.

With significant geographic representation, McPherson has the most diverse student body of a KS college. Students are 2:1 M:F. Students describe a quieter campus that requires creativity to make fun (although events and games encourage attendance with free apparel and prizes), and as at other colleges of the southern Plains, bare-bones classes that aren’t overbearing. The school is small and tight-knit

enough that professors are called by their first names and have their numbers and houses open to students. According to McPherson, “You’ll walk, talk, and eat alongside your professors, absorbing their knowledge and wrestling with ideas you’ve never considered. In fact, it’s common around here for faculty to invite students over for dinner and healthy debate.” The no-cost Bulldog Adventures program lets students explore the state of Kansas, including with an annual fishing derby, climbing and kayaking outings, survival skills, outdoor cooking and knot-tying classes, trips to view the sandhill crane migration at Quivira NWR and other wildlife areas, and trips to cultural sites in Kansas.

Opportunities for study abroad include travel courses.

The automotive program, with emphases such as design, management and communication, has an appeal to people who like the fact that “If you can work with your hands, you’ll never be out of work”. Graduates of the program “feel confident to step into high-end restoration shops, museum settings, and private collections” and are sought-after leaders in the collector car industry. Biz, comm, human services, graphic design, and bio are common. Theater, environmental stewardship, healthcare management, chem, hist and pol-sci, and custom majors are among the options.

The opportunity to gain teaching licensure is embedded into the programs except at the elementary level, which is its own major. The natural sciences include labwork. Juniors select a research project to pursue, which is published in the college journal. 20 students a year are selected to be Health Professions Scholars who receive scholarships and at least one internship a year. All students complete a thesis.

Apply well before 8/1 (R)

Paul Quinn College Admit: 57% Size: 1k (1304k) Price: 12-15k

Dallas, TX

Paul Quinn is a hip, dynamic and innovative college that serves a 50% black and 25% white population.

Founded in 1872, it is the first HBC in the West and the first to be a “work college.” It calls itself the first work college in an urban setting, although its focus is less on cooperatively running the college, as in the strictest definition of the term, and more on arranging co-ops. Its location in the ninth largest city in the nation gives students the opportunity to work off-campus and in corporations.

As with many HBCs, Paul Quinn has a focus on underserved populations (and because women tend to do better among underserved populations, it has a 2:1 gender ratio), with a lower overall graduation rate, but it has a robust pep-talking environment and strong sense of mission that has been fostered by its current president, an Oberlin grad, who made it the first urban work college in the nation. Under his disciplined administration since 2007, the college has converted its football field into a successful organic farm, implemented health-focused reforms, and adopted a business-casual dress code. The campus is a supportive

environment that seeks to respond to student needs, such as by assigning free textbooks and maintaining a closet of professional clothes for interviews. As an African Methodistaffiliated college, it requires chapel attendance once a week.

First-year students start by working on campus, as at most work colleges, and if they do well, they can start working 16 to 20 hours a week with one of its corporate partners.

Focused on the potential of work for aiding socioeconomic mobility, Paul Quinn is more involved in the process of helping students find a good match and arranging job placements than most co-op colleges, resulting in a more nominal screening process on the employers’s end. The college is a feeder into JPMorgan. Other corporate partners include New World Foundation, Dallas Zoo, and the Dallas Stars. Living on its campus, in suburbs by parkland and 10 miles south of downtown, is not required. Many students move to its Plano campus, in an affluent area north of Dallas, to be closer to their jobs, and a campus in the Bay Area is in the works. Business, health & wellness, and legal studies & crimonology are the common choices among its select spread of majors. The liberal arts course selection can be limited, and there is no longer a biology major.

Apply well before start of classes on 8/14 (R)

Kettering University Admit: 81% Size: 1.5k (80k) Price: 33-34k

Flint, MI

Founded in 1919 by General Motors to train technical talent (simultaneously with the introduction of new approaches such as assembly lines and scientific management during the Progressive Era), the General Motors Institute later became a full university and renamed itself after the head researcher at GM. The college’s leadership has always been concerned with innovative solutions to social ills. The campus is a riverside park with trails going into downtown and University of Michigan–Flint (5k) in one direction and into more natural areas in the other. Flint is a mid-Michigan city with a hip-hop scene known for being fiscally challenged.

As Kettering is a co-op institution, all students mix work with attending college so that they don’t have to choose between pursuing one or the other. Academic terms are alternated with full-time, paid jobs, held over the winter and summer or the fall and the spring. Hundreds of companies partner with Kettering, most of them Michigan manufacturing companies.

Graduates have the best salary outcomes of any Michigan college (not normalized by field). The co-op program and the first year of work alone can typically pay for most of the cost of its education. 82% of students are engineering students (mechanical, electrical, computer, industrial, or chemical).

Unlike some undergraduate engineering colleges, Kettering does not disfavor male applicants (79% of students are men) and it teaches students without sky-high stats (only 25% of students scored above a 690 on the math SAT; about the same as on the verbal; which may be of comfort even to higher-scoring students because of the intimidating nature of the field). 11% are CS students, 3% are business students, and 3% are in Kettering’s growing natural sciences program.

Engineering concentrations include alternative energy, automotive design, mechatronic (interdisciplinary) systems, computer gaming, and biological applications. Students at Kettering regularly compete in and place highly in robotics and autonomous vehicle competitions, one of its main forms of social recreation. Professors receive mixed reviews.

Business emphasizes relevancy and STEM literacy and is a feeder into Harvard, including its 2 year deferral program.

Applied physics is the first to be ABET-accredited in the world. Applied biology, with a molecular focus, emphasizes laboratory work, co-ops, and opportunities for paid research from the first year. Pre-med has early acceptance programs.

Kettering has a significant honors program that includes paid research with faculty from the first year, publication opportunities, enhanced learning experiences and classes, dedicated coaching by faculty, and early admission into graduate schools. 39% of men participate in Greek life.

Dining sounds nice (crossaint sandwiches; smoked brisket) and has fancier allergen-free options, but students are not impressed. Alumni include the current and first female CEO of General Motors, the female CIO of Walmart, and recent CEOs of Nielsen (until 2023) and Gannett (now at Reuters).

Apply by 11/15 (EA), 1/15 (EA) or after (R) as available

Widener University Admit: 88% Size: 2.5k (33k) Price: 30-31k Chester, PA In a shipbuilding town equidistant between Philadelphia (a 10 minute train ride) and Wilmington, Widener is an equally undergrad and grad school whose most common majors are nursing and health assistance, engineering (robotics, civil, bio, chem, electrical, international, construct), and business (incl. finance). Professors act as professional mentors with industry ties, and are a source of professional development opportunities that are a launchpad for jobs after graduation.

Widener has an “acclaimed co-op program and emphasis on internships”. The co-op program has a wide network of employers in Philadelphia and beyond, and it is typical for business, engineering and CS students to take a 4-month

internship in their second year and an 8-month internship in their third year, gaining a full year of paid experience while paying no tuition before graduation.

Students attend mandatory professional development workshops prior to their first co-op. International engineering students take three paid summer internships and work in a French-speaking country or Quebec. Widener says that it is “never too early to get real-world work experience” and encourages students of all majors to get an internships as early as freshman year. Unlike most schools that emphasize the importance of internships, Widener has a program that is slightly more substantive than simply leaving students to apply online to internships on their own: “when it comes to finding one, we’ve got you covered. Internships are coordinated through academic departments, and your professors, career advisors, and others on campus have an extensive network of local, regional, and national partners to help you find and secure a position that fits your professional aspirations.” Two-thirds of students complete an internship.

Widener has a good spread of courses, including in history and politics. Biden taught at its Wilmington law school, and Delaware’s complex legacy as a liminal state with residents evenly divided between Union and Confederate sympathies reflects his selection as a moderate VP and his approach to his presidency. With a history as a military academy, Widener has a civic orientation and is a participant in Project Pericles.

IR and French are majors. Broadcasting, communication, and digital media informatics have myriad options. Every criminal justice student completes an internship. BIO, CHEM and ANTH emphasize hands-on experience.

Apply by 11/1 (EA, priority) or 8/1 (R)

Milwaukee School of Engineering Admit: 60% Size: 2.6k (563k) Price: 17-22k Milwaukee, WI The Milwaukee School has its origins in practical electricity classes that an immigrant began teaching in 1903, bringing a German style of education (with its vocational focus and strength in engineering) to the city’s large German-American community. It retains a smaller-scale style of tutelage, with classes of 10 to 20 students taught by professors who are described as being on the better side for engineering, and an emphasis on spending the majority of time learning in the lab. Companies headquartered in Milwaukee include Harley-Davidson.

Milwaukee has a strength in computer and electrical engineering, and robust programs in biological, civil, architectural, and industrial engineering, in addition to construction management, CS, business and nursing. Its CS program has a focus on AI. Students are required to live on campus until their last year. The downtown campus is a mile from the shore and the start of a chain of parkland and beach that goes north for many miles. It includes 24/7 study spaces and a museum that is dedicated to the history of work.

Semester-long study abroad programs are available for about 5k extra. Career fairs bring in 400 or more employers, and it claims the career placement rate for graduates is 99%.

Apply before 6/1 (pri.) or 7/28 (R), 2/13 (S) or 11/16 (W)

Athletic facility

Illinois Institute of Technology Admit: 78% Size: 3k (15k) Price: 26-30k Chicago, IL The IIT has close proximity to Chicago. The train line goes right through campus, creating a sense of immediate connectivity as it roars overhead. Two train stations flank its campus and run directly to downtown, three miles north. The IIT’s vicinity is a historic black district of Chicago. Students report the social life to be lacking, the professors as being not always helpful, and the buildings as old and delapitated (they have a pleasing steampunk aesthetic in my view).

The older buildings on its campus constitute the largest collection of architecture by Mies, the president of Bauhaus, a famous school of functionalist architecture in Germany, and the architecture program is praised by students.

Engineering (civil, electrical, chemical, biomedical with emphases such as neural or tissue engineering, computer, aerospace and architectural) and CS are the most common majors. Astrophysics, food science, digital humanities (though it applies humanities to technology in that LAtouting way more than vice versa), chemistry (medical, forensic, environmental), and dual majors are options. Media courses are available at Columbia College.

Apply by 11/1 (ED), 11/15 (EA/S) or 2/1 (RD)

The State Street Village, a student residence hall

Clarkson University Admit: 78% Size: 3k (15k) Price: 26-30k Potsdam, NY Clarkson combines a focus on undergraduate engineering and other applied endeavors with the fresh air and outdoor recreation of its locale in the North Country. It claims that the percentage of graduates finding jobs in their field is in the high 90s. Like its admin, its students are go-getters. One in five of its current alumni “leads as a CEO, senior executive or owner of a company”. All majors are required to undergo an internship, co-op or research project, so presumably Clarkson does its part to faciliate these opportunities. Half of students find their first full-time job through one of its career fairs, which bring over a hundred companies to campus biannually. The average hourly pay for school-year co-ops is $26, and for summer internships it is $19 (significantly more than for engineering co-ops at other colleges).

General education requirements are minimal, one course in each of six categories. Honors students take classes including interdisciplinary approaches to big ideas and the philosophy of science. They have opportunites for research throughout their four years at Clarkson, and start a research project that matches their interests in the summer before their first year. Clarkson has an early college program that

allows students to enroll with only three years of high school.

All students have access to one course a semester at SUNY Potsdam, SUNY Canton or St. Lawrence as part of the Associated Colleges of the St. Lawrence Valley, though there are no shuttles as far as I can tell. The only college accessible without a car is SUNY Potsdam, a mile away, which has a complementary liberal arts focus and an exhaustive spread of courses in music, sociology, psychology, and biology, in addition to niche subjects like the Mohawk language.

The most common majors include aerospace, chemical, civil, environmental, electrical, and computer engineering.

(Specialty focuses include manufacturing, architecture, construction, biomedical, material, software, structural, electrical power, sustainable energy systems and water resources.) Business (incl. analytics and international), engineering management, healthcare admin, biomolecular science, bioethics, PA/PT/OT (direct entry), CS, data science, and applied math (with a computational focus) are sizeable programs. Biology offerings are sprawling due to Clarkson’s computational, medical and environmental intersections.

Unusual minors include neuroscience, computational science, robotics, industrial hygiene (environmental), product development, project management, human resources, law, gender & sexuality, sustainable solutions for the developing world, and war studies. Materials science, ID tech, global water solutions, and medical tech are areas of research. The center for complex systems science studies causality and patterns in networks, with applications to neuroscience, social sciences and epidemology. Hockey is Division I and outdoor gear, including kayaks, is free to rent.

Apply by 12/1 (ED/S), 3/1 (RD), or later as available

Excerpt from “Higher education institutions facing identity crisis: Clarkson University responds by renewing focus on its core STEM mission” Clarkson president Marc Christensen, 1/4/24, sponsored post on bizjournal.com To survive and thrive requires a differentiated identity.

Higher ed is experiencing a shakeout between institutions that understand their clear reason for being and those that have struggled to stay true to their missions. . .

As a college president of a national research institution predominantly graduating engineering and STEM talent sought by corporate America and new venture entrepreneurs [Clarkson brands itself as “America's Corporate Partner University”], I understand that challenge firsthand. When selected as Clarkson University’s 17th president last year, I remarked that Clarkson is an institution that knows who it is and why it matters.

Established over 125 years ago as a technological university, Clarkson has largely stayed true to its calling. Yet my institution still made a few decisions along the way deviating from that core mission. Foremost was an expansion from offering critical humanities and social science courses as part of the well-rounded education for STEM graduates to offering full academic degree programs in these disciplines in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Doing more isn’t always doing better. Identity and differentiation come through focus. Over time, the lack of focus typified by the growth of non-STEM majors at Clarkson taxed resources in terms of faculty head count and student and career services.

Never forget that half of your college studies will be in the winter.

Clarkson’s architecture is mostly functional in feel

Florida Institute of Technology Admit: 64% Size: 3.5k (86k) Price: 27-29k Melbourne, FL Founded a year after Sputnik launched the Space Race (and a nationwide panic about the state of STEM education) and in the same year as the founding of NASA, 1958, the FIT was created to educate engineers for the aerospace industry, and was noted for the sense of determination in its first students.

5 minutes from the beach, which stretches virtually uninterrupted for a hundred miles thanks to its preservation for rocket launches, Florida Tech has a suburban campus with a botanical garden. The college has rigorous classes and hardworking students, who complain at times about its lack of social life. Professors are hit and miss, though internship opportunities are praised. The nearest large city is Orlando, an hour away. Dining is decent with robust deli and salad bars, and all-you-can-eat. In addition to the grocery store offering fresh produce and the affordable healthy smoothie bar on campus, Walmart Neighborhood Market is a mile away. Several choices of apartment complexes are in walking distance in addition to on-campus singles, and the FIT is trialing a one-year residency requirement.

Florida Tech touts the range of opportunities that its location offers. “Our rigorous, immersive, career-building programs have you working on your major from day one—no filler

classes; no lengthy prerequisites. Want to be a pilot? You’ll be in the cockpit within the first week of classes. A marine biologist? One of the most biodiverse marine ecosystems on the planet is practically in our backyard.” Its location “translates into amazing job and internship opportunities at places like NASA-Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX, Embraer, Melbourne-Orlando International Airport, National Weather Service, Brevard Zoo, WFIT radio station and many more,” and “With our location right by the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian River Lagoon, in addition to swimming in research opportunities, you’ll be able to participate in swimming, fishing, surfing, paddle-boarding, and countless other recreational water activities as well.”

Engineering (aerospace, electrical, chem, bio, ocean, computer software, computer general, construction management) majors comprise half of students. Aerospace science & tech, astronomy and astrophysics, forensic and research psych, CS, marine biology, and airway management are also popular. Associates are offered in aeronautical science, air traffic control, flight operations and dispatch, and aviation management. In aerospace engineering, “students are introduced to aircraft design in their first year, in contrast to other schools that reserve it as a junior- or senior-year experience. You can expect to learn basic machining; use software to build models and analyze real aerospace parts and systems; and design, build, and test your own model

airplane or rocket. / As a senior, you will complete a senior design project in collaboration with a team of your peers.

Together, you will conceptualize, design, construct, and present an aerospace system or component that fulfills a real-world need, then present the project to industry leaders and potential employers. / New technical electives allow you to specialize in unique career-track subfields such as systems engineering, nanotechnology, sustainability, flight test engineering, and control of space systems, making you an extremely valuable prospect in the eyes of future employers.” Chemistry: “All undergraduate students conduct research and find a home in a research group as early as their first year, conducting hands-on, high-caliber research that may be published in a scientific journal or research exchange with other top chemistry schools. In fact, a high percentage of chemistry graduates have published at least one paper in a scientific journal by the time they graduate”. Genomics and molecular genetics: “The pinnacle of the genomics and molecular genetics major is the senior laboratory experience, during which students conduct an intensive study in genetic engineering and nucleic acid analysis… Biology at Florida Tech is not only something you study—it’s something you do, in professor-led activities including determining how stress affects cellular processes, how plants talk to each other, and what determines how cells grow and divide.” Customized major: “The interdisciplinary science degree program is flexible, allowing you to specialize in virtually any scientific field.” Marine biology: “TriBeta and the Marine Biological Society work together to hold guest lectures, social events, fishing outings and more.

Membership is the perfect way to network with faculty and other students in the biological sciences to learn about

internships, research and hands-on activities. . . Whether they’re diving in the warm waters of Puerto Rico or the cooler waters of the Galápagos Islands, observing orcas in the Pacific Northwest, or contemplating the ecology of the Amazon, our marine biology students take research to a whole new level. Florida Tech students travel around Florida and the world in our program of summer field courses. These exhilarating, hands-on opportunities provide once-in-alifetime experiences and a huge résumé-boost for students looking to pursue internships and careers.” Ocean engineering: “There is also a fleet of small craft for shallowwater testing. Ocean-going vessels are chartered for larger projects. Students also have access to machine and welding shops, fiberglass-fabrication facilities, and materials testing rooms. Students interested in underwater vehicles have access to two multimillion-dollar Bluefin Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.” Applied behavorial analysis: “You will have the special opportunity to work in the Scott Center for Autism Treatment, Florida Tech’s on-campus autism research facility. Here, you will be given the chance to work alongside a proven staff as they work to treat children with autism. As a result of this work, you will establish important relationships with professionals already working in the field—excellent references for future work opportunities.”

Other options include astrobiology (the nation’s only undergrad degree on extracurricular life or abiogenesis—the study of how life comes out of nonlife), software engineering (allowing for a more applied focus than CS), multiplatform journalism, strategic communication, oceanography, meteorology (including aviation-specific meteorology), and aviation human factors and safety.

Apply by 1/8 (S), 2/1 (honors), or 7/28 (R)

The aviation program takes places at Melbourne International Airport, 4 miles north of the campus. It is next to the Melbourne location of Northrop Grumann, which sounds like an exciting place to intern with its specialization in military and surveillance technology (“Students at Brown go on hunger strike”) (obviously valuable in light of the fact that this author’s political ideology involves “a whole lot” of concentration camps).

Here’s an inspirational story courtesy of Northrop Grumman: “It wasn’t long ago that Ryan Haughey, a Photo courtesy of FIT Aviation’s insta loads and dynamics engineer in Melbourne, Florida, was an aerospace engineering student at Florida Institute of Technology (FIT). Now, he’s an engineering mentor for students at his alma mater.

Ryan’s career began as an intern, stemming from his student design team experience in 2014. Northrop Grumman sponsors senior design projects at FIT, which gives students an opportunity to present their work to the company’s engineers and receive feedback from industry professionals.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Ryan planned to go on to graduate school. His desire to continue with Northrop Grumman as a full-time employee grew stronger when he learned about becoming an engineering mentor through the EdAssist program, which he’s using to pursue his master’s degree at FIT.”

Sunny living at a nearby apartment ($1.3k/month or about the same as living on-campus). 11 options are within a mile of the campus.

Gen Ed requirements to fulfill include eight courses under broad topics. Undecided non-STEM students must take a set curriculum of courses.

Lewis University

Admit: 74% Size: 4k (9k) Price: 17-21k

Romeoville, IL

If you really like airports, you might just find this “practical, goal oriented” college to your liking—not only does Lewis have its very own, the fifth largest in IL, but many of its facilities, from its student center to its dining center, have a similarly airy feel. The expansive grounds of the college are neatly landscaped and trimmed. Located in the distant orbit of Chicago (34 miles inland), Lewis is by prairies and a canal, while amenities like Walmart are within 4 miles.

Lewis was founded as a technical school of aeronautics by the radical Catholic bishop Bishop Sheil, who had previously founded the Catholic Youth Organization to keep his “street kiddies” out of trouble. Since its Great Depression founding, Lewis has become a comprehensive college with a genderbalanced student body, with popular areas of study being CS, business, nursing, crimonology, and aviation. A wide variety of health programs (sonography, lab, nuclear, radiation, radiography, respiratory, vascular, chiropractic, speech pathology, dental hygiene) are taught. Aviation includes admin, maintenance, traffic, tech, and unmanned aircraft.

Journalism, broadcasting, forensic crime investigation, social work, engineering (computer, electrical; mechanical partners with NIU), cybersecurity, DS, ethnic studies, film studies, languages including Polish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese, peace studies, public policy and public history are offered.

A student says: “One of my favorite things is to take a walk around outside on a nice day and see the planes that take off from the on-campus airport. Walks are a must for everyone too because there are always things hidden around on campus that I would have never discovered that are hidden gems. I have found a fountain, art gallery, rec rooms and quiet places to study where not one else goes.” Sports are Division III apart from the Division I men’s volleyball team.

Students can take classes like pilates at the fitness center.

Similarly to at other colleges, “Most students begin in a double and end in an apartment-style dorm by the end of their college career, having made close friends to live with.”

Lowerclassmen are required to live on campus. Lewis has a program in Rome with other LaSallian colleges that costs normal tuition. Teams are called the Flyers and the student paper is The Flyer, though few major in its aviation programs.

Apply by 12/1 (EA), 1/2 (S), 1/15 (merit aid), 4/15 (R as avail.)

University of Evansville Admit: 76% Size: 1.5k (116k) Price: 19-20k Evansville, IN Evansville is at the intersection of KY, IL and IN on a Mississippi tributary, 2 miles east of downtown and west of a mall and woods.

Common majors include engineering (especially civil), nursing, acting, archeology, neuro, accounting, marketing and PR. Highlights include Division I sports teams competing with Illinois schools, albeit not football, and 1 in 4 participation in Greek life. It has a study abroad program in an English manor.

11/1 (EA, therapy, PA, athletic direct entry) or later (R)

Wisconsin Lutheran College Admit: 94% Size: 1k (569k) Price: 16-24k Milwaukee, WI Located 7 miles west of Milwaukee and next to the Medical College of Wisconsin, WLC offers a nurturing environment and comprehensive offerings in sciences and medical professions, with courses in music and German reflecting its heritage.

Majors include marine biology, nursing, human services and anthropology. A course under the psychology department, Systems Theory, gives “a historical introduction to general systems theory and cybernetics”. “Imagine yourself here” and “2020 video tour” provide overviews of the college.

Apply by 7/27 (R), 1/15 (S) or 6/1 (SM)

Saint Louis University Admit: 85% Size: 11k (293k) Price: 21-24k Saint Louis, MO Saint Louis has an extensive history as the first college chartered west of the Mississippi in 1832 amid the flourishing of Jacksonian populism.

It witnessed the first forward pass in football history in 1906; earned the first pilot licenses in 1927; became the first college in Missouri to integrate in 1944; became the first Catholic university to secularize in 1967; became the first American college to establish its own campus in Europe in 1967; performed the first human heart transplant in the Midwest in 1972; and awarded the first Ph.D. in aviation in 2013. It lies at the heart of St. Louis, three miles from the Gateway Arch (the tallest monument in the Western Hemisphere), conceived in 1947 and built between 1963 and 1965, as a symbol of humanity’s quest for constant expansion.

SLU (called “sloo”) has possibly the oddest mascot of any college in the United States. The moniker of the mascot comes from an obscure 19th-century poem that goes, O Mr. Moon, We're all here! Honey-bug, Thistledrift, White-imp, Weird, Wryface, Billiken, Quidnunc, Queered; We're all here, and its image comes from a Missouri artist, who imagined what a “billiken” would look like (in a clear violation of linguistic arbitrariness, although “covfefe” may remain a mystery for the ages). The product was a sort of scruntled

looking, self-contented, pot-bellied infant that at some point came to be placed on a throne curiously labeled “how things ought to be,” imbuing it with the symbolic resonance of a good luck charm. The resemblance of SLU’s football coach to the billiken was noted not long after its creation in 1908, and not long after, the college adopted the dwarf as its own, going so far as to construct a brass monument to the creature on its campus, and SLU students came to be known as “the billikens.”

Relatively common majors at SLU include aerospace, biological and civic engineering, aeronautics, meterology, neuroscience, computer science, laboratory and health science, criminal justice, crisis management, security studies, general studies, nutrition science, exercise science and political science, and they benefit from top facilities and internship opportunities. It is known for its programs related to the intersection of ethics and health. SLU’s core curriculum is comprehensive. The college emphasizes the importance of hands-on learning in its branding. Every student has a chance to take a semester on its Madrid campus while paying the same tuition. It touts a gameified online platform called Excelarate where they can complete mini “life skill-building” courses to win trivial scholarships, which seems both open-minded and sketchy. I couldn’t figure out whether it was something it subscribed to or created. Amenities include a whirlpool, bouldering wall, outdoor pool and BBQ. The local area is considered less than affluent and the administration conservative. Students sometimes complain about a lack of school spirit.

11/1 (ED), 1/16 (ED), 1/22 (spr), 12/1 (majors), 5/29 (sum), 7/31

Saint Peter’s University Admit: 89% Size: 2k (8468k) Price: 10-15k New York, NY SPU is in Jersey City, (sometimes considered the little-known “sixth borough” of New York, although it has plenty of state pride). It is 10 minutes east of Soho and Greenwich Village in Manhattan (by car, though you can take the subway or ferry), north of the shore of the Statue of Liberty, and west of Newark. It is unique for its symbol, the peacock, a symbol of rebirth like the phoenix. The school was re-founded in 1930 after closing at the end of World War I. Popular majors include business (including international emphasis), criminal justice, and computer science (including cybersecurity and AI). Biotech, clinical laboratory science, radiography, health information management, physician assistant, public admin, forensic science, pharmacy, urban studies, social justice, journalism, classics and art history are also offered. General, business and health associates degrees are offered. Centers exist to help English learners and undocumented students. Internships can be sought through the Center for Career Engagement and Experience.

Alumni include NJ senator and Foreign Relations chair Menendez and author of The Story of Civilization Will Durant.

Apply by 1/13 (spring) or before 7/28 (fall)

Fairleigh Dickinson University Admit: 89% Size: 2k (20k) Price: 17-20k Madison, NJ* Admit: 84% Size: 5.5k (50k) Price: 14-18k Teaneck, NJ The largest private college in New Jersey, FDU is ideal if you like the idea of both a manor-like campus and easy access to the bustle of the city. Both campuses are in the greater sprawl of New York City. The Florham campus is centered on a Vanderbilt mansion, 20 minutes inland of Newark, in a lightly suburban area that blends into the woods and has a rail-side trail.

Some classes take place in the bedrooms of the mansion, making for more of an unusual setting. It appears to be somewhat more competitive to get into (though you can simply transfer by request). The Metro campus is 10 minutes from NYC (most students pay for public transportation) on a riverside. While it is in dense suburbia, there are also green areas along the river, which go to The Cheesecake Factory, True Food Kitchen, and Cuban sub, Asian grocery and Korean bakery outlets within walking distance. The footbridge with seating and riverside café provide views.

Students can study abroad in an England country estate (the home of the person who was Prime Minister during the American Revolution), one of the first overseas campuses owned by an American college, which comes with the benefit of principally having American students (so there’s

no wrangling over procedures) and having well-developed curricula. The campus offers small tutorial-style classes with British faculty, charming breaks for biscuits and tea, trips to Britain’s largest market town three miles away, and opportunities to explore the countryside (England’s largest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) or visit Birmingham to the north and London to the south.

(FDU has a very English name, and a queer coat of arms with roses and a swan.) The charge is usually the normal tuition, as is the case with a smaller campus in China as well.

Gen eds are not overbearing, with no language requirement.

Major offerings are mostly the same on either of the campuses, which have business, healthcare, hospitality and science programs, the Metro tending to have a more professional feel and commuting student body. Engineering (electrical, civil, technician), IT, and marine biology are only offered at the Metro, while history, philosophy, sociology, film and creative writing are only majors at Florham. Limited numbers of singles are available in the residence halls, but neither campus requires living on campus. They are both majority white and one-quarter Latino. Alumni have included Peggy Noonan (speechwriter, “a kinder, gentler nation,” “a thousand points of light”), Christine O’Donnell (the 2010 Republican candidate to succeed Biden), a marine archeologist called “the Indiana Jones of the Deep,” and Csuiters at Home Depot, T-Mobile, Verizon, and IBM. Apply by 7/29 (R) or 1/12 (S) *Florham campus

Moravian University Admit: 67% Size: 2k (195k) Price: 28-31k Bethlehem, PA The sixth-oldest college in America, Moravian was founded in the precolonial days of 1742 (when Penn and Princeton were formed). It is named after its founders, members of a preLuther protestant denomination. Its colors of blue and gray were taken from Union and Confederate uniforms after the Civil War. The rich and probably understudied history of the college unfolds in the walk between its two campuses in semi-urban Bethlehem, from the main campus by historic Bethlehem Plantation with a garden and creek, and down the picturesque and bustling main street including a soaring antique hotel and Moravian Bookstore (opened in 1745) for a mile, to the riverfront and the former girls’s campus, with music and art departments and additional housing options, and a beautiful park. The locale is distinctively Midatlantic, and yet steeped in a palpably ancient sense of time.

The city of Bethlehem has long been associated with the Christmas season, putting up the first Christmas tree in a city square in 1747 and even being christened Christmas City USA, and has a unique cultural scene. The Allentown metro (the sprawling riverside settlement it is part of) comprises the largest metro between Philadelphia and New York (70

miles and 90 miles, or 1 and 2 hours away respectively) on the upland slopes, and is one of a number of historic settlements in the valley named after biblical locations, such as Egypt and Nazareth. The National Museum of Industrial History and Lehigh University (an underrated, vibrant LAC with engineering, CS and business) are across the river.

Moravian uses a unique career preparation program called Elevate, which equips every student with the latest Apple technology (including a Macbook Pro) and was created in consultation with employers. Students connect with their advising team during orientation, which Moravian claims helps them with finding internships and networking. They can pair with faculty in any discipline for research projects.

Moravian makes student work positions on campus more available than most colleges. Unique opportunities include subsidized trips abroad (Greece for $0, Costa Rica for $250).

The no-cost, pass-fail RISE program builds “teamwork skills” through activities like scavenger hunts and escape rooms.

All students can apply to the Honors program, where they will complete a year-long project under faculty guidance.

The university does not have a thriving student culture, although it is a residential campus. Dorms have spiral staircases and cozy common rooms, but bedrooms may be cramped. The college funds student field trips in the area and to NYC for free or a small fee. There is no shuttle around the metro (there is a nice wooded riverside trail going to Allentown). A wide spread of majors is offered, and some of the most popular are health (nursing, allied health, community health and preventive medicine), English, business, and history. Social sciences such as economics, political science and sociology, art, music and special

education have robust enrollment. The standard sciences, a variety of business majors (international management, supply chain management, marketing analytics), and CS are available. Unique options include health sciences (pre-med), public health, neuroscience (though as usual, this is really just a psychology-biology combined major), French, German, Spanish, data science, environmental policy and economics, global religions, and philosophy. Minors include informatics, international studies, peace and justice studies, dance, theater, WG&S studies, and medieval studies. Gen ed is one course each in several topics and does include language.

Moravian may be a school that requires initiative to take advantage of, but it has a keen interest in its students’s success. Most impressively, Moravian has a conscience—"if you’re not employed or in graduate school within one year of graduating from Moravian, you’ll qualify for financial support to help pay off your student loans and free enrollment in select undergraduate or graduate courses.”

Apply by 11/15 (EA/nursing priority), 1/15 (nursing), or later

Christmas in Bethlehem What better place could there be to celebrate the birth of Jesus than the city named after his very birthplace?

Salem College Admit: 87% Size: 400 (251k) Price: 13-19k Salem, NC The oldest institution to be a women’s college today, Salem was founded in 1772 as a girl’s school open to all races by the Moravians. It includes trans women and enrolls men in its adult program.

In 2022, it focused on the mission of “making communities healthier” to become “the nation’s only college exclusively dedicated to elevating and expanding women in health leadership,” although less than half of students were pursuing STEM at the time and few majored in health programs (interior design was its most popular major). It still offers many other majors, running the gamut from English to environmental science, while making an impressive and strained effort to hone in on its focus by relating these to the broad theme of health.

Located in Old Salem, the college is right by a beautiful historical district (“living museum” and gardens) and in an expansive green space while being in walking distance of Winston-Salem. Students can cross-register at Wake Forest.

Although somewhat delapitated, Salem is a school of traditions (including a “hazing” some may find unendearing as of some years ago). Students are required to attend government meetings and convocations. Living on campus is required. Dining includes a large salad bar.

Apply before 5/1 (priority), 7/27 (R) or 1/8 (S)

Students reside in cozy brick houses. Buildings have simple and antique furnishings.

The bucolic livinghistory town nearby has a Moravian bakery established in 1799 that sells cookies, and Salem’s grounds and the nature preserve make for a nice stroll. Winston-Salem is a highly ranked college town, and Salem is adjacent to WS State University (5k) and UNC School of the Arts (1k).

Stephens College Admit: 64% Size: 400 (129k) Price: 22-26k Columbia, MO The oldest women’s college in the world by a hair, Stephens is best known for its acting, fashion and equestrian programs. The drama department (coed since 2022) is known for being headed by Maude Adams, the original and highly celebrated Peter Pan actor (and semi-closeted lesbian), in her late career, and has produced alumni playing spunky roles. Among its attendees have been Joan Crawford (“the best example of a flapper” according to Fitzgerald), the US’s first female ambassador to the UN and the foremost architect of Reagan’s foreign policy (the approach most often referenced by those critical of American foreign policy), the creator of Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no” campaign, the first woman to summit Mount Everest without bottled oxygen, a socialite involved in Watergate, true crime host Paula Zahn, and fashion entrepreneur Tomima Edmark.

Stephens admits trans women (unlike Salem, it does not admit men born female, for the sake of consistency).

The campus welcomes pets (it even has a relationship with a local shelter), and it is the only non-HBC women’s college apart from Brenau to have sororities. Stephens is located in a top college town, and students can also join sororities and partake in social or dating life at the University of Missouri, the 30,000-student college a half mile away, or join its larger gym for a fee, while retaining the benefits of small class

sizes and an intimate environment (its president has an open-door policy and knows students by name). Stephen’s Lake Park, Hy-Vee and Walmart are within two miles.

The acting major takes three years (including two summers) and is by audition. Students receive “unparalleled” industry preparation and performance opportunities from their first semester. The fashion program at Stephens is consistently the top-ranking at a small college or LAC. Students can major in design (product development), marketing and management, or a combination. Opportunities include helping run the feature magazine Stephens Life (bit.ly/stephenslife), which won best of show at the 2019 National College Media Convention.

(The literary journal Harbinger is also award-winning.) The equestrian program’s networking has given its students a 100% career placement rate for the past five years. Nursing is designed to be completed in three years and partners with Boones Health next door. Other bachelors include creative writing, animal behavior, content creation, filmmaking, health, human dev, human bio, custom, and Women in STEM Research (in partnership with Mizzou’s genomic institute).

The federally sponsored construction apprenticeship is free and pays a stipend for women (including non-students who can transition to being students). Stephens formed the first all-women varsity esports team in 2016 (esports is coed in competition). Singles and spacious doubles are offered on campus, and upperclassmen can live off campus.

Apply by 11/1 (priority aid), 2/1 (priority II) or later (R)

Wesleyan College Admit: 67% Size: 600 (153k) Price: 16-17k Macon, GA As you can tell by how it got dibs on an oft-emulated name, Wesleyan has an ancient background.

Wesleyan awarded the very first definitively recorded bachelors degrees earned by women in the United States, and was the first college in the world founded to offer four-year degrees to women. (Women attended college on occasion before women’s colleges.) The 39% white, 35% black and 12% Latino college prioritizes fostering an inclusive, low-key and fun atmosphere. It used to host a Confucius Institute, which closed in 2023 as elsewhere out of concerns that it might exert soft power by creating positive views of China. The historic campus is in an area of mixed pine and hardwoods in central Georgia’s plantation belt with place names like Wimbledon Woods, Lake Wildwood and Whispering Pines, a mile from the nearest grocery, and six miles from Macon. Nursing is the most common major; others include (real) neuroscience, history, politics & global affairs, applied data analysis, and environmental studies (directed by noted ecologist and ornithologist James Ferrari, a Middlebury grad).

Students can double or triple major or design their own.

Apply by 5/1 (after as space available), 8/9 (R)

Chatham University Admit: 66% Size: 1.5k (303k) Price: 26-29k Pittsburgh, PA Founded as Pennsylvania Women’s College, Chatham is 3 to 1 women-majority. The pretty brick and mahogany campus resides in suburbs five miles east of Pittsburgh and in walking distance of parks. Alumnae include Rachel Carson and the mayor of DC. Apply by 3/1 for priority class registration and 5/1 for guaranteed housing.

Bay Path University Admit: 76% Size: 1.5k (154k) Price: 17-26k Springfield, MA A pretty red-bricked campus that feels like a townhouse village, complete with the hydrangea bushes, white porticos and striped awnings, and homey wooden interiors. Apply by 12/15 (EA) or 5/1 (priority), or until 8/1.

The Springfield Consortium Located south of the West Mass consortium and just north of Connecticut, Springfield is a historic town that is about half Hispanic. Colleges in the consortium include Springfield College, formerly YMCA International College, which is where basketball was invented, and American International College, which despite its name is 95% domestic and 58% undergraduate. Inclusivity is a priority of the SC.

Wheaton College Admit: 79% Size: 1.5k (50k) Price: 30-31k Norton, MA A progressive college of a mercifully more thyroid-sparing, less amygdala-straining variety in SE Massachusetts, Wheaton was founded as one of first academic institutions for women (three years before Mount Holyoke) and has been coed since 1988. Residing in a wooded rural area with several sites of civilization within ten miles, a rare situation, Wheaton is also nearby a square mile lake, a region that has inspired a high density of paranormal sightings, and a dozen or more wildlife preserves in the varied landscape (including the beautiful, verdant Hockomack swamp, with slow-moving streams and shrublands, ideal for warblers in the spring).

With an innovative, interdisciplinary bent, Wheaton is also a more liberal college, perhaps in part because of its 13:7 women to men ratio. It started a scholarship for students from Muslim countries subject to Trump’s immigration restrictions in 2017. The center for social justice and community impact encourages student activism. The campus is described as LGBT-positive. Wheaton’s emphasis on student-run initiatives means that it has a more extensive and developed themed housing system than most colleges,

with options including the farm house, outdoors house, film house, first-gen house, Renaissance house (femmes of color), a men of color house, SAFE Haüs (LGBT), feminist and interpersonal violence houses, and the United World College house. The study abroad program does not have additional fees; students pay Wheaton tuition, and room and board varies (it may be nonexistent, in which case students find their own accomodations). One of the graduates of Wheaton is the current Druk Gyalpo of the small alpine country of Bhutan, through whom Wheaton has a special study abroad program with Royal Thimpu, the premier college in Bhutan.

Wheaton students regularly win Fulbrights.

The buses to neighboring towns are free (albeit on-demand), and it is easy to take the train to Providence or Boston (1 or 2 hours away). The school funds trips to cultural events on occasion and hosts visiting artists. The semester in the city program allows students to intern with a nonprofit, and they can work over the summer with a startup at MassChallenge.

Wheaton’s alumni include Diana Davis Spencer, a right-wing philanthroper who has endowed its center for innovation and free speech (although the college has been criticized on the latter count vis-à-vis its broader understanding of antisemitism and low standards of what is beyond the pale).

The MAP curriculum emphasizes experiential learning, and the college is forming a Life and Career Design Center. Every student participates in an internship or research in their second year, and funding for internships is guaranteed.

Wheaton does not have any distribution requirements (they were removed in the year 2020-2021), and there is no GPA requirement to create a customized major. It states that “You may wonder whether Wheaton can truly be a liberal arts

college without the traditional requirements. We believe that requirements are not what makes a liberal education. . . This new structure allows for students to build their path through the curriculum in an intentional way guided by strong faculty and staff mentors.” Its honors program has three tracks, with students having the chance to join it based on their first-year performance and be designated interdisciplinary, global studies and social justice scholars. Increased flexibility in course selection is provided by cross-registration with Brown (30 minutes by car, instructor approval required).

Wheaton is a member of the Classical LAC Exchange Program that allows students to spend Junior year at myriad colleges such as Bowdoin, Dartmouth or Amherst (the process is somewhat competitive and requires at least a B average). In addition, students can apply to attend classes at the marine biology lab of Woods Hole (the world’s leading oceanographic institute), schools in the Marine Studies Consortium, Williams’s Maritime Studies Program in Mystic, CT, Connecticut’s National Theater Institute, or the American University in D.C. Engineering partners with Dartmouth and optometry partners with the New England School of Optometry (candidates should identify themselves at the time of admission or within their first semester).

Students at Wheaton praise the STEM faculty, and it is ranked highly for its science facilities. Wheaton also has focus on the digital humanities (integrating tech and art and literature), and an international and intercultural orientation.

The most popular major is business. Film, art curation, music, international relations, psychology, economics, public health, English, creative writing, computer science, biochemistry, neuroscience, bioinformatics, and Chicano studies are also

popular. A wide spread of majors and emphases is offered (for example, postcolonial literature, medieval literature and popular culture and media are concentrations in the English major). A number of area studies are offered, including in classical and ancient civilizations, Italian and Russian. Minors include journalism, data science, Jewish studies, legal studies, transcultural understanding, peace studies, multilingual teaching and urban studies. Religion, women’s and gender studies, astronomy (using its rooftop observatory), and design are among the majors, and nursing is a new program. Major requirements are sometimes surprisingly lax, or even comparable to what you usually see for minors. The courses required are usually not as overbearing as at other colleges, which is to say that are of general interest and actually, uncontroversially essential to the major. The course offerings are mostly mainstream, extensive in art history, ecology (economic botany, tropical field biology, field ornithology, cancer biology, mycology, plant mutualisms, an Ecuador field course), Greek, Italian and Latin studies, math, music, physics, political science, and women’s and gender studies.

Dining is all-you-can-eat with healthier options (though the water quality has raised doubts). Wheaton states that it is a residential college, but it is possible to apply to live offcampus starting with Junior year (the option is not available to students on academic suspension or with disciplinary offenses). Rooming options for first years range from singles to quads, though singles are competitive and usually taken by upperclassmen, as time slots are based on seniority. Quiet study housing is an option but not necessarily available.

Apply by 11/15 (ED/EA/S-R) or 1/15 (ED/RD)

The Southeast Massachusetts Consortium

Members of the lesser-known Southeast Massachusetts Consortium, located in the greater Cape region between Boston, Providence and Martha’s Vineyard, allow students to take up to two classes at a time (that is, half their course load) at other colleges. Stonehill College (1) is 10 miles from Wheaton (4) and accessible by a free bus. It is a Catholic College, called “the Notre Dame of the East” because of its partnership with the Indiana school, with strikingly similar offerings but additional crimonology, English, philosophy, and international politics courses. Dean College (5) is a dance and acting focused school. The remainder are public colleges, including Massachusetts Maritime Academy (6).

Alverno College Admit: 93% Size: 800 (88k) Price: 19-17k Milwaukee, WI Alverno dropped letter grades as a result of a student and faculty forum in 1969, and the flattening of risks to pass or fail greatly reduces the stress of the college experience. Alverno has a reputation for improving its students’s self confidence and communication skills. The women’s college (coed at the graduate level, which is half of the college) has programs oriented toward social service. A wide array of teaching majors is offered, and it has a specialty in Montessori education, which is popular in Milwaukee. Nursing, the largest major, has had a 100% NCLEX pass rate in recent years.

Social work, integrated natural science (allowing you to take a mix of courses in biology, chemistry and physics), community engagement and activism, global studies, freshwater science (three years, with the option to earn a masters in freshwater science and technology at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a public school, ideal for in-state students), and business (three years). Many streamlined tracks are available for students in health fields.

Apply by 8/1 (R) or 12/1 (S–R)

Simmons College Admit: 77% Size: 2k (651k) Price: 17-23k

Boston, MA

Simmons has a nice, neat clean feel, somewhat reminiscent of a hospital, on its gated campus in the Fenway. The undergrad college is women’s only, and the 4k graduate program is coed. A comprehensive spread of programs is offered, including CS and a smooth 3+2 engineering track. A masters can be earned in the fourth year in many programs: CS/IT+library science, ECON/SOCI /PS+public policy, XS/public health+PT/nutrition/nursing/PH/social work/education. The gen ed is minimal (one/five, language, dedicated courses).

The college has a history of inclusivity. It accepted black and Jewish students at the nadir of race relations, and became the third women’s college to accept trans students in 2014.

Apply by 11/1 (EA/nursing/S), 12/1 (EA), 2/1 (RD) or later (R)

The Colleges of the Fenway Simmons, Emmanuel, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the Wentworth Institute of Technology have contiguous campuses in the Fenway, divided only by streets.

This concentration of resources creates a synergetic consortium through which students can take classes at any of the colleges and participate in their student life, even going so far as to use their residence halls or dining halls.

The consortium has its own app for download on Apple.

Emmanuel College Admit: 80% Size: 2k (651k) Price: 27-31k

Boston, MA

A formerly women’s Catholic college (not to be confused with Emerson), Emmanuel has been coed since 2001 and is 3:1 women majority. JFK served on the board of Emmanuel College for the entirety of his political career, from his election as a congressman after WWII (when he gave a commencement speech at the college, unfortunately lost to time, as he was then relatively unknown) to his assassination in the early Sixties. His seat was succeeded by Ted Kennedy after his death in 1963.

As at Simmons, students report that there are plenty of opportunities to explore and find cultural and social opportunities, but they will not be given to you. (Real) neuro, forensic chem, counseling psych, nursing, IR and econ are common choices. All students complete a career-building internship and benefit from Emmanuel’s Employer Relations Team. As a result, they boast sky-high career outcome rates.

Apply by 11/1 (EA/ED), 12/1 (S), 12/15 (EA), 1/15 (RD), 2/15 (R)

The five Colleges of the Fenway, as they call themselves, have exceptional career and graduate school placement rates. Their complementary inter-play (with a strength in public health and service) is rivaled only by the better-known, preppy Claremont Consortium in the United States.

MassArt means you can take classes at an art school without the cost or risk (there are no extra fees for credits from the public school), and men can register at all the schools. Half your course load can be taken at other colleges.

Emmanuel, MassArt, Simmons, Wentworth (WIT)

Mass College of Pharmacy and HS Admit: 88% Size: 3.5k (651k) Price: 39-39k Boston, MA The country’s most comprehensive health science college and the oldest college in Boston proper (with campuses in Worcester, shown, and Manchester), MACPHS has three-year programs in nursing, DMS, MRI, NRT and radiography, and pre-med tracks including earning a BS and PhD of pharmacy in as few as two and five years. It is a teaching, not research-focused college. Housing is limited in availability.

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 12/1 (EA) or 2/1 (RD)

Franklin Cummings Tech Admit: n/a Size: 500 (651k) Price: 15-19k Boston, MA A working-class trade school in downtown Boston (moving to a new location perhaps by 2026), Franklin has a focus on accessibility and preparation for high-paying jobs due to its origins in a will left by Benjamin Franklin, administered 100 years after his death by the city of Boston during the Progressive Era. It is 82% male, multiracial, and half first-gen.

Certificates, AS degrees and BS degrees in electrical engineering, EV tech, building energy management, biotech, and IT are among the options.

Apply by 5/1 (optimal aid) or later

University of Bridgeport Admit: 82% Size: 1.7k (148k) Price: 24-28k Bridgeport, CT The seaside college of Bridgeport (with limited beach space but a scenic lighthouse, and in the orbit of NYC) has been innovating since its founding in 1927, when the father of dentistry started its school of dental hygiene.

Bridgeport had CT’s first BA program in nursing. Its leadership in alternative medicine has drawn internationals.

Students appreciate how they can delve right away into their major. Alumni serve in Congress and as mayor.

Apply by 8/1 (R)

Georgian Court University Admit: 76% Size: 1.5k (104k) Price: 19-23k Lakewood, NJ This historically women’s university (76% female), whose campus is a gilded age estate with the only “real” tennis court, is 30 minutes from the beach or state forest (1.5 from NYC and Philly).

Aisle 9 Lakewood and Gourmet Glatt North are the nearby groceries. Nursing is the most popular program and dance is offered. It has a flexible core that requires an out-of-class experience. It is associated with Sisters of Mercy and touts its contribution to social mobility.

Apply by 1/10 (spring) or 8/10 (fall) or later as available

Endicott College Admit: 73% Size: 3k (141k) Price: 28-31k

Beverly, MA

Only 35 minutes north of Boston, and in wooded environs and steps from three private beaches (map.endicott. edu), Endicott is exquisitely located. Everything north of the college is rural land, including Crane Beach, perhaps the best in the area (with tiny fluff-on-sticks piping plover chicks), and Plum Island, and everything south of it is the sprawl of the Boston metro. A free shuttle goes around historic Beverly and Salem. The trails around the campus include an escape route for women accused of being

witches during the Salem witch trials and a vibrant, rare ecosystem with American chestnuts, hemlocks, elms, striped maples and vernal pools. Not surprisingly, Endicott has a great variety of housing options, including resort-style houses with porches, but students can apply to live offcampus in Junior year. Students are 12:8 women majority.

The primary majors at Endicott are practically oriented (there are no physics, chemistry, or general biology majors), but there is a wide variety nonetheless. Interior architecture, biotech, engineering (including bio, CS and robotics), and CS

are among the more uncommon and coveted choices that are at Endicott. Business, nursing, and XS are large programs together comprising half of students, as are PSYC, criminal justice, interdisciplinary studies, art, English and applied math (including DS). International studies, ENVI, PLSC and HIST are options, as are art therapy, endorsement in autism education, digital media (concentration in journalism or

TV/film production), esports management, healthcare management, and hospitality management (concentration in food/beverage entrepreunership or in hotel/resort).

The greatest attraction of Endicott for many is its four-year internship program. Students complete three-week internships over break in their freshman and sophomore years, and then a semester-long internship in junior or senior year. They receive extensive guidance to prepare for and find these internships, and complete complementary classroom assignments, which makes for a softer transition to the workplace than essentially trying to find a job on their own. In exchange, however, internships are not required to be paid and Endicott continues to charge normal tuition during internships. Past internship placements for social science, communication and humanities majors have included the offices of Senator Warren and Congressman Moulton, prisons, and museums; for art students they have included film studios, galleries, and architecture firms; for health students they take place in area hospitals; for business students they can include banks, nonprofits, or hotels; for STEM students they include tech firms such as Cell Signaling, Microchip and Genomics; and teaching students partner with a number of school districts in the area.

Endicott students are situated for great opportunities by being near a large and intellectually vibrant city, but they can also intern in international locations (study abroad in Ireland or Madrid is subsidized but does cost extra).

Many majors can be completed in three years. Requirements include one course in each of eight categories (not including language) and two dedicated composition courses. Research is encouraged, and all students complete a senior thesis that

is shared with the community. Honors is humdrum and not worth it IMO (it is also mostly a women’s group because of its GPA requirement).

Courses are clinical and social workoriented and techsavvy (bioinformatics courses are offered).

Endicott has Centers include ones for applied behavioral analysis (autism), oral history, and diagrammatic and computational philosophy (“how the collaborative work of philosophers, mathematicians, computer scientists may contribute to the application of these innovative branches of knowledge to broader social, economic and political concerns (for example, through artificial intelligence applications, cognitive and decision-making processes, voting theory, bio-informatics, economic modeling.)”). HIST and ENVI is limited to the standard but PLSC is ok. Endicott is a newer college that began awarding four-year degrees in 1988 and accepting men in 1994, so it has plenty of room to grow its reputation and develop its programs.

Apply by 11/1 (ED/EA/nursing), 12/15 (EA/S), 2/15 (RD)

Champlain College Admit: 56% Size: 3k (45k) Price: 30-32k Burlington, VT Located in the northern city of Burlington, Champlain is a computing (especially gaming) and business-focused school with a co-ed, industrial-era origin, revived in the 1960s and expanded in the 1990s. (A curiosity of note is that females apply at twice the rate but ultimately attend at half the rate, which nominally suggests that there may be misconceptions at work about the school.) Its original motto (since retired) was “Suum cuique” or let each get what they deserve. Burlington is as trim and tidy as any New England town and is its most progressive caput, home to the founding stores of Ben & Jerry’s and the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. It is famous for electing Bernie Sanders, the progressive politician known for his principles and his cozy mittens, as its mayor during the rise of Green politics and the modern left, becoming the first American city powered by free energy in 2015, and voting to endorse BDS in 2021. At its heart is Champlain, a block from the University of Vermont (12k) and a mile from the narrow, rocky and quiet lakeshore.

One of the greatest attractions of Champlain is its student residences. Students are initially housed in Victorian mansions. They are not required to live in college-owned housing after their first year, although the range of options expands then to include residences with hotel-like lobbies.

Among the many perks of attending Champlain is the ability

In their first year, students rank their top three locations of choice and live in one of the 21 Victorian houses near the campus.

to take unlimited free bus rides to practically anywhere in Vermont, including Bristol, Middlebury and Montpelier, which is most likely to be useful for a trekker who is simple-hearted or very enthusiastic about skiing (Burlington, which is what some would consider to be a bustling town, is the largest city in Vermont). The college also maintains top-flight vacation homes in Dublin (with courses on Irish, filmmaking and hacking topics) and nearby Montreal (home to over 50% of the world’s videogame professionals, with courses in interative media). Tuition costs are exactly the same as for the Burlington campus, and students have the chance to attend weekly no-cost field trips and possibly take on internships during their stay abroad. Champlain maintains tuition-equivalent student exchanges with the Aukland Institute of Technology (with courses for most majors and an exotic, urban island location), Rennes

(business), Amsterdam (applied sciences, in a locale known for its mazelike canal systems), and Abertay (computer games). Students who have a particular place in mind they want to go can receive advising to find a third-party program.

With a history of emphasizing accessibility and currency, Champlain is different from many nonprofit colleges in that it doesn’t shy away from marketing itself as a professionally-oriented college, or see shame in having a careerist focus and being employer-centered. Its general education requirements are largely not impositionary, focusing on fundamental topics such as self-knowledge, finding your passion, postcolonial narratives, or even bodythought (though one of its first-year options is rather obnoxious.) The third year includes methods courses (such as working in the field or using digital tools), and the curriculum allows for every student to have time to study abroad. Champlain stresses that “it lets you dive into your field of study right away” and get a taste for your major, unlike at other schools where your entire first year might be taken up by gen eds. Champlain’s stress on internships is again unusual for its willingness to make the explicit commitment to “go to great lengths” to create options for them. Champlain states that it “will work with you extensively to help you find—or create—an internship that will give you a

chance to really dig into the work of your profession, build up your professional portfolio, and capture impressive credentials for your resume,” and with its emphasis on getting start with your major right away if you choose to do so, it is possible to intern as early as the summer after your first year at college. The college has established partnerships with local businesses that expect to hire Champlain students as interns, which is, it should be emphasized, important to consider because the application process can be a black box in other parts. Champlain counsels all of its students on personal finances, a commonsense move that some say helps them feel “calm and confident” upon graduation. It has an impressively practical attitude that stands out above all other colleges [sic] and demonstrates a different, (more compatiblist) take on the idea of college being an all-purpose staging ground for all adulthood, with attention paid to cold, hard finances in addition to the pursuit of meaning, which it calls “radically pragmatic”. All students take interest assessments before they step foot on campus and talk with potential employers on their first day. Career

fairs and opportunities to be hired by alumni are held regularly. Every student will have not only a resume and a cover letter, but a LinkedIn Profile, an elevator pitch for why they should be hired, a budget plan for the expected salaries for their major, and a personalized student loan repayment plan by the time they graduate. Champlain seems to take an almost self-conscious, anxious concern with being current, scrupulous and proactive in its practices, and economically hip and aware, in a state littered with utopian casualties.

A small but remarkable and telling detail, which is, in some ways, shockingly direct compared to the approach of colleges that try to paint life in glowing hues, is the “Game of Life” that Champlain College puts on for first years, where they are set loose into a room after being “assigned salaries based on their majors” to see what life choices they can financially afford. (The assumptions that go into They even remember to muster up its model can be both some interest in charity especially applicable to and inadequate for male students.) The director of its center for financial literacy notes approvingly that many students are told they can’t afford the things they chose. Because every student plays this game in their first year, however,

“everyone has plenty of time to reevaluate their goals.”

Pragmatism is an ethos and not only an affect at Champlain, which includes mental and physical health in its sphere of concern. All students take an wellness assessment and take part in workshops on concerns such as managing homesickness and cooking on a budget. The college formerly had “Wellness Wednesdays” without classes. The gym offers free group fitness classes with options such as yoga, pilates and weight-training in addition to intramural basketball, volleyball, floor hockey, soccer and dodgeball.

Because students start out on their major from day one, some complain that they don’t get to explore multiple interests, which results in a significant attrition rate (though there is nothing preventing you from taking fewer courses in your major as far as I can tell, so this appears to be an invalid complaint about self-indulging freedoms). Champlain does have an exploratory program, and it is unusual for having a Degree Design Lab dedicated to helping students design their own course of study. The custom major is called Integrative Professional Studies on the idea that interdisciplinary thinking can be not only the basis for a major but a major in itself. In line with its emphasis on career positioning and holistic understanding of pragmatism, Champlain emphasizes the importance of soft skills, which it calls “power skills,” in this major (and its methodology for doing so isn’t total mush, unlike at other colleges). Digital humanities is another highly customizable major that will be very appealing to many. It allows you to choose and “master the technical skills you're most interested in—like python programming, videography, analytics management, geospatial analysis, and digital storytelling among others...

[and] you'll apply those hands-on skills to meaningful areas of study—including social justice, psychology, communication, sustainability, or other subjects of interest”.

Professional writing (or general writing), social work, psychology, cybersecurity and animation are among the options at Champlain in addition to its core majors, but it lacks the usual range of liberal arts majors, such as pure sciences, social sciences and humanities, allowing it to be more focused. Psychology majors are required to take two internships, and the vast majority are listed as co-authors in published studies. Social work majors begin connecting with the professional community in their first year, and they can gain a masters in one additional year. Crimonology & criminal justice majors can “work with current prison inmates through our Prison Law Initiative, helping them do legal research and writing”. Marketing majors have industry-standard certifications by the end of their first year. Champlain states “You'll be working with real clients each year and interning with innovative Vermont businesses like Ben & Jerry's... By the time you graduate, your résumé will be full of professional experiences that will make you stand out from the job applicant crowd.” A grant from the Freeman Foundation allows majors in business (including its 3-year accounting program or the only finance program certified by the gold standard in VT) to summer in Asia for little cost.

Champlain has a dedicated law major that allows you to start studying law before grad school if you have a keen interest in the subject. Niche BAs are offered in interactive narrative for digital media, interaction design, game sound design, game programming, game production management, game design, game business & publishing, game art, and animation.

In the data analytics major, you will “Discover a topic you love, an issue that inspires you, or a problem that needs solving, and then dive deep into it—again, again, and again. At Champlain College, Data Analytics isn't just routine practice in statistics, charts, and spreadsheets. It's about knowing where and how to find the big picture (and its small, hidden details) and recreate it for leaders in clear, compelling, and informative ways,” and “With an emphasis on project-based learning, our expert faculty are known to tap their networks and connect students with opportunities to conduct real client work in the classroom, and beyond. In fact, in this highdemand field, it's common for our student interns to get paid for doing what they love, well before they graduate.”

Champlain is better than most LACs for computer science because the subject is one of its focuses, meaning that it does not only have the basic courses. Its computer science & innovation major allows students to dive into “not only the theory, but the practice” from their first semester with Introduction to Mobile & Web Development and Introduction to Programming (which are in stark contrast to the course titles found at other colleges), and the curriculum has an emphasis on experiential learning. They can concentrate in mobile app development, artificial intelligence, or software engineering. The digital forensics program was the first to be recognized by the Department of Defense in the northeast.

Filmmaking students regularly win awards before graduation and feature their work in festivals, and have aired their work on Vermont PBS. Broadcasting students take on client’s projects starting in their second year and spend their senior year on a documentary. Sustainability students take advantage of their Vermont location.

Apply by 11/15 (ED), 12/15 (ED) or 1/15 (RD)

What Would an Ideal College Look Like" A Lot Like This If you could design your ideal college from scratch, what would it look like? Mine would look something like the following. Students would acquire training that makes them immediately employable.

They’d take courses in the liberal arts that would sharpen their skills in writing, analysis, and reasoning. And they’d graduate with some real-life knowledge, such as how to interview for a job.

There’d be no tenure for faculty, but instructors would be made to feel they’re valued members of the enterprise. And administrators would constantly ask themselves “how can we prepare students for what the world needs of them?” …

Starting bachelor’s degree programs in 1991, the college now enrolls 2000 undergraduates – an enrollment cap it committed to several years ago in an agreement with the student-rich city of Burlington. When it launched its bachelor’s programs, this college long known for training secretaries and accountants, began to reinvent itself, earning respect for its enterprising spirit.

The dominant ethos of Champlain – that “what works?” mentality – intensified when David Finney arrived from NYU in 2005 to become president. …

Believing that “American higher education has really lost its way with general-education courses,” Finney told me that when he arrived in his new job, he decided to spend all of his “honeymoon capital” as new president to replace the “hodge-podge of courses” that formed the liberal-arts core. He assembled a faculty task force to design a revised core aiming to build habits of mind students will need “not just as they’re leaving here,” Finney says, “but over their lifetime.“ A painstaking process of reinvention led to new core courses designed to help students develop global awareness and strengthen their analytical and reasoning abilities, critical reading

John Tierney, The Atlantic, 2013 skills, and writing proficiency. These courses have no tests. The work is heavily oriented toward writing. Classes consist mainly of discussion and project teamwork rather than lectures. …

Champlain wants to be an economic engine for Vermont and tries to stay in front of the curve, especially on tech-driven career training. Finney explained one of the ways the college does that: “Most of our programs have affiliated advisory boards with people from Vermont businesses. We ask these people ‘what are you going to need?’ Not ‘what do you need now,’ but ‘what are you going to need in the future?’ And we try to meet those needs. So people in companies here have the sense that Champlain is their partner. And we’re very future-oriented.” Little wonder, then, that Champlain has become, as one reporter put it, “a training ground for Vermont software development firms and other high-tech employers.” …

You might expect the faculty to be angry or resentful about the notenure policy. They’re not. Several people, including Finney, told me the absence of tenure “has never been an issue,” a claim the Faculty Senate’s President, Laurel Bongiorno, affirms. . .

As I walked around campus, talking with students, I was struck by a common theme: many spoke of Champlain’s congeniality, its spirit of collaborative learning, and the absence of barriers separating students from faculty. Addressing that theme, Finney told me, “Yes, our DNA is very unusual. The vast majority of our faculty prefer that students address them by their first name. People see themselves as part of learning teams. It’s an intensely personal place.”

RE the author’s mention of the crowded library, the hours are more limited than ideal (closing in the evening on weekends, though the nice residences might make up for it). However, the public library is only a half mile walk away, as is the University of Vermont library (Champlain students have reciprocal borrowing privileges).

Praxis Why this guide was almost never published The writing of the praxis profiles (later to be intimacy–praxis and praxis) was marked by uncharacteristic panic attacks and multiple revolutions in my circumstances. Apart from a brief period in late March when my production slowed to a page a day because of a doubling in my course load, however, it was mostly steady sail. By May 8th, I had finished writing the profiles (all but for the few that I knew where to place without writing them) and had the end matters sketched out in detail. I intended to wrap it up over the next few days, when I would be able to give my work my full attention.

As it turned out, I would not be in a position to work at all on this guide from May 8th to around the end of May. The cause of this is not worth describing, but when I returned, I found myself in a changed state of mind. Breaks like this can be, and historically have been fatal because I depend on such a vast and richly detailed web of notes in my short-term memory for informative works. I have do my work on a project while the paint is still wet, so to speak. Its existence is a life in active equilibrium, and its death cannot be reversed even when favorable conditions return. I could wax more poetic about how my workflow was devastatingly disrupted, but more importantly, after indefinitely delaying the resumption of my work amid my state of crisis (starvation, heat exhaustion, soul-sucking circumstances, et cetera), I found myself suffering a state of depersonalization, worse than the one that had done in my first book two years in, it seemed. I could manually force myself to do things, but I was completely devoid of organic inspiration. I could only observe

my thoughts impassively, staring and weary-eyed, unseeing and unsatisfied. I would try to think and all I could think about was trying to think. I would try to feel dizzy or nauseous and I would be too numb to feel…

As I can now know in this not very chronological report, I was able to recover after returning home, banging my head and reading Richard Peck out loud for a few days. I still feel quite a bit of angst about the dimensions of this book though. I thought 5.5”x7.5” would be easier to print but it isn’t, and it’ll definitely need to be at least 5.6”x7.4” in the next edition.

That’ll mess up its entire formatting. Ugh. The least I could do was to change the margins in the End Matters so that the text is effectively on those dimensions and I can transition easily if I need to. I am aware that that last section is disorganized. (I had to cut out some planned materials too.)

About praxis There are no “praxis colleges,” strictly speaking, since this guide is only loosely organized by types of colleges. The only thing that’s “praxis” is the narrative. The colleges in the praxis section are seen from a particular point of view. They are terrains to roam. They are opportunities for the reader, now in the mindset of florescence, to take advantage of. This is the difference between, for example, seeing a painting as what it is intended to be, and seeing it as fiber and substrate with ridges of paint. It is about looking directly at the world as it is. Many people, when given a sky-blue paper and asked to draw a realistic, accurate picture of a sun, would draw a yellow circle with spike-like rays instead of an eerily glowing white orb. This book is original, and this section is when an illuminating epistemology, I hope, will have been realized.

McDaniel College Admit: 82% Size: 2k (20k) Price: 21-24k Westminster, MD A well-groomed, vibrant college an hour inland from Baltimore, McDaniel has long had a fresh and innovative outlook, founded as it was as one of the first coed, integrated schools in the South. Its pioneering football team, which threw the first shovel pass and was the first invitee to the Orange Bowl, has some of the best crowd turnouts (5k) and tailgates in Division III. The town of Westminster is remote but pleasant. There are views from the American elm-lined “Hill,” and it is near a Walmart and Safeway. Residency requirements restrain independent living. The dining has nice options but middling ratings. A basement at McDaniel once housed the secret Office of Censorship.

Art, ENVI, HIST, PSYCH, PLSC, and SOC are popular majors, along with professional majors such as health and crime sciences. ASL and French are languages. Gen ed is mostly lax but includes two language classes and a learning experience for each student.

Nicer courses are offered in PLSC and BIO. 50+ students participate in summer research, many double major, and it is easy to customize. 28% go abroad each year and McDaniel’s Jan plan makes travel easy to schedule for. Greek life has 30% participation. Students receive a two-day orientation.

McDaniel has a cost-equivalent campus in Budapest with classes (including business, comm, journalism, PLSC, PSYCH) taught in English. The city has an easy public transportation system, and two students traveled over a dozen countries during their weekends.

11/1 (ED), 11/15 (EA), 12/15 (merit), 2/1 (RD), 7/15 (R), 12/1 (S)

Maryland’s small colleges saw the future, and it was bleak. Now, they’re selling liberal arts with a twist.

Liz Bowie, 2019 — “Small liberal arts colleges are having to grapple with the assertion that it is too expensive, too difficult to access and it doesn’t teach people 21st-century skills,” said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Goucher President José Bowen began confronting this reality several years ago while keeping an eye on a demographic cloud in the horizon. e number of children born after the recession dropped. “ere is a massive cliff coming in 2025,” he said.

Goucher decided to reformulate the liberal arts — an educational concept that dates to ancient times and requires students to receive a broad education across disciplines that would prepare them for citizenship.

“I can tell parents we are going to prepare their children for the job market,” by giving students the skills needed to be a good employee, Bowen said. at’s meant focusing less on the content and more on the process of learning...

e long-held academic requirements to take a broad range of courses in a variety of disciplines have been replaced with multidisciplinary courses called “complex problem explorations.” Instead of introductory

classes, students take courses that might be taught by a biology professor but use a variety of disciplines to look at a contemporary issue...

St. John’s decision came, Carpenter said, after college leaders saw the results of a survey published in the Chronicle of Higher Education that showed that 60 percent of parents were unaware that most fouryear private colleges discount their published price so that incoming freshmen pay far less.

Some families — particularly those with children who would be firstgeneration college students — have less experiences and resources to help their children navigate the college application process and get the best financial deal.

While St. John’s is trying to buck the trend by beefing up its endowment, McDaniel took another approach, deciding years ago to begin diversifying to get new streams of revenue... e college also started a for-profit arm that does real estate development. McDaniel now owns and manages a shopping center and residential properties.

e college also reached out to the CollegeBound Foundation, a Baltimore-based nonprofit that helps the city’s public school students apply to college. Because some city students have succeeded at McDaniel, there’s a new pipeline of students.

And beginning this fall, McDaniel will offer a new engineering track that allows students to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics with a specialization in engineering.

“I think there is no doubt that coming out of the 2008 recession, there has been a gradual and significant shift in the kinds of programs traditional students want,” Casey said. “ey are extraordinarily pragmatic.”

Goucher College Admit: 80% Size: 1k (576k) Price: 25-30k Baltimore, MD Goucher is ideally located on the edge of a large green area around Loch Raven Reservoir and the sprawl of Baltimore, 14 miles away (getting to Baltimore from McDaniel requires a shuttle to Owings Mills and then taking the metro). The hilly woods surrounding the campus have trails. Macy’s, diners (including Smoothie King and the American-Greek Towson Diner), Trader Joes, the Cheesecake Factory, and several apartment complexes are within short walking distance.

There is a residency requirement without a senior exemption, although upperclassmen might be allowed to live off-campus based on space inavailability.

Coeducational since 1986, Goucher has a 2:1 female majority and is 25% Jewish. There is no football team or fraternity system, but the lacrosse teams and the coed equestrian team is competitive. Students at Goucher have been credited with creating Humans versus Zombies, the tag game slash pillow fight, and Cards Against Humanity, and it is described as having a large “weird” student population in addition to a balance of hippy and preppy students.

Professors are chill, sharing numbers with and frequently going by their first name with students. Goucher calls itself Maryland’s innovative liberal arts college. It has historically

had unusual admissions policies (including an option to apply with a Youtube video and no transcript) and been a leader in providing education to currently or formerly incarcerated individuals. Opportunities are expansive, with the ability to take one class a semester from the 10 other colleges in the area (baltimorecollegetown.org/student-opportunities/bsep) and over a hundred study abroad options with no tuition surcharge (studying abroad at least once is mandatory).

You’ll expand your horizons without worrying about fees, spending a semester at the University of the Sunshine Coast which has kangeroos instead of deer, or witnessing technological innovation and ethnic prejudice at the University of Tartu. Dining at Goucher is on the nicer side, catered by Bon Appétit and interesting but not overboard.

Soba noodles and coconut curry are among the options.

Common major choices include PSYCH (an easy ride), ENVI, PLSC, ECON, IR, peace and conflict, HIST, Spanish, dance and professional writing. CS, DS, engineering science, PH and women’s studies are offered. Exclusive internships are built into the experience. Students are often interdisciplinary and many double major. Requirements, taken at allocated times, include two courses in data analytics (interesting options) and in languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese), one course in “power and perspective” and in the environment, two courses exploring contemporary issues through its centers, and writing. All students complete a capstone shared at a symposium, which is less independent and thorough than the senior thesis, requiring a 3.5 GPA and required for the endowment of an honors designation. 4–1 partners for masters include John Hopkins. Jonah Goldberg is an alum.

Apply by 11/15 (EA) or 6/1 (RD)

Bard College Admit: 46% Size: 2.5k (137k) Price: 22-25k Annendale, NY Bard is a college built out of estates on the Hudson River, which along with the summer Catskills has long served as a pastoral retreat north of New York City for the affluent, counting among its residents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who served as a trustee. With Episcopal (Anglician) influences, Bard was an undergraduate college of Columbia until it became coeducational in 1944, after which it increasingly radicalized. The college has been a haven for émigré artists and intellectuals, a tradition that it started during the war as the cosmopolitan point of the already progressive western New England region. It was a home of Hannah Arendt, the preeminent Jewish philosopher of totalitarianism whose legacy lives on through her personal library at Bard and its degree in human rights, and Eleanor Roosevelt visited the college while drafting the UDHR. In 2021, it received the windfall of a $500 million donation and became a founding member of the Open Society University Network as its American representative along with Central European University. George Soros, the founder of OS, is a common subject of conspiracies (along with other prominent sponsors on the left such as Bill Gates), and Bard and CEU have been blacklisted in Russia and Hungary, respectively.

The college has long been known for its progressive and individualized approach to education (perhaps at times to the point its mentoring could paradoxically be stifling), and along with Sarah Lawrence, it explicitly cites the Columbiabased John Dewey, the foremost proponent of education’s banal ideals (engaged learning) and the leading articulator of its connection to public service and democracy in the 20th century, as a model that it looks to. It includes the only early college in the United States, enrolling students younger than 18 who feel ready to move on from high school, and runs some of the largest educational programs for prison inmates and the homeless. Its president since 1975 has been the Zürich-born prodigy and conductor Leon Botstein, a descendant of survivors of the Holocaust, who was formerly the only 23 year-old president of Franconia and has led Bard on an idealistic vision of being a college for the “public good.” It is unique among colleges with a progressive approach to education for its lofty architecture and location in a wooded hamlet and picturesque region, 3 miles from a nature preserve hosting bitterns, 10 miles from Kingston (137k), about 2 hours from NYC, and near Falling Waters Preserve, Poets’ Walk Park and Ferncliff Forest, and for its ability to attract international connections and wealthy donors (which helps to compensate for its intensive educational approach and art-oriented alumni, traits that have historically led to difficulties for colleges such as Franconia and Hampshire).

Classes at Bard usually take place around tables rather than with students sitting at desks. Lowerclassmen are considered to be in the Lower College, meaning their four classes meet twice a week for 80 minutes (i.e. the norm), while upperclassmen are considered to be in Upper College, meaning they take classes that are 140 minutes once a week, with the exception of lab courses which always meet three times a week and language courses which meet four times a week.

Lower students are expected to take 100 and 200 level courses. At the end of their second year, they move to the Upper College and declare a major. They have to prepare two papers, one that assesses their performance thus far, and another that considers their goals and study plan for their next two years. Three faculty members, two in their intended

department of study (which they are expected to have prepared for, and where they will complete a Senior Project) and one outside it, review their level of performance and commitment, and in rare cases deny admission to the Upper College (in which case it is expected they will be accepted after the next semester) or recommend they apply to a different program. The moderation process helps students decide on their major, understand if it’s line with what they want to do, and clarify their career aspirations. They might discuss an experimental design in the sciences, or put on a show in the arts to help their faculty mentors, who are often teachers they have worked with, see their seriousness in the field. This unique process where they can interact with the experts in their aspired field and see if they really want to enter it epitomizes the structured mentorship at Bard. Even before they formally enter the college, they gather in August to develop fundamental skills by participating in writing workshops and by attending events such as speeches and performances. In their first year, they take a year-long course on a common theme such as “What is Enlightenment?” or “The Commons”, reading great texts that connect to it, and discuss what they can do to be on track to enter a major. The college has made efforts to revamp requirements, such as by adding Citizen Science, which develops the scientific literacy of first-years through hands-on coursework and projects, looking at a subject “from different methodological and conceptual approaches” and giving them the “tools, attitudes, and motivation to use science and mathematics concepts in their daily lives,” and adding an introduction to coding to its three-week August gathering. All students have the opportunity to take their first year in Berlin with 260 students from 60 countries before transferring to the US.

As you might expect, Bard has robust international programs, including at the embattled Central European University now in Austria, and also in places as diverse as Kyrgyzstan, Kenya, China and East Jerusalem. Third-years can apply to stay in New York City for a year and take advantage of internship opportunities that jump-start their career. Bard regularly seeks further global partnerships that metastize its influence, and in 2009 it became the first to offer a degree to students at a college in Palestine by sharing professors and curricula, despite the political controversies that it anticipated this could provoke. While the project was motivated by the elsewhere-invoked desire to bridge divides that became apparent after 9/11, its president has said that it is setting a counterexample for what the internationalization of American education should entail, declining to follow the lead of certain colleges building campuses in rich Persian Gulf kingdoms through diplomacy with their crown princes, which is alike “investing in Monte Carlo or Liechtenstein [rather than e.g. E. Europe] to develop Europe.” Reflecting its ambitions, the college has been a fundraising powerhouse, with its polymath president becoming adept at drawing sums from powerful figures (including Epstein in the past), which it has depended on for funding in addition to student tuitions to the leery assessment of accreditors. It has been able to expand by buying tracts in its vast environs.

Programs at Bard are not separated into bureaucratic departments, though there are divisions, making it easy for students to draw interdisciplinary connections across programs and perhaps double major in vastly different disciplines. In fact, there are 11 majors and 15 minors (called concentrations) that exist across the traditional divisions of science and math, the social sciences, the languages and the

arts. Bard has one of the few conservatories of music that shares its operations and campus life with a full liberal arts college, and the only one where students are required to obtain a degree from the main college in addition to a music degree, typically over five years. Its location relatively proximate to the Midatlantic allows it to attract and share faculty that may also teach at institutes such as Julliard and Curtis. Music theory and history are integrated into its curriculum. Every year, Bard hosts SummerScape, “A hothouse for the creation of uncompromising, crossdisciplinary and sometimes hard to describe hits” (the NYT), which ends during the arrival of first-years with a music festival exploring one composer in depth (2024 will be Hector Berlioz, “the definitive Romantic composer”). A fourth or more of Bard’s degrees are granted in the arts, which in addition to music, include architecture (arch.bard.edu), dance (with visitors in residence most recently from France), theater & performance, film, photography, art history & visual culture, and studio art. Even for art programs, they have a tendency to approach their subject as high arts, with a perspective that is philosophical, interdisciplinary and progressive. The performing arts (music, dance and theater) are housed in a Gehry-designed geothermal center that the finessed New Yorker deems possibly “the best small concert hall in the United States.”

Distribution requirements are not overbearing, consisting of one course each in ten general areas (e.g. science). Major requirements vary. Unlike at many other colleges, there is no requirement to take multiple courses in a foreign language or take a test to demonstrate proficiency. Bard nonetheless provides expansive resources if you do want to learn a foreign language (or two). In addition to attracting students from dozens of countries, its international network and study abroad program is so extensive that students in any major can earn an IBA instead of a BA, a special distinction they earn by spending at least three semesters abroad, including at institutions in the Open Society University Network (opensocietyuniversitynetwork.org/about/members/).

(Semesters at the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in Manhattan, which offers courses in international affairs but is open to all majors, also count toward the three.) Most languages can be learned in an intensive format over one winter month or two summer months, allowing two years of learning to be attained in this period. The sites for these intensive courses are Heidelberg, Germany; Florence, Italy; Tours, France; Kyoto, Japan; Qingdao, China; Oaxaca, Mexico; Fez, Morocco and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (the American University of Central Asia). The Russian course has been moved from St. Petersburg, Russia to Kyrgyzstan, and the course in Haifa, Israel has been cut, possibly because of geopolitical conditions. There are a number of universities where students can study abroad while continuing to pay the same tuition to Bard.

The standard majors are offered, including CS, along with an array of area studies. Engineering partners with Dartmouth, Columbia and WashU, and engineering students will plan how they can meet requirements during moderation.

Advanced science students can take a spring semester conducting research in the lab of a scientist at the Rockefeller Institute in Manhattan, which is a college you might not have heard of because it only enrolls graduate students, but has the largest endowment per capita of any American college and conducts biomedical research. Spots are also reserved for students attending over the summer.

International and modern focuses, and a decent smattering of courses on feminism, are a trademark of Bard’s social curricula. Philosophy, politics, history and economics are robust programs with an often global outlook. Nine MacArthur grantees, and Neil Gaiman, author of Coraline and The Graveyard Book, are current members of the faculty.

The garden of Blithewood manor on its campus. At their graduation, students gather on its lawn for a barbeque and fireworks.

Apply by 11/1 (ED/EA) or 1/1 (ED/RD)

Dorm in Bard Berlin

Manhattan campus

Science facility designed by the haute architect Rafael Viñoly

The only full-time early-only college in the US Simon’s Rock at Bard College, founded in 1964 and merged with Bard in 1975, resides in the rural wooded corner of MA, CT and NY. It enrolls students into college a year or two early (after 10th or 11th grade). After two years, they earn an associates degree and have a head start on their bachelors degree with transferable credits. The school only has 300 students, who are on a first-name basis with their professors as a matter of policy. It is easy to get in to (it has a 95% acceptance rate, and you can fail high school and have terrible recommendations), but the net cost is pricey—28k to 37k a year in the profiles’s terms (a typical applicant could expect more than that). Students are called bright, although some come because they have a poor home life and want to get out of the house. High grades qualify you to take a year at Oxford. Alumni include the (idiot) NYT op-ed writer John McWhorter, directors of MoveOn.org and the National Center for Science Education, a D.C. circuit judge, Alison Bechdel, Takota Iron Eyes, and Ronan Farrow. Alumni from the main campus include Matt Taibi, Lana Wachoswki, Ezra Miller, Tom Ford, and the Farrows.

The college of the West Founded in 1991 simultaneously with the fall of the Soviet Union, which released Eastern Europe from second-world control, CEU has a mission of promoting democratization and human rights. All courses are taught in English. A primarily graduate college, in 2020 it launched undergrad programs in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Data Science and Society, and Culture, Politics and Society. It graduates many politicians in the former Soviet Union.

What students have to say about Bard Bard has mixed student satisfaction ratings. Its students emphasize how small and isolated it is more than those at other liberal arts colleges despite the fact that it is actually on the larger side, which may be because some come from the metro, although it is a 3 mile walk or bike from the nearest town with a 24/7 grocery store, which will sound reasonable to some. Students urge bringing a car in dire tones and (inaccurately) warn that there is no shuttle. The course selection does not always look as expansive as I would hope, and students complain there are only 4 CS professors, although this may be on par. Bard is lesserknown, with one student calling it “no-name,” which may be part of why it sometimes attracts students who aren’t the best fit for it or particularly appreciative of its more unique aspects. Students are described as liberal (“Political debates are a joke around here, what with the complete lack of conservatives,” “I think there might be some Republicans on campus somewhere, I just haven't met them”), drug-using (cannabis and nicotine are prominent, and one student claimed that they don’t have too much heavy stuff while noting that their mainstays include cocaine), and wealthy.

“My Pedagogic Creed” by Dewey (1897) The school is primarily a social institution... a community life in which agencies are concentrated [to bring] the child to share in the inherited resources of the race… a process of living, not a preparation for it… the school must be present life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, the neighborhood, the play-ground... it should simplify life to an embryo and be a transition from the home.

The Deputy Superintendent of the NYC Schools writes in 1953, during the height of the Red Scare (“pinkos are everywhere”) IN RECENT years our public schools have been criticized so frequently and in so many places that their defenders may be justified in believing that, in part at least, these criticisms are a concerted, planned attack on public education. Though the charges have been frequent, they have not been numerous. One that recurs constantly is that the schools do not teach the fundamental subjects. Another is that their discipline is so lax that they may be blamed for an increase in juvenile delinquency. A third accusation calls our public schools “godless,” It is important to note that these three accusations are traditional. About one hundred years ago the same charges were leveled at the public schools of Massachusetts, which were then being reorganized under the leadership of Horace Mann.

Other charges are recent. They reflect the animosities of current political controversies. The commonest of these are that our public schools teach American history improperly or not at all and that they frequently use textbooks that are subversive in their influence. It would seem that the teachers and administrators of our schools have been more excited about these charges than have the parents. Only in a very few instances have these criticisms brought about radical changes in school procedures, and then only when there were other factors in the local situation that did not involve educational issues. A fresh line of attack was needed if the campaign against the “new education” was to succeed.

Accordingly, a new strategy has been planned. It carefully refrains from repeating the stock indictments. Instead, it devotes its attention to John Dewey, whose writings on education have

profoundly influenced teachers and administrators the country over. Albert Lynd warns parents in his article in the April Atlantic, “Who Wants Progressive Education?” that they must study Dewey’s basic philosophic beliefs. Only then will they really understand what evil influences are at work in our modern classrooms...

Mr. Lynd challenges the followers of John Dewey to engage in a forthright effort to enlighten the parents of his town and other communities on “the blessings of instrumentalism,” which is another of Dewey’s dangerous theories...

Mr. Lynd raises another question, which he states in a way that gives the impression that he has hit upon some sort of conspiracy.

He wonders who decided that Dewey’s should be the guiding influence with public school educators when there arc so many different and competing philosophies.

I admit that it is a bit of a let-down to see how much the critics of education today are following stock tropes of history, and thus plausibly working on little more than fundamental instincts that express themselves every now and then. I had thought, and hoped, they might be motivated an element of real insight into how critically it needs to be reformed, given that it had auspiciously become such a topic of controversy only after I’d long written about the problems with public education and the contemporary need to abolish it entirely (that as part of the program of developmental freedom that would see people charting their own paths and forming their own communities, on the path of history that I saw my algorithmic schemes and the insufficiency of our economic structures leading to).

Sarah Lawrence College Admit: 50% Size: 1.5k (32k) Price: 20-24k Yonkers, NY Possibly the single most genuinely nonconformist college in the country, Sarah Lawrence is in a small wooded alcove with cottage-style buildings at the point where the urban sprawl of NYC gives way to suburbia. It is a 20 minute bus ride from the Bronx or a 40 minute train ride to Manhattan. It is unusual for a college to be explicitly named after a male or female, and this may be part of why women apply in higher numbers (or why men apply in lower numbers) to the result of a 4:1 gender ratio. However, it has been coed for as long as most colleges, since it decided against merging with Princeton in 1968.

At Sarah Lawrence, students spend more time one-on-one with award-winning faculty than do students at any other college (according to the college). The vast majority of classes are round-table seminars. Students complete conference work (original work building upon the course in consultation with the professor) in every such class they take. They will confer closely with an advisor throughout their four years. They do not have a major, and the areas of study have a tendency to blur together, though students generally concentrate in one area or another. SLC has a mostly open curriculum (though it does not advertise it as much as other colleges, probably because of the overall distinctiveness of its approach, to which a lack of

requirements is the only logical result). No more than two-thirds of courses may be taken in one area (social science, cultural appreciation or STEM), and no more than half in art. At least two courses in each are expected. The curriculum has an emphasis on developing writing skills and there are extensive opportunities for participating in art. The closeness of Sarah Lawrence’s pedagogical methods may seem intrusive and intimidating to some. For example, students will have to interview for the courses they want to register for, and teachers rate students on intangibles, such as thinking analytically, and accepting and acting on (hopefully valid) criticism.

However, teachers and the admin seem chill. Summative commentary is the main form of feedback, although grades are taken for transcripts.

Students typically take 15 credits at any time; most semester courses are 5 credits, and there are also yearlong courses that are 10 credits and smaller courses that are fewer credits. Freshmen are not excluded from specialized courses unlike at most colleges, and have access to some graduate courses. Independent study is available for upperclassmen.

It is common for students to draw on multiple disciplines and perspectives toward a single end or topical matter in their studies. Examples include cognitive science, urban studies, and international studies. Degrees will require a bit of explanation on the job market as Sarah Lawrence only awards bachelors degrees in liberal studies. However, the masters that it grants in creative writing, genetic counseling, dance therapy, human development, theater and dance hint at its particular strengths, as many faculty are shared.

Recognizing the intimate nature of courses, Sarah Lawrence features faculty names and extensive descriptions in its catalog. Courses tend to have a humanities perspective (i.e. an emphasis on weaving words). (You would find similar courses under comparative literature, if it is offered, at other colleges.) They can seem anachronistic, possibly due to the reliance of this modality of academia on past ideas as building blocks and referents; 2024 in Context, although understandable because it is taught by an economics professor, considers the presidential election through the traditional left and right divide of economics (geopolitics and culture wars are unmentioned); the Rise of the New Right has a racial perspective dated in the degree and the nature of its emphasis. Many are international in perspective. The college has a conspiciously greater interest in film, screenwriting, music and dance than the sciences. It has the bare minimum STEM courses that would be required if going to grad school for STEM, which are likely better taught although limited to the very necessary. Overall, its curriculum is geared to helping you think deeply (like a Great Books college without the archaicism), and does less to lead you to immediate practical results, apart from opportunities in NYC.

The fact that Sarah Lawrence could easily attract interesting people is reflected by how it is often the alma mater of fictional characters in movies. An impressively sprawling list of allusions to Sarah Lawrence in pop culture, including in 10 Things I Hate About You, Gossip Girl, and American Psycho, can be found at sarahlawrence.edu/about/pop-culture. Real alumni include Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia in Star Wars), J.J. Abrams (director of Star Trek and Star Wars films), Sigourney Weaver (Aliens, Avatar, Ghostbusters), Cary Elwes (Wesley in The Princess Bride), musicians Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney, designers Vera Wang and Sam Edelman, Alice Walker (author of The Color Purple), Ann Patchett (author of Bel Canto and The Dutch House), the 2020 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Maggie Haberman (lead political beat writer for the NYT), and Rahm Emanuel (first chief of staff for Obama, mayor of Chicago succeeded by Lightfoot).

Overall opinions on Unigo You’ll hear occasional complaints from SLC students, but when you listen closely, you’ll realize that the downsides are rarely consequential: the tofu at the salad bar is too soft, the walk to Bronxville train station is too steep, damn it’s expensive, where did all the testosterone go, etc. There’s no question that SLC doesn’t have the quality-of-life perks that you’ll find at schools that throw hundreds of thousands of dollars into climbing walls and watergun parties. But there’s a reason for that: every other week, you get to sit down with your brilliant professors in one-on-one meetings and talk about your ideas.

There are no keggers or drunken wheelbarrow races, so making friends tends to happen on your own initiative, but that’s how the real world works, so welcome to it. There will never, ever be a shortage of activities. The school calendar is filled with readings, guest lectures, music performances, theater productions, film screenings, etc., so all you have to do is pick.

At SLC, you sink or you swim.

My brother is one of those 19 year old kids who wears the big, loose, white t-shirts and baggy pants, and when he came to a school event, security picked him out in an instant. There is definitely a "look" associated with the college. Whether it's preppy, or grungy, or frumpy, or plain ridiculous, and SLC student can be identified by looks alone.

It's like a college for students who don't want "the college experience." There is no school team to root for, there is barely school pride, unless maybe you get past freshman year when everyone at some point remarks, "I want to transfer." ( I will note I did not make it beyond my first year and transferred, so for older students, I don't know.) I was told that all first year students say "I want to transfer," when I went to the accepted students day, and when I started at SLC, it was actually very true, and very depressing.

Students at Sarah Lawrence are all ironically conformists in their nonconformist ways. In my experience, if you did not match the single personality represented at Sarah Lawrence, you were not going to fit in.

Having transferred from a large public university, I was unprepared for the unique flavor of this tiny campus that honestly feels like a cross between Hogwarts and Tolkien's Shire, with its pretty old buildings and abundant greenery.

Bronxville is a pretty little community, if a little whitewashed, with fresh produce and a trusty, affordable coffee shop.

Bronxville, the town SLC is situated in, is cute, but not a major attraction and not really a 'college town' as such, and Yonkers, which the school is really situated in despite the Bronxville address, is not exactly somewhere you want to hang out. Most students go to New York City on the weekends.

The SLC community is interesting because I don't really know if I'd say there is much of one. Students at SLC are so independent that there isn't much Rah-Rah-Rahing, and the architecture of the school doesn't do much to make a place for students to really hang out together. When the weather is not nice (which is, say, november to march) there isn't a large student center, and all of the clubs

buildings/the black squirrel, which is a cafe and game room with a tv, are all in Bates, which is the farthest building from everything else, and down a big hill. Pair this with the nature of many students to be somewhat introverted, and you get groups of 4-8 people gathering in various rooms around campus.

The next, "Ah. Sarah Lawrence. I had a girlfriend who went there.

She was a nut." "Oh, you mean the most expensive college in the country where you guys sit around and do nothing? Your parents must be very proud." [also said of Bennington about the sticker price] I am making it sound like some weird kind of utopia but it kind of is.

Although I liked the small size of the school (about 1300) when I first started, it does feel a little too small going into my senior year. There aren't very many hang out spots, but that's not such a problem as it just encourages people to socialize in their dorms. It's great to be near NYC (and there's a free shuttle every weekend), but Bronxville is a little stuck up and Yonkers is ghetto.

One bad thing about SLC is that it has Small School Syndrome.

Everyone bitches about it, and the social networks are so inbred that if they had children they would eat each other. However, S.S.S. can be entertaining at times, and downright hilarious when it comes to conference period, the SLC equivalent of finals (read: the SLC anonymous post on LiveJournal). The aspect of Sarah Lawrence that most moved me was the ability of my peers and professors to constantly challenge me, intellectually and artistically. Of course, this makes the 'Sarah Lawrence Experience' exhausting and daunting at times, but ultimately, it gives one the tools they need to mature as a student, intellect, and human being.

I tell people that anyone who liked the football team at their high school, owns more than 3 items from Abercrombie, or values social cliques should steer clear of SLC. "school spirit" is something that people at SLC feel too cool for. and boast of the length of the essays they're assigned.

Most students have little or no interest in "school spirit", and it is difficult to cajole people into attending a sports game -- even when a Gryphons team plays "at home" the bleachers are frequently empty.

The best thing about Sarah Lawrence is that everyone is fundamentally on the same moral and political wavelength, so there isn't anyone here to find morally reprehensible.

I feel that Sarah Lawrence needs to start making more of an effort to accept and draw in more men. The ratio is not something you find in the real world and as a girl who went to an all-women middle and high school, I wanted more of a balance in college. more dances that are not in the Basement - the formal that was setup in tents out on the laws drew a bigger crowd and a friendlier, less dank atmosphere. Mostly I spend most of my time in the snack bar with friends waiting for attractive boys to walk in, which is rare case. that need to identify with a sub-culture to feel unique.

I'll always remember every time I had a dental or doctor's appointment in Bronxville, the receptionists always point out that I'm the "most normal" Sarah Lawrence student they have ever met. I always wondered if it was just because I smiled and always remembered to say thank you.

I think the most frequent student complaints are about the obvious lack of socializing on campus. SLC students are not the most outgoing, friendly group, and it is rare for someone to say hello to you as they walk by (even if you two are the only ones on the street).

There have even been facebook groups made that make fun of this attitude. There are almost no parties, and if there are, they involve a group of 10 or so friends just drinking together in a room.

This is self-design campus in many ways. You, the student, essentially design your classes. You live in a million different types of dorms. And you most likely have to make your own fun.

I wish there was more community on campus, that people cared to get together and actually do things. I feel like a lot of people just talk about doing things and nobody does anything a lot of the time.

Yes teachers are teachers, but most of them are addressed by their first name (in fact I think that is the case for all of them), yes they know more than you, but you aren't expected to censor yourself for them. I also love the ability to work in multiple disciplines. So many school section off each discipline, if you are in one you are highly

limited in all others. [note however they are not as distinct] Every once in a while some students from the local high school will drive by a group of college students walking off campus and verbally harass them (yelling things like fag, or dyke as per the stereotype of the college) and there have been a few occasions when they will throw a soda or eggs at us, but this is extremely unusual, and most people will go their whole time here without incident.

We sit in circles, discuss our opinions and feelings and sing 'kumbaya'. When i visited as a prospective student, half the girls in my tour group were stolen by a group of students going 'pirate-ing'. The theatre students practice fencing on the main lawn and it is not odd to see a drum circle or a bunch of musicians jamming wherever.

Anything goes including campus-wide games of capture the flag and various school dances where you are encouraged to wear the least amount of clothes possible. most of the people in Bronxville are very wealthy and look down on Sarah Lawerence students, like we are stinking up the town when ever we come into town. most people do go to the city for all or most of the weekend.

The main reason that I came to Sarah Lawrence is that it was heartwarmingly off-kilter. It was a place where you could get an equal number of compliments for an off the wall fashion choice as you could for a well thought out debate in class. It was a place where you could meet people who weren't afraid to be different, even if that meant liking something mainstream.

Having left SLC, the main thing that strikes me is the distinctiveness of the school. I rarely talk to anyone who has had anything approaching my experience: first name basis with professors, small classes, personally directed research, etc. It horrifies me how many alumni from other universities defined their academic experience by lectures and overworked teaching assistants.

We claim to have a leg up on them for being so much smaller, but, I worked a summer on the campus of the University of Chicago and was aware of a palpable kind of community there--one of scholarly learning. It's not something I ever experienced at Sarah Lawrence.

People are pretty busy learning on their own, pursuing their separate interests and projects, expressing themselves through whacky art-and some of that is amazing, and lends to an incredible kind of community, maybe one that other schools cannot achieve. And maybe it can be blamed entirely on the subpar library or some other such banal thing, but SLC is a college without the collegiate atmosphere--to its credit and detriment.

SLC is extremely expensive for its result. Four years ($180k+) later, and at around 130% (or more if you want) the workload, you drop into the world with a liberal arts bachelors degree with no major, just the name of the prestigious college, which you hope will mean something to the person who could potentially hire you. However, with all that work you do, it's hard to say the time spent at least doesn't pay off.

Because of the price, many many students take months off in between, study abroad, or transfer in/out now and then to save or gather money to pay for the college.

I came in as a transfer student from a HORRIBLE place called Eckerd College, where everyone was a rich, spoiled white kid who had no concept of self and who spent their time sitting on there asses, drinking, smoking, and letting their brain cells disintegrate into blobs of narrow-minded waste. Sorry if I sound vindictive. I am. At Sarah Lawrence, however, people are very progressive in their though, very accepting of difference and diversity, and willing to spend hours discussing and debating what they're learning. The intellectual stimulation here is not to be believed. The people I've met here are changing my life and I love them for it. The one thing about Sarah Lawrence that's important to note, however, is that you HAVE to (you MUST!!!) be a very self-motivated individual. This school is not the ideal place for someone who prefers the regular structure of a typical university or college. You think you have a lot of free time, but you really don't. It's important to know how to manage your time and to pace yourself. You can definitely go for days without doing work, but it will be obvious when you come to your conference with no knowledge and no material for discussion. My advice: alot yourself specific hours in the day where you subject yourself to reading/writing/studying/or just simply cogitating/ruminating about one of your concentrations.

There are the ultra-fashionista popular kids who use their parents credit cards to go into the city and party every night, and then there are the rest of us. A lot of the students are pretentious and believe that they are special because of the money that they have, but these people usually mellow out some after the first year. Lastly, there is a pretty high transfer rate so it's not unusual to ask a first-year if she is transferring upon first meeting.

Bronxville is definitely not a college town and the people who live there really hate us because we are "gay" or something. What this school really needs are students who aren't pretentious, are mellow and interested in education.

This is supposed to be a much more effective system because evaluations tell you more about what you are doing right or wrong than grades. Problem is, the evaluations only work when teachers write them for you, which is not all the time. One of my teachers was supposed to give us evaluations in December; we got them in March.

Furthermore, all of my evaluations so far have basically said, "you are doing well in my class". While this is better than "you are doing badly in my class", it is still incredibly vague. What am I doing right? Is there anything that I should be changing? I think that a letter grade would at least have given me an idea of just how well I was doing in relation to the teacher's expectations. So far, all I know is that I'm not failing.

I spend most of my time either in my room or in the library. There are two reasons for this. One, I actually do all of my homework and put a lot of thought into it. Two, there's absolutely nothing to do on campus.

The biggest recent controversy was a stupid quibble over bathroom signs perpetuating America's oh-so evil binary gender system. No, people here have nothing better to do with their time. There's virtually no school pride. Go Gryphons. A better question would be, "Is there anything normal about Sarah Lawrence?" I will always remember eating dinner in Bates with Sam Seigle, who is quite the legend on campus. The most frequent student complaints center on the food (which is actually fine, but I guess it's not so hot if you're used to having a personal chef like most of the students here) and on facilities.

a reputation for being very liberal and being relaxed when it comes to student events. In recent years, however, most of our fantastic staff has gone to work at other schools, leaving us with the administrators who tend to be more conservative. This has not been the best of situations, however, our student government is doing a great job of keeping with important traditions (like Sleaze week, for example).

I think that the most intense time at SLC is conference week, when the big end of term papers are due, everyone stays up all night and it gets pretty crazy. Freshman have to live on campus, and some of the housing is really cute, but I paid $1,100.00 my freshman year to live in a tiny triple in the 'New Dorms' where the rooms are so small and dark and institutional. They don't show those rooms on the tour!

I hesitate to use the word different because our college certainly abuses it in their flyers and presentations. I think most students here have a love/hate relationship with the phrase "you're different, so are we". It's not that it's untrue, but rather that it's too true. Many a point has been raised that if we're all different, then we're all the same. The truth is that it doesn't matter because we all strive in a similarly different direction, together.

I think the administration should help us bring back the Coming-Out Dance, as it really brought the school together, and we current students are now being penalized for the "hard-coredness" of those who, years ago, did things they shouldn't have.

The best thing about Sarah Lawrence? The Spring time. Everyone comes out of their rooms, people shave their legs, dresses are worn and its all downhill from there, baby. One thing I would change: Alcohol and Drug policy. LOOSEN UP. Sure, first years are stupid, but not everyone needs to go to the hospital when they have glassy eyes or stumble a bit.

The athletic (i barely deign to call them that) teams try to muster up some school pride, but its lame. I think SLC is just unusual in general: no grades, no majors, no requirements. One experience I'll always remember: having security bust into my apartment when my friends and I were doing homework silently and issue us a noise complaint.

Apply by 11/1 (EA/ED) or 1/15 (RD/ED)

About that “sex cult” (it isn’t) One of the stranger things that have occurred at Sarah Lawrence University is the cult that a real-life “James Bond,” who had formed connections with a variety of powerful figures in the government using his charisma, developed through his daughter’s circle of friends at Sarah Lawrence.

This story was covered primarily by the New Yorker starting in 2020 and received more widespread attention when it became the subject of a documentary in 2023. It might tell you something that his daughter’s dormmates were unfazed when she announced that her dad was coming over to live with them. Observes one student, “I don’t think anyone really questioned it because it was such a huge part of Talia’s life.

We were talking about getting a big bag of sand and dumping it out on the kitchen floor to make a tiny beach, so it’s not like we were trying to have a normal household.” (The school, which has made little response, has been criticized for not taking action despite the otherwise intrusive security measures that student reviews can attest to.)

Getting the full story is somewhat complicated by the fact that the reclaimation efforts of mainstream society often involve brainwashing and gaslighting tactics in their own right, particularly when it comes to the designated victims of sexual crimes. The cult has been inaccurately been referred to as a sex cult, including by the New York Times, which has a track record of participating in the * excitement that the public tends to take in exaggerating and dwelling on the salacious dynamics of scandals, purportedly on moralistic grounds. By all indicators, it centered around alternative mental health counseling and was not sexual in its purpose nor nature, apart from some unconventional episodes.

Bethany Global University Admit: 96% Size: 200 (88k) Price: 22-20k Bloomington, MN The only accredited college focused solely on making missions (converting people to Christianity), Bethany Global was founded in 1948 and is a project of Bethany International, a missionary organization “bringing Jesus’s love to people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.” The campus is 17 miles south of Minneapolis next to rivers, wetlands and woods that are national wildlife refuges, a site that has also been selected as the home for the Minnesota division of the Izaak Walton League (a Midwest-based conservation organization with a militant bent).

All students work about 15 hours a week, being paid $14.50 an hour, resulting in a discount of 6k or so a year (I believe this is in addition to any discounts already in the net price; a reviewer as recent as 2023 said tuition is paid for). This is standard service work in the office or kitchen or on the grounds. As at other work colleges, the value of this program is mostly in building your resume (which can be useful if not necessary even for entry-level jobs since this isn’t the 1980s). Chapels occur twice-weekly on Wednesdays and Fridays and are required, in addition to attending a local church. A weekly info meeting and number of special events

are also held, which are also required. Students are encouraged to spend “quiet time with Jesus” thirty minutes a day and make time for physical activity to keep fit. Dorms are single-sex and inter-sex visitation is prohibited.

In 2015, the Bethany College of Missions changed its name to its current title (causing considerable confusion for applicants not aware of the degree of its focus on missions; to be clear, it isn’t a college improperly focusing on converting people to Christianity, it’s a missionary organization that happens to also be a college). All degrees include a second major in bible & theology. Degrees are awarded in intercultural missions (cross-cultural communciation, world religions, and contemporary churchplanting strategies), Montessori education, transformational entrepreunership (“The world of missions is changing, and to reach those with little to no access to the Gospel, the doorway is often through the platform of a business”) and midwifery (“learn how to provide safe care throughout pregnancy, birth, and the newborn period”).

The signature program of Bethany Global is the 13-month internship that students take abroad during their Junior year and through part of their Senior year, particularly in places like Africa.

Apply by 7/31 (F), 11/30 (S) or by request. App is on website.

Thales College Admit: n/a Size: 100 (51k) Price: 20-20k Wake Forest, NC Productively contrasted to a certain archetype of Catholic colleges up north, the “Judeo-Christian” Thales combines a classical education with career preparation. It charges 8k per year, or 24k over the course of three years (the usual track), which means you could complete a degree paying for the cost of one year at another college. Merit scholarships offer the chance for 50% or 25% discounts. Thales lacks a residential campus, so students have the freedom and flexibility of taking care of the rest of their living costs as independent adults. The college is ideally located, in a verdant forested area in walking distance of Walmart, Wegmans and Cold Stone Creamery, and north of the major Raleigh metropolis. Students are encouraged to pay for their tuition as they go with jobs or paid internships using its established relationships (they spend mornings in class and have free afternoons). Clubs, events and socials allow for meaningful bonding.

The college is put-together, though its facility might remind you of an outlet store (it may move to a new site later). It is next to the elementary school of Thales Academy, a new and thriving, ethics-based school network also named after the Greek philosopher who is known for being the first to explain natural phenomena on materialist rather than theological terms, and undoubtedly a feeder into Thales College. Classes

are based in discussions, building on assigned lectures online, with weekly one-on-one meeting with the professors.

Students follow a set sequence of courses for their major to make sure they fulfill all requirements in a timely manner. All students earn a double major or minor in the liberal arts by studying “the entirety of the history of Western civilization in chronological order,” intellectual nourishment that many will find satisfying. Details can be found in the catalog. The other majors are entrepreunerial business, classical teaching, and mechanical engineering. Working adults are brought in regularly from varied industries to speak with students.

Something important to note is that Thales is a wholly independent project. That is, not only does it not accept aid from the government, it has not pursued accredition. It’s a college in approximately the same sense as if your five yearolds propped up a teepee in the living room and called it “college.” This is, in my view, what every college should be like, because bringing things into the worldview of the private sphere has liberating potential, but it does have repurcussions to consider if you’re intending to spend your money for a “college degree” in the traditional sense, particularly if you might transfer or go to graduate school.

Most employers will not ask nor care as long as you’re not lying as a mark of bad character. Thales is applying for accredition for its mechanical engineering program, which is the exception when it comes to employment, pursuant to the graduation of its first students (in 2025, as it opened only in 2022). Internships are required starting sophomore year, whether they be working at Thales Academy, local firms or an engineering co-op, and typically lead to jobs.

Apply as early as 8/1 a year ahead or by start

Excel College Admit: ? Size: 100 (9k) Price: 15-15k

Ridgecrest, NC

Founded in 2016, Excel was designed by a Christian businessman who “hated school” and fellow entrepreuners as a project of the innovative CreatEd Institute, which formerly ran the Rivendale Sanctuary on the campus of the Bethany College of Missions. Its campus is down the road from Black Mountain (itself down the road from Asheville) and deep in the mountains, with several trailheads near campus going up rhododendron-covered slopes to the mountaintops. Like many buccanneering Christian colleges, the “Lord of the Rings-inspired” college is a fan of C.S. Lewis, offering a scholarship asking students to reflect on one of his works (e.g. Narnia), and has been called “the best college I’ve seen” by one of his descendants. Its current president is a former Tea Party candidate from MN. Excel not only does not accept government aid but is not accredited by any federal or state agency, operating under a religious exemption in NC law.

Students take a core where they go through modules such as philosophy, math, sociology, anthropology and theology, all through a Christian lens. In the art module, they take a trip to cities in Italy such as Florence and Rome. The completion of the core gives them an associates degree in theology and natural science. They can then take a practicum, which is an

internship in a field of their choice. Completion of the full program awards a bachelors degree in religious studies, integrated economy and critical thinking, and takes three years (with short breaks in lieu of the usual months-long summer break). The experience is similar to a camp, with students sharing dinners, partaking in chores on a weekly basis and going on outdoor excursions, and the instruction focusing on the holistic formation of character and skillsets.

Students have plenty of time to explore the most biodiverse region of the country, independently and in groups with their peers.

Emphasis is put on making a life, not only a living (though that is one of the five pillars). Excel’s motto is “education beyond a degree.”

The campus consists of the center (resembling Falling Waters or a Buddhist monastery in its external form) and the houses on nearby drives in which students live.

The Excel campus is also home to Excel Academy, which runs educational programs for younger students, including those of the NC homeschooling organization Classical Conversations.

Instructors come from backgrounds in academia and industry, ranging from national security contractors to Hilldsale College to the airforce. They reflect Excel College’s background as a project of the Minneapolis-based CreatEd Institute for Theology, Culture, and Entrepreunership, which formerly ran apprenticeships and awarded degrees in creative entrepreunership through accredited colleges such as North Central. Its founders operated Rivendell through San Diego Christian College prior to opening the CreatEd Institute.

Excel has a number of Practicum employers, companies it has an established relationship with when it comes to placing students for the second phase of their learning. It also holds a spring career fair that draws from the region’s hospitality and outdoor recreation industries. Students graduate with a resume, not only a transcript.

Apply early for aid; F starts in September, S in January

The character of Excel It is important to keep in mind that Excel is a fundamentalist Christian community that requires extensive coursework on the Bible in addition to relating its entire curriculum to it.

With its Midwestern origins, it is somewhat less astringent than other fundamentalist colleges (by their high standards), allowing dancing and music and once hosting a “Biblical sex educator.” Its application is generous enough to ask for an explanation if you don’t attend church regularly. I imagine that it would be difficult to be admitted as a non-evangelical if you are not at least interested in being devout.

I find it curious how entrepreuners of the anarchic mentality tend to draw inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s works (Rivendell is named after the place where the quest to find the magic ring began, and Palantir is named after a crystal ball used to read messages). I myself never read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, as I wasn’t drawn to high fantasy (those tinyprint pieces of pulp), and pretty much stopped reading after I learned how to read using Harry Potter because my life quickly became too stressful for prolonged concentration.

Has the Traditional 4-Year Degree Run its Course? by Andrew Chambers (February 2024) On January 25, 2024, Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts signed an executive order directing state agencies to institute skills-based hiring practices for the state’s workforce. The EO is exactly as it sounds - an order for government hiring managers to hire based on skills, knowledge, and abilities rather than on a traditional 4-year degree. A traditional degree is to be mandated only if it is

“absolutely necessary to the performance of the posted position.”

Today, less than 2 weeks later, an analysis of the state of Massachusetts career’s website finds that only 7% of available jobs mandate a traditional 4-year Bachelor’s as a minimum educational requirement. That’s right. The executive order directing that degrees only be mandated where absolutely necessary eliminated over 90% of degree requirements!

In a statement released at the time of the signing, the governor said, “"As the state’s largest employer, we rely on a strong, diverse workforce to deliver crucial services and programs for Massachusetts residents, businesses and communities every day. But too many job applicants are being held back by unnecessary degree requirements," Healey said. "This Executive Order directs our administration to focus on applicants’ skills and experiences, rather than college credentials. It will expand our applicant pool and help us build a more inclusive and skilled workforce than ever before. Our administration is leading by example, and we encourage the business community to join us by adopting similar skills-based hiring practices”. . .

Walmart, IBM, Accenture, Google, Bank of America, and Tesla are just a few of the massive employers that have announced plans to reduce the number of jobs with degree requirements at the corporate level, choosing instead to focus on skills and experience and do away with “unnecessary barriers” to career advancement.

The Harvard connected Burning Glass Institute in a study reported that “Between 2017 and 2019 [alone], 46% of "middleskill occupations" and 31% of "high-skill occupations" saw a drop in college degree requirements which ‘could have major implications for how employers find talent and open up

opportunities for the two-thirds of Americans without a college education,’. In line with the trend, the report projected the move could open up 1.4 million jobs for American workers without college degrees over the next five years.

What does all this mean?

It’s simple and obvious. The traditional 4 year university is losing its place as the gatekeeper to the American dream, and even government institutions are beginning to recognize as much.

Employers are realizing that hiring based on skills and experience is much more important than hiring based on a box checked on a resume.

I couldn’t agree more that degree requirements are only chauvinistic. I don’t agree with helping businesses out.

Innovation in Education (April 2023) THE CURRENT STATE OF EDUCATION: The current predominant system of higher education in the United States emerged during America’s Industrial Age of the late 1800s. Often referred to as the Humboldtian model of education, it is a highly specialized, research-oriented model that originated in Germany and was first introduced in the United States at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University. The core idea of this model is to prioritize research and specialization. . .

After a long and bloody 20th century, it's become clear that technological advancements and booming economics alone aren’t enough to produce flourishing - in individuals or society.

We must add to these facts another: the world is changing. We are no longer in the industrial age, but the information age.

Many modern industries are beginning to recognize that traditional four-year degree programs may not even be the most effective way to prepare students for success in the marketplace. Almost all of the trades are best learned by direct, hands-on experience. In the tech industry, large, multinational companies such as Google and Apple, recognizing that college classrooms cannot keep up with the pace of change, have begun facilitating low-cost, online learning that will prepare students for entry into the industry - and they hire based on competency. They aren’t the only ones to see it - almost all the technology giants now hire based on experience and proven skill over a four-year degree.

The federal government, which, at a headcount of over 2.1 million, is the nation’s largest employer, has also recognized the fact that skills and relevant experience are better indicators of success in the workplace than where you got your degree. In 2020, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to prioritize skills and experience over degrees when it comes to hiring.

Not only is the marketplace better at skill training than the traditional classroom, but it would also prefer for its employees to enter the workforce without college debt. The student loan debt for the average college graduate hovers around $37,000, forcing recent graduates, without much experience under their belt, to expect higher wages to help cover their monthly debt payments, a frustrating notion for many employers.

Industry after industry and company after company has evolved and innovated to meet the demands of a new age, and those that have not have been disrupted or become extinct altogether. Ironically, though, higher education remains the same. Large classrooms, lectures, standardized tests, tenured professors, and Humboldtian methodologies still populate the hallways of the traditional university. Accreditation agencies, designed to protect consumers and standardize education, have stifled innovation for most higher education institutions instead of advancing the pursuit of excellence and new, more effective methodologies.

So, what is to be done? Is the concept of college to be thrown out as the proverbial baby with the bathwater? We don’t believe so, as the need for young people to go on the critical journey into adulthood that includes character formation, maturation, and skills training will not go away.

But maybe it’s time to rethink the concept.

IT’S TIME FOR INNOVATION The COVID-19 pandemic brought many of these issues to the surface for the world to see, causing many to reconsider our commitment to the current system. The world is experiencing an unprecedented openness to innovation in educational theory, methods, and practices and now is the time for higher education to undergo the same kind of innovation most other modern industries have gone through. . .

Impressively broad setting of the current model in the descent of modernity. This college knows what’s what.

Outer Coast College Admit: TBA Size: 40 (8k) Price: 1-10k?

Sitka, AK

Not a spartan polar environment decorated only by ice but part of the Pacific Northwest, with vast, lush rainforests and temperatures hovering above freezing in the winter months due to the inbound maritime winds (for reference, this is warmer than NY or MN and comparable to CofA), the campus of Outer Coast hosted Sheldon Jackson College, the first college in Alaska, until 2007. It now includes the town’s museum, marine biology science center, and hostel, and the summer camp that preceded the founding of the two-year college, which will enroll its first students in 2024. The island port of Sitka is two straits from Juneau, the capital with a population of 32k, and then a mountain ridge from the province of British Columbia.

Outer Coast is the child of a progressive activist, a Deep Springs alum and an Alaska Fellows alum, who researched the model of Deep Springs (and other pertinent experiments in higher education) and based the new college on the pillars of “academics, service & labor, and self-governance.”

Students are expected to attend student government meetings, which perform duties such as admissions, kitchen management and memorialization (producing a magazine) once a week, and engage with the community through service projects, which will allow them to gain valuable

experience in a unique environment. Courses have included topics in ecology, lifestyle-oriented philosophy, and local anthropology and history, and engage with the place around the campus. A blend of Western and indigenous approaches are used, making for a unique learning environment. This includes classes on the language, practices and beliefs of the Tlingits, a nation with a matrilineal and aristocratic structure divided into the Raven and Eagle clades.

Experiences that students may have include working in the commercial kitchen (gaining marketable skills), working in a fishery or aquarium, making trails in the forest, harvesting seafood such as herring eggs, diving with special suits, and sketching with watercolors. After earning their generic associates, students can transfer to fouryear colleges. A more rugged, one-year alternative is the non-degree bearing but college credit-awarding Tidelines Institute, founded in part by a female Deep Springs rejectee.

Apply by 1/1 (priority), 1/31 (RD) or later (R)

Wyoming Catholic College Admit: ? Size: 100 (9k) Price: 20-30k?

Lander, WY

The first and only Catholic college in WY is “inspired by the Great Books and the Great Places.” Founded in 2004, Wyoming Catholic was originally based in a cattle ranch but now has a campus on the Old West style main street of Lander, at the base of the Rockies, and residences a mile away on its outskirts. Students have access to a 24/7 gym and other facilities throughout town. A strong sense of community and engagement is promoted by the technology policy, which does not allow personal phones and limits the internet to necessary websites on campus. Students take the same course of study apart from the senior project. It includes philosophy, music, art and Latin, and eight theology courses. The great books it uses are largely conventional but include Eliot, Twain and Dostoevsky. Freshmen take a three-week trip backpacking through diverse landscapes. Five outdoor weeks, when there are no classes, allow them to explore the environment. Horsemanship is considered to be an essential part of the liberal arts curriculum due to its historical importance as a skill and WCC’s location in the Cowboy State. Graduates wear cowboy hats, not the usual

mortarboards. The equally male and female students frequently go on informal adventure trips on varied terrain.

Wyoming Catholic was the subject of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama finalist Heroes of the Fourth Turning, which was written by the son of the president of the college in 2016-2023 (who attended Kenyon, and Northwestern for his MBA).

Its title refers to the historical theory that influenced Trump advisor Steve Bannon (an Orbanloving writer called the play one of the best works of art or literature on the culture war), and its PR poster includes a mythical tapestry you may remember from your primary school years. (I read the play and it’s quite a disappointment.

People just repeating caricatures of cringe conservative concerns like about pronouns in a “right” kind of way that seems meant to elicit a “no” from the audience. All in middle-school speak and logic too.)

Students tend to be on the conservative but fun-loving side and are almost exclusively Catholic. Events held throughout the year include excursions, dances, barbeques, formal dinners and a trip to the opera.

Apply as early as the 9/1 prior (R)

e Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (2017)

Rod Dreher advises people to start their own cults, and I’m here for it In my 2006 book Crunchy Cons, which explored a countercultural,

traditionalist conservative sensibility [crunchy is another term for hippy], I brought up the work [After Virtue] of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who declared that Western civilization had lost its

moorings. e time was coming, said MacIntyre, when men and women of virtue would understand that continued full participation in mainstream society was not possible for those who wanted to live a

life of traditional virtue. ese people would find new ways to live in community, he said, just as Saint Benedict, the sixth-century father of Western monasticism, responded to the collapse of Roman civilization by founding a monastic order.

I called the strategic withdrawal prophesied by MacIntyre "the Benedict Option." e idea is that serious Christian conservatives

could no longer live business-as-usual lives in America, that we have to develop creative, communal solutions to help us hold on to our faith and our values in a world growing ever more hostile to them. We would have to choose to make a decisive leap into a truly countercultural way of living Christianity, or we would doom our children and our children's children to assimilation. . .

We Christians in the West are facing our own thousand-year flood-or if you believe Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, a fifteen-hundred-year flood: in 2012, the then-pontiff said that the spiritual crisis overtaking the West is the most serious since the fall of the Roman Empire near

the end of the fifth century. e light of Christianity is flickering out all over the West. ere are people alive today who may live to see the

effective death of Christianity within our civilization. By God's mercy, the faith may continue to flourish in the Global South and China, but barring a dramatic reversal of current trends, it will all but disappear entirely from Europe and North America. is may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of a world, and only the willfully blind would deny it. For a long time we have downplayed or ignored the signs. Now the floodwaters are upon us-and we are not ready.

e storm clouds have been gathering for decades, but most of us believers have operated under the illusion that they would blow over.

e breakdown of the natural family, the loss of traditional moral values, and the fragmenting of communities-we were troubled by these developments but believed they were reversible and didn't reflect anything fundamentally wrong with our approach to faith. Our religious leaders told us that strengthening the levees of law and politics would keep the flood of secularism at bay. e sense one had

was: ere's nothing here that can't be fixed by continuing to do what Christians have been doing for decades—especially voting for Republicans.

Today we can see that we've lost on every front and that the swift and relentless currents of secularism have overwhelmed our flimsy barriers.

Hostile secular nihilism has won the day in our nation's government, and the culture has turned powerfully against traditional Christians.

We tell ourselves that these developments have been imposed by a liberal elite, because we find the truth intolerable: e American people, either actively or passively, approve.

College of the Ozarks Admit: 21% Size: 1.5k (13k) Price: 9-10k Point Lookout, MO The School of the Ozarks was inspired in 1901 when a pastor came across a boy on a squirrel hunt who was unable to attend school because the nearest was miles away.

Founded in 1906 as a private project with the help of national donors, the CofO allowed children to work instead of pay to extend their studies, and established itself as a full college between 1965 and 1993. Students today continue to work to attend the college, only paying for rent and food (as they would be doing outside of college), giving it the moniker “Hard Work U”. It recently recreated a K-12 system (which charges a fifth of the tuition found at most schools) and has become increasingly outspoken about cultural-political issues (e.g. Nike in 2017 and transgender policies in 2021). Its new president is slightly more religious in his emphasis. For example, he installed a cross on the lawn.

An immediately noticeable atmosphere of star-spangled traditionalism pervades the college’s setting on the Missouri-Arkansas border. The entrance to the campus is occupied by Patriots Park, with monuments for every major war the US has engaged in within living memory (including Missouri’s Vietnam War memorial, nothing less, and Korean War and War on Terror memorials). A quarter mile further

down is the 9/11 memorial inscribed with “Lest we forget,” also established in 2015. The museum displays a firearms collection, while the restaurant gives free ice cream to kids who recite the pledge of allegiance from memory. The Bushes have long had a connection to the college, receiving warm welcomes at the nadir of their national popularity, and notable people come to speak annually (in 2024, Huckabee spoke on Israel). The College is a place where you can find that mythological traditional conservatism you might think is rare as hen’s teeth and where you can live in the “good old days” (if you remember that as something other than when veterans were booed at the airport). It has been named the most conservative and most anti-LGBT college by some sources, although it is very far from the evangelical stereotype I expected by those rankings (as of now), with a more general ethos of rule by social honor that meshes easily with opposition to government interference. Video tours with a fun Southern accent can be found online.

The CofO is unsurpassed in the sophistication of the co-op style arrangement that is uses to create revenue. The Keeter Center, shown, is a high-end hosting (dining, lodging and events) facility with bell-hop service and a timbered theme (matched perhaps only by the Polynesian Cultural Center as a business run by college students). Its farmhouse-chic businesses include a mill that grinds whole

wheat flour, a creamery and bakery, an acclaimed jelly, fruitcake and apple butter making store, a stained glass making and candling store, a shop where students weave baskets, rugs, placemats and shawls, a greenhouse that sells plants, and a farm that raises food for many of its enterprises (profiled in Feast Magazine). The college offers additional work at its IT department, child development center, museum, and health clinic. A full list of the diverse job opportunities, only a few of them being routine desk work, can be seen at cofo.edu/workstation. Students work about 2 hours a day, plus typical workdays (e.g. 9-5) during two weeks when school is not in session; those who are in financial need to cover rent and food as well can work over the summer (those not eligible can apply to work externally at Big Cedars Lodge). The high-end operations ensure that students can gain truly valuable work experience and capabilities, and they have the opportunity to move into managerial “leadership” roles. Since they are not paid in the form of a salary, many find a job off-campus in addition to the guaranteed one for pocket money. The CofO uses workvalorizing language (“gate(s) of opportunity,” “head, heart and hands”) that recalls Berry College (the then all-boys alma mater of its longtime president until 2021), if not Auschwitz, and aspires to produce graduates of capability and maturity.

The location of the College of the Ozarks is known as Missouri’s entertainment capital and resort destination, with a live entertainment (music and theater) scene, rustic cuisine, a theme park, and outdoor recreation opportunities, including world-class trout fishing. There isn’t a shortage of exciting things to explore (explorebranson.com), and many attractions offer discounts to students. The CofO exists in

synergy with the local economy, which not only provides a reliable stream of customers but a variety of opportunities for students, recreationally and workwise.

The CofO offers a good spread of majors, including core liberal arts subjects such as biology, chemistry, psychology, history and English, more application-minded ones such as CS, engineering, nursing, ceramics and theater, and unusual career-oriented choices such as agriculture, hospitality management, culinary arts, nutrition, child studies, family studies and social services, criminal justice, journalism, video production, conservation and wildlife management, and military science. The CofO has well-rounded but reasonable and not overbearing general education requirements, including two Christian worldview courses, ten chapel visits a year, a military-focused patriotism course (which teaches basic skills such as knot-tying and basic knowledge about military structure, and requires running a mile), and fitness classes—appealing to parents who want to instill discipline.

The CofO does not accept aid from the government (in a state that resisted Medicaid money until 2020 and was among the first to end federal unemployment benefits in 2021). This can mean that other colleges can be cheaper for students eligible for Pell Grants if they don’t do summer work. A student asked by a journalist if the school has political or religious diversity said “I don’t know how to answer that”. (The best answer to that, in my view, would have been that it creates diversity. The pursuit of microscopic diversity shouldn’t come at the expense of diversity on the macroscopic level). Another concern for some students is that it requires living on campus.

Apply by 12/31 (priority) or later as space is available

Hard work U.

At School of Ozarks, the students flunk out if they shirk chores March 15, 1973, WSJ—“Work is love made visible,” says an old bronze plaque on the campus.

And they really seem to believe that here at the School of the Ozarks, one of the most unusual little liberal-arts colleges in the country.

Commitment to the good old-fashioned work ethic, in fact, runs so deep here that honest toil is an integral part of the curriculum. Students don’t pay room, board or tuition here, they work their way through college doing everything from typing tests and mopping floors to driving bulldozers, butchering hogs and selling orchids—and those who shirk their assigned campus jobs flunk out. . .

About 80% of the 1,074 students still come from the Ozark hills along the Missouri-Arkansas border, mostly from hardscrabble farms and towns with names like Blue Eye, Oscar and Owls Bend. The bulk of the other 20% are from rural areas of adjacent states. Most were B students in high school. They are admitted largely on the basis of need, and about three out of four applicants are turned away. In a survey of this year’s incoming freshmen, 91% said they chose the school because they couldn’t afford to go anywhere else. . .

They look and act and talk pretty much like college students anywhere. They have the usual array of pictures of campus heroes like W. C. Fields and Gloria Steinem in their clustered dormitory rooms, and they have the usual gripes about food,

faculty and administration. A few chafe openly at some of the rules (no beards, “tasteful” attire, 11 p.m. weeknight curfew, and 1 a.m. weekends, no smoking except in the dorms and the student union), but they abide by them.

Student’s cars are kept off campus in a fenced lot that’s open on weekends and reluctantly unlocked weeknights for those with outside jobs. . .

“We’ll take anything from flowers to broken down jalopsies,” says Mr. Knox. A retired orchid raiser gave them four greenhouses full of rare orchid plants last year. A milling executive has built a replica of an 1850 water mill. “We’ll build a school of horticulture complex around the orchid greenhouses and sell blooms.” . . . The school is getting into the stained-glass business now. A banker who foreclosed on a stained-glass company “called me one day and asked if I’d like to have the inventory of glass and lead”. . . “We could sell a lot of little things like that in our gift shop.”

The “junior blues” cause some attrition, too. . . “That’s when a kid running a crane or bulldozer realizes that with the skill he already has he can leave and make more money than he can by staying here and getting a degree.”

While this profile was written 51 years ago, much of the character of the school remains the same. It has a target of recruiting 70% of its students from the region, and whether they’ll like it depends on whether they’re willing to be disciplined and take advantage of its opportunities.

Many students are less than personally enthusiastic about the college’s rules, with some describing them as psychologically abusive and petty in their discipline, but express gratefulness for the ability to attend college for free.

High Point University Admit: 79% Size: 5k (115k) Price: 33-36k High Point, NC Located in the Piedmont Triad metropolis (with a population between San Francisco and Chicago), High Point is a resort-style college that has flourished under its unusual president— a motivational speaker and coach focused on helping his students aim higher—and calls itself “the premier life skills university” for its experiental learning opportunities.

Students enjoy a wonderland, landscaped campus and absurd amenities (unmatched by any other private school) that make High Point look more like a theme park or Hanseland-Gretel situation than your typical college. They have free reign to use top-class theaters, pools, dorms, ice cream trucks, and restaurants, all free of charge. Weekly block parties feature free food trucks and bouncy houses, the concert and sports crowds are next-level, and the residences feature hotel-like rooms and fine dining (steakhouse, Meditarranean and Hibachi). Options for upperclassmen include Greek villages with hot tubs or the ultra-cute tiny home neighborhood, which allows individuals to live in a twostory home of their own at a relatively affordable rate.

High Point’s philosophy is built around the fact that of the 168 hours in a week, only 20 if not less are spent in classes,

meaning that the holistic aspects of the college experience are of great importance. In its view, its amenities are not frivolous, but rather encourage young adults to socialize, make friends, and maintain the high quality of mental health that will give them a higher likelihood of finding college to be a launchpad to success. All of this is evidenced by its focus on practical results, which leads to 99% of students finding jobs within a short period of graduation, and by the genuine warmth of its community. The campus is scattered with bonfires in the summer and cozy igloos in the winter, and campus kiosks across its grounds let you grab breakfast snacks and bottled water on your way to class (source: bit.ly/hpu-kiosk). An introductory class is taught to all students by the college president, and the access to innovators program brings people like co-founders of Apple or Netflix to High Point to mentor students. Unlike what you might expect by its lack of austerity and its reward-based theory of development, High Point is a more conservative community. The founding dean of its law school was involved in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and its values of “family, God and country” are flown prominently.

A full spread of majors is offered, including the natural and social sciences, engineering and computer science. They include computer, electrical and mechanical engineering, mechatronics, cybersecurity, data science, data analytics & statistics, event management, hospitality management, international business, international relations, mathematical economics, journalism, fashion merchandising, dance, game design, interior design, film, (real) neuroscience, and social media. High Point will open the state’s first private school of entrepreunership in the fall of 2025. Admissions to nursing is

after the successful completion of gen eds with at least a C average. All programs emphasize hands-on learning and technological sophistication. Undecided students work with success coaches and advisors, and can tour fairs and meet with professors, to find a program that’s right for them. The general education requirements are comprehensive but manageable—only one course each in subjects such as literature, history, religion and natural science. “All incoming freshmen in the Class of 2028 get to choose from 11 Master’s Degree Programs” to take tuition-free, in business, education, biomedical science or health.

(1) The president gives a life skills lecture to each incoming class all together (2) HPU has a variety of dining facilities (3) the ice skating rink opens to students in the winter (4) the library is open 24/5.

Apply by 11/1 (ED, priority perks), 11/15 (EA), 2/1 (ED, perks), 3/1 (RD) or later as avail. Latest waiver (24/3/13) is PANTHER

Every outdoor discovery course (ropes, backpacking, etc.) is also free if you ever want to get out of this garden of garish pleasures.

Roosevelt University Admit: 88% Size: 2.5k (2665k) Price: 21-24k Chicago, IL Founded in 1945 to be inclusive of all races and genders and named in memory of the recently deceased “New Deal” president, Roosevelt is a progressive institution that has a soaring tower, which is the second tallest educational building in the United States and houses the country’s highest student dormitories on its top floors, and an auditorium that is one of the best-known masterpieces of architecture in the city. It is located at the very center of Chicago and next to a lakeshore park with a view of the skyline and giant ornamental fountain.

All students are given free access to Chicago’s sprawling public transportation system, ensuring that the whole city truly is their campus. The dorm rooms at Wabash (the main

building for traditional students) have floor-to-ceiling windows, creating scary-impressive views. Options range from a loft with two bunk beds to a cubby of your own. Each room has its own bathroom. The building is a self-sufficient vertical community all of its own, which means you won’t have to face the weather or race across a quad to get to classes.

The floor below the student residences is a lounge with free Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Below that are the classrooms, and on the lower levels are the student life facilities (the fifth is the fitness center, and the second is the dining center, with a variety of buffet lines focusing on healthy fare; an effort is made to use local and sustainable ingredients). A bridge connects to the auditorium building, on the National Register of Historic Places and designed by “the father of the skyscraper” and his then-unknown apprentice, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Unlike what you might expect from its seamless adaptation to the bustle and gleam of its urban setting, Roosevelt has a strong community ethos reflecting its nature as a smaller college. The faculty to student ratio is 11 to 1, lower than at most public universities, and although there are lectures for some introductory classes, some classes take place in the cozy setting of former hotel rooms. Its early history reflects its nature as a community effort, with its advisors including

Albert Einstein (a celebrity scientist active in worldgovernment efforts), Gunnar Mydal (the author of An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, seminal to the integration movement), Pearl Buck (Randolph grad and author of the cross-cultural book about Chinese peasants, The Good Earth) and Ralph Bunche (a leader of the post-war decolonization movement and first black Nobel laureate), among other dignitaries of the postwar era such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson and William Douglas. Its first president was the only American college administrator on the World Constitution Coordinating Committee (the sole other “educational” representative from the US being an administrator of a failed LSD research center headed by Aldous Huxley).

Roosevelt has the usual spread of programs, with larger enrollments in teaching, health sciences, paralegal studies, crimonology, and psychology, in addition to music and theater at the somewhat independent Chicago College of Performing Arts, housed in the Auditorium Building with many professional artists in Chicago as teachers. The general education requirements are on the minimal side, including core composition courses and three courses each in humanities or arts and three in social sciences, but no language. A convenient listing of all majors can be seen at catalog.roosevelt.edu. They include CS, data analytics, journalism and media studies, international relations, women’s studies, hospitality and tourism, acting, sustainability studies, and social justice studies. Roosevelt integrated Roberts Morris Illinois in 2020, giving it football and ice hockey teams. Cheer, dance and esports are coed.

Apply by 5/1 (priority-R)

The library on the tenth floor of the Auditorium building.

The brilliant Auditorium Theatre is the most classic example of its kind, bringing viewers back to the Windy City of the late industrial era.

A cross-sectional diagram of the university reveals its fascinating layout, with a short bridge connecting the two drastically different buildings, and a vertical scheme that amplifies the urban jungle feel of the university and offering amenities across its many strata.

The students at Roosevelt are 3:2 women majority. Columbia College or CoCo (an arts college) is just across the street, and the 22k undergrad-population IUC, a public university, is nearby.

Oral Roberts College Admit: 78% Size: 4.5k (411k) Price: 22-26k Tulsa, OK Named after and founded by Oral Roberts, the evangelist second in prominence only to Billy Graham during the second ascension and responsible for mainstreaming charismatic Christianity (Pentecostalism and the Prosperity Gospel), the neodynamism and mysticism of Oral Robert’s roots is reflected by its boldly geodesic campus, which looks like an alien colony perched incongruously with a Walmart and Cityplex Towers on a river bank 11 miles outside of Tulsa.

This wizardland of magic is the kind of place kids are sent to after conversion therapy failed (without a hint of irony).

The three towers, originally the City of Faith Medical and Research Center, now Cityplex, were ordained by a vision in 1977. Oral Roberts threatened suicide to raise the money to build them.

Oral Roberts is ”the place to get a Spirit-empowered whole person education” (in reference to the form of Christianity that believes in God as an omnipresent “Holy Spirit” interacting with the mundane world in ways conspicuously evident to the individual, which would more concisely and familiarly be described as superstitious thinking). This makes it the flagship institution for a religious tradition with 585 million formal adherents worldwide or a third as many as Catholicism, albeit one that is the most spiritual and least institutional manifestation of Christianity (organized mostly through the televangical megachurches that arose in the second ascension and were reminiscent of the new-light pulpits of prior awakenings). However, only 15% of students are here to earn theology degrees, and its purpose-driven mission means that they are incredibly diverse, with at least one person from all 50 states (though the majority are Oklahaman) and most of the world’s 195 countries (the college seeks having a representative from every one). 13% are black, 12% are Latino, 4% are Asian and 3% are native American. There are few colleges that are as diverse in these respects as Oral Roberts, which lacks the rural parochialism found at some religious colleges (although its religiosity still creates a “bubble”), and few that involve being surrounded by so many people who very literally believe in magic, which sounds fascinating. (I am writing “The Albus Guide” after all).

The awesome campus of Oral Roberts is meant to inspire a sense of human power and possibility, like the medley of mid-20th century world fairs in Chicago, Brussels and Seattle that it was modeled on. Common spaces feature high and vaulted ceilings. The dorm buildings are futuristic and many rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows. Although most have

bunks or beds built into alcoves in the walls, they succeed at turning cramped into cozy for the most part, with hotel-like furnishings. In line with Oral Roberts’s globally expansive evangelical tradition, the college is interdenominational. It requires two spirituality-related courses (a requirement found even at many nominally religious colleges), which can include introductions to the Old and New testaments, or spirit-empowered living and leadership. As a reflection of ORU’s broad worldview, a BS degree requires taking one language course and a BA requires taking two. A minimum of two courses in each broad area of the sciences, humanities, and social sciences (what it calls civics), and three interdisciplinary courses and one intercultural experience, constitute the bulk of the requirements, with specifics in the catalog. (Honors students take seminar versions of the gen eds.) Each student is also required to select a minor in a discipline different from their major and complete a senior project or paper (they can receive honors in their major by receiving an A or B on this assignment). The most unusual requirement is that students must always be enrolled in a physical activity program. They are encouraged to track their daily aerobic activity, and twice a year they will take an (easy) field test where they walk or jog 2 miles, cycle 5, or swim 800 meters, or use an arm bike. (Accomodations can be made, as at every college due to the Americans with Disabilities Act.) ORU is fitness-conscious and strives to accommodate healthy lifestyles with its activities, facilities and dining. Incorporating modern antitheses with traditional conservatism, ORU makes being technology-forward a central part of its identity. In the past several years it has introduced measures such as putting a FitBit on every

student and making aerobic activity part of their grades, and building a virtual reality lab for all students. It defines its mission with a “whole person for the whole world” pledge.

Communications and media, theology and ministry, art and music, counseling and business have robust offerings. One of the not-so-great aspects of Oral Roberts is that it appears you have to take an extensive list of specific courses for each major, with little in the way of electives. This will be okay if you want a solid structure to know you’re on track to earn your degree, but not as ideal if you have classes you want to skip and want to explore your interests in a more customized manner. Women outnumber men about 1.5 to 1.

Social work, language interpretation and translation (Spanish in particular), international relations, film and music technology, engineering (ABET-accredited with a biomedical concentration possible with additional requirements), business (organizational leadership, marketing, management, finance, international, accounting), and computer science are among the majors. There is no physics major and there was only one general chemistry graduate last year. The registered nursing program is sizeable, and many students are on the pre-med track, which has a 68% med school acceptance rate, 84% for those with GPA>3.5 and 99% for honors students. Students at times complain about the strict rules. Curfew is 1 AM for students (although it is a half hour later for men, which some find sexist, not that they make any effort to change dating patterns), and as with other colleges centered on their Christian identity, visitations by the other sex and drinking are tightly controlled, and chapel attendance is required twice a week.

Apply by 4/15 (R). GPA 2.6 or SAT 1030.

A bastion of American spirituality The prosperity gospel as we know it today was created primarily by Oral Roberts. His major innovation was justifying wealth as a religious pursuit, an inversion of the age-old exhortation of religion that adapted its ends from survival in the cooperative model of an insular village to individualistic, capitalistic striving in the developing, globalized age. In 1947, as a struggling preacher, Roberts read in the Bible that “I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” From this humdrum line, he promptly concluded that it was okay to be rich and started spreading his message, just in time for the rise of TV in American households. In 1963, he founded ORU. Until a 2008 shakeup, its board included Benny Hinn, “Creflo Dollar” and Kenneth Copeland, three of the most flagrant preachers of the prosperity gospel. Its most mainstream alum of note is Joel Osteen, author of Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential. They also include Copeland, known for his viral manical laugh after the 2020 election, Ted Haggard, known for his scandal involving crystal meth and male prostitution, and Ryan Tedder, who featured a charismatic Christian sermon in his music video for “Counting Stars”.

With roots as a celebrity businessman, Trump has catered to ‘the Prosperity Gospel movement and included figures on his advisory board, valuing its ability to captivate audiences.

The audacity of his promises and his willingness to overplay his hand is less surprising when you look at the opulence and scandals of the leaders it follows (although his base of support is less religious than usual for the GOP). With its beliefs about birth control and homosexuality, don’t expect this gospel (or its very gay alleles) to go away anytime soon.

Convenant College

Admit: 84% Size: 1k (2k) Price: 22-26k Lookout Mt., GA A Christian college on a mountaintop. The inside of the castlelike main building feels like a Swiss retreat, or maybe somewhere you would go to hide during a zombie apocalypse. It was built as a hotel, and feels like one in its lobby. Some of its rooms could pass for travelers’s hostels. The mountaintop also features a pool and an observation desk. A few courses on Christian doctrine are required (which a sensible person would find inoffensive given its ongoing secular relevance), as is chapel attendance (35 minutes every other day, ideal for mindfulness), with a 20% absence policy and an exemption for full-time employment.

All students are guaranteed a part-time job. Psychology, Bible studies, sociology, economics and political science are among the popular majors, and relatively straightforward.

Philosophy courses are taught in an intellectual history format. CS and community (third world) development are additional offerings. All in all, this would be a really great school or healthful retreat if you imagined yourself as staying as a visitor. Chattanooga is 8 miles away, by foot, bike or car.

Apply by 11/1 (D), 3/1 (D) or later as available.

Aerial perspectives of the college

Chaminade University of Honolulu Admit: 93% Size: 1.5k (346k) Price: 24-25k Honolulu, HI Common majors at Chaminade (#1 student life in Hawaii, bit.ly/cu-recap) include teaching, nursing, environmental science and outdoors/interior design.

Minors include palliative care, Pacific studies, surf studies (the only one of its kind), and digital humanities.

Associates degrees are offered in business, crimonology, childhood education, liberal arts and natural sciences. Dorms are nice with breezy views, and the food has interesting options but mixed reviews.

You may also want to look into BYU which is cheaper, and has a better location on the beach and near trails, although it is across the island an hour from Honolulu.

According to BYU’s website, it recently hosted its first ever “Date Night”, stressing the importance of the university’s president’s three Ps: planned ahead, paid for, and paired off — Yikes — But if you don’t plan on interacting with people, the climate might be worth tolerating the weirdos. A third of students are employed at the Polynesian Cultural Center (^). It is near some of the top shore diving, reef exploring and surfing locales in the world.

(CUH) App Fee Waiver Week 11/15-21, RD, S: 12/1, R: 4/15

Whittier College Admit: 75% Size: 1k (85k) Price: 23-29k Whittier, CA 30 minutes east of Los Angeles next to the arid mountains, Whittier is a college founded by Quakers and named after the famous abolitionist and poet. Nixon was elected as its freshmen president in 1930 and as student president in his senior year. Today it is 53% Hispanic and is, for unclear reasons, hemorrhaging students, down a third over the last few years. Its president resigned in 2023 after cutting its football, lacrosse and golf programs.

Students can enter the scholars program upon the completion of a course and their defense of a “Design your own education” plan. This allows them to design their own major around the courses they are interested in taking, fitting it to their courses rather than the other way around.

All students are assigned a faculty mentor who advises them until they declare a major, and are connected to internships through their academic department. Child development, English, history, social work, pol sci, and art history are popular in addition to the usual majors, and sociology takes inspiration from the New Left author C.W. Mills. Scientific computing projects can be applied to math and the sciences.

Students can apply for fellowships to research over the summer. It has a nice library and is a block from the town’s.

Apply by 10/15 (S), 11/15 (priority, R) or 3/15 (R)

Westmont College Admit: 82% Size: 1k (88k) Price: 24-29k Santa Barbara, CA A devoutly Christian college, Westmont is a mile from trails through the mountains that lead to small palm-strewn waterfalls, the ruins of a resort, and hot springs, and three miles from downtown Santa Barbara or the Pacific coast. It has nice dorm rooms, and its unique housing arrangements include villages with courtyards and modern architecture, and apartments on the shore. Faculty live on campus and often invite students over for classes and meals. Students are described as friendly, engaged and excited, though “sometimes a little too california friendly, not deep enough, and not friendships that would last forever”.

Dining emphasizes healthy options, with many vegetarian options and a salad bar with rotating, local selections. Chapel

from 10:30 to 11:20 AM is mandatory Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sex outside of marriage is prohibited (there is an open-door policy and limited hours for inter-sex dorm visits), and its LGBT club (bit.ly/wlgbt) is unrecognized. The sex ratio is 1.6:1, female majority. Apart from its unique residential setting, Westmont offers a free shuttle service to the city of Santa Barbara, known for its Mediterranean climate (around 65 in the winter to 75 in the summer) and art galleries. The Channel Islands are off its coast, with 145 endemic species, and animals including the island night lizard, horned lark, barn owl, blue whale, and long-beaked common dolphin.

English, communication, art, chemistry, and exercise science are common majors. The top-flight chemistry program requires research, with half of students staying over the summer as paid interns in the state-of-the-art labs, often co-authoring papers.

Biology offers tracks in general biology; cellular and molecular; ecology, evolution and natural history, which includes courses such as marine mammal ecophysiology and molecular tools for the field biologist; and genomics and bioinformatics, which emphasizes the use of computational methods and big data. Computer science, psychology, engineering and data analytics are strong programs with applied focuses. (Slick video overviews can be seen at e.g. westmont.edu/psychology.) The theater and film programs are extensive. Business and economics often

study social dynamics. Sociology is social work oriented, and political science offers an international development track.

The faculty are distinguished and involved in their fields.

10/15 (EA), 11/15 (EA, scholarship), 1/15 (priority)

Pacific Union College Admit: 48% Size: 1k (4k) Price: 18-21k Angers, CA Nestled on the side of a mountain vale north of San Francisco and west of Sacramento, 1.5 hours away, Pacific Union is in the North Bay area, a hedonist millionaire’s retreat with Napa Valley and wealthy, rugged Marin County. One thing to consider is that while it is adjacent to a small town, the rest of the area comprises of vineries and getting to a major city like Santa Rosa should be considered to be a special, planned trip if you don’t have a car, requiring hiking several miles and then taking multiple buses. Also, the only grocery, Howell Mountain Market, has limited and inconsistent meat opions (more options are available in St. Helena 8 miles away and in some further artsy towns, bit.ly/pucarea), and Pacific Union is Seventh Day Adventist, which is a vegetarian denomination. Not only is the menu strictly meat-free (though gourmet and creative compared to the vegetarian offerings at other colleges), preparing meat in the residence hall kitchens is not allowed.

Pacific Union requires dressing modestly and acting tastefully, and PDAs are frowned upon. Alcohol and premaritial sexual relationships are prohibited. Living on campus is required with exceptions if staying with a family.

50% of students participate in intramural sports (several are offered) with faculty sometimes joining in. Student trips to

Alcatraz and alpine mountains are occasionally organized.

The home of Ellen White, one of the founders of the Seventh Day Adventists and Pacific Union, the author of The Great Controversy, and one of the “100 Most Influential People”, is nearby in Sanitarium (named after the former institution).

The historic home, named Elmshaven, features curious furnishings and her portrait. The immediate landscape is considered to be prime mountain biking territory.

Rare flora like Napa false indigos, inland coastal redwoods, and even a pair of northern spotted owls, the original patron saint of tree-huggers, can be found on grounds adjacent to the campus. The scenery includes lush mustard fields between the woods, moss-covered trees and a waterfall. The Shed rents inflatable kayaks, paddle boards, tents and more.

Females outnumber males 1.7 to 1. 27% of students are Hispanic and 23% are Asian. Aviation benefits from the weather and views and can lead to careers in commercial flying, emergency services (ambulance or fire-fighting), air traffic control, overseas mission flying, aerial photography, or skydiving piloting. The new innovation lab class allows students to work in groups of three to work on an idea and win funding for it. Undergrad physics students can collaborate with national laboratories and use the Young Observatory. Chemistry students research in classes using the lab, which includes equipment able to measure the amounts of over 60 elements in samples, while biochem students might collaborate with the biology department to research rare flowers from the surrounding area. Biology

serves both pre-med students and conservationists, and offers the world’s only undergraduate major in conservation technology, teaching the use of GIS, satellites, eDNA, AI, apps, the internet of things, and camera traps, and taught by the Lead Scientist for the Land Program at The Nature Conservancy of California. Psychology is social work-oriented. The interdisciplinary data science program draws from math, computer science and statistics. “We, as a society, have become very good at collecting large amounts of data”, and programming can be used to infer causation or use it for modeling. Global health, emergency services, paramedic and health sciences are offered in addition to nursing, which awards 30% of degrees and has a 95% NCLEX pass rate. It offers top-earning two-year degrees in EMT and the nursing salary in CA is 100k. Minors can be earned in Arabic, Italian, and Portuguese. General education includes six religion courses. Distribution requirements can be fulfilled through courses such as intro to aviation, home greenhouse gardening, and fencing. The honors program (by application) is an alternative to general education, focusing on primary texts and offering class trips abroad. Spots are limited and filled on a rolling basis. Pacific Union’s video (in an unorthodox D flat minor differing from most college ads) can be seen at bit.ly/pacuni.

One of the tranquil fountains and seating areas found throughout the campus

Apply by 9/15 (R)

wine red and green

A history of Angwin In order to better serve its ever growing faculty and staff needs, almost all of whom lived within a mile or two of the school, Pacific Union College started a number of businesses in “The Crater,” as the location of the college’s main campus came to be known. A college-owned and -operated grocery store was later joined by other businesses...most folk who moved to Angwin, whether connected with the college or not, also took advantage of these local, collegeoperated businesses rather than choosing to make the long trip to St. Helena. In the earlier days the trip could be made only on a narrow, sometimes dangerous road which sported, according to one mathematically inclined observer, seventysix curves between the college campus and downtown St. Helena.

By the mid-1900s most of the buildings of what had been Angwin’s resort had been replaced by newer structures to form an attractive campus for Pacific Union College. The educational institution continued to dominate Angwin life as enrollment moved toward 1,000, and faculty and staff member numbers increased to accommodate the growing student population. In the 1930s the school received accreditation...at its high-water enrollment mark in the late 1970s, more than 2,200 students were enrolled. As the college moved toward the beginning of the 21st century in the 1990s though, enrollment stabilized at about 1,600... To most people in Napa Valley, the village of Angwin was “up there”, where the college matriculated 500 students a year. The roads were unpaved. Many people carried guns for protection against rattlers and rustlers.”

Though Pacific Union College has been the training ground for outstanding physicians, dentists, nurses, teachers and theologians, it has also numbered among its over 50,000 alumni many who have excelled in diverse walks of life: Arna Bontemps, one of America’s leading Black poets received his undergraduate education in Angwin; past presidents of large educational institutions like Arizona State University and the University of Houston were from PUC; revered U.S. Congressman Jerry Pettis graduated from the college. Napa County’s longtime sheriff is a PUC graduate. World Christian leaders and missionaries to foreign lands form a special corps of graduates of the college. Each year, a number of students at Pacific Union College take a one-year leave of their studies to serve as student missionaries in scores of countries around the world.

The Angwin of today is no longer the Pacific Union College-dominated village it was for three-quarters of the 20th century. Some of its homes continue to house faculty and staff of the college, but increasingly they also shelter small business owners, vineyardists, field workers, medical staff people and “weekenders,” those who are employed or retired elsewhere but maintain a second, vacation-type home in Angwin. Howell Mountain’s forests which drew many to the area in an earlier time are today yielding to the bite of chain saws as grape vineyards replace stately pines, firs and oaks. Continuous efforts have been made to slow the clearcutting of Howell Mountain’s forests in favor of vines, but with little success.

Soka University of America Admit: 70% Size: 400 (4k) Price: 9-13k

Aliso Viejo, CA

In operation since 2001, Soka was founded by the globally reknown post-WWII peace activist, internationalist and Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda, who received honors from colleges on several continents, “to foster capable individuals who, based on their belief in peace, human rights and the sanctity of life, would go on to assume leadership roles in the 21st and 22nd centuries.” (Ikeda, who lived from 1928 to 2023, is the second-most common completion of the Gandhi and MLK trivium after Mandela.)

Soka has secular staff and students (who are incredibly diverse and 50% American), and is not affiliated with and does not teach a religion. (Of note, it is incredibly hypocritical for people from a culture steeped in an evangelical, Zionist heritage to call a religion that generally barely imposes itself on others a cult. This country has a thousand institutions of higher education with stringent rules and chapel attendance requirements, and Soka isn’t one of them.)

The palatial grounds of the university look like a wonderful place to roam, think and study, and it exists on the edge of a sprawling wilderness, with large caves historically used by bandits and sandy outlooks, and on the edge of a town with a Walmart, Whole Foods and Costco on the other side. The choices of freshman dorms are Sunrise Hall and Sunset Hall,

so named for their views, and have large double rooms. All students at Soka pursue interdisciplinary studies. There are no major requirements because the only degree awarded is a BA in the Liberal Arts, but students can concentrate in the natural sciences, the social sciences, international studies or environmental studies. The life science program, created from scratch with an advisory board of international experts, trains students in labwork on topics such as cancer biology, genetics, nanochemistry and biophysics from their first semester. Every course is based in the laboratory and based in novel research, not only learning what is already known, so that students can learn science by doing it. They are expected to help produce published research as the ultimate goal. The anthropology, international studies and environmental policy programs are strong. Students often go on to prestigious grad schools, and Soka has relationships with the graduate programs of the Claremont Consortium and Middlebury’s Monterey Institute of International Studies. Students study Chinese, Japanese, Spanish or French and are required to go on one of its fifteen semester-long study abroad programs (at no cost).

Soka does not have free applications (they’re $30), so I did have to compromise my principles, but I already did for TCU and can justify doing so here by how it charges no tuition for families under 90k, which rivals the aid of elite universities, while having a reasonable acceptance rate. (Soka did not respond to inquiries requesting a fee waiver for this guide.)

Apply by 11/1 (EA) or 1/15 (RD)

Brigham Young University Admit: 67% Size: 31k (114k) Price: 16-20k

Provo, UT

With a beautiful and expansive campus at the base of snowcapped mountains, BYU is best known as the flagship university of the Mormons (Latter Day Saints), who dominate the state of Utah. 99% of students are members, who pay a lower tuition (11-16k) because of the tithes they pay to the church, and it requires an endorsement from a religious leader for all applicants. About 50 are Muslim, including three players on the basketball team. Non-LDS members are not required to attend church. While BYU’s policies are only standard for a Christian college and not exceptionally conservative by any

means—its perfectly normal honor code has been unduly emphasized and exoticfied by both external and internal commentary—it has seen an unusual degree of woebegone commentary about its LGBT policies.

BYU excels at international education, with strong language and study abroad programs exceeding those of most secular colleges as a side effect of its mission of spreading the creed. Many languages are only taught at the college level in the US by Brigham Young, including some esoteric islandic and Latin American languages (such as Cebuano, Fijan, Samoan, Haitian, Hiligaynon, Kiribati, Marshallese, K’iche’, and Quechua), which might open up unique opportunities for the adventurously minded. More students study abroad from Brigham Young than any other college in the US according to Open Doors (though this statistic seems inconsistent with the percent who study abroad compared to NYU). Excellent opportunities to expand your language skills are offered on campus as well. For instance, BYU has a thriving Russian club, a Russian house that offers free housing for language faciliators from Russia, and a Slavic choir. Of note, the David M. Kennedy Center is not named after the textbook author.

Students generally praise BYU’s quality of life. The BYU creamery provides groceries and homemade dairy products.

Provo ranks in the top five for QOL. The lake and mountains provide recreation for the enterprising, and Salt Lake City, 44 minutes away, has additional sights. BYU has lively sporting matches, commercially successful vocal groups (the most viewed video is bit.ly/nearertothee, they also do pop), and a robust dating culture (the openly pronatalist BYU is unlike other Christian colleges, which may be skittish about intimate intersex contact of any sort, in that its students

report that “everyone” dates, although the orientation is usually towards looking for life partners). 5 courses related to Mormon doctrine are required, but gen ed requirements are otherwise not overbearing. A large and diverse spread of programs are offered, including in the arts, engineering and CS, languages, and family studies. Example bachelors programs include neuroscience, CS: bioinformatics or machine learning, wildlife and wildlands conservation, biodiversity, plant and landscape studies, family history (geneaology), political science: political strategy, legal studies, international strategy, global development, or research & analysis, and American/Spanish/Portugeuse/ Middle Eastern/Italian/Japanese/Korea studies.

BYU alumni dominate the federal representation of Utah, which was founded as and continues to have a reputation as a Mormon ethnostate (in an arrangement that various other groups have sought to emulate). Alumni include the authors of Ender’s Game, Maze Runner and Twilight, Tara Westover (who wrote Educated about BYU), and Mitt Romney (the former governor of MA, 2012 presidential nominee and current senator from UT who tends to have a dazed look and wondering smile on his face when talking about historical exigencies). Mormons can be viewed with some animosity by the general population, a situation of slight unease that dates back to when Brigham Young, the founder of BYU, led the Church in a war against the United States.

I mistakenly wrote this profile because I didn’t come back to BYU– Idaho until much later, and then I’d forgotten that it was the only Brigham Young college that does not have an application fee. BYU does have a $50 application fee. All BYUs require the endorsement.

Apply by 11/1 (pri.) or 12/16 (RD) for F, S or SM

Dominican University of California Admit: 93% Size: 1.1k (60k) Price: 45-48k San Rafael, CA Located in the North Bay, Dominican is steps from hiking and mountain biking trails and downtown San Rafael. Point Reyes National Seashore and San Francisco are doable as weekend trips, about an hour and under 20 miles away. The campus is beautiful (with cozy houses and a pool), but students are not required to live on campus, and they may have to triple up if they do.

A historically women’s Catholic school, Dominican is 3 to 1 women majority, 31% Asian and 28% Latino today, and its largest major is nursing.

Public health, psychology, dance, computer science, business and journalism are also sizeable programs. One course each in nine categories is required. PSYCH is oriented toward social work, and seniors receive field placement. CS is applied and “provides innovative, projectbased curriculum.” Some ecological courses are offered.

Liberal arts courses can be lacking and dilettantish (topically more fun-oriented). Students complete a senior thesis.

Apply by 2/1 (priority-R, nursing), 12/1 (P-S) or as available

Peninsula College Admit: n/a Size: 1.5k (20k) Price: 15k* Port Angeles, WA Across the strait from Victoria in Canada and downland of Olympic National Park, PC was founded in the largest settlement of WA’s peninsula in 1961. It has the best outdoor recreation opportunities of WA community colleges. It is not unusual to “find small groups of students and their teachers embarking at dawn for field trips to the nearby ocean, Olympic National Park, or the rain forests... You can even spend one or more quarters studying in another country if you choose.” The honors program allows students to pursue independent projects (bit.ly/pc-projects). Most spend two years at PC then transfer to a university. *6k out-of-state plus housing

Green Rivers College Admit: n/a Size: 6k (86k) Price: 15k

Auburn, WA

Next to suburbs and on a wooded riverside, GRC is in the Portland-Tacoma greater metro. The nonresident waiver is for US residents “who have not met the above criteria for in-state residency” and

automatic. Class offerings include art, bio, CS and DS, natural resource conservation and aviation. 4-year degrees include court reporting, software development, aviation, and forestry. Engineering students can transfer. Many students are duel-enrollment high schoolers. Buses operate on an honor system (the Peninsula to Puget Sound is zero-fare).

Apply by 6/30 priority fall or 4/30 summer

Ridgewater College Admit: n/a Size: 3k (45k) Price: 15-19k

Wilmar, MN

On the wooded shore of a square mile lake, Ridgewater does not own housing, but several independent living options are next to it, including the highly rated and free to apply Herzog Apartments. It estimates a cost of 23k, 6k of this being the tuition and the rest being independent living expenses, before any aid. If you live in ND, SD, or WI, you will need to file paperwork, while “If you live in a state that doesn’t have a reciprocity agreement with Minnesota, Ridgewater College allows you to pay in-state tuition rates.”

Classes available at morning and night, allowing for flexible hours if you intend to work while attending college. The general education requirements are inoffensive. Students note the caring teachers, though some leave you more independent, and small classes. There is not much going on in terms of the social scene, with most clubs based around majors, and the town is on the other side of the lake. The standard arts and sciences, including pre-engineering and theater, and many skilled trades are offered. Many of its technical programs have 100% job placement rates. Its programs run for two years and award associates degrees.1 Apply by 2/1 (R) or 10/1 (R-S)

In Kandiyohi County, an elm forest that time – and disease – forgot William Reid, a retired medical pathologist, bought some of the property in the winter of 1967, six months after arriving in Willmar, and he has added smaller parcels over time, giving him seven miles of lakeshore. In all, there are 1,000 acres of woods owned by various people… The forest is expected to withstand a changing climate with trees native to Kansas.

10 miles southeast of Ridgewater College, on the shore of a chain of lakes, is several hundred acres of elm forest. For reasons that are not entirely understood, this region has an ecosystem-level resistance to DED or Dutch Elm Disease. I observed a similar phenomenon with butternut canker near my hometown (though in that case the reproducing population was not only afflicted with the canker but having entire limbs illegally chopped off by the trail management).

I am not sure what the status of the forest is now, as the Reids seem to have since retired to Florida, and it is not listed as a property by the Nature Conservancy or similar trusts. As it is not showing up as parkland on maps, keep in mind that there may not be legal public access to these woods. There are also prairie preserves to the north, and no doubt groves to be found in the region that are undiscovered. For many, these last survivors of the plague offer a rare chance to see a once-familiar sight that vanished over most of America during the ’60s and ’70s.

Most colleges understand the situation of community college students and are more than amenable to taking them in as transfers, often with less stringent requirements since you’ve already proven your responsibility with college coursework.

1

Prescott College Admit: 98% Size: 300 (48k) Price: 33-25k Prescott, AZ On the larger side of extremely tiny, Prescott has average class sizes of 10 students, and its degrees can hold clout in conservation networks.

Prescott students are self-starters; every one completes a senior project, which can be anything from a documentary to an addition to the campus, and the college emphasizes learning through both mental and physical activity, using the vast, trek-friendly landscape of the Southwest for inspiration. The founding of the college dates to when a 1960s symposium with 90 luminaries hashed out their vision of an ideal college—"participants at the symposium felt that placing students in an untamed

wilderness would cause them to ponder the meaning of their existence, to become more sensitive to the beauty that surrounds them, and to develop a reverence for life and creation. Furthermore, it was thought that field experiences would remove students from a hectic and mechanized existence and place them in situations where they would have to rely upon their own resourcefulness and adaptability” (“Maverick Colleges: Fourteen Notable Experiments in American Undergraduate Education,” 1996).

In recent years, Prescott has brought students from declining hippy commune-slash-colleges in Vermont, such as Green Mountain and Goddard, into the booming Southwest.

New students take a three-week trip in the Arizona wilderness after touching base at the college to gather equipment and receive instructions. (There are also alternative options available.) The college maintains centers in a Kenyan village, a Mexican bay and the former campus of Green Mountain College, although these appear to be for

premade and formulaic programming more than for the truly free use of students. Internships are frequently through Arizona Serve, a government-sponsored service program.

Although the college was founded without course requirements, it has instituted a minimal version of the ones you’ll find at most colleges. Major offerings are focused and include environmental studies, adventure education, sustainable agriculture, education, and customized plans.

Course options range between social activism on the theoretical end and outdoor navigation on the practical end, without the usual STEM or humanities classes.

One of the highlights of Prescott is its quality of living. Every student has their own bedroom in a house with a shared, furnished kitchen. It is also possible to live off campus.

For the life of me I could not find dining information from the college (the dining page says they make “s’mores”), but it is highly rated by students. The college has an actual library, and the campus is landscaped with cacti and other canyon plants. Women outnumber men 2 to 1. Alumni include self-sufficiency gurus, ambassadors to Korea, India and NZ, and the senior Senator from NM until 2021.

Apply by 2/1 (F), 11/1 (S) or 3/1 (SM) (priority aid), or 8/2 (F)

University of the West Admit: 78% Size: 62 (50k) Price: 20-25k? Rosemead, CA Founded by a Buddhist monk as Hsi Lai (“Coming West”) University in 1991, the University of the West is “an entire globe on 11 acres,” with 44 nationalities represented among its 164 students. Its founder is Hsing Yun (1927-2023, obituarized in the NYT), also the founder of the Fo Guang Shan monastic order (dating to 1967 and known for its modern, tech-savvy monks and focus on engagement with everyday life), who established it to spread Buddhism’s global accessibility.

While its background is eclectic, it has been seen as not focused enough on its Buddhist mission by those who are more curious about it. Little concrete detail about the nature of internal operations is known.

The campus, in the sprawling residential area 11 miles east of Los Angeles, has the dingy look of an Asiatic apartment complex with a courtyard. Many students are local and do not overly concern themselves with its Buddhist background. Half the domestic students are Latino.

About half of the students overall are international. A limited spread of programs is offered, namely a general program, psychology and business, in accordance with its size.

Apply by 11/15 (S) or 6/15 (F). Fee paid at enrollment.

Sofia University Admit: 75% Size: 11 (66k) Price: 23-29k

Palo Alto, CA

Founded in 1975 as the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Sofia remains dedicated to the subject, which has its roots in the Human Potential Movement of the 1960s. Its courses are primarily conventional. It is in a dense residential area, near a commercial district and across the street from the bay marshes. There is no housing. Only transfers with two years of credits are accepted into its undergraduate programs.

Apply before 8/19 (R) or 11/15 (S-R)

The work program at Antioch College Antioch College has a normal tuition, though it now covers any remaining tuition for Pell-eligible students, who constitute most of its student body, and requires work on campus about five to ten hours a week (paid $10/hour). It is comparable in size to Sterling, with barely over a hundred students, and has a farm-to-table program. While all students design their own major (the most feasible pathway for the college and a reflection of the personalized attention enabled by its size), and learn without grades or tests, the course selection can be limited, especially in STEM, and its main attraction is its co-op program. Students spend a third of their undergraduate experience in co-ops, and although information on how these co-ops are found is limited, a variety of international opportunities are featured online.

The heritage and legacy of Antioch At the center of one of the strangest (and most obscure) corners of higher education, Antioch has hobbled by financial struggles far beyond what would close most colleges with surprising doggedness while maintaining its commitment to unorthodoxy. Starting in the 1960s, it metastized expansively while also maintaining its undergraduate college in a scaled-down format. In 2009, the undergrad college separated from the university when the latter tried to close the former, with a group of supporters buying the right to the name and the campus. This college has since attempted a determined revival of its original mission, with the help of many supportive alumni, under its first deaf president, as can be seen on its YouTube page.

Antioch is notable as the only 1840s-founded member, and one of the last remaining members, along with Bard and Sarah Lawrence, of the radically non-elitist coalition called the Union of Experimentation in Higher Education founded in 1964 (renamed the Union for Experimenting Colleges in 1969), part of a movement at the time to bring college to those underserved by traditional programs (“schools without walls”), which was headquartered at its campus. These 1960s and 1970s-era experiments once included colleges such as Flaming Rainbow University, Franconia College in New Hampshire (which drew headlines like "Bare Debauchery at Franconia College: Sex, Liquor, Drugs Rampant on Campus” and had a 23 year-old president, who now leads Bard), and Green Mountain College (closed in 2019), Marlboro College (closed in 2020), and Goddard College (closing in 2024) all in Vermont. These often small and obscure colleges struggled with declining enrollment,

much as almost every small liberal arts college has at this time of turbulence in higher education as students question the purpose and direction of traditional educations, and apply to more elite colleges without testing requirements.

This is a predicament that was accentuated during the lockdown, when the forced closure of colleges resulted in the loss of housing and dining revenue. (The challenges are expected to increase due to long-term population trends.)

The presidents of the colleges in this coalition founded the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, nearby Antioch. As of 2024, Union had a ghostly skeleton of a website featuring a small selection of practical degrees, including in lactation (one of the student complaintees reported that “the transcript she had from Union – which she wrote herself, per the program’s instructions – wasn’t valid. Traditionally, students do not write their own transcripts. Educators at other institutions were ‘horrified’ at this practice”). While it had struggled since the turn of the century like Antioch, it had been on an upward trend, and a large amount of its troubles appears to be attributable to its president Karen Webb (see bit.ly/fifthpres, bit.ly/sixthpres), a former president of Antioch, who has by and large been nowhere to be found, and left its students in the dust since speaking up the importance of “social justice” and “accessibility” at her much-ballyhooed inauguration as its first African-American president (bit.ly/karenwebb) in an apparent pump-and-dump scheme. Union has yet to officially close, even though closure is a done deal, technically making it the only secondgeneration ascension college, which is impressive given that most of the experimental communities of the 60s imploded within a few years. Antioch University is taking in some of

the students left stranded by the closure of its operations.

As Antioch University explains, “students come to AULA [its LA campus, alongside those at Santa Barbara and Seattle] to complete their undergraduate degree, or earn a Master’s in one of our cutting-edge graduate programs, so AULA is allabout making life easier for us.” Undergraduate programs only accept those who have earned at least a year’s worth of credits. The campuses mostly offer social work-related majors. A nice video can be seen at antioch.edu/los-angeles/.

Antioch maintains its motto of “Win one for humanity,” a quote from its first president. Its presence, though a ghost of its past, can be seen as a case study in how history and the threads of tradition formed by people survive on (reside as it may in a corner lot that few will have heard of).

Minerva University Admit: 4% Size: 150 (varies) Price: ?

n/a

Taking students since 2014, Minerva seeks to reinvent education with a scientific approach, which attracted a Harvard dean and psychologist as its first president to design its active learning curriculum, and Larry Summers as the first head of its board of advisors.

Classes are online and monitored. Students spend their first year in San Francisco, and move to a new major metro each semester. They stay with the same classmates, 90% not American. Minerva is accredited but does not accept fin. aid.

Apply by 11/1 (EA), 1/16 (EA), 3/5 (EA) or 4/9 (RD)

My take on Minerva Minerva is predicated on a positivist view of the value and purpose of education. If courses are available online, why not make use of them when possible instead of conducting lectures? However, as many have pointed out, the value of a college education does not lie in learning content per se. It is a social experience, and as a credential awarded after four years, primarily a testament to how put-together you are.

You couldn’t say that Minerva is a complete flop. The retention rate is high, and as recently as 2023, the founder of Netflix donated millions to the university. Its vision of the future, however, is misplaced. The effectiveness of learning will not be manually optimized and fine-tuned, and it will not be connected to the model of centralized institutions perpetuated by Minerva (an extension of the illogical cost of online colleges justified only by the credentials they give).

Menlo College Admit: 68% Size: 800 (85k) Price: 30-33k Atherton, CA A small, cozy business focused school with faculty mentorship, Menlo is 44% female, has sizeable Latino, intl. and athlete populations and also offers a psych major. The school notes encouragingly that the average business student applies to over a hundred employers to fulfill their internship requirement. Menlo Park (where Meta is the top employer) is affluent (1 bdr for 3k), so thankfully, housing is guaranteed.

Apply by 11/15 (pri., merit aid) or 3/15 (RD), otherwise R

San Francisco Bay University Admit: 69% Size: 24 (228k) Price: 0-15k Fremont, CA SFBU has an unorthodox history. The nominally nonprofit college was founded as a money-making business in 1984 (its owner bought mansions as “university housing” that they then moved into), and most of its enrollees have, historically, been aggressively recruited Asian Indians who want the prestige of an American degree.

Nonetheless, this does not mean it is illegitimate. According to a 2016 investigation by Buzzfeed, it “looks very different than the handful of unaccredited, for-profit visa mills that were exposed and shut down after a government crackdown in 2011. It has far more students, and they do attend classes with teachers. Some of its students say they got valuable educations.” Furthermore, the changes that were made after its founder died the next year are obscure but appear drastic.

One of the criticisms that were made of SFBU is that it used to have a no-fail policy, which is great from my perspective, and it has consistently been re-accredited. Its business, computer science, and electrical engineering programs provide close faculty mentorship (the faculty to student ratio is claimed to be 3:1), keep up with the cutting edge of industry practices, and are career-focused (for example, the business program emphasizes the utilization of emerging software and AI, and students can attend job fairs). The

college is ideally situated in the Silicon Valley, ten miles from its downtown and in very short walking distance to both grocery stores and mountain trails, and students receive a pass for unlimited rides on the county bus system. The most important point to consider, however, may be its new president (bit.ly/sfbuboard), who transferred to SFBU from the reputable Oglethorpe University to be closer to family in 2023, and has created a Startup Scholars program that provides full ride (free rent and board), plus personal mentorship by the president and $10k for a passion project, to awardees. Its requirements consist of being first-gen, domestic, and having a 3.0 GPA, and it is launching in the fall of 2024. Tuition has historically been affordable or even automatically waived for other students, with minimal GPA requirements, according to its catalog. It used to state “Domestic students with a 2.75 GPA or higher will receive a scholarship that covers 100% of tuition,” which would mean fees of 5k a year, but the GPA requirement for that under the new president has been raised to 4.0 (weighted). A 3.5 results in a 75% discount, and a 3.0 results in 50%. The tuition per year is 8k, and limited housing is available, but Fremont prices are reasonable for the Bay ($800/month).

Startup Scholars housing

The faculty makes sure to bring in entrepreuners from the surrounding area to talk to students and give them a taste of the business world. Despite being a small college with a typical audience size of no more than a couple dozen students, it has drawn significant figures such as the vice presidents of Apple and Salesforce. It is also possible to accelarate your studies and earn your bachelors in only three years. Recent news from the college shows that it recently held a networking event where people as young as 17 years old could pitch to investors alongside successful CEOs, with some participants raising thousands of dollars. It is creating a new startup incubator called Bayhawk Launchpad, though no information on this is available as of yet. The college has been making rapid new hires, including from Keuka. I am concerned about whether some changes might affect what was obviously a very uniquely lean and affordable program in an attempt to normalize it (which, as I have noted, is the perverse instinct of college adminstrators).

Despite the fact that virtually the only external coverage of the college has been the “investigation” (a telling use of term), with most internet commenters concluding that it is a scam, the new administration has made zero attempts at PR or responded to repeated attempts at contact, in addition to making little notice about the drastic change to financial aid.

It has not clarified how in 2016 it was that “[SFBU] enrolls 99% of its students–more than 6,000 overall last year–from overseas, with little regard for their qualifications. It has no full-time, permanent faculty, despite having a student body larger than the undergraduate population of Princeton” (bit.ly/strangeuni), but its records state that it enrolled only 164 students in the fall of 2022, as corroborated by Google

reviews. Its Wikipedia page is a stub and makes no mention of its changes. A charitable interpretation is that its student body dropped drastically because the unqualified students were not being ethically served and they stopped spending so much on recruitment. As for the full-tuition scholarships it awarded virtually without qualification, it may simply be unusually efficient. (In the past, an entrepreneurial project on the former grounds of Marlboro College sought to charge no tuition by operating on financial aid awards alone.)

This is one of the very few private colleges in the Bay Area, which could attract out-of-state students for any number of reasons, including the fact that it is the worldwide capital of technological innovation. The college itself, at least it was and may continue to be, could be considered to simply be a product of its culture of thrift and as embedded with its virtues as any other. Unfortunately, the administration-slashpresident has been a terrible sport, and one could use some reassurance that it isn’t leaching off inherited finances.

Apply by 7/28 (F), 12/15 (S) or 4/5 (summer)

An Anti-College Backlash?

By Professor X March 31, 2011 Americans are finally starting to ask: "Is all this higher education really necessary?"

Since the appearance in The Atlantic of my essay "In The Basement of the Ivory Tower" (2008), in which I questioned the wisdom of sending seemingly everyone in the United States through the rigors of higher education, it's become increasingly apparent to me that I'm far from the only one with these misgivings. Indeed, to my surprise, I've discovered that rather than a lone crank, I'm a voice in a growing movement.

I hadn't expected my essay, inspired by the frustrations of teaching students unprepared for the rigors of college-level work, to attract much notice. But the volume and vehemence of the feedback the piece generated was overwhelming. It drew more visitors than almost any other article on the Atlantic's web site in 2008, and provoked an avalanche of letters to the editor. It even started turning up in the syllabi of college writing classes, and on the agendas of educational conferences.

In the months and years since then - and especially now, as I prepare to add to the critical tumult with a book expanding on that original article - I find myself noticing similar sentiments elsewhere. Is it merely a matter of my becoming so immersed in the subject that I'm seeing it everywhere? I don't think so. Start paying attention, and it becomes readily apparent that more and more Americans today are skeptical about the benefits of college.

Peter Thiel’s $100,000 Offer to Skip College Is More Popular Than Ever More Americans are rethinking the value of a college education. Gregory Zuckerman at the WSJ, Feb 24, 2024.

Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers called it the “single most misdirected bit of philanthropy in this decade”…

Since its first fellows were chosen in 2011, Thiel’s program has backed 271 people… His aim, at least in part, was to undermine the popular view that college was necessary for all students, and that top universities should be accorded prestige and veneration.

Since then, public opinion has shifted toward his perspective.

More Americans are rethinking the value of a college education… Thiel’s program was never meant to last forever, he says. In fact, he recently considered disbanding it, partly because it’s no longer as revolutionary or perhaps necessary as it once appeared… Instead, Thiel ultimately decided to “double down” on his program…

A law profession-dropout who made his name with founding PayPal and investing in Facebook, Thiel has been seen as embodying “a paleo-libertarianism becoming more attractive to [entrepreuners], particularly to young men,”1 becoming more politically involved since the Trump administration. While the Fellowship has yielded several multimillion dollar startups, it has been criticized for preselecting successful individuals based on prestige (despite railing against college) and lacking structure and guidance.

1 Esp. by being slightly more coherent and far-right than Musk’s launching-cars-intospace and colonizing-Mars antics. Oh, and by not giving his hot takes on Twitter. It’s one thing to be as dumb as a rock, it’s another to act like stupidity is your élan vital.

Ulterior ends As with my first book project, in which I documented the natural history of my county, I want to do more than convey facts with this book. I want to convey a way of looking at the world. This is a way of looking in which everything can be examined as a natural object, as it really is, without the mediation of social constructs. Alternatively, it can be described as looking at things as if they were in the private sphere. Lemonade stands, and businesses run out of garages, are in the private sphere. Airlines are not. Informal discussions with friends are in the private sphere.

International relations is not. Most people make distinctions between the private sphere and the public sphere. The latter is the sphere in which sub-objectivity has been established.

It is the sphere where people are different. Their motives, analyzed and fretted over by PhDs, are dignifying. It operates, people believe, in a way different from the private sphere. It does not.

We live in an age where the barriers between the private and public spheres that once existed are breaking down. Social media allows us all to share, not only decrees dressed down and disseminated through the newspapers, but the minutiae of our thoughts. Some people have grown up in this time, this essential moment of history. Others have not. They are used to military history, not social history. They are unused to the diagnoses that some people make. They are uncomfortable. The depths of my contempt are too vast and too wrathful for these people to ever imagine. They whine and whine and whine about how it has to mean something, because otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. It does mean something. This is a historic referendum on their stupidity.

Further information Adrian Agnes Scott Albion Albright Alice Lloyd Allegheny Alvernia Alverno Anderson Anderson Antioch Augsburg Augustana Augustana Austin Ave Maria Avila Baldwin W. Bard Barry Bay Path Baylor Bellarmine Belmont A. Beloit Benedictine Ben Frank.

Bennington Berea Berry Bethany Gl. Bethel Biola Birmingham Blackburn Bluffton Bowdoin Bradley

75th 1160 1350

25th 940 1130

%S 93 33

+V 0 25

ACT 21 28

%A 22 23

1372 1170

1114 996

1 21 7

6 -5

18 28

87 11 1

1220

980

40 0 11

0

21

17 0 15

1250 1290 1370

1010 1075 1160

68 6 29

5 -5 5

24 27 26

22 60 10

1298

1043

1 28

1

21 23

41 48

1140 1410 1290 1140 1360 1360

1020 1230 1100 950 1190 1110

9 28 9 28 11 19

20 -5 -15 10 10 10

30 24 21 28 25

0 23 54 23 13 47

1370 1298 1290

1260 1136 1110

13 8 21

15 24 15

30 25 25

5 40 22

1090 1365 1280

860 1105 1150

14 26 14

-15 12.5 30

22 26 25

50 10 50

1560 1280

1460 1050

3 36 40

-10 0

18 34 27

14 21 14

OS 30 38 28 36 22 48 25 12 33 31 45 9 17 42 8 66 47 22 59 39 35 43 31 57 64 83 1 87 46 23 75 40 28 44 30 19 83 12

Inc. 53k 49k 58k 56k 38k 61k 52k 49k 45k 45k

Nor. 0k -4k -2k 7k -10k 7k 3k 0k -6k -4k

57k 62k 54k 60k 45k 53k 53k 43k 54k 46k 63k 56k 47k 54k 48k 51k 48k 41k 47k

5k 5k 2k 2k -16k 4k 5k -19k 5k -1k -5k 3k -6k -7k 2k 7k -24k -3k -2k

49k 53k 55k 42k 45k 68k 66k

-7k -7k -9k 8k 6k -9k 6k

Data bulk-downloaded from IPED is from 2022. (2023 data may be used to fill in blanks.) +V=divide 75th by half and add for Verbal. OS=out of state domestic. Soph.=still here second year. Grad.=four-year rate. Inc.=annual after ten years. (-) Nor.=more affluent than you’d expect.

So 67 79 73 64 55 79 68 72 69 81 73 70 81 82 84 72 79 82 89 56 70 90 81 66 82 77 71 84 82 83 42 75 84 77 38 70 96 83

Gr 40 69 48 41 26 60 44 40 54 58 13 48 74 61 67 43 34 55 62 19 46 68 53 42 65 53 63 51 61 37 17 60 59 25 44 88 58

Also see

Notes

Brandeis Brenau Brevard Brigham Y. BYU-Hawaii BYU-Idaho Bryn Mawr Buena Vista Canisius Carleton Carroll C. Carroll U. Carthage Centenary Centre Chaminade Champlain Chatham Christ. Bro. Clark Clarkson Coe Colby C of St. Ben C of Atlant.

C of the HC C of Ozarks Colorado Concordia Con-Irvine Con-St Paul Con-WI Connecticut Cornell Covenant Creighton Culver-St. Dakota Wes Davis & Elk. Denison DePauw Dickinson

75th 1530

25th 1370

%S 39

+V -15

ACT 33

%A 17

1155 1468 1236 1200 1495 1130 1320 1550 1200 1340 1200 1260 1470

965 1280 1023 990 1280 930 1050 1430 1080 1060 980 1080 1195

18 13 12 36 34 3 29 37 2 6 20 16 11

2.5 -6 10 10 2.5 5 0 -5 20 0 0 20 -25

21 30 22 22 31 22 26 33 21 25 24 24 30

37 55 46 49 20 57 6 28 2 22 40 69 51

1348 1270

1163 1060

24 15

1430 1370

1250 1190

23 36 0 22 58

5 -5

28 25 23 32 27

3 11 58 4 12

1540 1245

1430 1055

42 3

-20 -7.5

34 24

23 49

1430 1234 1480

1260 1065 1260

35 11 34 1

5 23 -10

30 22 32 25

19 91 28 19

24 23 32 26 29 29 22 20 5 31 28

8 24 9 26 49 56 4 65 12 26 19

1490 1380 1380 1420

1360 1170 1140 1206

1420 1125 1460 1360

950 880 1270 1140

0 0 17 10 38 14 1 3 36 28 34

5 0 20 -10 -10 12.5 -20 -10

OS 57 6 49 62 54 71 73 41 15 73 60 30 64 36 40 57 82 26 27 57 31 56 79 13 73 61 43 77 34 29 26 37 84 67 62 76 56 35 34 65 38 63

Inc. 74k 50k 40k 75k 51k 53k 72k 47k 57k 70k 58k 53k 56k 49k 60k 45k 64k 49k 54k 56k 86k 54k 84k 61k 32k 84k 41k 62k 55k 60k 56k 52k 70k 52k 49k 72k 47k 50k 39k 61k 67k 73k

Nor. 5k -5k -13k -18k 0k -19k -5k 12k 9k -10k 7k 1k 3k 1k 1k 5k 0k -3k 8k 4k 31k 7k 4k 1k -22k 9k 5k 0k -19k 6k -3k 3k 1k -12k 4k -7k 7k 2k -7k 1k 15k -1k

So 92 55 69 90 53 68 90 76 78 95 78 75 74 64 89 71 76 80 71 88 83 70 93 89 74 95 81 91 84 70 61 78 87 80 77 92 65 69 71 90 92 89

Gr 82 37 26 26 35 18 78 48 63 88 55 56 58 54 85 53 57 62 44 72 61 60 84 74 52 89 45 83 65 54 42 48 81 59 66 70 41 44 37 82 75 80

Also see

Notes

Dominican Earlham Eastern Mn Eastern Mi. Eastern Naz Elmira Emmanuel Emory & H. Endicott Eureka Fair. Florh.

Fairl. Metro Ferrum Florida IT Florida S. Fordham Furman George Fox Georgian C. Gordon Goshen Goucher Green River Grinnell Grove City Guilford Gustavus A. Hamline Hampden-S. Hampshire Hanover Harvard Heidelberg Hendrix Heritage Hesston High Point Hillsdale Hiram Hobart WS Hollins Huntingdon

75th 1236 1380

25th 1088 1130

%S 4 25

+V 5 20

ACT 25 26

%A 2 19

1180 1160 1272 1310

930 970 1118 1160

10 0 -6 5

22

1280

1130

10

26

1310 1180 1110 1320 1290 1480 1455 1290 1251 1313 1210 1328

1040 908 900 1120 1080 1320 1260 1020 1043 1086 980 1113

68 17 17 15 0 18 0 18 12 12 75 40 27 29 10 3 24 31 23

-5 -10 5 0 15 -10 2.5 15 22.5 6.5 15 24

26 23

27 27 30

6 1 1 3 0 2 0 2 2 0 28 24 10 31 6 2 8 8 6

1530 1360 1180

1380 1130 910

-15 10 10

1258 1310

1030 1040

28 54 12 0 4 22

-6 -5

33 29 21 28 23 26

27 20 20 19 42 7

1270 1580

1090 1490

15 -10

26 35

1328

1133

21 55 0 15

16

26

14 28 0 64

1280 1520

1103 1360

25 28

0 0

26 32

17 30

1400 1298 1180

1210 1113 1000

22 19 7

0 41 10

31 27 21

9 10 47

26

25 26 32 30 25

OS Inc. 22 71k 51 46k 27 48k 11 47k 38 46k 29 54k 43 39k 39 46k 44 68k 14 45k 18 57k 15 57k 34 43k 53 54k 45 49k 56 79k 60 61k 45 54k 11 47k 54 55k 27 48k 50 53k 3 45k 72 63k 49 29 44k 15 63k 22 57k 35 71k 68 43k 28 51k 69 95k 27 48k 55 48k 0 46k 51 48k 75 55k 78 24 52k 56 69k 40 39k 32 46k

Nor. 2k -2k -11k -2k -5k -4k 6k -4k 2k 0k 5k 8k 8k 2k 20k -1k 15k -15k -1k 2k -6k -3k -5k 1k -6k -11k 4k 5k 2k -20k -1k 13k 5k -6k 1k 3k 1k 6k 2k -11k -2k

So 85 80 79 66 67 74 81 67 85 57 80 76 58 75 77 88 88 79 72 84 80 77

Gr 72 66 51 22 40 53 59 49 75 39 52 39 21 50 63 79 78 61 43 61 56 50

93 88 66 86 75 81 67 78 98 75 79 74 82 83 96 69 87 68 65

84 76 40 73 62 73 51 67 87 49 67 23 71 64 76 47 68 58 38

Also see

Notes

Illinois C. Indiana IT John Brown John Carroll Johns Hopk.

Juniata Kalamazoo Kenyon Kettering Keuka Knox Lake Forest Lawrence Le Moyne Lees-McRae Lenoir-Rhy. Lewis & Clar.

Lewis Liberty Lincoln Me. Lindenwood Linfield Loyola Chic.

Loyola Mar. Loyola N.O. Luther Lycoming Macalester Manchester Marquette Mary Bald.

Maryville McDaniel McPherson Menlo Mercyhurst Merrimack Middlebury Mills at NE Millsaps Minerva Montreat

75th 1126

25th 960

%S 44

+V -3

ACT 24

%A 12

1390 1320 1570 1340 1370 1515

1100 1160 1520 1120 1200 1350

15 0 -15 10 15 2.5

1133 1420 1340 1460 1290

940 1160 1153 1210 1130

17 18 44 27 38 15 0 19 26 19 26 24 0

-3.5 10 0 10 -5

25 27 35 29 30 33 20 19 29 28 30 28

62 24 15 4 5 16 57 2 13 10 33 4 0

1400 1200

1260 1010

15 25

20 0

31 25

9 10

1220 1230

1003 1023

19 6

0 5

20 24

81 25

1370 1360

1180 1180

26 29

5 10

29 30

21 5

1330 1238 1500

1075 1053 1340

8 45 33

-25 9 0

26 23 32

31 6 30

1360

1170

17

-10

28

30

1120

930

6

-10

23

75

1120

908

20

10

19

48

1540

1425

29

-10

34

18

1354

1135

4

22

25

70

0

0

OS 21 40 52 34 71 32 32 67 14 8 40 52 68 8 50 28 82 13 76 36 34 33 42 64 53 60 38 69 14 65 22 26 27 62 22 45 31 70

Inc. 52k 48k 55k 62k 90k 59k 61k 64k 94k 52k 51k 67k 51k 60k 42k 46k 52k 61k 45k 45k 49k 70k 67k 81k 50k 55k 56k 63k 49k 76k 40k 46k 58k 48k 65k 47k 69k 69k

58 6 44

57k

Nor. 3k 7k -5k 10k 17k 8k -4k -19k 41k 9k 0k 2k -4k 9k -6k -2k -9k 7k -2k 7k -3k 4k 10k 8k -6k 2k 8k -2k 2k 8k 1k -2k 5k 3k 5k 1k 9k -22k 3k -3k

42k

-8k

So 73 60 84 86 97 81 86 88 73 63 82 85 88 86 77 71 86 81 79 77 77 81 81 85 76 81 72 91 68 89 64 66 76 63 71 80 82 95

Gr 64 20 64 73 89 66 71 84 48 47 66 74 62 65 42 39 67 45 53 40 43 60 67 75 58 65 55 83 43 66 42 46 58 41 47 61 63 86

83 87 62

55 71 32

Also see

Notes

Moravian Morehouse Mount Holy.

New York North Central Northeastern Northland Northwestern Norwich Oberlin Ohio Wes. Olivet Oral Roberts Otterbein Ouachita Ba. Pacific Luth.

Pacific Union Pacific Patrick Henry Paul Quinn Paul Smiths Peninsula Presbyterian Prescott Principia Queens Quincy Randolph Randolph-M. Reed Regis Rhodes Ridgewater Ripon Roanoke Rockford Rollins Roosevelt Saint Amb St Johns (MN) Saint Louis Saint Mary's C

75th 1253

25th 1060 1350 1470 1020 1440 1121 1490

%S 30 0 19 26 47 33 8 47

1540 1570 1240 1550 1280 1570 1530 1358

1360 1123

1240 1260 1200 1423 1200 1350 1440

990 1035 1020 1253 990 1010 1233

+V 6.5 0 -15 0 -15 5 -15

ACT 24 21 32 34 25 34 22 34

%A 3 19 3 11 10 11 51 31

37 15

-5 -1

32 26

22 33

18 13 11 4 35 8 64

10 -10 10 6.5 10 15 10

22 23 24 29 20 22 29

27 53 78 1 7 7 40

0

0

1270

1020

20

5

23

14

1300 1255

970 1080

0 2.5

25

1140 1220 1500 1220 1470

930 1020 1320 1020 1310

20 25 0 14 45 47 30 11

0 20 0 10 -5

25 25 32 25 30

5 21 0 8 6 27 12 31

1260 1086 1350 1080 1240 1185 1400

1070 840 1150 840 1020 915 1210

1 37 41 32 33 20 4 9

20 15 15 0 0 7.5 -10

25 18 27 21 24 23 29

2 10 4 20 5 29 45 34

OS 37 74 60 52 11 66 50 67 71 84 27 8 16 12 35 22 21 61 83 15 45 9 46 73 41 37 51 23 23 87 32 65 6 35 40 26 43 18 64 13 54 14

Inc. 64k 52k 54k 80k 58k 89k 43k 86k 66k 52k 54k 46k 44k 51k 47k 61k 67k 56k

Nor. 13k 12k 2k 4k 3k 15k -5k 6k 14k -14k 1k 1k -4k 2k 0k 3k 8k 6k

36k 44k 38k 52k 38k

-7k -11k -9k -6k -8k

59k 48k 49k 59k 52k 67k 69k 42k 51k 55k 53k 56k 46k 58k 75k 70k 72k

-6k 1k -9k 0k -15k 15k -14k -7k 4k -2k 5k -8k 1k 4k 18k 6k 7k

So 78 80 90 95 77 97 74 98 74 87 82 65 81 79 79 78 75 77 88 72 69

Gr 67 40 78 78 58 0 47 87 54 72 59 34 52 60 62 63 30 58 59 12 41

68 53 82 72 69 67 81 86 72 91 62 76 74 64 86 60 79 86 87 86

53 49 60 62 40 46 68 67 58 82 47 69 32 71 37 58 69 73 69

Also see

Notes

Saint Mary's M Saint Michael's Saint Norbert Saint Peter's Saint Vincent Salem Samford San Fran. Bay Sarah Lawren.

Seton Hall Seton Hill Simmons Smith Sofia Soka of Amer.

Southwestern St Lawrence St Olaf St. John's C. St. John's C. St. Thomas Stephens Sterling Stetson Susquehanna Sweet Briar Texas Christ.

The Catholic.

The C of Idaho TC of St. Sch. TC of Wooster TC of Findlay The U of the S Thomas Aquin.

Thomas More Tiffin Transylvania Trine Trinity Tulane Tusculum Union C.

75th

25th

1315 1270

1160 1010

1250

1030

1270

1080

%S 1 19 5 1 53 0 26

1450 1390 1240 1390 1520

1260 1230 1040 1200 1370

1440 1355 1410 1480 1460 1460

20.5 5

ACT 23 30 24

15

25

%A 20 4 26 0 10

15

26

64

OS Inc. Nor. 45 58k -1k 77 68k -1k 28 54k 1k 16 52k 15k 25 59k 7k 22 44k -7k 74 55k -14k

15 24 48 17 33

15 5 0 5 0

30 29 25 31 33

6 5 8 4 19

76 24 25 41 76

48k -25k 68k 12k 50k 2k 61k 10k 59k -3k

1240 1120 1240 1300 1250 1250

38 39 19 15 40 26

-60 7.5 -5 -10 10 10

28 30 30 31 31

2 15 5 37 10 12

1240

1050

11

20

22

46

1305 1280 1360 1360

1110 1088 1020 1140

25 52 22 18

12.5 10 0 0

26 28 26 29

8 6 15 20

1240

1070

0

1450

1250

41 1 31

-5

26 25 30

8 29 25

1380 1410

1233 1220

19 45

20 25

30 30

35 16

1360

1120

20

26

1470 1510 1110 1490

1310 1370 910 1310

-5 -5 -5 -15

31 32 20 31

20 13 55 43 75 81 12 41 78 24 38 49 52 87 32 14 51 24 75 63 80 19 19 44 18 86 44 63

53k 60k 69k 66k 53k 53k 55k 43k 45k 51k 60k 51k 64k 76k 48k 62k 54k 55k 60k 48k 38k 45k 54k 55k 67k 60k 43k 74k

0 9 0 42 16 15 38

+V

0 67 0 21 34 80 17

3k -4k 2k -13k -13k 12k -10k 0k 1k 4k -9k -6k

-18k -18k 2k 1k 12k -4k 4k 11k

So 78 79 82 78 84 73 91

Gr 54 71 69 50 71 60 69

79 83 80 81 91

66 66 58 59 83

93 79 85 90 79 74 53 63 75 68 85 62 92 88 76 79 83 75 89 92 76 60 78 78 91 93 55 89

85 64 80 82 75 63 34 41 22 60 70 60 73 73 52 58 70 50 74 83 70 36 64 54 67 81 27 80

Also see

Notes

Union U. U Bridgep.

U Chicago U Evansv.

U Pikeville U Richmo.

U Scranto.

U Ozarks U West Ursinus Utica Valparaiso Vassar Viterbo Wabash Warren Wils.

Wash & Jeff Washington Wash. U. Wellesley Wesleyan Westm. (MO) Westm. (PA) Westm. (UT) Westmont Wheat. (IL) Wheat. (M) Whitman Whittier Widener Wilberforce Willamette William Jew. William Pen. William Wo. Wiscon. L. Wittenberg Wofford Xavier Young Har.

75th 25th 1370 1100 1160 935 1580 1500 1300 1045

%S 14 14 52 51

+V 15 10 -10 0

ACT 27

%A 84

34 25

32 26

1530 1398 1320 1150 1150 960

22 35 26

-15 0 15

33 27 21

18 4 64

1380 1250 1360 1535 1240 1320

1180 1084 1140 1430 1060 1122

0 -5 0 -7.5 0 -10

1250 1390 1570 1550

1010 1190 1500 1430

5 15 -15 -5

30 27 28 33 24 26 28 24 27 34 34

1090

930

-25

20

1373 1458 1430 1390 1473 1340 1290 940

1166 1280 1250 1260 1293 1140 1105 840

36 17 22 33 5 52 1 42 29 27 38 0 3 0 8 20 38 25 14 9 17 6 0 5 18 0 5 8 30 15

13.5 -1 5 5 3.5 -20 5 0

26 31 31 30 32 26 28 16

-5 0

23 18

-21.5 -5 3.5 5

24 25 28 26

6 2 7 18 38 13 16 14 8 33 20 0 75 0 50 3 23 5 15 5 2 13 0 74 44 0 43 34 24 37

1130 1030 1080 850 1243 1370 1353 1310

1038 1050 1200 1120

OS 36 45 69 33 24 75 56 39 0 36 13 49 69 41 25 58 28 53 77 73 7 16 29 42 33 70 57 59 27 38 34 73 33 59 24 33 21 44 56 13

Inc. Nor. 52k -2k 51k 2k 78k 7k 52k -2k 43k 2k 81k -1k 70k 9k 40k 5k 66k 56k 61k 65k 53k 63k 35k 69k 66k 91k 76k 38k 51k 51k 51k 63k 60k 64k 64k 60k 69k 38k 60k 59k 45k 44k 51k 57k 67k 61k 43k

13k 14k 5k -13k 2k 14k -22k 11k 0k -3k -2k -9k 4k 6k -1k -7k -13k -3k -8k 4k 10k -5k 2k 0k 6k -6k 0k 0k 0k 1k -10k

So 84 68 99 80 68 92 85 69 60 82 73 77 94 76 88 69 83 83 96 95 63 64 82 75 86 90 81 88 70 75 70 83 75 62 75 75 75 89 84 68

Gr 58 37 90 56 24 83 75 34 0 69 45 62 87 47 73 37 69 67 89 82 41 56 57 47 70 79 76 83 60 56 29 68 59 23 51 51 50 80 67 41

Also see

Notes

Observers of the liberal arts colleges have for some time noted their leading role in producing the nation’s Ph.D.’s. This pattern occurs in the social sciences as well as in the humanities and natural sciences. The question of why these institutions should have such success has not received a great deal of scholarly attention, though the figures naturally provoke speculation about the kind of instruction that occurs in the best of these colleges and the experience of their undergraduates. With data weighted for size of institution, the top ten Ph.D.-producing institutions [in the social sciences] are Swarthmore, Thomas Aquinas, Reed, Bryn Mawr, the University of Chicago, Beloit, Shimer, Oberlin, Harvard, and Haverford…

One explanation for this phenomenon, which is even more marked in the sciences and for women, may be the high percentage of undergraduates in liberal arts colleges who are involved in original research projects. These may be individual projects, such as an undergraduate thesis or special project in a course, or they may be engaged as research assistants to faculty members. This latter opportunity simply may not be available to the same degree for undergraduates in the research institutions. There, graduate students quite appropriately get first claim on research assistant positions…

That is not the case in the liberal arts colleges, where the sole focus of attention is the undergraduate and a faculty member's only real hope of getting research assistance is a well-trained undergraduate. As a result, the bright and curious undergraduate has an opportunity for firsthand experience in the intellectual life of a social scientist and potentially will experience the enormous gratification that comes from the systematic pursuit of an intriguing question… “Reassessing Research” in Distinctively American: America’s Residential Liberal Arts Colleges (1999) Whatever the explanation or excuse, the disengagement of colleges does not reflect the readiness of most of their students to initiate or become involed in social causes that touch their idealism, emotions, or sense of justice. Arthur Levine has pointed out that 64 percent of all college students are currently involved in some form of community-service activity. However, lacking an institutional imperative, these activities are mostly random offcampus extracurricular1 ventures that are peripheral to academic programs, undertaken with insufficient understanding of the problems they address and the qualifications needed for dealing with them… “Distinctively American: the Liberal Arts College” 1 Of course, it’s perfectly dystopian to call the idea of living life an “extracurricular”—that term ought to be retired

Annapolis Group The Annapolis Group is an organization that promotes liberal arts colleges. Many of these colleges are also in the Oberlin Group of Libraries. Members that are in this guide are shown. The full list can be seen at bit.ly/annapolis-group.

Agnes Scott Albion Alma Augustana C. Berea Berry Birmingham-Southern Bowdoin Carleton Centre Coe Colby College of the Atlantic College of the Holy Cross Colorado Concordia C. Connecticut Cornell DePauw Earlham Emmanuel Gordon Goucher Grinnell Gustavus Adolphus Hendrix Hope Kalamazoo Knox Lake Forest

Luther Macalester McDaniel Millsaps Morehouse Mount Holyoke Rollins Smith St. Ben and John St. Johns St. Olaf Transylvania Trinity Wabash Washington Wellesley Wesleyan William Jewell Project Pericles Undergraduate colleges prioritizing civic education Full list at projectpericles. org/colleges--universities.html Allegheny Berea Carleton Chatham Goucher Hampshire Hendrix Macalester Morehouse Reed Rhodes Ursinus Whitman Widener Wooster

Study by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness Assessment at Swarthmore. PhDs earned nine years later as a percentage of bachelors degrees awarded in 2004-2013.

Colleges in the guide are highlighted for easy comparison.

Social sciences and not very related social professions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Swarthmore Reed Simon's Rock (Bard) UChicago Williams New College of Florida Pomona Haverford Grinnell Wesleyan U. (CT) Wellesley Vassar Carleton Harvard Macalester St. John's Yale

5.21 4.91 4.21 4.16 4.03 3.90 3.85 3.80 3.67 3.58 3.45 3.37 3.35 3.20 3.13 3.06 2.88

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Bryn Mawr Amherst Barnard (Columbia) Princeton Smith St. John's [?]

Dartmouth Hampshire Brown Palo Alto U. Stanford

2.83 2.82 2.75 2.71 2.67 2.65 2.62 2.61 2.57 2.56 2.46

68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Duke Washington and Lee WashU Lewis & Clark William & Mary Columbia Thomas More Wooster Bates Earlham Alliant Intl.-San Diego Colby Trinity U. (TX) Emory Northwestern Wesleyan C. (GA) St. John Vianney Semin.

Mills (Northeastern) Colgate Bard U. of Rochester Goddard Georgetown Cornell U. Furman Occidental Birmingham-Southern Centre

1.88% 1.86% 1.85% 1.84% 1.84% 1.83% 1.81% 1.79% 1.75% 1.72% 1.72% 1.72% 1.72% 1.70% 1.69% 1.69% 1.68% 1.68% 1.67% 1.64% 1.63% 1.57% 1.56% 1.55% 1.55% 1.50% 1.50% 1.49%

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Oberlin Soka U. of America Spelman Hendrix Brandeis Kenyon Scripps Whitman Agnes Scott Mount Holyoke Davidson Kalamazoo Millsaps Rhodes Bowdoin Rice Beloit Southwestern Middlebury Claremont McKenna Tufts Sarah Lawrence

2.41 2.41 2.31 2.26 2.25 2.25 2.19 2.13 2.10% 2.09% 2.07% 2.04% 2.04% 2.00% 1.99% 1.98% 1.97% 1.95% 1.94% 2.10% 1.92% 1.91%

79 Knox 80 U. of Notre Dame 81 Hamilton 82 Clark 83 CA Inst. Integral Stud.

84 Connecticut 85 Conception Seminary 86 CalTech 87 Fisk 88 Pitzer 89 UPenn 90 Franklin and Marshall 91 Denison 92 Wheaton 93 Vanderbilt 94 UC-Berkeley 95 Austin 96 Colorado 97 Wake Forest 98 St Olaf 99 Skidmore 100 Marlboro

1.49% 1.47% 1.46% 1.46% 1.46% 1.45% 1.44% 1.42% 1.41% 1.39% 1.39% 1.37% 1.36% 1.36% 1.32% 1.32% 1.31% 1.30% 1.30% 1.29% 1.29% 1.28%

Physical sciences (chemistry, physics, earth science) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

CalTech Harvey Mudd Carleton MIT Reed Haverford U. of North Georgia NM Inst. of Mining U. of Chicago Grinnell Colorado School of Mines Whitman Swarthmore Williams New College of Florida

13.34% 51 7.69% 52 3.91% 53 3.53% 54 3.35% 55 2.80% 56 2.59% 57 2.54% 58 2.39% 59 2.28% 60 2.20% 61 2.19% 62 2.16% 63 1.87% 64 1.85% 65

Stanford UM-Morris SD School of Mines Hamilton Colorado UC-Berkeley Dartmouth Albion Hope Occidental Stevens IT Willamette Mount Holyoke WashU Bard

1.08% 1.06% 1.06% 1.02% 1.02% 1.02% 1.01% 1.01% 1.01% 1.00% 0.97% 0.94% 0.94% 0.91% 0.91%

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Amherst Princeton U. Pomona Juniata Wooster Florida Institute of Tech.

Bryn Mawr Macalester Kalamazoo U. of Rochester Hendrix Bowdoin Case Western Reserve Rice Rensselaer Poly.

William & Mary Lawrence Franklin & Marshall Harvard Wellesley Oberlin Cornell U. Yale Allegheny Colby Carnegie Mellon St. Olaf Wabash Rose-Hulman Colgate UC-Merced Brown Wesleyan U. Columbia Washington & Jefferson

1.84% 1.83% 1.82% 1.81% 1.72% 1.67% 1.64% 1.63% 1.60% 1.59% 1.58% 1.54% 1.54% 1.49% 1.44% 1.40% 1.40% 1.37% 1.37% 1.33% 1.33% 1.32 1.29 1.27 1.27 1.26 1.25 1.24% 1.20% 1.15% 1.13% 1.13% 1.12% 1.12% 1.10%

66 Berea 67 Smith 68 Furman 69 Knox 70 Union C. 71 Illinois Wesleyan 72 Barnard 73 Worcester Poly.

74 Beloit 75 Hanover 76 Olin 77 Illinois IT 78 Gustavus Adolphus 79 Centre 80 Lebanon Valley 81 U. of the Sciences 82 The U. of the South 83 Gettysburg 84 Truman State 85 Lycoming 86 Earlham 87 Wheaton 88 Ohio Wesleyan 89 Duke 90 Ripon 91 Brandeis 92 Davidson 93 Cornell C. 94 Lafayette 95 SUNY-Geneseo 96 U. of Tulsa 97 Missouri U. of Tech 98 Westminster C. [?]

99 Valparaiso 100 Vassar

0.90% 0.90% 0.90% 0.90% 0.89% 0.88% 0.88% 0.87% 0.87% 0.87% 0.87% 0.86% 0.86% 0.86% 0.86% 0.85% 0.85% 0.84% 0.83% 0.83% 0.82% 0.81% 0.79% 0.79% 0.79% 0.79% 0.79% 0.78% 0.78% 0.77% 0.76% 0.76% 0.76% 0.76% 0.76%

Medicine, biology and agriculture (again atrociously grouped) 1 2

CalTech Swarthmore

6.19% 5.02%

51 52

U. of North Georgia U. of the Sciences

2.32% 2.32%

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Reed Grinnell Albany C of P & HS Harvey Mudd Carleton MIT Pomona Haverford SUNY C of ES & F U. of Chicago Mount Holyoke New College of Florida Kalamazoo Cornell U. Brown Yale Case Western Reserve Scripps Harvard St Olaf Johns Hopkins Oberlin Rice Colby Princeton Amherst Abraham Baldwin Agri.

U. of Rochester Brandeis Earlham Hendrix Duke Bowdoin Bryn Mawr Williams C. of the Atlantic Stanford Juniata Wellesley UT SW Medical Center

4.56% 4.51% 4.49% 4.36% 4.35% 4.34% 4.17% 4.14% 3.39% 3.35% 3.28% 3.13% 3.13% 3.12% 3.08% 3.07% 3.04% 3.01% 3.00% 2.97% 2.94% 2.93% 2.92% 2.90% 2.90% 2.85% 2.84% 2.78% 2.76% 2.75% 2.75% 2.72% 2.72% 2.70% 2.70% 2.68% 2.68% 2.61% 2.56% 2.53%

53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

Colorado Kenyon Bates Ohio Wesleyan St. Mary's C. (ML) Vassar C. of Wooster Lewis & Clark UC-Merced Hanover Wesleyan U. Emory Knox UC-Berkeley Hampshire Middlebury Lawrence Tufts Dartmouth Spelman William & Mary Colgate Smith Wesleyan C. Worcester Poly.

UW-Madison Centre Alma UPenn Franklin & Marshall U. of Puget Sound Willamette Beloit Poly. of PR-Miami Centenary C. of LA Columbia DePauw St. John's C. Northland UC-Davis

2.30% 2.30% 2.26% 2.18% 2.17% 2.15% 2.15% 2.15% 2.15% 2.12% 2.07% 2.07% 2.04% 2.02% 2.01% 2.00% 2.00% 1.99% 1.99% 1.99% 1.96% 1.93% 1.92% 1.89% 1.85% 1.84% 1.82% 1.81% 1.78% 1.78% 1.76% 1.75% 1.74% 1.72% 1.70% 1.69% 1.68% 1.65% 1.64% 1.63%

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Davidson Whitman Macalester Agnes Scott Allegheny WashU Harrisburg U. of STEM Ursinus

2.50% 2.49% 2.47% 2.46% 2.35% 2.35% 2.34% 2.34%

93 Lafayette 94 Barnard 95 Wabash 96 Denison 97 Wittenberg 98 Transylvania 99 UNC at Chapel Hill 100 Clark

1.62% 1.62% 1.61% 1.59% 1.59% 1.57% 1.57% 1.56%

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

0.48% 0.48% 0.48% 0.47% 0.47% 0.46% 0.46% 0.46% 0.45% 0.45% 0.45% 0.44% 0.44% 0.44% 0.43% 0.43% 0.41% 0.41% 0.41% 0.41% 0.40% 0.39% 0.39% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37%

Mathematics and computer sciences 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

CalTech Harvey Mudd Olin MIT Swarthmore Princeton UChicago Carnegie Mellon Pomona Carleton Reed Williams Northwestern Poly.

Harvard Rice Stanford New C. of Florida St. John's C. [?]

Haverford NM Inst. of Mining&Tech Grinnell Rensselaer Poly.

St. Olaf Simon's Rock (Bard) Rose-Hulman Cooper Union Amherst Brown Bard

6.97% 6.77% 2.77% 2.69% 1.75% 1.73% 1.72% 1.62% 1.56% 1.44% 1.33% 1.31% 1.25% 1.10% 1.04% 0.97% 0.96% 0.94% 0.93% 0.93% 0.90% 0.85% 0.80% 0.80% 0.79% 0.79% 0.78% 0.77% 0.70%

Wabash Worcester Poly.

Lafayette Cornell U. U. of Rochester Wheaton [?]

WashU Georgia IT-Main Randolph C. SD School of Mines Hamilton Millsaps Grove City Colorado Marlboro MO U. of STEM Tufts Willamette Kalamazoo Mount Holyoke Clarkson US Military Academy Brandeis Macalester Centre Washington & Lee UM-Baltimore County CO School of Mines Wesleyan U.

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Yale 0.68% 80 UM-Morris Saint Augustine 0.63 81 Taylor Columbia 0.63 82 U. of Notre Dame Duke 0.62 83 Johns Hopkins Case Western Reserve 0.59 84 Stevens IT Wellesley 0.56 85 Carroll Oberlin 0.55 86 Hebrew Theological Bryn Mawr 0.55 87 Northwestern OK State Uni. IT 0.55 88 Morehouse Dartmouth 0.54 89 Vassar Bowdoin 0.54 90 Lewis & Clark U. of Tulsa 0.54 91 Hampshire Transylvania 0.54 92 New Jersey IT Scripps 0.53 93 Hendrix Illinois IT 0.52 94 Franklin and Marshall Florida IT 0.52 95 Oklahoma Christian UC-Berkeley 0.52 96 U. of Dallas Kenyon 0.51 97 Ursinus Bryn Athyn of the New Chu. 0.50 98 Furman St. John's C. [?]

0.49 99 Dakota State Whitman 0.49 100 Berea

0.36% 0.36% 0.35% 0.35% 0.35% 0.35% 0.34% 0.34% 0.34% 0.34% 0.33% 0.33% 0.33% 0.32% 0.32% 0.31% 0.31% 0.31% 0.31% 0.31% 0.30%

Humanities and arts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

New England Conserv.

St. John's C. [?]

Swarthmore SE Baptist Seminary St. John's C. [?]

Reed Oberlin UChicago Yale Simon's Rock at Bard Sarah Lawrence Vassar Bryn Mawr Thomas More of L.A.s Williams Amherst

5.43% 51 4.94% 52 4.45% 53 4.32% 54 4.22% 55 4.20% 56 3.68% 57 3.39% 58 3.32% 59 3.21% 60 3.20% 61 3.18% 62 3.02% 63 3.01% 64 2.97% 65 2.78% 66

Bowdoin Mount Holyoke Judson William & Mary Davidson Rhodes Hendrix St. Olaf Lawrence Agnes Scott Whitman Beloit Kalamazoo Southwestern Oklahoma Baptist York

1.70% 1.69% 1.63% 1.56% 1.55% 1.54% 1.50% 1.49% 1.49% 1.47% 1.46% 1.41% 1.39% 1.39% 1.35% 1.34%

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Manhattan Schl. of Music Grinnell Carleton Haverford Wesleyan U. Kenyon Thomas Aquinas Barnard Harvard The Juilliard School U. of Dallas Wheaton Bard Princeton New College of Florida Marlboro Moody Bible Institute Cleveland Inst. of Music Macalester Curtis Institute of Music Columbia Scripps Conserv. of Puerto Rico MW Baptist Seminary Wellesley Pomona Hampshire Clear Creek Baptist Bible Dartmouth Brown Smith Bennington Centre Middlebury

2.77% 67 U. of North Georgia 2.77% 68 Epic Bible 2.75% 69 Stanford 2.74% 70 New Saint Andrews 2.73% 71 Great Lakes Christian 2.69% 72 The King's 2.67% 73 Hell. C.-Greek Ortho.

2.62% 74 Furman 2.61% 75 Wabash 2.58% 76 Sacred Heart Major S. 2.54% 77 Earlham 2.50% 78 Gordon 2.50% 79 Saint Joseph Seminary 2.47% 80 Mills (Northeastern) 2.43% 81 Wooster 2.42% 82 Westmont 2.36% 83 Rice 2.23% 84 Asbury 2.11% 85 S. Baptist Seminary 2.03% 86 Brandeis 2.03% 87 San Fran. Conserv.

2.01% 88 Willamette 1.98% 89 Hanover 1.97% 90 Ave Maria 1.96% 91 Ouachita Baptist 1.95% 92 Andrews 1.91% 93 Hamilton 1.89% 94 Lewis & Clark 1.88% 95 Millsaps 1.88% 96 Pitzer 1.86% 97 Fisk 1.86% 98 Colby 1.82% 99 NO Baptist Seminary 1.77% 100 Colorado

1.34% 1.32% 1.31% 1.31% 1.30% 1.30% 1.27% 1.24% 1.24% 1.23% 1.23% 1.23% 1.21% 1.21% 1.21% 1.21% 1.21% 1.20% 1.19% 1.19% 1.18% 1.18% 1.16% 1.16% 1.13% 1.13% 1.13% 1.12% 1.11% 1.10% 1.08% 1.06% 1.06% 1.06%

Dear NSF, could we please do the broad fields this way next time? 1) applied studies (medicine, business, law, teaching, counseling), 2) natural sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, computer science (at the PhD level this is theory), engineering (ditto)), 3) social studies (political science, economics, philosophy, history, literature, sociology). This would have fewer categories and be much less muddled.

Business, communication, law & other (liberal arts, interdisciplinary) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Swarthmore Fisk New College of Florida UT SW Medical Center Virginia U. of Lynchburg UChicago Texas A&M-Central Tex. DeVry U. of New York Harvard Florida College Spelman CalTech Bryn Mawr Sarah Lawrence Polk State UPenn Brigham Young-Provo Yale Pomona York Williams MIT Northwestern Talladega Brown Mid-Atlantic Christian Stanford Trinity U. Wellesley Millsaps Rice DeVry U.-Georgia Goddard US Military Academy DeVry-Florida Concordia at Moorhead Oberlin Bethel-North Newton

0.84% 0.83% 0.77% 0.76% 0.71% 0.65% 0.62% 0.60% 0.56% 0.56% 0.56% 0.55% 0.55% 0.53% 0.52% 0.49% 0.48% 0.46% 0.45% 0.45% 0.44% 0.44% 0.43% 0.43% 0.43% 0.43% 0.42% 0.41% 0.41% 0.40% 0.40% 0.40% 0.39% 0.39% 0.38% 0.38% 0.38% 0.37%

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

US Air Force Academy Macalester Kalamazoo Cornell U. Transylvania Truett McConnell Vassar Haverford Davidson Princeton Reed WashU DeVry U.-Arizona Barnard Duke Claremont McKenna Emory Wesleyan U. Morehouse Hanover Carleton Bates Coe Truman State Bennett Livingstone Hampton Wabash Birmingham-Southern Amherst Dartmouth Kenyon Mount Holyoke NC A & T State Wheaton Penn State-World Howard Wells

0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.36% 0.36% 0.36% 0.36% 0.35% 0.35% 0.35% 0.35% 0.34% 0.34% 0.34% 0.34% 0.33% 0.33% 0.33% 0.33% 0.32% 0.32% 0.32% 0.32% 0.32% 0.32% 0.32% 0.32% 0.32% 0.32% 0.31% 0.31% 0.31% 0.31%

The Sorting The Sorting Hat has developed a highly scientifically accurate diagnostic for Muggles. (Its level of accuracy is somewhere between a Buzzfeed quiz on the higher end and the DSMMD on the lower end.)

The friends that I seek and keep are people who…

Who can be counted on to be positive and unfailingly supportive, not mean-spirited or toxic to be around Who I can be weird and hilarious around and that I can pursue or discuss my niche interests with Who hold social power and connections (or) who I believe have special talents or outlooks on things Who I can trust to be there for me at personal cost (or) who are marginalized but full of potential Between Bush Jr. and Trump Sr., I would say that the better person is (neither is not an option)…

Trump Sr., undoubtedly Trump Sr., reservedly Bush Jr., reservedly Bush Jr., undoubtedly My attitude toward religion can be best described as follows…

I snigger behind people’s backs when they say a prayer (or) I have an unhealthy occupation with New Age pentagrams Religion is a useful tool for accruing power (or) I comply because it’s necessary for maintaining social order What’s important is that we treat people well (or) I dutifully follow and believe in the teachings of religious authorities Religion clarifies what is true and good about the world (or) It speaks to how some things are sacred and objectively true

My personal shrine would most likely be devoted to…

The Christian God or a “higher being” Interfaith and representative religions The Spaghetti Monster or woodland faeries The pagan deities of Greece and Rome I am inclined to say that the greatest threat to the world today is…

Climate change (or) the widespread idiocy of our general leadership Increasing polarization and animosity (or) the inability to unite on important issues The rise of authoritarianism and its assault on democracy around the globe The neoliberal elite and its stranglehold on institutions and the media If I were stranded on a small boat with three other people, I would…

I would try to cheer them up and then we would all die I would try to create a tricky little sextant using two splinters and cook seaweed á la solaire I would sacrifice myself for the good of others, especially small children I would kick them off eat them, because ultimately I need to live to further my moral beliefs The Taylor Swift song that I admire the most is (look them up on YT)…

Bad Blood Shake It Off I Don’t Wanna Live Forever Look What You Made Me Do Key (G=Gryffindor, H=Hufflepuff, R=Ravenclaw, S=Slytherin): H/R/S/G, S/R/H/G, R/S/H/G, G/H/R/S, R/H/G/S, H/R/G/S, G/H/R/S If there is a tie, the “Sorting Hat” is uncertain. You can go to the outtakes (in the Usage Notes) to answer the tie-breaker question.

The Houses You should defffffinitely base your life decisions on this list Gryffindor Hufflepuff Common area of Common area of strength: Strong strength: code of ethics and Common-sense, priority on low-drama and developing down-to-earth character Common pitfall: Common pitfall: A tiring lack of Resorting to conscientousprejudices for ness, intrigue or moral guidance provocation Founders: Founders: Princeton Harvard Dartmouth Cornell Bowdoin Connecticut Kenyon Brandeis Macalester Mount Holyoke UChicago William Woods John HopkinsH Manchester Bryn Mawr Dickinson Centre Washington C. Eureka Liberty Westminster (MO) St. Ben and John Westminster (PA) Brenau DePauw Agnes Scott Wash&Jeff Earlham Union C. Lycoming Grove City Juniata St. John’s Saint Vincent Hampden-Sydney Knox WabashS Augustana U. Morehouse Willamette Albion St. Scholastica Kalamazoo Beloit Allegheny St. Ambrose Dakota Wesleyan William Penn Gustavus Adolph. Culver-StocktonG Concordia C. Principia St. Norbert Regis North Central Carroll

Ravenclaw Slytherin Common area of Common area of strength: strength: Interrogate and Primary focus on explore subjects ambition and curiously, at times enjoyment, at times “partying” or “crunchy” Common pitfall: An “preppy” exhausting or Common pitfall: endless excess of Excessive focus on conscientousness status Founders: Founders: Columbia Yale Brown Penn Carleton Colby Grinnell Tulane ReedG Northwestern Middlebury New York Washington U. Northeastern Vassar Richmond Smith Denison Furman Fordham Deep Springs Trinity Warren Wilson Wellesley Hollins Ripon Bennington Westminster (UT) HampshireG Hanover Antioch Transylvania Wooster Wofford Buena VistaH SewaneeG S Augustana C. Rhodes Luther Baylor Pacific Lutheran Texas Christian St. Olaf Hillsdale St. Lawrence U. of AustinG Lewis & Clark Hobart WS Whitman Sweet Briar College of the Atl. Susquehanna NorthlandH CoeH Lawrence Concordia U.H

Valparaiso Scranton Canisius Le Moyne Holy Cross Benedictine Belmont Abbey Queens Charlotte Catholic America Thomas Aquinas Wheaton Birmingham-S. Eastern Nazarene Mary Baldwin LinfieldH Ursinus Calvin Eastern Mennon.

Goshen Berry Maryville David & Elkins Young Harris Lenoir-Rhyne Huntingdon Marietta Hesston Augsburg Illinois Christian Brothers Anderson Merrimack Norwich Paul Quinn Kettering Widener Wisconsin Luth.

Stephens Simmons Emmanuel Bethany Global ThalesS Wyoming Catholic Roosevelt Convenant Ridgewater Menlo

John Carroll Seton Hill Alvernia Bellarmine Christendom Thomas More Barry Biola Gordon Randolph-Macon Austin C. George Fox Pacific Heritage Saint Mary’s Guilford Hope Wittenberg Blackburn Berea Pikeville Randolph U. of the Ozarks Bluffton Bethel Avila Carroll U. Tiffin Quincy St. Mary’s (MN) McPherson Illinois IT Lewis Saint Peter’s Salem Wesleyan C. Bay Path Alverno Mass P&HS Franklin Cumm.

Chaminade WhittierR Pacific Union Dominican Soka Green Rivers U. of the West

RockfordG Lake Forest Loyola U. (IL) Loyola U. (LA) Albright Clark Montreat Ouachita Baptist John BrownS CentenaryS Emory & Henry Millsaps Hendrix Colorado Cornell C. Otterbein Baldwin Wallace Hiram Sterling Lees-McRae Alice LloydG Brevard Tusculum William Jewell FerrumG Hamline Saint Michael’s UticaH Viterbo Keuka Milwaukee Eng. Florida ITS Evansville Saint Louis Moravian Chatham Wheaton BridgeportS Georgian Court Goucher Bard Sarah Lawrence ExcelG Outer Coast C. of the Ozarks.G Peninsula Prescott

Carthage BradleyH Loyola U. (ML) Marquette Creighton Xavier Seton Hall Union U. Presbytarian Anderson Patrick HenryG Roanoke Rollins Stetson St. Thomas Florida Southern Ave Maria Samford SouthwesternR College of Idaho Ohio Wesleyan Heidelberg Lincoln Memorial Paul Smith’s Drury Muskingum Lindenwood Olivet Findlay Wilberforce Adrian Indiana IT Eastern Michigan Trine Mercyhurst Elmira Clarkson Fairleigh Dickins.

Endicott Champlain McDaniel High Point Oral Roberts Westmont Brigham YoungH Minerva San Fran. BayH

The personality theory behind the Sorting The first axis is the domain axis, describing the method of the psychology. The two values of domain are engaged (Gryffindor, Slytherin) and detached (Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw).

The second axis is the character axis, describing the nature of the psychology. The two values of character are hegemonic (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff) and subversive (Slytherin, Ravenclaw).

Thus we have the following possible combinations: detached-subversive ravenclaw engaged-hegemonic gryffindor detached-hegemonic hufflepuff engaged-subversive slytherin There are three possible relations that two different Houses can have. They can be complements, with the same domain but different characters. Complements are opposites that have rather defined and distinct opinions of one another.

Among the engaged houses this can result in an intense rivalry, but it is also possible to see how, for example, the goody two-shoes and basic Hufflepuff is the opposite of the quirky and humored Ravenclaw. Shades have different domains but the same character. They have fundamental similarities if different approaches. Inversions are Houses with different domains and different characters, or “in another world” pairings, so drastically are they different. Though they are not allies, they are most likely to see each other with some bemusement. This is in contrast to their preoccupation with their complement.

Rowling has stated that the Houses correspond to the classical elements, which have long had a symbolic resonance to humans across multiple civilizations. Gryffindor is fire, Hufflepuff is earth, Ravenclaw is air and Slytherin is water. Air and earth are inert, nonreactive substances, while water and fire are reactive with most materials. This corroborates the detached-engaged axis. Air and water are fluid (the former *exists* while the latter actively dissolves substances) while earth and fire are forthright (the latter actively hardens substances). This corroborates the subversive-hegemonic axis. The complements or opposites would then be air and earth, water and fire, which makes sense because rareified empty space is the opposite of humble terra firma, while water and fire are traditionally incompatible substances.

You have probably noticed some insinuative commentary about these Houses in my diagnostic assessment. The ordering that Rowling uses Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. This sequence follows the descent into postmodernity, in my view. Postmodernity is fundamentally the sacrifice of a temporary perfection, and the embracement of imperfection, in the pursuit of eventual perfection within a greater system. This creates the hateful intuition of awkwardness and insensibility to those who are simply not mentally competent enough to think on such expansive terms.

Obviously, Rowling is not a postmodern ideologue, so the subversive personalities tend to be portrayed less positively in her novels. (These Houses also have crude and far from necessary ideological correspondences, which could be described as center-right, center-left, far-left, and far-right, e.g. Christian/social democracy and Green/neofascist.)

Miscellaneous categories In-state considerations Several states have a free application period for public colleges during October (College Application Month), which coincides with Early Action and Early Decision deadlines.

This edition of The Albus Guide does not include colleges with out of state tuitions out of reach for many students, which would go against its ethos of free and open-minded choice. However, they should be considered by any in-state students, and there are sometimes substantial (even free tuition) scholarships for use at state schools dependent on income or test scores.

It is easy enough to research the limited number of colleges in your state, which are singular or few in statewide interest, and complementary, meaning there’s only one each for any obvious end you may be interested in. This guide can be considered to be a universal supplement of private colleges to any in-state considerations you may have. Do not, of course, discount out of state public colleges if they are a good fit. (A college does not need to be, say, twice as good to justify twice as high a tuition, since college is usually worth much more than its costs and variances in its value are consequently greater than variances in its costs.)

Going to college internationally This book is more than the sum of its parts, and international colleges are irrelevant to its study of American institutional diversity, which is intended to make for the informational nonfiction equivalent of a Great American Novel.

Accordingly, its focus is limited to domestic undergraduates looking to attend an American college for the first time in a traditional rite of passage. I will, undoubtedly, include a full survey of options in another book if I have the financial means to do so after this one (a global study of options would require me to gain expertise across a staggering number of factors). We can take a brief look at some of the other… ah… options for now: Britain is rapidly becoming irrelevant in the 21st century and has been on the decline for quite a while. It may be interesting to observe a civilization in its late stages of collapse if you’re into that kind of thing. Ireland is another country that has generally been irrelevant since it was depopulated by immigrantion to the Americas.

Canada is a sovereign wildlife refuge in the northern interior of the United States. Americans are rarely conscious of the presence of the

Canadians just north of them, given their usually benign and blaise nature compared to our popcorn-grabbing reality TV show style of politics, but they occasionally bless the States with such uncontroversial exports as Justin Bieber and Jordan Peterson.

New Zealand has some very, very nice animals and trees. If I’d included it in this guide, I probably would have gone overboard with photos of echnidas. I’m excited for the new album from Lorde, who I admit is one of the few human beings from New Zealand that I know.

Australia is a desert instead of a rainforest. It was recently tarnished in Americans’ eyes by its reaction to the COVID pandemic, which was more extreme than what most writers imagined would happen in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

Sia is one of its redeeming exports.

Technical education You’re even more on your own if you decide to take a training route other than going to college. Most Americans have very little idea of what that process involves. If you’re just set out loose into the world, though, you won’t have anything for any higher societal system to recognize you by other than by your diploma (hint), so if you don’t go to college, it’s recommendable to throw the last 18 years of your life in the trash and google for a local training school or whatever it’s called so you build your life up from scratch.

The military is another option, since its beginning qualifications are more so physical (I assume) and it doesn’t expect prior experience for many roles. Going to the military as a first-generation student is probably a large leap of faith, especially if you’re not from a community where that That’s it for the Anglosphere. There choice is common. I imagine that it are English-speaking programs in many countries, though people won’t could offer a sense of community and lead to a lot of government necessarily speak English outside benefits down the road, including if their campuses. If you’re strapped for cash and adventurous, you could you decide to go to college.

This is largely a better option to look into countries with free or consider for females for a number of nearly free tuition for students reasons across a number of factors. including foreigners, such as Germany, France, Norway, the Czech Otherwise, if you’re intelligent enough to take my advice, I would Republic, Poland, Hungary, Mexico, and Argentina. You’ll need to obtain a look to the other options, because that would improve my ability to visa and pay for a cheap apartment keep justifying the American military and food with part-time work if you and its budget on eugenic grounds. want to make it out independently.

A short timeline of pertinent events The Closing of the American Mind affixes its spectacles and examines the state of society in 1987, including its disregard for classical music, with considerable amazement “Culture wars” is popularized in 1991 by a book of the same name. A speech at the 1992 RNC convention speaks on the theme.

Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus by Dinesh D’Souza is published in 1991.

Culture wars harden during the 2000s.

“Libtard” is coined.

Liberalism is a mental disorder and The Republican War on Science are bestsellers.

The building blocks of the culture wars form in 1990, when the Ideas & Trends column of the NYT takes note of “political correctness” being “heard more and more in debates over what should be taught at the universities.”

In 1991, George Bush Sr. becomes the first president to talk about “political correctness” in a speech at the University of Michigan written by Tony Snow.

Peter Thiel co-authors The Diversity Myth about Stanford in the late 1980s while working as a speechwriter and lawyer in 1995. (The authors later unconstructively walk back some of their unoriginal, milquetoast comments in 2016.)

A UPenn professor and an ACLU board member write The Shadow University, focusing on the judicial process at universities, in 1998. In response to requests for help from readers, they found FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) in 1999.

Obama and Clinton run on opposing gay marriage in 2008, and the DNC declines to support it. By 2012, however, the cooties phase ends, and a certain stage of the culture war seems over.*

The Great Recession triggers a slump in growth, in birthrates and in humanities majors that never fully recovers.

This is a permanent course correction of the post-Cold War era.

Election of Obama, a darling of the educated establishment and a person steeped in the current predominance, but also the birth of Web 2.0.

Criticism of the overwhelming dependence on college becomes mainstream in the early 2010s.

Obama makes reform of higher education a focus of his second term, but maintains its necessity as a pathway for social mobility.

Trump becomes first postWeb 2.0 president with the help of white non-degreed voters. He defends his scandals as merely being “politically incorrect.”

Unusual afflictions begin being noted on college campuses in the mid-2010s. The Chicago statement is released in 2014, the letter to students in 2016. Obama talks about “cancel culture.” The Harper letter, signed by J.K. Rowling, is issued in 2020. FL makes education reforms.

George Bush Sr., 1991 – I had this written into the speech and I didn’t even know these guys were going to be here. No, but seriously, the freedom to speak one’s mind, that may be the most fundamental and deeply revered of our liberties. Americans like to debate, to say what we think, because, you see, it separates good ideas from the bad. It defines and cultivates the diversity upon which our national greatness rests. It tears off the blinders of ignorance and prejudice and lets us move on to greater things.

Ironically, on the 200th anniversary of our Bill of Rights, we find free speech under assault throughout the United States, including on some college campuses. The notion of “political correctness” has ignited controversy across the land. And although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism, and sexism, and hatred, it replaces old prejudices with new ones. It declares certain topics off-limits, certain expression off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits.

What began as a crusade for civility has sourced into a cause of conflict and even censorship. Disputants treat sheer force—getting their foes punished or expelled, for instance—as a substitute for the power of ideas

Modoweiss | November 26, 2023 Harvard is on the wrong side of history, again It is impossible to ignore Israel’s painful parallels to the American playbook of the Vietnam War, including the indiscriminate killing of over 2 million Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian civilians and the illegal use of white phosphorus in dense civilian areas, then and now. . .

It took over a decade of constant pressure from the student body for Harvard to only partially divest from apartheid South Africa in the late 1980s. On April 10, 1969, several hundreds occupied University Hall in peaceful protest of on-campus recruitment for the Vietnam War. Harvard responded by calling in 400 armed police officers who beat and arrested hundreds of demonstrating students. . .

There is an undeterrable tendency of people to analogize the present’s present to the present’s past (which inevitably leads to fallacies and a dismissal of comparisons as “well that’s that” merely on the basis that that was past and this is present, i.e. that this is unsettled and that is settled) instead of the present’s present to the past’s present.

Harvard’s most recent statement included unequivocal condemnation of the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as antisemitic speech. . .

Harvard is not just failing to speak out against Israel’s latest continuation of more than 50 years of military occupation and 16 years of siege of Gaza—it is standing directly against those pushing for an end to violence. Its 1,205-word statement rightfully condemning antisemitism failed to acknowledge Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, students of color, and even Jewish students targeted for Palestinian rights advocacy. Over 100

Harvard faculty members deplored the “dangerously onesided” rhetoric from the administration, divulging that this message came after calls from within to de-recognize the Palestinian Solidarity Committee, departures, and threats from high-profile donors...

This is an example of defining virtue as doing what others want you to do and bending to social preferences (better yet if it over your own desires of what you want to do and your beliefs of what is right, paradoxically), failing to recognize that this is only virtue as it is externally defined. Vis-à-vis discrimination against Palestinian students, one might think about what would happen if a Jewish student were shot at or run over. It would be “Holocaust 2.0.”

As for “rightfully” condemning antisemitism, it should be obvious that antisemitism is only ever something claimed as a tactical mechanism and never in good faith, and that doing so is in fact objectionable for the reason of enforcing the appearance of its good faith. The maintenance of that fundamental bias is the issue, not some misunderstanding of the facts, and if you do not address it you are not addressing anything at all (CC Robert Wright and Norman Finklestein and AOC). On a more basic level I am astonished that people believe that antisemitism has ever existed as a prejudice (perhaps as a highly intellectual, philosopher’s stance, I’ll grant), when there is no evidence that there has ever been anything other than intolerance toward those of other religions and ethnicities; opposition to non-Germans as a mechanism for ethnic solidarity, in turn as the basis for cohesiveaction; and in the modern day, some light stereotypes about making money and eating bagels of the sort that belong to any ethnic group and are the subject of comedy skits.

Seeing that I have never observed Jews at the local bank and am seldom able to even identify them, it seems that antisemitism if it did exist would be an incredibly intellectual and cerebral prejudice (to the point that I have long suspected that the oft-existent fuss about it in Britain is an expression of the pretentious need to react strongly and gravely to something inexplicable and recherché, like how people there will rush to laugh too loudly and badly at easy-to-miss jokes, and claim to be deeply affected by Shakespeare), and it is obvious that any overt “antisemitism” is the defiant demonstration of a lack of care for accusations of it, or the opportunistic use of a self-made slur.

This commitment clearly does not extend to views supporting Palestinian freedom. And yet, Harvard is hardly unique in its hypocrisy. MIT threatened students with suspension for engaging in a sit-in. Twenty Brown University Jewish students were arrested for a sit-in and threatened with a year in prison.

Columbia University’s suspension of both Palestinian and Jewish student groups calling for an end to Israel’s crimes against Palestinians reveals that it is not student safety but support of Israeli policy that is protected on campuses.

I thought it was preposterous and bemusing to accuse a Jew of being complicit with neo-Nazis, but you would never know that it is from what some of these people are saying now.

The genesis of this tide, and the fumbling recommitment of this virtuous bend to societal demands, is of course in the awful testimony that the leaders of these colleges gave in Congress, which they took as humbling and chastising for all the wrong reasons like the bumbling and useless idiots that they are. Colleges could learn a thing or two from Taylor Swift

and Donald Trump (both Teflon-coated figures in the culture wars1), and from Bud Light as a counterexample. The masses can smell fear, and they pile on if they’re encouraged by its scent. The only solution then is to shock them with how ineffectual their pressure is and openly mock them.

It never fails to amaze me how transparently circumlocutionary the responses of industry leaders brought in to testify to Congress are. (Do they not think it’s obvious?

It’s so obvious you could see it and predict their response before they opened their mouth.) The people that they are speaking to are, it ought to be obvious, expert politicians— they’ve dealt with journalists and moderators more than anyone else, they know full well what an evasive non-answer is, and they’ll only be frustrated if you’re stupid and bashful enough to give a less than honest response. (There is always a yes or no answer, even if you might want to follow up with elaboration.) Any sensible person answering questions that hostile in Congress would be as direct and honest as possible, in as simple and cheered a spirit as possible, and stand up for themselves robustly without unnecessary and superfluous courtesy and apology, which mean nothing to a politician and are no substitute for a full-on offensive.

On a not very related note, I never cease to be amazed by how some people continue to analyze present affairs through a 20th-century lens, dated at times by multiple revolutions of change. Did the Sixties think of itself in terms of another era?

Did it look to the past for its own comprehension? Did they study some long-lost past to understand the present? Every phenomenon exists in its own time, belongs to its own time, and has its own answers and solutions. Any reprisals in history are not concrete in manifestation. They do not involve the same beliefs. If they do, that is the stuff of anthropology, not history, and history is what we are concerned with.

1

Update, but of course people think there’s some cover up if you call something a “hush money” scandal, and that’s all they judge your guilt by, by whether it seems you tried to cover it up. I don’t know why I’m still advocating for a 50 IQ nation.

The Generally United States The United States may be one nation, but it is far from a perfect cosmopolis. It formed out of a hodge podge of communities, some growing more or less to the stage of nations, that settled on the new continent, with little intention of becoming one country until fate interceded. Because of the United States’ formation during the peak of the Enlightenment and the arrival of late modernity, no nation has ever been so intellectually masterplanned, in so broad a scope, as the United States; the strangeness of its origins remain visible on a globe, with its land managed in a rectangular grid. It is not a country that has utopian societies; it is a utopian society, if we take the marker of a utopian society to be its idealism.

Instead of being a nation predominated by one ethnicity (though Christian nationalists have the best claim of what it might be if it were), as are other nations (which are, for all their distinctiveness, usually born out of homogeny), the identity of the United States arises out of the fact of its plurality. This is not a complacent, apathetic pluralism, as in the live-and-let-live and mutually tolerating concept of “multiculturalism,” but one that seeks to create a unity that is all the

higher for having to be wrought out of so many parts, and is founded on a basis that promises to be deeper, richer, and ultimately more fulfilling than the methods of nations of yore.

The diversity of its communities (or quarreling “factions”) and its liberty have long had a relationship that sustains each other.

You might never know it simply from their appearance on the national stage, which tends to flatten Americans to alignment on a one-dimensional axis, but every corner of the country has a sense of place so distinctive that it could be described as a psyche. There may be no other country that brings together geographies, origin stories, cultures, and climates so disparate as those of the United States under the umbrella of one federation, with the primary level of sovereignty above that of these distinctions.

This feat is perhaps only heightened by the maintenance of the power of the separate states.

The states in this study are not intended to only be an organizational heuristic, with a distance marking the same difference across a border as within it, as a reductionist who believes only in microstates would expect, but even qualitatives that are created by their own unions.

New England, the Midatlantic, the South, Caribbean, the Heartland, the Rust Belt, the Midwest, the Southwest, the Skyland, the Pacific

New England is the oldest part of America, and not necessarily even in an interesting way; although it is the closest to assimilating the Old World in its density of cultural monuments, it has plenty of working-class suburbs that can seem like stale prototypes or commercial adaptations of what you would find elsewhere in the country.

Its thorough point of distinction is being the most cerebral portion of America’s psyche, less subject to unseasoned passions.

Prominent Boston-area colleges include Harvard (the kind of institution that elementary schoolers aspire to, with the syncretic nature of the flagship of a domain, and a hefty ballast that should not be underestimated), MIT (known for its meritocratic spirit and nerdy wackiness, presently the dream school most often-cited by students), and Boston University (the largest college in the city and therefore able to attract students for reasons similar to NYU). Other concentrations can be found in Massachusetts has the highest Worcester (its most centrally concentration of colleges, in located city) and in the Connecticut particular elite colleges, in the River Valley (with women’s colleges States, and therefore is the most of prestige and Amherst) and the visible college destination to students nationwide and is home to nearby Berkshires (part of the the the highest concentration of college tight-knit and frequently hippy region centered in Vermont, and graduates. Boston has perhaps with Williams, usually ranked with been the city that has been most Amherst as the top LAC). Because reliably prominent throughout the its colleges are so dense, they have history of America to the present developed an ethos of collaboration day, serving with distinction as a that reflect the modality of center of transcendentalism and academia in its truest form. A sign abolitionism. The state is the true blue capital of liberalism, combining of how much higher education is in Massachusetts’ blood is how good its intellectualism with a touch of the public education system, which cosmopolitanism (it turned to the Democratic Party before most New is included in this collaboration, is, despite the competition you might England states, when it was more working-class), producing stalwarts expect it to face. galore, and by its representation of Rhode Island can feel like a the most holistic archetype of the somewhat more insular state than ideology, has given rise to the the rest of New England, as if it had epithet “Massachusetts liberal.” curled up into a quiet lull in this

particular pocket. On an array of indicators, including being ever so slightly more religious, it seems endowed with a pinch more of postliberal particularity, quaintness and eclectism. People from Rhode Island include Roger Williams, Lincoln Chafee and H.P. Lovecraft.

Its Ivy League college in residence, Brown University, has the best-known alternative program of any college, and more importantly given the relatively open curricula in most of the Ivy League, has a reputation for being the weirdest, most relaxed and most fun-loving of the Ivies. Emma Watson is an alum.

have a dressed-down and somewhat aesthete reputation, so much so that it is known as the “Gay Ivy” (not because it is the most homosexual—that might be Brown or Columbia), and it is commonly the college of choice for characters of taste in the fictional media. (It is not alone in this regard—just look at George Will’s spiffy bowtie.) No other American college has been as entrepreunerial as Yale in pioneering or influencing new colleges through either its model or its alumni. With graduates such as William Buckley, Ted Cruz, Ron Desantis, George Bush, and Hillary Clinton, a student body ever so A fully New England state that is slightly more supportive of also in the orbit of New York City, conservative speech than at other Connecticut is very suburban in its elite colleges, and the benefit of sensibilities (uptight—protective), but with an elegant touch (not unlike having Harvard as a distracting other spacious areas outside major target for ire in the culture wars, Yale is an ideal college for making metros). The representation of some power moves, though it is Connecticut in the subconscious is best known for its graduate school a fine, light-slivered expanse of of law. It has a long tradition of grass with a single calcium egg. secret societies, and the Yale Daily People from Connecticut include News formerly wrote and published Nadar, Lieberman and Blumenthal, the Insider’s Guide to Colleges. and it is known for its prep schools Connecticut is the Land of Steady such as Hotchkiss and Choate Habits, and its chosen nickname of Rosemary. Colleges include the Constitution State has a Wesleyan, Trinity and Yale. Long considered Harvard’s foremost rival, resonance beyond its reference to our founding document.

Yale has a special strength in the humanities, a beautiful rare book Most people know Vermont as the library, and a center dedicated to most Democratic state and the “grand strategy.” Students at a Yale place from which they import their

wonderfully chunky ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s has supported campus protests during the current war waged by Israel and ended sales in occupied Palestinian territories).

There is truth to the romance of the green mountains upland of the capitals of the northeast, but it can be oversimplified. Vermont and Maine, the two most northernmost New England states (New Hampshire is concentrated southward), stayed more consistently Republican through the party’s vagaries than any other, voting for the bourgeois rule of the GOP through the Great Depression and Reagan Era, and resisting populist and reactionary tides with impeccability (they began voting for the Democratic Party when it became the keeper of the liberal order with the Clintons). These states are known for their pragmatic streak and plain aesthetic. Vermont in particular is best distinguished by an extremely tight-knit feel that is the source of its history with communes. Vermont native John Dewey, who exemplified its certain austerity and simplicity of sensibility, was the most prominent advocate of the concept of the idea that it takes a village to educate a child. Dartmouth, Vermont and New Hampshire’s Ivy League college, is known for pleading “it may be a small college, but there are some

who love it,” and is the single college most associated with fraternities in the popular imagination (which people seem to like to attach all sorts of implications to, part of a hedonistic phenomenon in which they like to effortfully imagine certain situations across campuses on certain issues against all odds).

There sometimes appears to be a misconception that Dartmouth’s old-school, old-boy feel means that it’s more right-wing than other Ivy League colleges. It is not. It is quintessentially Vermont. Vermont is a conservative state—in the most general sense of being a place of traditions (it’s ancient)—but more often than not that means being staunchly progressive in that slightly crotchety way you would associate with Bernie Sanders or Vermont’s other extremely old, white, male Senators. Vermont shows more than any other state that classic Americana does not necessarily pair with one end of the ideological axis. Its law code states that “the state pie shall be apple pie,” and while in Vermont, you are legally required to make a good faith effort to serve it with a glass of cold milk, a half-ounce of cheddar or a large scoop of vanilla ice cream. It hosts the country’s only private military school, and its residents had the country’s highest casualty rate during the recent War on Terror.

New Hampshire, which is basically the north shore of Massachusetts, is known for its motto of “live free or die.” It is so beloved for its libertarian reputation, sometimes exaggerated, that it was designated as the site of the Free State Project, a scheme in which impatient and frustrated libertarians planned to immigrate to it in large numbers to influence the small swing state. (It is not the most libertarian state by most indicators, though it does not have a minimum wage nor a seatbelt law.) The residents of New Hampshire, who seem demure, have not always taken kindly to these flashy and chaotic new inhabitants.

representation that is considered to be saner, cool-headed and more dependent on negotation. Uniquely among the New England states, it has continued to have Republican representation at the federal level in this era of polarization, resisting an influence campaign funded by national sponsors in 2020. Its storied lineage of moderate and equanimous Republican women extends from Margaret Chase to Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and was preceded by Edmund Muskie. Maine residents identify as independent and non-partisan at high rates, although as with the rest of New England there can be the sense of a fixation on reasoning Maine immediately recalls an idea, because it is an idea. It calls itself “a from presuppositional ethics and state of mind.” This is where Walden principles. The main colleges in Maine for the national audience are went on excursions to clear his its triad of elite liberal arts colleges. mental palate. Its mood board Bowdoin is known for its usually involves a shore, thick progressive traditions. Bates has a conifers, and perhaps a solitary flexible curriculum and an emphasis lighthouse or moose. Maine is best on interdisciplinary and experiential known for its steadfast sense of learning. Colby is the most rural of independence, and although many rural states on the western frontier the colleges, being located in the (TX, AZ, AK, MT) claim their rugged interior instead of on the coasts. independence, rocky and craggy New York is the Empire State. One Maine has an independent streak in supposes that upstate communities the stateliest sense of the word. are the conquered territories in that This is most evidenced in its long analogy. Resting at the confluence tradition of sending what many see of all the major regions of the as strong and courageous delegates northeast, it is governed by a of outsized distinction to the coastal appendix that one imagines Senate, the chamber of sovereign would make for a very reasonable

city-state (if only that border cut from NJ to CT). Spanning saltwater and freshwater regions tied only by a canal, New York is defined by its syncretism, which is perpetually a vexing problem, for it can feel more conglomerative than truly synthetic.

It is not only that it is made up out of multiple regions, but that they have comparable land areas and equal distinctions, apart from NYC. (This has allowed the metro to effectively have the power of a divide and conquer strategy because no one person can represent upstate, despite the fact it has an equal population to downstate.) The best attempt at making a unifying capital for this empire, placing it in Albany, succeeds at being unifying only by satisfying no one.

Another example of the issues faced by New York can be found in its state university system. It is split between four university centers, and lacks a true flagship because every region feels its identity before the state’s. A recent play by the governor to try to fix this issue has predictably only generated controversy with dubious chances of success (only the state of California, with a much larger population and a near monopoly on higher education, has succeeded at having two flagships). Stony Brook probably has the fairest claim to being the top university, with a

president recently tapped to lead Yale and the biggest name in research, but its unglamorous commuter school reputation and its narrow focus on professional STEM fields (it serves the poorest population of the state universities) has made the more usual recipient of the informal laurels Binghamton, which at least is unifying by being in the middle of nowhere and has long had the students with the highest SAT scores (a fact that once caused The Fiske Guide to call it the best public university in the northeast, an area where private colleges have the dominant presence). As for the selection of Buffalo, it is true that it is the most comprehensive university and also a research powerhouse, but a cynic suspects that its pick is political homeage to the governor’s home city.

There may be larger cities, but as the largest city of the world’s only superpower, New Tork City has the best claim to being the capital of planet Earth. Don’t take my word for it—the United Nation’s headquarters are in the city, as was the World Trade Center before 9/11.

Like all great things, New York is a syncresis. This may be its best claim to properly being a part of the state.

The metro, built around the high density of shore created primarily

by Manhattan Island, is located at the point between New England and

the Midatlantic. The spirit of New York is embodied by New York University, which lacks a traditional campus but has a global presence.

Columbia does have a traditional campus, and it requires every student to take a survey of the Western canon, though its ability to replicate the experience of other Ivy League colleges and develop its identity can be diminished by the overpowering bustle of the city.

League to accept women. One of the best assets of Cornell is its location in Ithaca, named after the mythical starting and ending place of the Odyssey (from which we have taken a word that is seldom well defined, but describes an epic undertaking that strives forth through grueling challenges), an artsy town surrounded by a varied and magical terrain most notable for its many lush gorges and waterfalls.

Known for its motto of “any person, New York is the only state that has any study,” not a call to be literally multiple Ivy League colleges, one comprehensive but denoting its downstate and another upstate lack of sectarian impositions and (though this isn’t a fact that’s upon intellectual openness, it is the or a point of pride for most New birthplace of the world’s largest Yorkers because they live in such citizen science project, eBird. The separate worlds). Cornell is in the beautiful Finger Lakes region, which flipside is that Cornell has been relatively resistant to taking sides has a number of sites named after cities in classical Greece. Marking a throughout history. When it has developed strengths in certain stark contrast to Columbia, it was the first major research university to fields, they have tended to be down to earth endeavors compared to the be broadly inclusive. From its status-climbing pursuits at other Ivy founding to over a century later, it League colleges, such as hospitality, was the only college in the Ivy agriculture, and civic engineering.

Of the other colleges in the core of the Finger Lakes region, the only ones I would recommend for out of state students are Ithaca, an art and communication-focused school, and Hobart William Smith in Geneva. Another college that I intended to write about but closed in April 2024 before I had the chance to was Wells College.

BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY: A CASE STUDY Founded in 1946 as part of the college enrollment boom created by the GI Bill and joining the State University soon after as its lone liberal arts college, Harpur College quickly grew into Binghamton University during the 1960s.

Cobbled if not clobbered together out of a sprawling network of schools, SUNY as a whole isn’t exactly known for its burning school spirit, but Binghamton is extra special in just how extremely it can seem to lack the usual draws of a state university. It doesn’t have a large grad population to produce research, it doesn’t have a football team (its basketball program flamed out spectacularly back in 2009, for reasons that also ousted then-president Lois DeFleur), and it isn’t anywhere near what most people would call a major city. It is emphatically in the middle of everywhere and in the middle of nowhere at once, with an awkwardly landlocked location smack dab in the center of the northeast and precisely equidistant between population centers on the shores of the Atlantic and the Great Lakes.

named after the local founder of IBM (not to be confused with the Watson that goes with Crick), or to Johnson, the mostly hum-drum college of business.

The Innovative Technologies Complex focuses on improving the capacities of renewable energy and makes much ado of hosting Stanley Whittingham (the only Nobel Prize winner currently teaching in SUNY). It is easy to transfer from the specialized schools to the general college but not vice versa, and unlike at some other universities, there is no computer science major at the general college (a new Binghamton Codes program was created by a donor in 2020 to remedy this fact and offers a minor in digital and data studies).

The campus of Binghamton is built in the brutalist architectural style—popular during the tract suburbia-producing peak of rapid growth during the late fifties and early sixties and associated with, say, the communism of the Soviet Union—and described as so bleak and depressing that it has been implicated in at least one recent suicide. It is adjacent to a nature preserve, which comprises of Because the residence of Binghamton marshes and woody regrowth and isn’t a major region, most of its students breeds spotted salamanders in its vernal come from downstate, particularly the pools. The city of Binghamton, or “the suburbs of Long Island (despite the Parlor City,” is located along the slow presence of Stony Brook on the Island), bends of the Susquehanna (settlements and they may be more numerous in on alternate bends are dubbed different Harpur. Admissions is easier to Harpur, names) and the gently rolling hills that by far the largest college, than to Watson, spread to the horizon. It is a subdued city the college of computer science, with flat-topped early skyscrapers, an engineering and industrial engineering antique Victorian-era zoo, numerous

hand-painted, creaky carousels from the Jazz Age, and connections to The Twilight Zone, a paranormal TV series. Students can access grocery stores (including Wegmans) and downtown with their student ID card, which gives them free access to student-run and county-run bus services, each with live route maps.

The reputation of public universities as being useless when it comes to advising (although I’m not sure what you would need it for) is said to hold true in Harpur, and a common refrain is that students should go out and get things instead of expecting opportunities to be handed to them if they want to enjoy their experience. Students learn to be thrifty about finding quiet study spots in department buildings and empty classrooms (as at most colleges, locked over weekends and breaks for absolutely no reason unless they were opened earlier that day by a club), though it may help that the third floor of the library is opening from renovations in 2024. The general student newspaper is The Pipe Dream (named in tune with the increasingly disenchanted, fragmented and radicalized mood of the country’s activists following 1968, and probably also with the sometimes disquietingly bleak atmosphere of the campus), but its main forums of discussion are The Binghamton Review, “the last refuge of scholars,” which has a cursory and obligatory mission statement concerning the protection of free speech and conservative ideas that tends to be non-sequitur with the actual

content that follows—mostly memeified Web 2.0-generation humor—and to a lesser extent Happy Medium, a nicely produced if rather thin political science journal that was founded by a recent legal studies major in 2021.

Binghamton has a special if unrecognized strength in thinking in systems, or through the methods of structuralism and critical theory (in which everything is seen as embedded in structures that dictate tendencies of existence, emphasizing the ultimate importance of the niche over the individual actor). The systems science department, though delapitate as far as its application to the social realm goes (it was pigeonholed into an engineering department under controversial circumstances) and operating only at the graduate level these days, is the largest in the country and had a central role in the systems science movement (bit.ly/ss-slides). (The only other American representative of this obscure field that has some element of pure systems science is Portland State, which underwent a parallel development of being founded after WWII and adding the department in the 1970s; variations focusing narrowly on health systems or earth systems are common.) The simultaneously founded (in 1976) Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economics, Historical Systems, and Civilization, named after the Annales school historian who wrote The Mediterranean and the Ancient World in 1933 about geographic and holistic influences on the formation of human

affairs, anticipating the approach of Guns, Germs and Steel that you may be familiar with, drew global attention during its run for its leadership by neoMarxist and grand theorist Immanual Wallerstein (who described evolution as “a mode of stating lawlike propositions”) and for its “unidisciplinary analysis of large-scale social change over long periods of historical time.” This center closed in 2020, and books deasscensioned from its collections were given away over the next few years.

The irony is that the university closed the center with all deliberate speed soon after starting its Transdisciplinary Areas of Excellence program and while pouring money into “collaborative projects that connect faculty across different methodologies… in order to stimulate the advancement of new ideas that can build Binghamton’s expertise and reputation.” (The irony of ironies is that the TAE office is located in the former headquarters of the Fernand Braudel Center.) The neglect of a department built by the president of the International Sociological Association over decades, without any of the recruiting efforts given to such eminently distinctive subjects as “objects” (which “have an undeniable hold on us”), parallels the administration’s long-standing campaign against the (original and true) systems science department, which it exterminated without so much as a word of consultation or notice to its chair, the president of the International Society for Systems Science and an intellectual

celebrity received by royalty and heads of state outside the parochial sphere of the college. Despite being Binghamton’s highest ranked program and explicitly having been established to unite faculty across disciplines, the special potential of the systems science program is neither analyzed nor mentioned in hundreds of pages written by the TAE initiative. In fact, the members of the adminstration have been known to repeatedly, actively and energetically undercut anything that Binghamton could be known for or has ever been known for on an international stage, with a great deal of selfsatisfaction, diligence and anxious meticulousness and to the yieldless praise, affirmation and congratulation of their superiors, possibly because anything unique leads to the lightbulb-lit recognition that it must be incorrect and out of line to a bureaucracy. It is likely that anything that could lead to its advancement would provoke deaths of despair. A telling contrast might be made between how the administration has an obssession with Whittingham, who probably barely interacts with students, and how it gave so little publicity to seminars taught by Walden Bello (the activist who was credited by The Economist for coining “deglobalization,” ran on a Chomsky-endorsed presidential ticket in 2022, and has been honored as his country’s most distinguished human rights defender by Amnesty International) that they went virtually unattended until his retirement to deal with his globally denounced arrest by the federal government in 2024.

Binghamton’s first of its kind (and completely ignored and woefully underbuilt) EVOS program, pointedly named evolutionary studies rather than evolutionary biology, has sought to emphasize the applicability of evolutionary theory to all fields and disciplines, including human affairs (for example, through evolutionary psychology, which has been and continues to be increasingly influential in the 21st century as a different tack from which to approach moral and social issues than traditional philosophy), and was founded in 2003 by David Sloan Wilson, known as the leading proponent of the theory of group selection as well as of its application to promoting human affairs (on the opposite side of the debate, which is fundamentally a philosophical rather than empirical controversy couched on the irreducibly metaphysical contestations of the emergentist vs reductionist debate, is the individual selection camp led by Richard Dawkins of Oxford). A 2008 article noted that “At first the program began with 15 core faculty who were using evolutionary theories already. There are now more than 60 faculty members at BU alone who are part of the EvoS program and possess evolutionary expertise. They are from a variety of different departments including history, engineering and management”; a 2016 article by a student promoting the program claimed that evolutionary studies “can be applied to law, marketing, psychology and more” because “fundamentally, evolution is the study of change... once you start to

recognize the patterns, you can apply them to practically everything”.

(Needless to say, this is not a transdisciplinary area of excellence.)

Binghamton also offers a long-running course on fairy tales and archetypes. An alum of its comparative literature program advised by Wilson went on to write The Storytelling Paradox (bit.ly/chronicle-gottschall, although it was evidently insufficiently radical to anticipate and neutralize the reaction by neoliberals, bit.ly/snyder-gottschall, bit.ly/gottschall-snyder).

Binghamton’s German and Russian department jointly houses its German studies program (strangely robust for a location not known for having a German population) with SUNY’s only Russian studies program, recognizing the paraWestern nature of these countries, which hosted the two major strains of totalitarianism in the 20th century and challenged the universally integrative claims of the West (Russia in an obvious way, Germany because of its counterEnlightenment and romantic streak, its ties to Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and the Frankfurt School, more recognizably referred to as the school of critical theory or even more viscerally as talk about “the System,” and its particularly organic and biologically focused totalitarianism, natural for a country known for its coarse-grained integration). These are complemented by the Center for Israel Studies, which focuses to a large degree on the IsraeliPalestinian conflict and offers

undergraduate minors in Israeli and Judaic studies, and the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, which trains students to recognize the signs of and risk factors for genocide and offers an undergraduate minor.

Binghamton’s hoary Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter is trained in the classical Marxist literature and the critical tradition, and its debate society is top-performing (albeit in a controversial and nontraditional league, as covered by The Atlantic). Also of note is its anthropology program, including biological, linguistic, sociocultural and global studies specializations (somewhat less formally including studies in the anthropology of college dysfunction), which produced Integral Europe, investigating the prototypes of the neoright and proposing their basis in the idea of “integralism,” back in 2001. Other more prominent programs include geography, psychology, economics, political science and Korean studies.

Alumni from Binghamton have included the aforementioned Jonathan Gottschall, also the author of The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and We Like to Watch (“the leading younger figure in literature and evolution” and “our deepest thinker about the powerful role of stories in our lives”), Camile Paglia, the author of surprise bestseller Sexual Personae, which as in Gottschall’s works preferred to root sex differences in biology and question traditional perspectives (“criticizing feminists for sentimentality or wishful thinking”), and

Deborah Tannen, the author of You Just Don’t Understand about communication differences (“perpetuating negative stereotypes of women and excusing men their interactive failings”), who have generally sought to examine literature and psychology through a lens informed by more than dictated by biological prejudices. Norman Finklestein is another academic alum who is steeped in controversy, described as “America’s most divisive Israel-Palestine scholar” by the New Yorker in 2023. Alum Susan Hughes is the current director of the evolutionary studies program and chair of the psychology department at Albright (which has featured the gen ed presentation “The fragile sex: Understanding excess mortality in an evolutionary framework”). Alum David Barash was one of the first sociobiologists (before sociology or evolutionary psychology were recognized fields—his career was as a professor of psychology at the University of Washington) and has written about “how biology affects behavior, including male female differences, reproductive strategies, and the troubling problem of violence in living things generally,” as well as writing a book about evolutionary psychology and nuclear war (which influenced Gorbachev when he first took leadership of the Soviet Union) and the first textbook on peace studies (most recently revised in 2021), and being possibly the most widely cited reviewer of bookstore literature on evolutionary biology. The 1962 graduate has stated

that “We feel strongly that people need to understand the roots of their own behavior, specifically how biology whispers within all of us... we argue that in many ways people are being most human when they decide to act contrary to their inclinations... there is a definite genetic influence on many aspects of our behavior, especially when it comes to sex, violence, parenting, even tendencies for altruism and selfishness. The more we understand that influence, the more free we are to chart our own course.”

horribly; I can only assume that the progressives were obliged to vote for him for demographic reasons). Amy Dacey served as the CEO of the Democratic National Committee until being booted after the notorious 2016 leaks revealed interference in the primaries, and is now director of American University’s Institute of Politics.

Jon Lizak, a recent alum who in addition to making national news by suing Binghamton University, served as president of the New York College Republicans and attempted to create an Binghamton has produced ridiculously alt right presence at Binghamton wholesome pop singers, such as Ingrid Michaelson (“Girls chase boys”) and Andy (because “libertarians are so cringe Grammar (“Honey, I’m good”), who write lmao”), was charged ($10) in 2023 for participating in Jan. 6. about themes of sanguine selfaffirmation and understated resilience, In the brief conclusion of this study, probably because it takes a certain kind basing hiring and funding decisions on of stomach and spirit to appreciate its transdisciplinary areas of excellence isn’t not outwardly enthralling setting. (The a bad idea, but if an institution’s area of will to be positive from a plainitive point excellence is what it has a natural of departure is especially evident in their aptitude for as a result of its peculiar breakthrough songs, “The way I am” and combination of factors and inheritances, “Keep your head up.”) The campus also Binghamton is off-track. Any attempt to has an annual battle of the bands, which divert an institution from its natural is very occasionally productive (one course of tendency can be sustained performance on a fitting theme was only with constant expenditure and yield bit.ly/iwillsurvive-bing). Hakeem Jeffries, unreplicated returns. If it wanted to make who was a political science major at a name for itself, it could start by giving Binghamton and has credited his election resources to areas where it has had to the leadership of its chapter of Kappa demonstrated success, including at the Alpha Si (a black fraternity well undergraduate level that is the heart and represented in politics) for setting the soul of any college, instead of stage of his career, became the first desperately quashing anything that person of color to lead a party in manages to develop, or paradoxically Congress following the retirement of disregarding it because it’s too unique to Nancy Pelosi in 2023 (and is doing be recognized in other colleges. ⏹

Compared to Keuka, Wells was a less expensive institution with better reviews and majors that required two internships, had take-home exams, and offered cross-enrollment with Cornell and Ithaca, so this was probably a publicity issue. The more fertile bohemian region of the candid state is the Hudson River valley next to Vermont. Vassar, Bard, Sarah Lawrence and Skidmore are known for their interdisciplinary, openminded curriculums, and compared to other progressive colleges, seem to exist in a more expansively cosmopolitan sphere because of their location upstream of New York City. They attract more female applicants, are known for their creative talents, and have artsy alumni that give them a place in our popular culture. Bard and Sarah Lawrence are the alternative and indie-oriented colleges to the flagship of Vassar, eliciting epithets from locals (the hippies at Bard are called “fairies of the forest,” one student notes, and not in a positive way). Bard exemplifies the colleges’ juxtaposition of an urbane feel and global mindset with campuses in wildered hamlets. It occupies an ethereal space, a netherland that can be reminiscent of the transnational, glass bridge-walking stereotype of the Jew, and it has a penchant for attracting funders that are the subject of conspiracy theories.

The city of Syracuse, on the last of the Finger Lakes and named after the Sparta-aligned city-state, is home to Syracuse University, which provides the typical experience of a flagship state university better than any SUNY (it is similar in size and selectivity, has more majors, and can be lower in cost for middle class families since public colleges engage in less income distribution). Founded along with Cornell, it was coeducational and integrated from its beginnings, and enrolled equal numbers of men and women throughout the 19th century. Today it is well known for its sports teams (“the Orange”) and has the reputation of being a more socially liberated party school (if we want to charitably tie the past to the present day, though this is an image it seeks to moderate) that attracts more outgoing students. Alumni include The Chainsmokers (“#Selfie”), Megyn Kelly, Joyce Carol Oates, Kathy Hochul and Joe Biden. Further west on the lakeshore plains, the University of Rochester is a small and personal research university oriented toward STEM, business, quantitative social science and music that has an open curriculum. It became coed as a result of advocacy by local resident Susan B. Anthony.

Alumni of the more selective college include Richard Thaler, Larry Kudlow, Steven Chu and Josh Shapiro.

Pennsylvania has a homely and work-hard, play-hard ethos. Its character of earnesty is rooted in its founding as Penn’s Woods by the Quakers (named as they are for how they quaked in sentiment) and the establishment of the largest city of colonial America, Philadelphia (“the city of brother love”), where Benjamin Franklin, the enthusiastic scientist and senior counsel, made his home. Pennsylvania colleges are marked intangibly by a sense of innocence, a hard-driving spirit, and holistic attention to social life. Penn State attracts out-of-state students with its enviable school spirit (which survives being the butt of the occasional joke about UPenn), as does Pittsburgh, and in the valleys of the Appalachians we find smaller colleges with an equally tight-knit camarederie. Bucknell and Lehigh, Pennsylvania’s representatives of the preppy LAC category, are known for their Greek life and have a relatively applied orientation, with business and engineering programs.

and a stiff tendency to easily get ruffled by perceived slights. While they share part of their orientation with an arm of the Rest Belt on Erie and Ontario, their conscientous concern is an accentuation of a tendency found across PA. The Quaker Consortium LACs of Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr are all-business with their studies and are known as some of the most intellectually rigorous colleges in the nation. The NW has a plainer affect familiar to those from the area of the Great Lakes, while the SE has the serenity associated with the cultivated country adjacent to the cosmopolitan coast. Among the other choices are Gettysburg, Lafayette and Franklin & Marshall.

The Philadelphia area and the nearby Lehigh Valley region, centered on Allentown, have the oldest sense of time among our metros, with bustling streets through old masonry, quaint names and the Liberty Bell. Its cities, while full of crowds rattling down long streets Colleges in western Pennsylvania, with towering buildings, can have a where the earnesty takes the form of layer of hush—the hush of age and an earnesty of effort and intent (as in cobblestone—to the shrieking places more tied to the land), have an modernity to be found further north, ornery streak, concerned with doing and the Old Order Amish still ride things right on their side of the street horse-driven carriages on its country and doing right by the students roads. Whereas the landscape of tasked to them. This can manifest in New York provided connections a certain fastiduousness and rigor in westward with rivers that spilled into their studies, a stoutness of spirit the lakeshore plains, Pennsylvania’s

population has nestled into the many narrow north to south valleys that retard expansion like a thick mist.

The state as a whole, solidly in the northeast and the easternmost of the traditionally narrowly Democratic “blue wall” that Trump won in 2016, is known for its focus on humble working-class politics. It has strong labor unions but lacks a minimum wage (even its cities aren’t allowed to increase it). The Democratic-leaning state, which Joe Biden touts his ties to, currently has the most pro-Israel Democratic governor and senator.

Consistent with the reputation of its state schools, the University of Pennsylvania is often considered to have the best party life in the Ivy League. Both the Trump family and the Biden family have strong ties to the school. It is reknown for its graduate school of business, Wharton, and economics, finance, and nursing are relatively popular at the undergraduate level. It has more billionaires among its undergraduate alumni than any other college.

Students can enroll in courses at any of the undergraduate or graduate schools (even Wharton), though only a few from outside their college can count toward their degree. It faced a pro-Israel backlash beginning before Oct 7. Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh has strong programs in fields of practice such as computer science, engineering, design and drama.

Many people doubt whether New Jersey has an identity. As the only state located squarely in the Midatlantic, it occupies the commute between two major metros and looks suspiciously like the portion left over after their respective states made their claims. If Iowa is flyover country, New Jersey has the indignity of being “impatiently waiting to get to NYC or Philly in rush hour traffic” country, and its “Garden State” moniker speaks to its exurban feel and its cultivation. The déjà vu that the names of some of its colleges give, however, speaks to its role in the American subconscious, and unlike what you might expect from such a cosmopolitan state, it can retain an old sense of time fitting its origins, especially in the slower pace of life in the south of the state, with woods and shores. The best known college in New Jersey is undoubtedly Princeton, known as the most collegiate and scholarly of the Ivies and with the highest endowment.

Delaware is one of the least known states, though its regal homes and beaches with horseshoe crabs and red knots hold some charm. It depends on other states for entertainment and news, and its biggest claim to fame (and stream of income) may be the tourists and corporations who don’t even reside in the state. This non-identity was represented by Joe Bauers, er, Biden.

Maryland, best known for the Chesapeake (sailing and crabs), has an exceptionally basic (if rich) feel, so it makes sense that it was founded in an inversion of the history of most states, by Catholics fleeing the Protestant hegemony in England.

Despite Baltimore’s reputation and its large minority population, Maryland has the highest median income of any state and one of the lowest poverty rates due to having a professional economy next to if not including the capital, on a similar pattern to New Jersey, and has a tendency to elect very pat, blah politicians, again like New Jersey. The District of Columbia (the sovereign district of the federal government necessitated by the distinctiveness of the states) has few colleges nearby apart from American University, which is on the expensive side, and Georgetown, one of the top feeders into the federal government.

(Ironically, DC residents cannot partake in federal politics.)

Virginia was the wealthiest and largest state in colonial America, and it had a leading role in declaring independence from Britain and founding the new country, providing four of its first five presidents. It was again the largest of the states in the Confederacy when independence was declared, with its capital serving as the capital of the new country, and as a state bordering the Union, it saw many of the war’s major conflicts. It might or might not be part of the greater Northeast, but it is definitely part of the South with its historical dependence on exploitable and landed natural resources (which tends to breed a greater system of inherited class and reduce incentives for qualitative development). It has a personality of manicured suburban respectability, including in areas near the capital such as Alexandria, that has favored politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Glenn Youngkin.

Virginia has been a stronghold for sex-segregated education, and its single-sex colleges seldom go down The Piedmont is the primary and as quietly as they do in other states. oldest range of civilization in the US and is also known as the East Coast. The public education system is strong, with colleges established in It has cosmopolitan, which is to say the colonial era, like the University of socially developed and culturally Virginia and William & Mary, as well exposed sensibilities (its residents as more recent ones like George are more likely to adopt situational Mason and James Madison. Virginia views), even where it is conservative, and it tends to be more educated, Tech is well known in the panhandle.

Washington & Lee may be the most including when it comes to its more genteel college in the United States.

Southern members like VA and NC.

North Carolina, while nestled unassumingly between Virginia and South Carolina, has a bit of a libertarian streak that originates from its colonial days, when it tended to become the resting place of Virginia’s discontents (the analogous respository for Massachusetts would be Rhode Island). Duke is the most prestigious college in the South (it can be considered to be a regional equivalent to the Ivy League as UChicago is to the Midwest and Stanford is to the West), best known for STEM, including biomedical engineering and environmental science, and for its school spirit at athletic events. North Carolina’s flagship public, UNC, is the third highest-ranking. Wake Forest is a small, professionally-oriented research university best known for business. Davidson has a general focus. The western portion of the state includes the Great Smokies, known for its art community. The region was the home of Black Mountain, a pioneering progressive college, in the mid-20th century.

South Carolina is undoubtedly the dark underchild of the United States, from leading the call for secession during the leadup to the Civil War to repeatedly electing Lindsey Graham and Nancy Mace in the present. The conservative state saved Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020 and was, not unrelatedly, made the first state in

the Democratic primary in 2024, cementing its influence over the future direction of the party (Iowa remains the first state in the Republican primary). (This is an ideal situation for reasons that must go unmentioned.) South Carolina governor Nikki Haley was Trump’s foremost challenger during the 2024 Republican primary, receiving the most support on the basis of her neoliberal foreign policy.

Charleston, where the Civil War (technically only the second) began.

The South (the region between the Ohio and the Mississippi or sometimes further west), and in particular the Deep South (SC, GA, AL, MS, LA), has a lower socioeconomic development index than the rest of the US but has a more rapidly growing population and economy than old hubs in the northeast. The Sun Belt, the Bible Belt, and the Black Belt describe its various characteristics. Compared to the rest of the country, it is less Catholic and more Baptist.

Georgia is the largest Eastern state and the home of Atlanta, the uninspired capital of the South that emerged after the war. It has a rotundly Southern character and is known for being the setting of Gone with the Wind, which is best known for romanticizing the antebellum South. Emory is its most elite college and best known for the health sciences. Alabama is probably the most Southern state, if we go by how stridently states advocated segregation in the 1960s and how ruby red Republican they are today (see Roy Moore, Kay Ivey and Tommy Tuberville), and can have a cozier feel. As elsewhere in the South, college football is big in Alabama, especially at its large state universities. [[To Kill a Mockingbird, the inexplicably critically acclaimed novel interspersed with random unrelated anecdotes of apparently only informational nonfiction value and culminating with a grandiose speech that has its climax in a fact about left-handedness that, again, would have informational nonfiction value in a real case but doesn’t make any moral statement whatsoever, and adds in an atrociously botched interpretation of “all men are created equal” in its obligatory quote of a classical author for rhetorical effect, and has jaw-dropping scenes where black people are overbowled with gratefulness and stack gifts on the

doorstep after the lawyer gravely observes and sighs that he couldn’t do any more in the case, and then concludes by noting that the paragon of virtue is someone so deprived of worldly desire that they shut themselves in their house and never do anything apart from the occasional whimper or whisper, and by endowing this mystifying lesson upon a young and impressionable child in the most obnoxious possible “you’ll understand when you’re older” manner, is its best known novel (though it’s not Alabama’s fault that it’s popular).]] Mississippi is the poorest state, in part because it is located in the fertile delta of the Mississippi river and has the largest free black population today.

Louisiana is known for being a more colorful state with a distinctive cuisine, in New Orleans as well as across its more northern cities, and a history of hard populist politics.

Tennessee, one of the states west of the Cumberland Gap, is known for its contributions to music, including in Nashville, the capital of country music and the site of the Grand Ole Opry, and Memphis, where Elvis’s Graceland stands today. Davy Crockett is a widely known historical figure, and Jack Daniel whiskey is the most prominent export. Like other states in the upper South, it has a tradition of sometimes sending more genteel figures to the Senate.

Kentucky can be home to a clichéd sort of Americana, and Lousiville, on the Ohio River, is known for its bluegrass (ideal for raising horses), derbies (attended with seersucker attire), and baseball (students compete as the Cardinals, and the Louisville Slugger is a famous export). Like Virginia to its east, Kentucky was liminal territory and a hotspot for controversy during the 19th century, which could on occasion be heightened by a class-conscious, well-groomed ethos, and further stiffen the facilitative qualities of such a chivalric code. Independence was such a contentious issue in Kentucky that its uplands became indigenously Republican and retained this affiliation as a distinguishing mark of its identity from the lowlands (even as uplands in neighboring states more sensibly voted Democratic), while the Democratic Party has retained strong registration numbers in its lowlands long past its point of relevance in a sort of archeological memory, embedded in materials more than in its direct recollection.

The rust belt, otherwise known as the Great Lakes region, is plain jane America, perhaps the point of its most general confluence. The core rust belt, a relatively small area centered at the intersection of MI, IN and OH, is known for its historical manufacturing industry, particularly its automobile production, and have a small-town feel created by their relatively dense rurality. Its colleges reflect the wisdom and friendliness of age, and conflict resolution is a common major in this region of synthesis (there may be other regions of the country that have been torn North and South, but it takes three to force more than a quantitative gradation and make a complex system, and this region opens to the plains of the West).

Ohio has become known for being the core of Trump country, but it has a large number of distinguished and progressive colleges because it was being settled during the first ascension. The Connecticut Western Reserve, around what is now Cleveland metropolitan area, was the most intensely antislavery area of West Virginia split clean from the country, and frequently a second Virginia during the Civil War, and as a staging ground for migration from result became a Democratic state western New York. Its colleges today dominated by coal labor unions. It include Oberlin, Hiram and Baldwin saw the sharpest swing of any state Wallace. Yellow Springs, home to in 2016. It continues to decline in Antioch, is a “hippy enclave.” Many population as anyone with the means colleges in Ohio saw significant and good sense leaves the state. unrest during the 1960s as well.

Michigan is primarily the portion of the rust belt around the bends of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan (although its ownership of the Peninsula, in a twist of fate, has only made WI and MI more consistent swing states). Like Ohio, it was settled during the mid-19th century.

Its colleges can have a slightly more stately and baronial feel and make social outreach a concern. Michigan is sometimes known for having more decrepit cities (Detroit and Flint), and rap is one of its exports. Michigan rap has been said to have “an underdog spirit.” (Eminem has such a cult following around his hardcore lyricism that one of his videos gave rise to the term “stanning.”) Its more Republican suburbs include Hillsdale College and have given rise to the Devos family. Michigan is well known for its public colleges, including Michigan State and UMichigan-Ann Arbor. Along with Ohio State, Michigan is part of the Big 10, the center of big-time college sports for most of the nation.

The Midwest, the settlements of the western edge of the well-watered East before it gives way to the barely inhabited, arid expanse in the rain shadow of the Rockies in a discontinuity that stretches until the coast, is the most hegemonic region of the United States on ethnic and overall demographic terms. Its tightknit nature creates a reputation for “Midwest nice.” (This can be thought of as the opposite of “New York City rude.”) The high social stability of this region can be reminiscent of the northeast but is separated from it by the rust belt. Nowhere is it more evident than in Minnesota, the closest we have to a New Sweden (the model minority of Europe with strong welfare systems, which Trump has, aptly, noted would not sell in the diverse United States). A “Minnesota white” phenomenon was, in the view of some, in evidence with the George Floyd protests, which anticlimatically culminated with a ballot measure reforming the police being voted down by the city’s Indiana is the fraternity state and the minority districts. engineering state (it can also be Other states in the northern Midwest known for basketball). Rose-Hulman include Wisconsin, Iowa, North is the highest-ranking undergradDakota and South Dakota. uate engineering college, and its Climatically, the northern Midwest is public flagship Purdue is known for the coldest region of the US, behind engineering as well. Compared to the only rural parts of Alaska. It has a northeast, they do not make as much libertarian streak, with the Tea Party of an effort to gender-balance their being born in Wisconsin. Civic programs. Wabash is a men’s college. participation is high, with Minnesota

having the highest voting rate of any state. Iowa, which is distinct from other Plains states in having a higher and more community-developing population density due to its lusher pastures (it is between MN and MO), is the home base of the stereotypical image of corn fields and blue overalls and people named Johnson (and that’s corn, not wheat, for you). This is why it has traditionally been the state that has the first say in choosing each party’s candidates for president. Wisconsin similarly has a certain farmhouse image, in this case a red barn and Holstein cows feeding in meadows (and making lots and lots of milk and cheese). Of course, much of this small-farm idyll has been overtaken by larger agribusinesses in the present day.

Wisconsinites are also known for being alcoholics (why cold areas drink so much alcohol, which only makes you colder, is beyond me).

Wisconsin is a swingier state than blue-leaning Minnesota and Michigan, not only being a locus of the Tea Party movement but having a deep history of progressive politics, or even socialism when it comes to Milwaukee. Elections are usually nail-biting photo finishes. The 2020 Democratic National Convention was held in Milwaukee, its largest city, and the 2024 Republican National Convention will be held in Milwaukee (the DNC chose neighboring and yet larger Chicago).

Illinois is known for the politicians who have had their start in the state, including Lincoln, Reagan, and Obama, and who are known for their oratory prowess and eloquence.

While Indiana is the birthplace of vice presidents (who can be bud and chummy), Illinois produces leaders more often than sidekicks. Most people know the state for Chicago, the largest city of the Midwest. While Western Wisconsin and nearby parts Chicago is a major city in its own of Iowa and Minnesota are part of right, its location en route to the the Driftless Area, which is the hilly West gives it a “romance of the train region of the Midwest that can be a station” feel. The “Windy City” is a bit more hippy. Madison, Wisconsin reference to its frontier location, is on its periphery and is the emptying to the dry and open plains, progressive state capital, in addition and the sense of passage that to being a beautiful city, represented haunts its towers. Illinois colleges are

by Mark Pocan (the chair of the known for their focus on praxis, what House LGBT caucus and one of the colleges call high-impact learning very atheistic Congressmen). There experiences, such as research and are no viable colleges in this region internships. A Long Way from for most out-of-state students.

Chicago is an award-winning book.

The Midwest as a whole is underrated as a college destination, with elite colleges having acceptance rates north of 50% whereas below 50% is the norm for mediocre colleges in the northeast, but the southern Midwest is prime college territory. Encompassing MO and parts of IL and KS, they combine the characteristics of the Midwest with the nurturing focus of the South. Aviation is Missouri, located along the transient Mississippi, can sometimes have a loose reputation (an inspiration for Mark Twain’s writings), and colleges in this area are overall considered more lax and laid-back in their studies. Kansas, the most southerly of the core Plains states, was settled by impassioned free-staters and slave-staters who founded several towns and was the site of many skirmishes.

Texas was founded as a country before being admitted to the union.

A unique synthesis of the drawling South and wide-open West, it has the largest cities on the frontier and a booming population. “Texas-sized” is used as a phrase not only by the rest of the country but by foreigners, for whom it epitomizes the image of loud, brash Americans. To this day, it calls itself the Lone Star state, and Texans feel confident enough to support independence from the union at higher rates than residents of most states. Not surprisingly, Texas is better at making large colleges, known for their school spirit and social life, than smaller liberal arts colleges, which can seem to be somewhat ill-administered or with a bit of slack in this dusty and anarchic expanse compared to their tidy New England counterparts.

The largest city in Texas is Houston, on the Gulf Coast. Rice University is one of the newest elite universities and has distinctive architecture.

Kansas City, Missouri

Missouri and Arkansas, which share the Ozarks (slightly more cowboy than the Appalachians), have their own distinctive form of Americana.

Rice University

The other main cities in Texas lie along the edge of the Edwards Plateau, with a landscape of jupiter and mesquite. Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio are the main centers of population. Austin is the most hippy city of Texas and is known as an up-and-coming tech hub behind only Silicon Valley in prominence, benefiting from the reputation of the more libertarian regime of Texas and its thriving economy as compared to the oftharped issues of the “Far Left Coast.”

waterfront location. Florida occasionally goes viral for what is known as “the Florida Man phenomenon” as one of the most hedonistic and flippant of the states.

Statistics on Pentecostalism and, more recently, on QAnon (its deity has made the traditional migration from New York to Florida) are a source of objective support for the intuition that it can have a higher population of crazies, though much of it is too busy sunbathing to be woke (or much of anything else). Like in other heavyweight states like NY, Florida is not part of the South proper, with a wide variety of people TX and CA, which have populations and resources comparable to attracted to the subtropical state, European nations, its governors and and is densely developed with tract attorneys have become generals and suburbia. The traditional state for lieutenants in culture wars in recent retirement (and for spring vacation years. The state (formerly notorious among college students), Florida is known for its beautiful beaches (with for handing the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 in an peak shelling in the west and peak election so rife with controversy it snorkeling in the east) and its gave rise to the “blue state” and “red sunshine. The Everglades is the state” monikers) has shifted right in largest wetland in North America. the Trump era, aided in part by its Miami is a glitzy city sometimes more affluent Caribbean immigrants. known as “the capital of Latin America” because of its heavy Latin The Florida Democratic Party is influence. The University of Miami is known for its incompetence and for being a bit happy-go-lucky, possibly a large, private, selective university because it’s dominated by that provides an alternative to state northeastern retiree types shaking schools for out-of-staters and has alumni such as Marco Rubio, Burgess their fist at the TV in nursing homes, Owens, Enrique Iglesias and Dwayne but Florida is also known for becoming the starting place of the Johnson. The College of the Florida first youth-led movement in the age Keys is affordable for out-of-state students, and Eckerd is known for its of social media, which even inspired

Greta Thunberg, in the late 2010s.

Many of its controversies continue to percolate, with 2024 and 2026 up for grabs. Carl Hiassen’s books, including Hoot and Flush, are among the most prominent representations of Florida in the young adult media.

organizations. The percentage can be as high as nearly 90% in places like Nevada. There are, accordingly, few options available for out-of-state students apart from religious colleges that face less competition from the well-established public systems. A degree of liberation from time-worn institutions can result in situations like the one in California, which is (in)famous for passing regulations; a situation that can breed anarchy can also be a vacuum for more policies more radically unbound from the restraint of tradition going beyond technical law.

The far West (or the region beyond the Midwest and the Texan South) is known for its libertarian ethos. It is the least religious region of the country and known for its dramatic, and dramatically varying, landscape.

A traveler heading westward, as so Miami is known for its nightlife and its many Americans did in a historic soaring skyscrapers right next to the pilgrimage, would find that the beach. The subtropical clime marks one landscape appropriately follows the extreme end of the union, with Alaska on structure of a story. The going the other. becomes lonelier than ever at the The far West was settled anew when spartan, arid foot of the slowly rising the country was at a later stage of Rockies, and their massive peaks development, creating a situation in mark the late climax of the passage. which public institutions could easily Over the ridge of the mighty Rockies, and quickly spread on a blank slate, America finds its Zion: silent and but that is something coarser and whispering redwoods, dry and sun more volatile than institutionalism dappled palms. Cloaked in mysticism, proper. Half of the land is federally still inchoate and ill-formed, the West owned, not managed by the states, of the West of the West unfolds. much less by private individuals or

Usage notes The context of this book This book is written at a time of unprecedented change in the American landscape of higher education. Colleges are facing greater challenges and pressures on multiple fronts than at any time since they first came to be what they are today, a default station in life for the general populace. In addition to the rise of widespread criticism of colleges on the grounds of their costs and their intellectual climates since the 2010s, they have become the focus of controversies around affirmative action and campus activism in the 2020s.

Exacerbating these pressures is the decline in the population of available students. At the time of writing in 2024, colleges are now closing at a rate of one a week, up from two a month the year before. They now look with foreboding to a legacy of the Great Recession—the Great Demographic Cliff coming in the fall of 2025 (the focus of this book), which will especially impact small, private colleges (also the focus of this book).

The American landscape of higher education is exceptional for the diversity of its institutions. For comparison, Canada lacks a single private, nonprofit college of secular focus. (It tried to create one, modestly innovative with a lot of fanfare about its exotic class sizes, in 2005. It then failed.) Colleges are communities, the most intentional communities that human society may currently have, demonstrating a tighter form of nationalism than most nations or towns, though they may only serve people for four years. When their histories and traditions die, nothing less than the cultural diversity and collective heritage of America is at stake. On a practical note,

distinct colleges that are not beholden to the same interests and do not use the same methods enable us to develop diverse leaders and thinkers. They can thus be a valuable asset to the future vitality of the country. Colleges should not be saved for the simple sake of doing so, but sometimes they die for a lack of exposure and for being too unique for their local area, rather than for being too similar to other colleges.

This book documents the array of boutique American colleges in a sort of Photo Ark. Beyond its value as a snapshot in 2024 with the annotations of a contemporary observer, it is my hope that it will aid the sustenance of what it documents.

When the outlooks of people become universal rather than parochial, and institutions can draw from larger systems, the result is not, perhaps paradoxically, genericization. Rather, the result is that proportionally smaller cross-sections of the population become vast enough to form the majority of institutions and sponsor representative institutions of their own. The result, that is, is differentation. (This is a fact that, apart from college admissions, has applications to electoral theory and, more importantly, to the stage of descension in historical theory.) This is important, because for all the potential that American in particular has, the institution of higher education can be remarkably uninnovative because of the singlethink created by academia’s system of recursive credentialization and legitimization. Given the breadth of their goal of preparing young people for the world, their innovations could surely be much bolder, and span larger domains, than the fiddling that colleges are accustomed to. If anything, I believe the ultimate goal should be for colleges to transform so much that they cannot even be called colleges. Institutions, perhaps. Communities, definitely.

Applications First of all, I am aware that this book gets odd at points, and has inconstencies in its content and formatting due to the timeline over which it had to be made. This will all be streamlined in future editions. The raw ideas behind this book are full of potential, I hope you will agree. Its innovations are manifold. The physical dimensions of this book in width and depth, first of all, give it a cute, fat book profile that is different from the telephone books of other guides, and is ideal for the casual and lightly curious reader perusing type-specimens. Its detailing has sought to make it appealing to more readers, with large sans serif font and relatively short sections. Most importantly, this book has attempted what no other college guide of its scope has done, which is to have a narrative.

Alphabetic ordering is fine for a reference book—looking up more information on colleges you are already interested in— but the form of a narrative draws you naturally to points of interest and is ideal for discovering new colleges. Implicit subdivision is used to demarcate what may be hotspots of interest without harsh boundaries, and varying profile lengths (standard, full-spread, full-spread-plus, and bite-sized) are used to allow the reader to intuitively gauge the relative importance of different profiles. Meanwhile, consistent profile photos, strategically placed to give the introductory sentences to their right short and easily digestible line lengths, allow interesting colleges to catch the reader’s eye, and the short headers of essential stats (possibly from The Sibley Guide) allow them to assess their viability. This college guide is much more than mere text. More than any other, it is a multidimensional, multimedia, and multigenre work.

I believe that there is much potential for this guide to be of social benefit. If you would like to buy copies in bulk for your school, for a local district, or even a local area (you could make a historical impact, perhaps change the life trajectories of an entire generation in a country-sized region, for the price of endowing a single room or scholarship), please know that I am willing to make alternate editions, whether to streamline the book (removing you-know-what) or to customize it to a certain region, end, goal, or demographic. It is also possible to add a custom message in the front flap of the book (such as a dedication in the memory of someone or a QR code for leaving messages). I would be interested in conducting a study to see how donating a book changes the outcomes of a cohort (where they eventually matriculate and whether college-going rates change), using The Fiske Guide as an ethical control.

If I did not include your college and would like it to be considered, please note that there are some I forgot about until it was too late and others that did not fit into this rendition of the book but intend to include in future editions. I know I did not do every college justice, and I am willing to visit colleges on invitation. I can provide consulting and marketing services if you need someone of a more creative fiber. (At this time, The Albus Guide is not running ads.) If you are a publication interested in writing services, or a parent or student interested in tutoring or advising (I have a 1550+ SAT score and years of experience), please reach out. Also, it turns out I accidentally withdrew from too many classes to be eligible for financial aid (if you drop a class late in the semester it counts as a withdrawal, even if you’d only joined an hour ago), which rules out the possibility of returning next year, so that’s the end of college for me. This guide better work out.