Small, Quirky Colleges Famous For High-Quality Teaching

All of the colleges below are small, very liberal, have very small classes and are very highly ranked for the quality of the teaching.

1. Bard College, New York State Very small, perfect for the radical, hyper-intellectual philosopher/ artist. Truly personalized academic attention.

2. Denison College, Ohio Known for the close academic family.

3. Hampshire College, Massachusetts Very small, woodland setting, part of the Five College Consortium (With Smith, Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, UMass). More hippie than hip, discourages letter grades, has one of the highest graduate-school acceptance rates in the country. Only appropriate for the very self-directed.

4. Harvey Mudd, California 750 students, nine majors, all in math or science. The academics are very intense.

5. Kenyon College, Ohio One of the top liberal arts schools in the country. Very highly intense academic atmosphere. Great writing program.

6. Knox College, Illinois Intellectual, liberal, passionate.

7. Ohio Wesleyan This school has one of the highest percentages of international students and truly encourages community service.

8. Reed College, Oregon Very quirky and very intellectual. There are few other colleges in the US , including the Ivies, where the academic bar is so high. Be prepared for lots of work.

9. Sarah Lawrence, New York The motto is "You are different. So are we." The academic system is borrowed from the Oxford/Cambridge tutorial model. No tests, only long, long papers. No grades, only written evaluations. Often listed as the best school for teaching academic writing in the county. Only the very self-directed should consider this school, because of the extreme freedom.

10. Wabash College, Indiana All men. They say they find it easier to concentrate on academics that way.