Regional Gems: Northeast

Many people automatically associate education in the Northeast with the Ivy League. But students desiring a world-class education don’t have to focus on those 8 schools. There are many great, smaller colleges in the Northeast where undergraduates can receive a valuable and meaningful education.

To bring attention to these smaller and perhaps lesser-known colleges, College Raptor continues its series on hidden gems with the Northeast installment of regional gem colleges.

See regional gems from other parts of the country: South & West, Midwest

1. Ursinus College

Collegeville, PA
Enrollment: 1,596

Ursinus is located in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia. The independent liberal arts college offers over 60 programs of study and allows students to design their own majors. Incoming students participate in the “First-Year Experience” which includes taking a first-year seminar and receiving a laptop loaded with software necessary for college.

Read more about Ursinus College

2. Stevens Institute of Technology

Hoboken, NJ
Enrollment: 5,784

Stevens is close enough to New York City that the Manhattan skyline is visible from parts of campus. Most students at Stevens study engineering, but undergraduate degrees are offered in other sciences and some humanities, for a total of 34 majors.

Read more about Stevens Institute of Technology

3. St Lawrence University

Canton, NY
Enrollment: 2,506

St. Lawrence is committed to ensuring students receive the education they want. That’s why they make graduation requirements flexible and allow students to create their own majors if they can’t pick one from among 36 offered. The serene campus is located in a small town in far-northern New York State.

Read more about St. Lawrence University

4. Allegheny College

Meadville, PA
Enrollment: 2,161

Allegheny’s northwestern Pennsylvania campus is quite large at 562 acres–and just over half of it is a nature reserve. The liberal arts college is one of a handful of institutions that expects students to choose a minor as well as a major, and students have more than 30 majors and 30 minors from which to make their selections.

Read more about Allegheny College

5. Wheaton College (Mass.)

Norton, MA
Enrollment: 1,654

Wheaton, located in southern Massachusetts, stresses the importance of interdisciplinary education for a deeper understanding of individual fields of study. Students get plenty of opportunities to dabble in subjects across the board, with 47 major offerings and 59 minors.

Read more about Wheaton College

6. Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Geneva, NY
Enrollment: 2,372

Set in the Finger Lakes region of New York, Hobart and William Smith Colleges are actually two liberal arts colleges–the former for men and the latter for women–but they operate so closely they are often considered together. Students at HWSC choose from 45 majors and 65 minors.

Read more about Hobart & William Smith Colleges

7. Susquehanna University

Selinsgrove, PA
Enrollment: 2,187

Susquehanna is a private liberal arts college located on a large, rural campus in Pennsylvania. Students have the choice of more than 60 majors and minors, and all students take a central liberal arts curriculum. An off-campus learning experience such as studying abroad is required for graduation.

Read more about Susquehanna University

8. Juniata College

Huntingdon, PA
Enrollment: 1,635

Juniata’s campus in Pennsylvania consists of academic and living space, a nature reserve, and an environmental field station. Through “Programs of Emphasis,” most students design their own fields of study with the guidance of two separate faculty advisers.

Read more about Juniata College

9. Saint Anselm College

Manchester, NH
Enrollment: 1,923

Saint Anselm is a private, Catholic liberal arts college in southern New Hampshire. There are over 80 programs of study at Saint Anselm–popular among these include nursing, criminology, and business. The college also frequently hosts important political debates because of New Hampshire’s pivotal position in primary elections.

Read more about Saint Anselm College

10. Washington College

Chestertown, MD
Enrollment: 1,512

Founded in 1782, Washington College is the tenth oldest college in the US, and the first chartered after the American Revolution was won. Washington is located on Maryland’s side of the Delmarva Peninsula, on the outskirts of a small town. The college offers 40 majors, minors, and concentrations and has a 12:1 student to faculty ratio.

Read more about Washington College

11. Elizabethtown College

Elizabethtown, PA
Enrollment: 1,892

Elizabethtown’s mission is to educate students to become leaders in service, no matter what field they choose to pursue. The Lancaster County liberal arts college offers 53 majors and over 90 minors and concentrations.

Read more about Elizabethtown College

12. Simmons College

Boston, MA
Enrollment: 4,655

Simmons is a private college located in Boston, Massachusetts, serving both undergraduates (all women) and graduates (men and women). At the undergraduate level, students can choose from 50 programs of study, some with the option to combine bachelor’s and master’s work in a 4+1 program.

Read more about Simmons College

13. McDaniel College

Westminster, MD
Enrollment: 3,229

McDaniel’s main campus is tucked away in the suburbs of Baltimore, but the liberal arts college also has a branch campus in Budapest, Hungary, where Baltimore students can study abroad. Both undergraduates and graduate students are served by McDaniel, and undergrads have 25 programs to choose from.

Read more about McDaniel College

14. Lebanon Valley College

Annville, PA
Enrollment: 2,022

Lebanon Valley College’s mission is to provide undergraduates with a meaningful liberal arts education. Popular among the college’s 36 major offerings include health professions, early childhood education, and psychology.

Read more about Lebanon Valley CoLlege

15. Wagner College

Staten Island, NYC, NY
Enrollment: 2,245

Wagner College is located in the New York City borough of Staten Island. That means students can take advantage of all the cultural and career development opportunities that New York City has to offer while studying on Wagner’s attractive and peaceful campus. The college offers nearly 40 programs of study.

Read more about Wagner College

16. Sarah Lawrence College

Bronxville, NY
Enrollment: 1,782

Over 90 percent of courses at Sarah Lawrence are small, faculty-led seminars–which makes sense in light of its respectable 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio. Courses of study are available in over 50 different fields, and since Sarah Lawrence’s academic philosophy rests on the importance of individuality, students are given the freedom to tailor their plans of study.

Read more about Sarah Lawrence College

17. Goucher College

Baltimore, MD
Enrollment: 2,111

Goucher is a private liberal arts college located in the suburbs of Baltimore. A sign of its commitment to international education, Goucher was the first college in the US to require students to study abroad before being granted a degree. The college offers 75 programs of study.

Read more about Goucher College

18. Moravian College

Bethlehem, PA
Enrollment: 1,837

The nation’s sixth-oldest college, Moravian College has a long and interesting history. Today the eastern Pennsylvania college offers around 60 programs of study in the liberal arts, sciences, and business at the undergraduate level, and several further programs for graduate students.

Read more about Moravian College

Some highly-specialized colleges were not included in our analysis. A regional gem is defined as an institution of higher learning which receives fewer than 5,000 applications a year but has an overall ranking of less than 300, according to College Raptor.