Great post! ASU, SIU or any other top ten party school! Did the academic thing already… Just not sure I could survive it. HaHaHa!
What a great thread! UMBC worked out very nicely for me, but my first choice back then was Northeastern. If we’re talking about our choice today, it’d be University of Wisconsin-Whitewater for no other reason than I like the looks of place.
My 18 year old self-Bates College. I had a wonderful 4 years there and graduated in great shape for grad school. I also met my husband there. Would highly recommend it.
My 50-something self transported into an 18 year old’s body? Stanford. I’d love to try the West Coast and I’d be ready for someplace bigger than my original undergrad.
A few years ago I actually had a dream that I was going back to Bates to earn an additional BA and live in my old dorm!
Yes, I’ve done a 180 since I was 18-22. The small college was perfect for me then. Today, I realize how much more I could have gotten at a large U. The choices, a diversity of interests and talents among peers. But that’s not who I was, then.
UCLA, but as it was 30+ years ago. Not the U as it is today.
I’d stick with Va Tech because we loved it and I met H there (along with getting a terrific education and loving the Corps of Cadets). I can’t imagine not having those memories.
If both H and I were to think about switching, The University of Rochester appeals to both of us - really the only one that has appealed to us both on the multiple tours with our kids.
However, sailing was/is a biggie for him so I know he’d choose Eckerd if he had it to do over, but I also know he wonders if he’d have graduated had he gone there with sailing right next to his dorm and they don’t have engineering - his career - so for him, only the sailing would be the draw.
One thing we both wish is that Study Abroad were more common back then. There are oodles of countries we’d have loved to study in for a semester.
Since it’s a miracle ticket, I would like to choose a different college per year.
I’m with a couple of posters - I’d really like to try an all women’s college, probably Bryn Mawr cause if’s good enough for Katherine Hepburn …
Then I would give Harvard or some big name a try to see if it’s all that.
I wouldn’t mind spending a year at a big rah-rah school like Bama, Michigan, etc. Nothing like a middle-aged woman at a college football game. Especially one who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.
Not sure what my last pick would be - maybe Berkeley (not familiar with West Coast) or a traditional LAC like Williams or Bowdoin??
Based on my 1st 3 choices there’s a pretty high probability that I would have flunked out before 4th year.
I would have a hard time not going back to Cornell.
Starting over again at college would mean resetting the rest of my post-college life, and that turned out quite well, so I’m good with Carnegie-Mellon (with the hyphen).
Ah, wouldn’t this be fun? I attended commuter college and had no traditional college experience. I think I’d choose Brown. I love the location and I love the vibe there.
If I really went down this path I’d do a different career and major so that would be part of the choice.
Just for fun 50 year old me choice - University of Hawaii.
Most realistic alternate career path - psychology or education major with an emphasis on gifted youth. Maybe Stanford or Vanderbilt.
Less realistic although sounds fun career path - something like music production. Maybe NYU.
I loved Ohio University where I got my bachelors…and I would go there again…as long as I could have the same circle of friends, and fabulous professors in my field of study.
I’d pick Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Rice, Stanford. In that order
I’ve attended several (grad school, internship etc.) and visited many over the past few years. I think I would choose Vanderbilt, where my S19 is headed soon. At least I can live vicariously through him. 
I guess I get to vicariously experience Columbia this year, which didn’t even matriculate females when I applied to college. That came a year later.
My 17-year old self would choose Wellesley, but my current-aged self would easily head straight for NYU.
Howard University or FAMU I always wanted the HBCU experience.
I’d go to UVA over any other school in the country. I went to a large flagship and it was great, but if we are doing perfect fantasy, I’d prefer to go to school in Charlottesville.
Such a fun question! I fell pretty hard for Hamilton and University of Rochester when I did visits with my daughter. I guess I can kind of live vicariously through her since she ended up at Roch. I very much like the open (flexible) curriculum.
I would be really tempted to go back to Reed, but I think I’d go with Brown this time. Never even thought of the Ivies back in 69.
William &Mary.
After I graduated from Miami U (Ohio) and was waiting, waiting, waiting to get into Peace Corps I spent a summer doing an archaeology dig with William & Mary students at Shirley Plantation on the James River. We stayed in enormous army tents and basically camped out. No A/C, so great preparation for Peace Corps, LOL. We dug, graphed and recorded in painfully slow increments with our trowels and notebooks in 98+ degree heat by day and sorted artifacts/ listened to lectures by lantern in the evening! I greatly enjoyed the other students, the professors, the camaraderie, and the W&M campus ( what little I saw of it). Hurrah for Virginia Beach on the weekends!