^ that is true, but there is a difference between a college where everyone lives on campus and most do not, even if they live in houses and apartments in the same area. At near 100% residential schools kids eat in the dining hall for all or the majority of meals as well as live together, study in the library, etc. More and different opportunities to spend time, which is a plus for some and a negative for some.
With a couple in college, I honestly didn’t know there were schools where anyone actually lives and eats on campus all four years. That would be a deal breaker for mine, but I see it appealing for others, particularly parents.
My daughter liked the 4 year requirement of living on campus at Vanderbilt. It was a major reason she decided to attend. And the food is good too!
labegg I have heard SMU has a lot of scholarship money and that for good students SMU will throw scholarship $ at you to make it about equal between SMU and a Texas public university. SMU gets a lot of kids that can’t go to UT because of the top 8 percent rule. Many students from my daughter’s school apply there as a safety and many attend every year…
Baton Rouge has tons of student-oriented apartment complexes. Living in those isn’t that much different than lining in a dorm. Almost everyone is a student, and the complexes have student-focused services and amenities–computer labs, that kind of thing.
Moved Up: U Tampa - originally applied as a “freebie”. They offered expedited admission and waived application fee. We stopped in for a visit while in Florida visiting S21 at college. Her face lit up. She had already been accepted and begged me to put her housing deposit down THAT DAY.
Moved Up: Towson University - just felt it immediately. Visited as a junior and she had her “ah-hah” moment. Couldn’t say why, but it was the first college that really spoke to her. It fell a little as we toured others schools but she wanted to return last month to see it again. She was accepted in person in front of 500 people (along with 25 or so others) which left a big impression. Loved it. It skyrockted back up to the top 4.
Moved Down: Ithaca College - felt too remote, in the middle of nowhere. Long drive from home to get there. (I still think it should be a contender so considering a second visit where we stay right in town a little longer. We did a quick in and out last time which made us tired and cranky. Not the best plan.)
Crossed off: Xavier - just didn’t feel it.
Crossed off: Purdue - felt a little too big, but she loved the football game and school spirit. Dorms weren’t that impressive. Oddly turned off by meal plan. No dinner on Sundays???
Crossed off: George Washington University - felt too political. As an Athletic Training major, she didn’t want to be drowned out by the political science, pre-law folks.
Moved up, but subsequently crossed off: Miami University of Ohio - loved the campus and the tour. Surprising because it is just about as remote as Ithaca, if not more so. Later crossed off because we discovered their Athletic Training Program (her major) is on probation with the AT Certification Board.
@Hangdog My college Jr. attended Purdue her freshman and half of Soph year. It turned out to be such a HUGE
mistake for her that she came home at winter break and transferred!
^ @Doberlady What happened at Purdue?
@londondad Wasn’t the right fit. We were double deposited with Purdue and Penn State and she went with the bigger name (she is pre-vet).
Bad bad choice for her. 14 hours from home coupled with the size and feeling like a number etc
She went to private local college for a semester and transferred to SUNY Geneseo this fall. 5 hours from home. Wouldn’t have been her #1 transfer pick but the experience she had at Purdue really messed her up and she wanted to go smaller and closer.
She is happy where she is but doesn’t have what she originally was after, now a BIO major versus an Animal Science major.
Was hard times around here last winter but these are the things that help shape our kids into adults, or at least that is what they tell me 
@HiToWaMom When we visited Claremont, there were certainly students around but there is a very different vibe to a place that Columbia/Barnard that is located smack in the middle of a major city. It was that that gave the places their “buzz”. And Columbia is a huge university. At times Claremont felt very quiet; I doubt you’d ever find that at Columbia.
Columbia has lots of quiet places to relax, however. it has a central green lawn-filled campus with lots of well-manicured flower beds.
It’s also next to wooded areas that run for several miles along the Hudson River. There’s even a bird sanctuary there, tennis courts in the woods (10 courts) and the smell of the ocean, as the Hudson is an estuary, where the tide comes in. A humpback whale swam up the Hudson two weeks ago.
^ I’ve never thought of Riverside Park as “a wooded area” but I guess it is, sort of. Morningside Park too, for that matter.
@Dustyfeathers Did you just call Riverside Park a wooded area? :))
I used to live a block from Riverside Park, and I went to Columbia for grad school. Riverside Park is a thin strip next to the Hudson. You need to get to Central Park’s Ramble for any hint of “wooded area.”
Columbia U is, obviously, an excellent school, but let’s be honest here.
Wow clearly you don’t know all of Riverside Park. But thanks for your opinion.
Central Park also has several ramble-type areas. But it’s not the only area in the city like this.
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There are parts of Riverside Pk in the 90s or maybe 80s near a playground that feel wooded to me. We are not talking the Adirondacks, but they do have that wooded feel. So I’m going with @Dustyfeathers on this one
We should not threadjack this about the wooded areas of northern Manhattan, but there are plenty to be found if you get off the beaten track. As I said, there’s a bird sanctuary and a ramble near 120th street, which is the Columbia neighborhood. That’s what’s relevant here. Northern Central Park, which is close enough to CU for the track team to run down to and practice, has a ramble area that was designed in the 19th C. to look like the Adirondacks, with a small (bitsy) waterfall and everything. The point is that CU offers pleasant, quiet areas even though it’s in the middle of the city.
Further north still, there’s wonderful woods near the Cloisters and further north still, at Inwood, where the CU rowing facilities are and the stadium, you can find genuine forest, a natural salt-water marsh area, and caves where American Indians / Natives lived and the marker where the island was sold to by the Indians to the Dutch (sold can be debated, but you get the picture). For awhile at least there was a bald eagle nest in the wooded areas of Inwood, if I’m remembering properly. The nestlings were being fed fish from one of the local gourmet markets one year, as I remember, which tells you how excited Manhattanites were to welcome those neighbors. As long as I’ve lived in NYC and as many red tailed hawks and kestrels as I’ve seen (they perch on my fire escape) I’ve personally seen a bald eagle only once. https://www.nycgovparks.org/programs/rangers/eagles
We should get back to the original question…
Moved Down: U of Alabama (small town, huge un-walkable campus), U of Mississippi (felt like going back in time about 20 years, terrible campus food, U was behind on technology and maintenance), U of GA (huge very spread out campus, parking is a nightmare but it’s not walking friendly either, weird eclectic vibe, too many bars, greek life too far from campus)
Moved Up: U of Florida (for such a large school, it was still very walking/bike friendly, good college town with plenty of off campus entertainment, great food options), Florida State (very walkable and compact for such a large campus, gorgeous buildings and landscape, close to the amenities of the city while maintaining a great college feel, had a circus on campus! - D’s favorite)
“weird eclectic vibe”. You say that like it’s a bad thing :>