St Lawrence University

St. Lawrence University was one of the first colleges to implement a first-year program, designed to help students make the transition to college-level academics and campus life. St. Lawrence's decades-old initiative places freshmen in one of 32 residential colleges with other people enrolled in the same first-year seminar. Courses in the program include topics as wide-ranging as human's evolving relationship with animals, Black science fiction, and philosophy from the lens of the sitcom The Good Place. Students also can elect to begin with a study abroad program in London or France. The college offers 69 majors and 41 minors, including seven pre-professional tracks for students looking to go on to dental, law, medical, veterinary, seminary, health careers, or combined engineering programs. When they're not in class, the nearly 2,500 Laurentians can take advantage of over 150 student organizations, like Woodcarving Club or The Finer Things Cheese and Turophile Society. The school is located in Canton, a small upstate New York village near the Canadian border. It may be hours from any major city, but that means it's easy to take part in Peak Weekend, an annual event in which St. Lawrence students climb all 46 peaks of the Adirondack Mountains.