Kenyon College is a liberal arts school with a close-knit community and under 2,000 students on 1,200 acres in Gambier, Ohio. The college is writing-centric and strongly creatively driven. The average class size is small, just 15 students, and the focus on writing is prevalent across all departments, not just in the humanities.
The University of Southern California, or USC, is a top-tier private research university in Los Angeles, California. Notably, it is not part of the University of California system so there is no in-state tuition benefit. However, it does have the scale and breadth of a public university. Students have access to a globally-leading array of resources, faculty, and peers — there are 21,000 undergraduates, and nearly 50,000 students total.
Wesleyan is a highly-respected liberal arts college with 3,000 undergraduate students on over 300-acres of idyllic New England campus. They offer 45 majors and over 900 courses annually, providing students with diverse opportunities to expand and explore. At the same time, and as a liberal arts college, Wesleyan offers a comprehensive learning experience that emphasizes breadth alongside depth. Wesleyan is also well-known for having an open curriculum that encourages discovery and creativity.
Yale is Yale. There isn’t much else like it anywhere else in the world. A member of the exclusive Ivy League, Yale is widely considered one of the best universities in the world. Despite that, it still feels like a small, close-knit school. Based in New Haven, Connecticut, Yale has an urban campus with a classic collegiate feel.
Amherst is a small liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. The school has 1,907 students with a 7:1 student-to-faculty ratio. There are 42 majors, more than 400 courses to choose from each term, and 83% of classes have fewer than 30 students.
Hamilton is a small liberal arts college in Clinton, New York. Clinton is a small town, even smaller than the student body of Hamilton, an hour east of the city of Syracuse. The college is rooted in the small town, but it isn’t defined by it — it thinks big. Hamilton is renowned for their Open Curriculum, one of the only truly open curriculums in the country. You take what you want when you want, with almost no bumpers or guidelines outside of your major requirements.
Middlebury College in Vermont’s Champlain Valley is an idyllic setting for any educational institution, let alone one of the most-respected liberal arts colleges in the country. The school is a small-town college with a global reputation, and they offer “one of the most immersive and globally engaged experiences in higher education.” The campus is home to a few under 3,000 students who comprise a student body that is passionate for knowledge, meaning, and success. There are over 200 student groups, and the Middlebury College Activities Board brings together student groups to foster community.
The University of Chicago is a formidable school in Chicago, Illinois with an additional seven international campuses and centers. The university is often thought of as on par with the Ivy League — and is just as hard to get into. For those wondering why it isn’t in the Ivy League if it really is as good as we all think it is, one reason why is that the Ivy League is a geographically-focused athletic league created in the 20th century, not an exclusive club they simply don’t let other schools into out of spite…most of the time.
The University of Michigan is easily one of the best public universities in the country, and is globally recognized as an outstanding education institution. It’s also an athletic powerhouse. It has long ranked in the top 5 for national undergraduate public universities in the US, and the reputation globally is just as strong. Michigan, or Mich, is also massive. There are about 32,000 undergraduate students, making Mich basically the size of a small city.
MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a powerhouse university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just across the river from Boston and alongside Harvard in both geographic location and caliber. MIT is often cited as the most famous university focused on engineering and science in the country, and is respected globally for being at the top of its game.
Dartmouth is the athletic (and outdoorsy) Ivy, known as the Big Green. Located in Hanover, New Hampshire, a town of 8,000 in central New Hampshire, it’s also the small-town Ivy. Dartmouth offers an exceptional education, and Hanover has a bustling main street full of international food options, small mom-and-pop stores, and basically anything you could need at last minute notice.
The University of Pennsylvania, or Penn (some say UPenn, but we don’t love how that rolls off the tongue), is a top-tier high-selective research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The city offers a cosmopolitan urban college experience steeped in culture, history, and delicious food, and the university offers one of the best educations on earth. They have four undergraduate schools — The College of Arts & Sciences (or The College), The Wharton School, The School of Engineering and Applied Science, and The School of Nursing — and more than 10,600 undergraduate students. There are nearly 30,000 students overall, and the campus is known for bringing together the best and the brightest to innovate, engineer, and discover.
Brown is an Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island with an open curriculum. They challenge students to create their own path, charting a track through the university that takes them where they want to go — on their own terms. It is a unique, highly-respected, and selective education in an urban setting with a strong campus culture and a vibrant creative community for the 7,000 undergraduate students who call it home.
Northwestern is regularly ranked as one of the top 10 universities in the country, and is considered a powerhouse of the Midwest. Located in Evanston, Illinois outside of Chicago, the school has additional campuses in Chicago proper and in Doha, Qatar. Across the university, Northwestern is home to more than 8,000 undergraduates who pursue more than 100 majors and minors.
Cornell University is an academic, and an athletic, powerhouse. It’s also one of the most famous universities in the country, and carries a huge amount of cache globally. Located in the city of Ithaca in upstate New York, Ithaca is a welcoming medium-sized city with lots of opportunities for exploring the arts and the outdoors, accessing internships and career opportunities, and lots and lots of delicious food.
Bowdoin College is a school in the small coastal town of Brunswick, Maine that thinks differently. The college is intensely linked to its environment (“this place makes us who we are,” they say), and it’s a small liberal arts institution that packs a serious punch.
Sarah Lawrence is a small liberal arts college that is a thirty-minute train ride north of New York City. Home to less than 2,000 students, the college offers an intimate and immersive college experience known for conversation-based classes, a deep commitment to the performing and fine arts, and a tradition of academic exploration and discovery. Also, just in case you don’t know already, it’s co-ed.
Columbia College of Columbia University is an Ivy League research university in the heart of New York City. It’s a top school, in a top city, on top of a hill on the island of Manhattan — basically the top of everything. There are 6,700 undergraduate students between Columbia College and Columbia Engineering. The student body is comprised of many of the best students in the world, and many of the best athletes including 46 Olympians, 16 NCAA Championship Teams, 60 Individual NCAA Champions, and even professional athletes in non-collegiate sports.
Tulane University in New Orleans is a vibe — and it’s a vibe we’re into. The school is a deeply academic and service-oriented community in a city built on the idea of having a good time. The party never stops in New Orleans, and that enthusiasm bleeds into everything at Tulane, including the athletics. Tulane is home to 16 teams in the American Athletic Conference — ten women’s teams and six men’s teams, as well as a few dozen club teams that are open to all.