College Highlight

Lake Forest College

from the The Fiske Guide to Colleges

The only small, selective, private college in the Chicago area, Lake Forest generally attracts middle-of-the-road students. In the exclusive town from which the school takes its name, students can babysit for corporate CEOs at night and get internships at their corporations during the day. Large numbers of Foresters also study abroad.
 
Located just 30 miles north of the downtown Loop, Lake Forest College offers excellent programs in business, communication, and psychology, along with abundant opportunities for study abroad and professional internships at Chicago-based companies such as Rolling Stone, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the Chicago Board of Trade.

With its mixture of century-old Gothic and modern glass structures, Lake Forest's 107-acre campus is storybook beautiful. Located on Chicago's North Shore in a wealthy, quiet suburb of 20,000, the campus has three contiguous parts divided by natural wooded ravines: North, Middle, and South. Each has a mix of residence halls and academic buildings.


General education requirements include the First-Year Studies Program, featuring "very small classes designed to help freshmen integrate into the college," says an English major. "These courses are writing intensive and offer a variety of opportunities, including trips to Chicago for plays and museum visits." Students also complete two credits in each of three liberal arts areas (humanities, social and natural sciences, and math), two cultural diversity courses, and a senior studies capstone course.

Students say Lake Forest's best and most popular majors include business, finance, communication, psychology, biology, neuroscience, and English. An entrepreneurship and innovation minor has also proven popular. Accelerated and dual-degree programs—including three-year degree programs in philosophy and communication and dual-degree programs in law, engineering, pharmacy, accounting, and international studies—are available. The academic climate at Lake Forest is described as collaborative. "The small class sizes allow for a lot of group discussion, group projects, and peer mentoring," says a biology major. "It's not uncommon to find an entire class sitting in a study room going over material for an upcoming exam." Foresters especially enjoy the large doses of individual attention that they receive from the faculty. "The professors here know my name, they know what I struggle with, and they know my strengths," confirms a psychology major.
 
The Career Advancement Center is run by the same person who oversees admissions, meaning that the person who brings you to Lake Forest is also looking out for you as you graduate and move into the workforce. The center offers symposia, workshops, and resume clinics, and students benefit from the college's proximity to downtown Chicago, just an hour away by train. Many pursue term-time internships in the city's business district, known as the Loop, or at nonprofits and other organizations in surrounding communities.