Wesleyan is a small liberal arts college in Middletown, Connecticut. The school calls an over 300-acre historic campus home, and it’s conveniently located between New York City and Boston. Wesleyan is extremely undergraduate focused, with 3,000 undergrads and a much smaller graduate student body, and it is a place where undergraduate students have access to exceptional resources and access to extraordinary opportunities. There are 45 majors across 46 departments, and each program shares a progressive perspective. Wesleyan says that they challenge “students to explore new ideas and change the world,” and they really mean it. There is a high level of engagement and mentorship between students and faculty at Wesleyan, and there are more than 900 individual tutorials and private music lessons.

Middlebury College is focused on changing the world for the better. Students and faculty on campus are working towards climate solutions, they strive to connect between cultures and languages, they communicate with others through art, design, and writing, and they pursue avenues for conflict resolution globally. From a sprawling campus in Vermont, Middlebury empowers a little under 3,000 students with the knowledge and skills they need to lead the charge in improving our planet and the lives of the people (you included) on it.

Hamilton College prepares students for “a life of meaning, purpose, and active citizenship.” Located in the village of Clinton, New York, a town closer to Canada than it is to NYC, but 45 min from the city of Syracuse, Hamilton is a small liberal arts experience in a unique environment crafted to nurture exploration and launch future leaders. Just over 2,000 students call Hamilton home, and they come from 48 states and 56 countries for the opportunity to learn in the Hamilton way.

Amherst College is a small undergraduate-only liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It has become extremely well-respected for providing a unique undergraduate experience to their (just under) 2,000 students both in the classroom, and in the community. The school boasts an impressive 7:1 student-to-faculty ratio and an enviable 95% first-year retention rate. They also have an open curriculum without any distribution requirements that encourages exploration and depth. They want you to try things out, and when you find what you love they don’t want to get in your way. Students have their pick of 42 majors, and 85% of classes have fewer than 30 students. This leads to strong student-professor relationships, as students work alongside their professors building research and career chops before graduation.