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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Swarthmore!!! Amazing intellectual experience--truly a world class college education. If you can get in (and don't worry about cost--if you qualify for financial aid, you will get it), I wouldn't even consider another school.

As a college prof, I would strongly urge you to consider small liberal arts colleges for undergrad, and major research universities for grad school.  Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Pomona, Reed, Carleton, Oberlin, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, etc.

If you are worried about name recognition--the people who will be important in your DC's life will know these schools.[/quote]

These are all great schools.  Unfortunately many of them have admissions rates well under 20% (Amherst is under 15%, Williams is about 16%, Pomona in that range too).  So they are only slightly less competitive than the Ivies in terms of admissions (actually Cornell has a higher admission rate than most of them).  I am also not sure these are best kept secrets - they are all in the top 25 of the US News list of liberal arts colleges.  I wish my child could go to one of these schools.  [b]But she probably needs an admission rate over 30% to have a shot.  Over 40% is better.[/b][/quote]

I am constantly surprised by how few people, even in the DC area, are aware of small liberal arts colleges. IMO, small liberal arts colleges are still "secrets."

The women's colleges tend to have higher admissions rates--I would certainly check those out. (BTW, I would not go by admissions rates alone to figure out how selective a school is. You are right that the "little ivies" are very selective, but they arguably even more selective than the big ivies because while every joe schmoe applies to Harvard, the applicants to Swarthmore tend to be self-selecting.)

And to add onto a PP, Davidson, though in the "south" is an excellent, very liberal school with a northeast feeling. Worth checking out.[/quote]

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