Hey guys, Shana here for Youniversitytv, our first stop on today's tour the Lake Forest Station. It is Lake Forest College student's connection between campus and the city of Chicago. Lake Forest College is located in the suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois, just a few short blocks from Lake Michigan and an hour train ride from Chicago.

We are located in a beautiful suburb, adjacent to Lake Michigan. You can't beat anything that is located on the lake. You call it a suburb, but we are steps from a major metropolitan city like Chicago.

Looking to explore the windy city, well the first stop for you is the Center for Chicago Program. Not only will it help you get to and from the city, they have a list of the local hot spots and discounts to certain events. And if spending time in a big city isn't your style, come click off your flip-flops and lounge on Lake Michigan. It is only a 10-minute walk from campus, you will be on the beach in no time. Lake Forest is 107 acres in total. There are 3 connecting campuses divided by wooden ravines.

Right here, we have downtown Lake Forest, a number of restaurants and shops that are down there that students go to, obviously, the beach is a huge thing, especially during the summer. Students go down there and play Frisbee. You can study at the beginning of school and at the end towards finals when it is warm out. There is snow. You can play in the snow, which is great, build all sorts of sculptures and things. And then there is a few surrounding suburbs, Six Flags is right up the road in Gurnee, a number of shopping malls and things like that, so there is plenty of stuff to do off campus as well.

Lake Forest has over 1,400 students from 45 states, 68 countries and more than half come from out of state. 59 percent of the student body are women, 41 percent are men, and 24 percent are international and minority students.

We have students that may come from Uganda or Zimbabwe, so speaking about invisible children or the crisis in Darfur or certain human rights or global issues is more than just talking about it. We actually put a real face, if you will, with that issue. Admission standards while the median 50 percent of the class is around 3.5 GPA, ACT of around a 24 to 28, 1160 to around 1230 on the SAT and that is verbal and math combined. Those are the scores we look at.

All students attending Lake Forest will pay an annual tuition around 33,000 dollars, plus room and board costs of roughly 8,000. LSC has 18 departmental and 8 interdisciplinary majors, plus minors and special programs. Just a few student favorites are communications, business, economics, English, and psychology.

Our economics and business program is fairly popular among many students, because of our proximity to the city, the internship availability is vast whether it be with the Chicago Board of Trade, the Mercantile Exchange. English is a mainstay here at Lake Forest. We are a writing intensive institution, so no matter what you major in you are going to write a good deal and a lot of our students have interned with NBC 5, the Rolling Stones, the Tribune Company, so once again that play with the city has some bearing on the popular majors that we see here on campus.

Some unique programs at Lake Forest are the Islamic World Studies minor and the independent study program. Lake Forest gives students the chance to work in labs alongside distinguished faculty. After your freshman year, you can get involved in the Richter's scholars program. These select students get to conduct top-notch research with their professors. LFC has 90 full time faculty members with a vast majority holding their doctorate or equivalent degree.

Professor's doors are always open. I have had professors that urge you to come in and talk to them about something, even if it is not academics. I had a professor that encouraged me to come in and talk to him once a week, even if it is about a newspaper article, a movie you see, you know something that is not necessarily academically related. I go to professor's houses to eat dinner all the time. It is really a personal relationship that you build with your professors as well.

The Foresters compete in the NCAA Division III Midwest Conference. The handball teams have won 30 national championships, plus students athletes have earned 46 all conference honors in 58 academic all conference accolades. Students who live on campus stay in one of 10 resident halls or 4 apartment complexes. Students also have the choice to select from special interest housing, like the female only dorm, an intercultural hall, alcohol free living, or the Chicago Explorers program.

We have a bunch of different resident halls and a bunch of them are themes, so if you are looking for something specific you can live there. I live in the academic resident hall, so you have to have a certain GPA to live there and they do some more academic based programs. Each resident hall does that, the RAs will do different programs. We do movie viewings together. We watch Harry Potter or something at the resident hall or Grey's Anatomy season finale, stuff like that, just different things to kind of get the resident halls together.

The college has about 90 student organizations as well as 6 Greek organizations.

Right now about 12.3 percent of our campus is Greek. We have 4 sororities and 2 fraternities. It is not a huge presence. We are not allowed to have houses and stuff, but we do have lounges and some of the biggest events on campus are put on by the Greeks.

My Uncle Tawiliger [assumed spelling] on the art of eating pop-overs. That is the speech that Dr. Seuss delivered at Lake Forest 99th commencement celebration. This rock marks his final thoughts to grads. So as our college tour comes to an end, you must exercise great care. You may swallow down with solid, but you must spit out the air. I am Shana Dean for YouniversityTv, check out Lake Forest College.

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