Help on finding the the right colleges for me?

Answered

I'm a current senior (intended chem major) committed to Rice University. In my college search, I most valued community and academics. I really liked the welcoming culture of Rice, and their STEM departments are also strong. Some other schools intended to apply to were Northeastern, Bryn Mawr, and WashU. Northeastern has the most kids out of all of the other ones (20,000), but I liked its unique co-op program, where you can go on 2-3 co-ops. Co-ops are where you get a job for 6 months to check it out, and offers a lot of resume-building potential. Bryn Mawr, if you're a girl, is a women's liberal arts college. It has a similar close-knit community to Rice, and is the women's college with the most focus on STEM. WashU is another STEM-heavy school that has a similar welcoming culture to Rice.

As you can tell, I mainly included colleges only for their social life, given that their STEM departments were already strong. Of course, there are other schools out there that are also STEM-focused, but with different cultures I didn't vibe with as much. Other schools I'd considered (but took them off my list) are Case Western Reserve U and Vanderbilt University. Also, check out liberal arts colleges. I see you have a couple on your list right now. They are smaller than typical universities, and although they typically are more focused on liberal arts/humanities, there are a couple that focus more on STEM as well.

Collegevine has a way to look up the best schools for chemistry! At the top of your screen, choose "Schools" instead of other options like Q&A or Network. On the dropdown box, you want to click on "Find Schools." Now at the top of the screen you'll see three options: Find schools, My list, and College rankings. Click on "College rankings." The dropdown box will give you many options. The one you are looking for is "Best for chemistry."

I also like looking at the Scorecard data based on major from the Department of Education (DOE). If salaries for Pell Grant recipients are much higher on Scorecard data, it can highlight a boutique program that recruiters seek out, which rankings don't always convey. Except for two schools, I noticed that it mostly lined up with Collegevine's ranking list. Northeastern chemistry undergrads made more their first year out of college than several higher-ranking schools. And College of the Holy Cross also had a decent showing despite not being on the rankings list at all.

So like Wonton some ones to look at are Swathmore and Lehigh. Also as someone not looking for schools with lower class sizes (as such its not a primary factor but they should on the smaller size) some that likely fit your criteria are Tufts CMU and possibly Vandy. If you'd like a west coast there's not many options but San Jose St San Diego St and Washington are worth looking at. But they definitely have large class sizes than normal but all of them are really good STEM schools.