Colleges with very smart and successful students but relatively few DCUM competitive a**hole types

[Anonymous]

Michigan

[Anonymous]

Wake forest

[Anonymous]

University of Delaware

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's say you've got the credentials to be a viable candidate for HYPS and other extremely selective colleges but you also want to avoid spending four years with the types of super competitive a**holes who sometimes dominate the conversations on DCUM. You have decided to cross HYPS off of your list for this reason (even though you know there are plenty of nice people who go to those places). What should your top choices be? Obviously you probably won't get into HYPS anyway, since they are highly selective and reject thousands of people with credentials just like yours, but that isn't the point. The point is that you actually think you would prefer to go to a college other than HYPS with a more pleasant social environment and nicer students. Please don't respond by saying you or your kid went to HYPS and loved it, found the students to be friendly, etc. Obviously some people love those places. I'm trying to identify other college student bodies that are more or less comparable in terms of brain power but are more mutually supportive and, well, "collegial." Helpful suggestions would be welcome. (Brown? Bowdoin? Amherst? Williams? Wesleyan? Haverford? Carleton? Grinnell? Pomona?)

I appreciate and generally agree with your question, OP - but I have to interject that the smartest and most accomplished people I know are not "the DCUM Competitive AHole types" - though the latter exist in droves. The smartest and most accomplished people I know have their head in the right place, and are generally controlled and down to earth - not man-children. The Ahole types you speak of are insecure (you can guess why), extremely frustrated (both personally and professionally) and do not have their heads in a good place, and it is obvious. Avoid.

[Anonymous]

Random College Name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's say you've got the credentials to be a viable candidate for HYPS and other extremely selective colleges but you also want to avoid spending four years with the types of super competitive a**holes who sometimes dominate the conversations on DCUM. You have decided to cross HYPS off of your list for this reason (even though you know there are plenty of nice people who go to those places). What should your top choices be? Obviously you probably won't get into HYPS anyway, since they are highly selective and reject thousands of people with credentials just like yours, but that isn't the point. The point is that you actually think you would prefer to go to a college other than HYPS with a more pleasant social environment and nicer students. Please don't respond by saying you or your kid went to HYPS and loved it, found the students to be friendly, etc. Obviously some people love those places. I'm trying to identify other college student bodies that are more or less comparable in terms of brain power but are more mutually supportive and, well, "collegial." Helpful suggestions would be welcome. (Brown? Bowdoin? Amherst? Williams? Wesleyan? Haverford? Carleton? Grinnell? Pomona?)

the species "DCUM competitive a**hole" has spread throughout the country and cannot be avoided. learn to live with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say you've got the credentials to be a viable candidate for HYPS and other extremely selective colleges but you also want to avoid spending four years with the types of super competitive a**holes who sometimes dominate the conversations on DCUM. You have decided to cross HYPS off of your list for this reason (even though you know there are plenty of nice people who go to those places). What should your top choices be? Obviously you probably won't get into HYPS anyway, since they are highly selective and reject thousands of people with credentials just like yours, but that isn't the point. The point is that you actually think you would prefer to go to a college other than HYPS with a more pleasant social environment and nicer students. Please don't respond by saying you or your kid went to HYPS and loved it, found the students to be friendly, etc. Obviously some people love those places. I'm trying to identify other college student bodies that are more or less comparable in terms of brain power but are more mutually supportive and, well, "collegial." Helpful suggestions would be welcome. (Brown? Bowdoin? Amherst? Williams? Wesleyan? Haverford? Carleton? Grinnell? Pomona?)

the species "DCUM competitive a**hole" has spread throughout the country and cannot be avoided. learn to live with them.

Disagree, as they are easily detectable and even more easily avoided. No one needs man children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wake forest

Work forest? Seriously?

[Anonymous]

Rice! I have to say it again, based on DD's experience and my interactions with her friends. What an amazing place!

[Anonymous]

Have not read through all of the posts yet, but CMU for sure. I read the first few pages and saw MI listed - as a former professor there, I would advise against, same with Rice. Rochester is also a solid choice. Is a top 30, but under the radar, so smart kids, but not egocentric, tend to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son got into Yale and felt like it would be too much of a "frat-bro" environment and chose Stanford instead. After spending a weekend at Yale he told me "I feel like I'd accidentally be friends with guys who date rape girls but don't think of themselves as rapists."

DD got into Brown and chose Berkeley instead. Both kids felt like California kids are smart and strive to do well, but without pushing other people out of their way.

Silicon Valley is the complete anthesis of this...especially Stanford.

This. Plus did this family miss the entire Stanford rape case?

[Anonymous]

Anytime a mommy of a potential student worries about "grade deflation" is a good signal that the school is not filled with a-holes and the helicoptering mommies that create them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son got into Yale and felt like it would be too much of a "frat-bro" environment and chose Stanford instead. After spending a weekend at Yale he told me "I feel like I'd accidentally be friends with guys who date rape girls but don't think of themselves as rapists."

DD got into Brown and chose Berkeley instead. Both kids felt like California kids are smart and strive to do well, but without pushing other people out of their way.

Your son is too dumb for Yale. [/quote

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Why is everyone so rude on here? We are all parents. Please be kind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Why is everyone so rude on here? We are all parents. Please be kind.

You are new here, aren't you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ohio State, University of Delware, University of Florida, Penn State

Udel and Penn State aren’t what I would call “very successful students.” The kids that I know who got into the honors college recently at one of those are vindictive a-holes, honestly.

There are tens of thousands of students at these schools. If you take the hardest classes available, you are going to end up with some very bright kids. There are also huge international populations at all of these schools, great athletic programs, etc. There are really great, diverse populations of students at all of them. And no one obsessed with social status is going to end up there.