That's a good resource, Bostonian.

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I have read up about colleges that have come up here, like Caltech or Reed, or Swarthmore - wouldn't these be the places to go

I went to a college of this type. While I took a few survey courses that were factoid-heavy, it wasn't a lot, and I found many classes that were intellectutally exciting and not at all about rote anything. This was 20ish years ago and I am far from PG, so everyone else's MMV.