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[quote=Anonymous]Many of the colleges which have been suggested are great schools, but they aren’t necessarily a high probability of getting a scholarship because they are so competitive.

Given that your requirements are that you want a college with excellent academics in the humanities, a good chance of getting scholarship money to offset the sticker price, and limited Greek life, I recommend that you look very closely at the University of Rochester. Consider the following:

1. Only 23% of students are members of fraternities or sororities
2. Male:Female ratio is about 50:50, which is very hard to find these days.
3. It’s endowment is $3+ billion, which is top 30.

Because of its wealth, Rochester is extremely well resourced, has excellent facilities and superb faculties, and has money to award scholarships. It’s acceptance rate is about 35%, but that is deceptive. About 25% of their enrollment is international students, one of the highest in the nation. They have a low acceptance rate and are almost always full pay. So, the acceptance rate for US students is in reality more in the 40-50% range and scholarship money to US students is about 13%. With your daughter’s credentials, she will be a very attractive applicant and an excellent scholarship candidate.

It’s frankly rare to find a college with Rochester’s level of resources and excellence in academics but with an acceptance rate as high as it is. It’s reputation is very high for medical sciences and for its renowned Eastman School of Music, but it’s faculty and resources are outstanding across all departments. In this way, it’s similar to John’s Hopkins. This means that it’s an academic bargain for students like your daughter whose primary interest is in the humanities. That’s because demand is high for sciences and music but not as high for humanities.

Quality of life at U Rochester has several facets. If you talk to students there, they’ll tell you that Greek life is there if you want it, but there are lots of other options. The 23% membership in frats and sororities supports this. Second, Rochester is an underrated and very livable city. Because it does not have extensive suburbs, the city itself is where most people live. The result is that it has great neighborhoods. The campus itself is located on the outskirts of the city, on the south side away from the lake, offering some protection from winter winds off the water. It has a reputation for cold winters, but it’s really no worse than New England or the upper Midwest and the college has built tunnels and enclosed walkways to protect against the worst that winter has to offer. And they know how to handle snow up there, so roads and sidewalks are cleared a lot quicker than a snow storm in the Middle Atlantic.

Not to be underrated is the male:female ratio. Research suggests that young women are safer and are treated better on a campus which is 50:50 rather than the 60:40 female, which is the overall enrollment ratio in all colleges across the country. It’s rare to find a college that is 50:50, and Rochester is one of them. At 6200 undergraduates, it fits your requirement of small to mid size. At its core, it is a liberal arts college even though it has grown into a research university. It’s similar to Tufts in that respect.The neighborhood around the campus is reasonably safe. Whether it’s Yale or John’s Hopkins or any other campus located in a city, students learn where to go and where not to go, but in this case there is not high risk in the immediate vicinity and it’s on the outskirts of town.

IMO, University of Rochester is one of the best kept secrets in the country, and it meets all of your daughter’s stated requirements. She may hate it once she gets there, but it’s certainly worth a look to find out. [/quote]

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