Connecticut College is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. With only about 1,800 undergrads, it’s small. While it was initially a women’s college, it has been coed since the 1960s. The college is somewhat of a hidden gem, especially for those looking for a classic New England liberal arts experience. They are committed to being test-optional and usually have around a 40% acceptance rate.

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois, aka the Chicago suburbs. Northwestern is probably most famous for its journalism and music programs, but the university has over 130 majors and minors. Their acceptance rate is , and they take around half of their class during early decisions. They also extended their test-optional policy for at least another year. 

UMD, or the University of Maryland, is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. It’s a big college with about 30,000 undergrads, 12 schools, and more than 90 majors for undergraduates. There is a lot to love about UM, including excellent academics and sports. Last year, their acceptance rate was . This was significantly lower than in the past two years as the amount of applicants has risen sharply.

Lehigh University is a small research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania located between New York City and Philadelphia — close enough to both for a day trip. The school has the resources of a large research school, but with a compact student boy of 7,400 students overall and 5,600 undergraduates among six undergraduate colleges. 85% of the undergraduate students are in the College of Arts & Sciences, College of Engineering & Applied Science, and the College of Business. The average class size is , and Lehigh leans into emerging technology, even encouraging professors to come up with class ideas that incorporate Artificial Intelligence technologies into students’ creative processes. Students appreciate this, and they receive 15,000 applications annually. The acceptance rate is .

Okay, we’ll level with you here: Georgetown doesn’t go through the Common App, so you have to jump through a few additional hoops to apply directly through their system. Their defense? Having their own application allows them to “fulfill [their] commitment to this holistic admissions process” and “allows [their] applicants to best express their personalities, talents, skills and accomplishments.” Our personal opinion? The initial online form and subsequent application supplement are pretty standard, so… Sometimes people just need to feel special. (Get in line, George!) Speaking of special, last year Georgetown had an acceptance rate of just 13% for incoming freshmen.

Kenyon College is a free-spirited, quaint-but-mighty private liberal arts school in Gambier, Ohio. As intimate a college town as they come, Gambier has zero stoplights and is the hill-top home of this bastion of higher learning where 100% of students live on campus. The average acceptance rate is 34%.

Occidental College is a small private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. While it was founded by the Presbyterian Church, since 1910, it has not been sectarian. It is located specifically near Glendale, so while it is one of the oldest Liberal arts schools in the West, you can still claim you went to school in “The North East...” as long as you mean the North East neighborhood of LA. Occidental, also sometimes just called Oxy, has around acceptance rate during Regular Decision and 52% during Early Decision. Currently, Oxy is test-optional, and they have even said, “There is no plan to return to standardized testing requirements for any future entry term.”

Mount Holyoke is a small, women’s college that’s part of the Seven Sisters along with Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley and Smith. (Vassar is now co-ed and Radcliffe joined Harvard). It’s located in suburban South Hadley, Massachusetts, within several miles of many, many Boston-area universities. The acceptance rate is about 40% and the undergraduate population is around 2,000 students. While Mount Holyoke says its supplement is option, we feel that no piece of a writing on an application is optional. So, here’s our advice on how to tackle it:

If you are looking for Minnesota nice, you might be thinking about applying to Macalester. Macalester College is a small, private liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. When we say small, we mean small. The freshman class is about 500 students. Their acceptance rate is around , and they have a permanent test-optional policy.