Question for DC Dopers

Know any names of good colleges in the area? Close to Bolling Air Force Base would be wonderful. I might be mooving out there if I can find a good college. I need a good Liberal Arts education, with emphasis on psychology, but as long as it’s a good school, I’m not worried. Thank you!

Yup, gonna just hitch up the ol’ cow and “moove” right on up there. :slight_smile:

I went to American University in upper Northwest, DC. It’s a small private school.

I was there in the early 1990s, when there was a lot of chaos involving the presidency of the school. Since then, though, the school has stabilised under the presidency of Benjamin Ladner (whom I don’t like personally, but I’m admittedly biased).

E-mail me or check out the school’s web site for more info. I studied political science there, but I pretty much lived in the general College of Arts and Sciences (which psych would fall under).

Bolling AFB is in Southwest Washington DC, and not really “close” to any colleges, at least none of which I am aware. However, nothing is really very far from anything in this city. With the Anacostia Metro station about a mile away from Bolling, almost any college in & around DC can be considered to be close by.

Here are the ones that come to mind:

 Georgetown University
 Catholic University
 Gallaudet University (for the deaf & hard of hearing)
 George Washington University
 Howard University
 American University
 South Eastern University
 University of the District of Columbia

And I’m not even including all the little community colleges & business colleges like Strayer. More colleges outside of the District (but still fairly close by):

 University of Maryland, College Park MD
 George Mason University, Arlington VA
 Northern Virginia Community College, Alexandria VA

And if you think I’m going to hyperlink all of those, you’re out of your freaking mind. Go search at local.yahoo.com and I bet they all have easy-to-find web sites.


The artist formerly known as opus

Attrayant (hi opus), the Arlington campus of George Mason University is the law school only, I believe. The main campus, however, is in Fairfax City, VA which is I’m guessing 10 miles from DC. And there are about half a dozen campuses for the Northern Virginia Community College and Strayer University.

There’s also Marymount University in Arlington (a catholic school). That’s all I can think of right now (I’m not counting the graduate centers of University of Virginia or Virginia Tech in Falls Church. Their main campuses are in Charllottesville [Central Virginia] and Blacksburg [In the Shenadoah] respectively).

GMU in Arlington is just the law school- the main campus is in Fairfax, which would be about an hour drive from you. For quality of education and convenience, I’d lean towards GW (if you like a very small school, possibly Mount Vernon College, which is an offshoot of GWU).

If you’re serious about your education, UDC is not an option.

Attrayant covered it quite well. There is also Strayer University and a few other ones around like UDC. Strayer is not a liberal arts school and focuses almost entirely on business and computers. UDC sucks ass. All of the Universities in DC proper are very expensive. Georgetown for a full time student is around $25K a year for the tuition alone. American and Catholic are the cheapest at around $18-20K of the universities that you would want to go to in DC proper. UDC is about $7K for Dc residents and about $14K if you are not a DC resident but you wouldn’t want to go there as it has a horrible reputation.

George Mason is about the same price as UDC for in and out of state students and has quite a good reputation in the area. UMD has a good reputation as well but I don’t know the prices there.

Oh, the rest of the Universities Attrayant listed typically don’t have an out of state tuition that is different from their instate tuition.

HUGS!
Sqrl

PS. Georgetown and George Washington Unviersities have the best reputation in the city. But the other one’s with the exception of UDC are all good.

I’m not sure if it would apply to you or not, but I believe Congress has passed a law (horror of horrors!!) that allows DC residents to go to schools in Virginia and Maryland (George Mason U., UMD, etc.) at in-state tuition rates as if it was a DC school.
And UDC has a ‘community college’ or worse reputation. Hell, I’ve been told Northern Virginia Community Collge had a better education dicipline.

I think if you want us to tell you more about colleges in the area, you’re going to have to tell us more about your educational plans. Do you know precisely where you’ll be living or do you have some freedom about how close to Bolling Air Force Base you’ll be living? How far can you drive to classes? Are you military or the spouse of a military person? Are you working on a degree? What are you studying? Will you be a resident of the state in which you will be living? (I ask because if you’re military or military spouse, you presumably won’t be.) How much money can you spend? Is it more important that you graduate with a degree from the best place that will accept you, or do you just need to get a degree quickly? For that matter, how good are your high school grades, previous college grades, and SAT’s? That would affect which colleges would accept you.

If we were to go all the way down to community colleges, there are two, maybe three, dozen colleges and universities within driving distance of Bolling Air Force Base. In fact, cruising the web I found a page for a college that does some courses right on the base itself.

Have you decided to move here and are now just finding out where you can take classes? Or are you thinking about moving and want to know if there’s somewhere nearby where you can study? If your question was no more than whether there’s some place you can take classes, the answer is simple. Yes, there are many nearby places where you can take classes.

Wendell,

No, I dont know where I’ll be living, but close to Bolling is a must.

See, that’s a problem. Technically, I can drive. I have a licence. But I hate driving and I don’t think I can handle big city traffic.

Spouse.

Yes I’m working on a degree in Psychology.

Well, I’ll be a military spouse, so presume not.

Hmmmmm. Well, my tuition now is, um, shoot. I don’t know. My Dad is paying it and, well, he has lotsa $$$. But I really don’t know how much I can spend. Sorry.

Best place would be nice.

High School grades pretty good. Previous college grades I don’t know just yet. I didn’t take the SAT I took the ACT. And I got a 28 on that, which I gather is pretty damn good.

If I can’t find a good college, I can’t move out there. I’ll just stay where I am. But I really want to move, I mean, how much would it suck ot get married and imediatly have to spend three years apart? More than it sucks to be apart from each other when you are engaged. And I miss him like hell now.
Thanks all for helping me.

Colleges in the area (I make no promises as to the quality of education . . . ):

NOVA, GMU, UMCP, UBC, UMD, G’town, GWU, Howard U, American U, Catholic U.

This school (GMU) has, at the least, a decent psych program. Go to http://www.gmu.edu to check it out. We also have fairly active liberal arts stuff (I’m an English major, FWTW).

Email’s in my profile if you have more specific questions.

American isn’t a bad school, but it doesn’t have a great psychology department. You might want to check out GW.

iampunha writes:

> NOVA, GMU, UMCP, UBC, UMD, G’town, GWU, Howard U,
> American U, Catholic U.

Say what? UBC? Do you mean University of Maryland, Baltimore County? That’s way too far to go given that relic_11 doesn’t want to drive that much. Or did you mean University of Baltimore? Or University of Maryland at Baltimore? Again, a long drive. And what’s the difference between UMCP and UMD? Aren’t those both abbreviations for University of Maryland at College Park?

If your father has the money and is willing to spend it, relic_11, I would say that as general liberal arts colleges, the following are the best bets:

Georgetown
George Washington
Catholic
American
Howard
University of Maryland, College Park (but this might be
a long Metro ride if you don’t want to drive)

These are listed in decreasing order of tuition cost (I think) and also in more or less decreasing order of general ability of the undergraduates, although I find it hard to tell whether Catholic or American is better in this respect and likewise Howard or Maryland. If you want to know which of these have good psychology departments, I think that we wouldn’t be your best resource for this. I suggest that you write to all six of these places and ask them for an application and a catalog of courses. I think that with good high school grades and a ACT score of 28 you’d have a good shot at being admitted to any of these places.

There are perhaps a dozen other places that you could conceivably get to without a significant drive, but I don’t think any of them are particularly good.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! :slight_smile:

I second Wendell’s list and add a few (biased) opinions (from a Georgetown alumnus).

Georgetown probably has the best reputation of all the colleges/universities in the area. I am not sure where its psych dept ranks among national universities. Limited personal experience: I took two psych courses as an undergrad there, and they were both mind-blowingly excellent (if you’ll pardon the irony…“STUDENT BLOWS MIND IN PSYCH COURSE”). My best friend majored in psych at G’town, and she feels she got a first-rate education.

One caveat about Georgetown: it’s a Jesuit school. There are crosses in many of the classrooms. A few of your professors will be priests. All undergrads are required to take two semesters of theology and two semesters of philosophy. To the Jesuits’ credit, these four courses are not some attempt at pro-Catholic brainwashing. In fact, one of the theology courses I took pushed me over the line from agnosticism to atheism, despite the fact that it was taught by a nun.

Another caveat: GU is a fairly conservative place. There is an abortion-rights group, but the administration denies them both funding and the right to use the common word for GU students (“Hoyas”). Consequently, the group is called “Hoy*s for Choice.” As a gay, liberal atheist, I sometimes found the administration’s positions grating, but I never felt personally threatened on campus. In short, it’s not Bob Jones University, but it ain’t no Berkeley, either.

I have some friends who went to George Washington University, so I can give you second-hand testimony that it is also an excellent all-around school, though I know nothing specifically about its psych dept.

Best of luck!

I’d engoy those classes, anyway. :slight_smile:
I’m bouncing between Georgetown, American, and George Washington. Must do more research on my own. This is looking like a real possibilty!!! Sweet!

Relic,

I am a Baltimoron, and most people know that I have very little good to say about DC :smiley: That being said- the metro system there is excellent. Here’s a metro map. IIRC there SHOULD be a stop very close to Bolling ( Navy Yard? - Anyone?)from which you can go anywhere in the city. That would limit your driving a lot- the streets in DC are just one giant pothole, anyway. The one drawback would be the time it takes, but I imagine under an hour to just about anywhere. I know Catholic, GWU, GMU, Howard and UMCP all have metro stops, I believe American does as well. I’m not sure how close to Georgetown you can get- maybe the GU Alum can help out there? Good luck, and try not to get shot ! :wink: ( I’m kidding, I’m kidding!)

To get to American University, I believe you take the Metro to the Tenleytown station and take a bus run by the university there. (And it’s less than a mile to the university from the Metro station anyway.) To get to Georgetown University, I think you go to the Foggy Bottom station and walk down Pennsylvania and then M Street. That’s a mile-long walk. I don’t know the bus routes, so there may be a bus that will take you directly to the university. I’m under the impression that the College Park station isn’t very close to the University of Maryland. Geez, I live about three miles from there and I’ve never bothered to find out. Anybody know more about this?

weirddave writes:

> the streets in DC are just one giant pothole, anyway

Chill out, Dave. This is out of date. Five years ago after a couple of bad winters the streets were in bad shape. That’s no longer true.

Yeah, it’s a perennial complaint from the students that there’s no Metro stop in Georgetown. To compensate for this, the University runs free shuttles (lovingly called the “Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle” or “GUTS bus”) every 20 minutes between campus and the two closest stops: Dupont Circle on the Red Line and Rosslyn on the Orange/Blue line. On a nice day, you can walk to either of these or to Foggy Bottom (the George Washington U. stop), which, as Wendell points out, is right down Pennsylvania Ave.

I’m not sure where Bolling is exactly, but from your previous descriptions it sounds like weirddave is at least close in guessing Navy Yard. From there, it should take about an hour to get to GW, slightly longer to get to GU.

Sterling, I beleive that they decided that the DC resident in-state tuition only applies if you’re a graduate of a DC public school.