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?)
Top LACS are better for this than top R1s