Here are some different combos that might work:

UVA (large/football)
Washington & Lee (SLAC)
(about 1 hour apart)

UVA (large/football)
University of Richmond (SLAC)
Bonus: VCU (urban campus)

University of Maryland (large/football)
Swarthmore (SLAC)
Bonus: Drexel (Urban Campus)

Penn State (large/football)
Dickinson or Gettysburg (SLAC)

Penn State (large/football)
Bucknell (SLAC)

Chapel Hill (large/football)
Elon (SLAC)

Anonymous wrote:Not exactly close, but if you made the 3 hour drive to PA you could check out Penn State for the large school experience. You could also look at Bucknell and one of the many small LACs in the central PA area.

Pitt is 4 hours from MoCo and there's interesting stuff to do in the general area. Also CMU, Duquesne, Carlow, Chatham, and Point Park within 20 minutes drive. That spans a wide variety of school types.

CTCL - Goucher or St Johns Annapolis
Women’s College - Bryn Mawr
Commuter School - George Mason
HCBU - Howard
Ivy - Penn

Here is the MD association for private colleges and universities https://micua.org/members

There are so many schools to check out nearby. Don’t forget about Shenandoah in Winchester for a LAC. You could also check out JMU for a state school.

URichmond would be great for a SLAC. Along the way, you could look at UMW and Randolph Macon.

Here is the website for VA private colleges and Universities https://cicv.org/colleges/

Another LAC that many people forget about is Washington College on the Eastern Shore of MD.

Not exactly close, but if you made the 3 hour drive to PA you could check out Penn State for the large school experience. You could also look at Bucknell and one of the many small LACs in the central PA area.

GW, St Joes, Drexel, VCU

AU or Villanova

UMD/UVA or Delaware or VT

Dickinson, Gettysburg, Goucher, & Loyola MD

Anonymous wrote:We have visited a LOT of SLACs and I don't think we have any type-y ones in the DC area.

Maybe on your next family trip, look for one in the area and check it out. That's what we did a few years back. We were up in NYC for a fun trip and looked on a map for a nearby LAC. Saw Sarah Lawrence so booked a tour. Turned out DC LOVED it, it went on their college list and then we started looking in earnest at LACs.

I've been to Marymount and UMW and they are not the same at all.

The problem is that SLACs and LACs actually vary widely. Why would you consider Sarah Lawrence an archetypal school vs. any other school, for example?

OP, if smaller schools are of interest, there are a lot of them within two hours of DC, in VA, MD, and PA. Pick a few.

Gettysburg is only 1.5 hours away.

We have visited a LOT of SLACs and I don't think we have any type-y ones in the DC area.

Maybe on your next family trip, look for one in the area and check it out. That's what we did a few years back. We were up in NYC for a fun trip and looked on a map for a nearby LAC. Saw Sarah Lawrence so booked a tour. Turned out DC LOVED it, it went on their college list and then we started looking in earnest at LACs.

I've been to Marymount and UMW and they are not the same at all.

Mary Washington is a fairly nearby public SLAC. And Richmond isn’t that far — it has VCU for another integrated urban college and University of Richmond for a private SLAC.

Anonymous wrote:If you’ve got a kid trying to figure out if they like the feel of a SLAC, big research university, state flagship with Greek life and football, etc etc — basically all the genres of school out there — what are the closest places to check out just for the vibe?

For close by, Maryland is good for big state school, with all the caveats. College Park is not Ann Arbor, Athens, Madison, Boulder, Austin and so on. There are far better big State U towns than College Park, but it will do for a visit to get a sense of things.

For urban school with a campus, Georgetown. But it's a tiny campus. It is coherent and distinct, however.

For an incoherent urban school, GW. It totally blends into the city. You wouldn't know there's a school there without the signs.

For a STEM-y school in an urban area, Johns Hopkins up in Baltimore.

Drawing a blank on SLACs nearby. Maybe Washington and Lee, but that's still 3 hours away.

UMD-large flagship research u w sports/greek life

Marymount in Arlington is a small liberal arts college but I’d probably hit Loyola Maryland or McDaniel in MD

If you want something less city-ish or more rural, maybe UVA?

GW for urban school
AU for mid sized private
UMD for large research school
Goucher for LAC

If you’ve got a kid trying to figure out if they like the feel of a SLAC, big research university, state flagship with Greek life and football, etc etc — basically all the genres of school out there — what are the closest places to check out just for the vibe?