@fuzzzzzzster: It almost appears as if you were hazed for a while on your thread as a test of your resolve. Glad you have hung in there.
I like rural/small town environments, and therefore obviously don’t find them depressing. So the suggestion is there that perhaps you might like them as well. However, the greater recommendation is that you, with the available choices you could ultimately have, should optimize your college experience in a way that you decide would be appropriate after having acquired as much information you can.
Well, cost for one thing. Broadway costs about 200 dollars a ticket and momofuku is about the same for a meal for 2. I didn’t go to Columbia, but I’ve been to enough expensive schools to know that 20 year olds don’t have that kind of disposable income. Sure, some of the artistic/theater types go to the theater, especially off-off-Broadway and experimental theater. But blow out restaurants and shows and whatnot are probably out of reach except on parents weekend. Time is the other issue. My D lives within a five block radius of her dorm the entire school semester-- Starbucks, library, class, computer lab, Chipotle, bed, repeat. It’s not like they have time to live the high life in Manhattan.
I don’t understand all this angsting about how “rural” either one of these schools is until you’re actually admitted. Talk about the cart before the horse.
What if Cornell or Dartmouth are the only elite schools you’re accepted to? Would you rather go to school in a big city if it meant dropping down a tier or two?
Ithaca is centrally isolated, as noted above, but the university and charter companies run bus service in and out. The university runs a Campus-to-Campus bus between NYC and Ithaca 4x/day and the charters offer service every weekend plus for each break. It is not an easy city to fly in or out of, so many take a bus or taxi to Syracuse where there are more flight options. Internationals and those having to travel cross country will often accompany a roommate home for the shorter breaks…or choose to visit another area.
The weather can be depressing if one does not like gray skies. The snowfall is not unmanageable and has been very light this winter.
As to having access to everything you could need…well, yes, but not within walking distance as it would be in a large city. The county runs buses out to the retail areas, and Amazon delivers just about anything. I wouldn’t try shopping for clothing in Ithaca, but that is personal taste.
I live in Hanover and can’t imagine living in a lovelier place. Yes, it’s a small town but the students here seem to really enjoy it. That said, it’s not for everyone. Dartmouth is very “outdoorsy” and into winter sports which is great if that’s what you like. Depressing? No. And agree with merc81 about Ithaca - what a fantastic college town. It all depends on what you want.
@LucieTheLakie statistically speaking I won’t be admitted to either. That doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t pose a general question about two reputable universities.
At Columbia and NYU, just to focus on those two, many of the students have lots of disposable income. How many years have we heard the complaint of those from families not so well off that they feel out of place at some of the Ivies and top tier LACs? Same of course for Harvard and doing things in Boston. And perhaps I was unusual in this regard, but when I was at Tulane I was pretty much on my own financially. My family had nothing and I was the first to attend college. But I took whatever money I earned at my job and what I got from Social Security (survivors benefits) and took a date to a nice restaurant once a month. I wasn’t going to spend 4 years in NOLA and not get to enjoy what was all around me!!
I am sure you are right that a lot of students can spend 4 years at these schools and not really take advantage of what is right there because of cost issues. But quite a few do, and reading between the lines of this OPs posts I don’t think spending money will be the biggest issue. Could be wrong of course.
"because I’ve never even experienced long, grey winters, I’m assuming would advise not attending those universities? "
If a long, gray winter is a deal-breaker then most of the schools in the Northeast, including the entire Ivy League, and much of the Midwest are going to be disqualified right from the start. USC, UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley, and Univ.of Miami are still open to you though.
@fuzzzzzzster Magazines, websites and travel journalists have been compiling lists of best places to go to college for as long as I can remember. The places are generally towns like Ithaca, Burlington, Ann Arbor, Bloomington, Athens, Oxford etc and smaller cities like Boston, Pittsburgh and Austin. They pick these places because they have the things that the vast majority of college students need, can afford and can get to reasonably. These places have evolved with the universities with the interests and pockets books of the students in mind. If your tastes and budget are very lavish, you will be doing many of these things alone. Even wealthy kids don’t usually spend much time off campus due to lack of time.
@fallenchemist I don’t doubt that there are extremely wealthy students at every school, but the question is whether there is some rarified group that is going to take in the cultural sites in their college city, eat out at the top restaurants and shop in designer clothing stores on a regular basis. Maybe some are living it up like you were in college ;), but I think it is very rare. Two of my D’s friends at Brown are in the super-wealthy class–$100+ million net worth, fly private, have bold-faced names, can afford whatever they want–and yet their activities on campus are pretty much what you’d expect any student’s to be like. They eat at Chipotle and wear sweats to class, just like my D. One of these students had a car on campus as a freshman, but she kept it garaged, and my D said that she used the car maybe once a month to run over to Whole Foods with friends.
And FWIW, I think you can stop a dozen Harvard students in the street and ask them if they went across the river into Boston during the past semester to do anything, and I would be surprised if you found more than one.
“The use of the word civilized in that post implies, well more than implies, that Ithaca and Hanover are uncivilized.”
I guess if a kid tells you that he’s starving, you say, “No, you ate yesterday, and it takes at least three days to begin the starvation process, so you are not starving.”
But I speak a colloquial version of the English language, so when I hear someone say, “I’m starving,” I assume that they are well fed and very hungry. Same thing when I hear a college applicant from Berlin or Singapore refer to living near civilization. He’s not talking about having flush toilets and a criminal justice system. He’s probably thinking more about access to first-run movies and dim sum.
Ithaca may be small, but in central New York it’s considered a mini-mecca for progressive politics, art and culture. Family members who live in the area drive over an hour to shop and attend cultural events in Ithaca
The four years of residential college are a bit of a bubble. You are generally not living your regular life. You live a college life. Living in Ithaca, NY or Hanover, NH for college is not the same as living, working, and raising children there for the rest of your adult life. You have to think of it as a college location.
If you like the city life and can also want to go to an ivy, look into Columbia. Its in Manhattan, NY and is as lively as any other place in the world.
Also I would like to point out that it won’t matter where you live, nothing is depressing unless you make it out to be.
Cornell is not depressing. How can any town with close to 30,000 students be depressing? I don’t care where you are, with 30,000 people aged 18-30, you are going to have a crazy-wild time!
