where to apply?

[RunDownHouse]

My undergrad had about 5500-6000 students total, and I think it was an excellent size, maybe on the small side of excellent. Enough students so that you didn't know everyone in the first week, but also small enough to keep class size down and get personal attention from profs.

[J.A.Sucker]

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Go to a state school! (i did and didn't regret it)

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[Maulik]

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My undergrad had about 5500-6000 students total, and I think it was an excellent size, maybe on the small side of excellent. Enough students so that you didn't know everyone in the first week, but also small enough to keep class size down and get personal attention from profs.

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what school was it? from every post on college you prove to be elusive in regard to your alma mater.

[Maulik]

OP, get out and visit schools. In the mean time, apply to UCLA, UCSD, UC Berkeley and find the others. We can't tell you what you like, just go out and find it.

I don't beleive I saw a budget, so that's important.

[RunDownHouse]

Vanderbilt. I've posted it before. Not a big deal, just didn't see any need to put a specific name when we're talking generalities.

[MtSmalls]

Any sizable liberal Arts college. It will allow for maximum variation in subjects.

UT Austin is a good start.
UW in Seattle would be a good fit as well.

OR, check out a reasonably cheap state school for a year or two, figure out your focus, then find the best school in that subject/area

[sam h]

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Good God, stay away from Wesleyan. For one, it hardly meets his size criteria. For another, its a horrible, awful place. I met a bunch of Wesleyan students in Germany, and they hated it without exception. Some of the complaints:

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It fits his size criteria perfectly.

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- the incredibly liberal, whiny atmosphere. Apparently the movie PCU was based on Wesleyan, and its not that far off. Ugh.

- the gay community. They said that in student surveys, somewhere upwards of 50% of males had had a homosexual encounter by sophomore year. Part of the reason for that seemed to be the large number of hairy, flannel-wearing lesbians there, which resulted in a tiny pool of datable women. None of the Wesleyan kids felt comfortable in that kind of atmosphere.

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I know several people who had good experiences there. The gay encounter figure is ridiculous. There is going to be a visible gay community at any of these schools like Oberlin, Vasser, Wesleyan, or Swarthmore. The percentage of people who are gay is larger than elsewhere but still pretty small.

It depends what you want. If you want a big school, a frat-like atmosphere and lots of frat-like girls, then go to a state school. If you want a smaller environment where you can find a larger percentage of people who are a bit more outside the norm, and you like girls who fit the indie-rock mold a bit better, then these schools are good choices.

JaBlue sounds more like the latter type of person to me, so I recommended those schools.

[sam h]

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Do you really think I can get into these schools?

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I don't really know about Yale. But I think you have a very good shot at the liberal arts colleges, who tend to look past GPA a bit more and more actively seek out people who are not just studying machines.

[Jeff W]

Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Scripps, Occidental, Pitzer

[JaBlue]

bump, I feel like I got some good suggestions and some flames as expected and I've started investigating some of the suggestions. Anyone else wanna chime in? I'd really like it if you can give some good reasons for me to go somewhere in particular, or general advice about applying.