My D is going to be attending DU this Fall and we live about 20 minutes away (which was the biggest downside for her). DU has a great campus (even though it’s close to downtown) and the campus is super active with tons of things going on. For my D, who is planning to study Intl Relations (speaks Arabic & French), Econ, & PoliSci, DU has great academic programs and a ton of internship opportunities. I don’t know a ton about Elon, but I can say that I wouldn’t describe DU as a “city school” and the campus itself couple with the access to the outdoors is a big plus.
My D has a great merit scholarship from a local foundation that is basically a full-ride to any school in CO (DU fills in what the foundation doesn’t) and for her interests, DU was the right choice given the scholarship. Some of her other accepted choices were pretty different (small schools like CMC, Scripps, Bryn Mawr, Conn College) and others were more similar mid-sized universities (American, Tulane, USD, etc.), but even without the scholarship, I felt like DU held it’s own against some of these other, higher-ranked schools