nonpressure cooker/well adjusted yet prestigious schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Almost all top 20 LACs are laid back, easy to get in and provide non pressure cooker environment. Bowdoin, Middlebury, Colgate, Harvey Mudd.. to name a few

Bowdoin and Middlebury easy to get in? Maybe 20 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Almost all top 20 LACs are laid back, easy to get in and provide non pressure cooker environment. Bowdoin, Middlebury, Colgate, Harvey Mudd.. to name a few

Bowdoin and Middlebury easy to get in? Maybe 20 years ago.

+1 I think pp is living under a rock. What an ignorant and incorrect thing to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Almost all top 20 LACs are laid back, easy to get in and provide non pressure cooker environment. Bowdoin, Middlebury, Colgate, Harvey Mudd.. to name a few

Oh jeez... DC who just got into 3 T10s was waitlisted by Bowdoin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is Boston College on these dimensions? Well-adjusted? Prestigious?

DC is a possible science + business major. But not pre-med or CS.

BC is well-adjusted because it is filled with kids who would never get into a T20, and would never go STEM or pre-med. The vibe is distinctly upper middle class, white, suburban catholic, from goody two-shoes families. I'm not sure everyone would agree it is prestigious in the way they think Ivy, Williams, and MIT are prestigious, but if majoring in business, your kid will be fine.

True. other than the Gabelli scholars, the BC kids are not gunners. It is also not prestigious.
You cannot have it both ways: prestigious well known school with top grad/professional matriculation and quant/banking/consulting feeder and yet somehow the average kid is "chill". It simply does not happen. Kids party and have fun, but they also work extremely hard especially in STEM, and they do a bunch of non-class clubs and groups too. The majority of students who attend these schools thrive in that environment and would pick the same path again and again. They think they are well adjusted and many of them do not describe these schools as a pressure cooker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think UMD is pretty well adjusted.

Prestigious?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nice and friendly, yes. Stanford, e.g., or Rice. Many others depending on your definition of "prestigious."

Non-pressure-cookers, no. Not by any common definition of "prestigious."

Is there a common definition of prestigious?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Almost all top 20 LACs are laid back, easy to get in and provide non pressure cooker environment. Bowdoin, Middlebury, Colgate, Harvey Mudd.. to name a few

Bowdoin and Middlebury easy to get in? Maybe 20 years ago.

Harvey Mudd also may be one of the worst environments for a laid back student. It is not abnormal for students there to take 7 or so courses a semester.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter says there's very little pressure about grades and a lot more pressure on the easy breezy topic of, "so what are you going to do this summer?"

My daughter says it reminds her of her days in ballet, when all the girls asked what summer intensive they were applying to .. but only after the deadline passed to apply to said summer intensives.

This is definitely true

[Anonymous]

I am looking for a more updated version of this list for good fit schools for my senior.

Looking for mid-size private selective schools that don't promote a "gunner" culture. Social/well-adjusted with active social life (at least 2-3 nights per week) plus active academic life (but not every night in the library).

Does this exist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am looking for a more updated version of this list for good fit schools for my senior.

Looking for mid-size private selective schools that don't promote a "gunner" culture. Social/well-adjusted with active social life (at least 2-3 nights per week) plus active academic life (but not every night in the library).

Does this exist?

No. If you insist on "selective," you must accept a "gunner culture."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College is a source of pressure and major or track add more to it but student themselves are part of the pressure as a lot of pressure is rooted into their ability to handle rigor, workload, friendships, parties, drinking, weed, dating, time management and responsibility.

Rice, Vanderbilt, Yale, and Brown rank as relaxed and supportive places for majority but obviously you'll find people who can manage to be miserable there as well.

Sounds like these schools are mentioned a lot here, along with certain (?) SLACs?
Here is the list from earlier in this post back in the spring - what seems to be missing?

Rice
Brown
Vanderbilt
Dartmouth
UVA
Emory
USC
UNC
Wisconsin
Wake
Santa Clara
UMiami
Tulane
Davidson
Bates
Colby
Bucknell
Carleton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am looking for a more updated version of this list for good fit schools for my senior.

Looking for mid-size private selective schools that don't promote a "gunner" culture. Social/well-adjusted with active social life (at least 2-3 nights per week) plus active academic life (but not every night in the library).

Does this exist?

No. If you insist on "selective," you must accept a "gunner culture."

What does selective mean? T50? Lots of schools without gunners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College is a source of pressure and major or track add more to it but student themselves are part of the pressure as a lot of pressure is rooted into their ability to handle rigor, workload, friendships, parties, drinking, weed, dating, time management and responsibility.

Rice, Vanderbilt, Yale, and Brown rank as relaxed and supportive places for majority but obviously you'll find people who can manage to be miserable there as well.

Sounds like these schools are mentioned a lot here, along with certain (?) SLACs?
Here is the list from earlier in this post back in the spring - what seems to be missing?

Rice
Brown
Vanderbilt
Dartmouth
UVA
Emory
USC
UNC
Wisconsin
Wake
Santa Clara
UMiami
Tulane
Davidson
Bates
Colby
Bucknell
Carleton

I think these schools will start to see more and more applications from the "normal well-adjusted social" kids given Vanderbilt is following in the footsteps of Northwestern and Duke and has become more and more nerdy, dorky and "gunner"......

[Anonymous]

How about Wash U?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about Wash U?

I think its supposed to be pretty lame? are the kids well adjusted?