<p>What are the biggest work hard/play hard schools? I know there’s Duke, WF, Penn, UVA, and Dartmouth, but what are some other big ones?</p>
<p>I agree that Duke, Dartmouth & Penn fall into this category. Claremont McKenna College & Colgate University also are often categorized as work hard/play hard schools. McGill University in Canada. Lehigh University, University of Notre Dame & Vanderbilt, as well. If you are willing to forget about the “work hard” part, I can offer many more recommendations.</p>
<p>If you mean colleges that have a great balance of top academics and excellent social life and exciting athletic life with nationally relevant teams, then the top schools in the USA are:</p>
<p>Stanford
Duke
Northwestern
Rice
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
UC Berkeley
Georgetown
U Virginia
UCLA
U Michigan
USC
U North Carolina
Wake Forest</p>
<p>If you’re thinking more of work hard, drink hard, check out Washington and Lee University.</p>
<p>LEHIGHHHH deff lehigh</p>
<p>Techies drink like there’s no tomorrow. I’ve heard some crazy stories about MIT.</p>
<p>Berkeley isn’t work hard/play hard…they’re pretty much mutually exclusive.</p>
<p>how about madison</p>
<p>Work Hard/Play Hard:</p>
<p>1.) Vanderbilt
2.) University of Southern California
3.) Washington & Lee
4.) Wake Forest
5.) Lehigh
7.) Boston College
8.) UVA
9.) UCSB
10.) UT-Austin</p>
<p>Other Balanced Schools: Duke, Colgate, Dartmouth, UPenn, Stanford, UMiami, Michigan, UNC, UGA, Florida, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Richmond, UC-Boulder, Tulane</p>
<p>Post #6 is right. Add Georgia Tech to the list, and place it near the top in the championship caliber category.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech (along with most tech schools) is filled with mostly guys. Part of having a balanced, social environment is having lots of pretty/cute girls to talk to (or vice-versa). D-1 sports are also a major plus.</p>
<p>The original post only mentioned “work hard/play hard” schools–nothing about “balance”; that was injected into the thread by another poster. Ga. Tech has Division 1 sports & socializes with a nearby all female college.(Agnes Scott College). And Atlanta is well known for beautiful girls.</p>
<p>If Georgia Tech has a sister school nearby – thats fine.</p>
<p>All I’m saying its difficult to “play hard” when a school has a large percentage of unattractive girls. At some tech schools, the girls are virtually non-existent. People will say these things shouldn’t be a consideration, but quality of life is a very underrated factor. I have several friends transferring from schools with poor social scenes (ie. Carnegie Mellon, etc.).</p>
<p>I don’t agree that Rice is a “play hard” school. In fact, it’s a very work-intensive place there. Rice certainly cannot be categorized in the same social “play hard” category as say, Duke or Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Stanford, Duke, WUSTL, Northwestern</p>
<p>referring to post 8, i’ve always had the impression that BC doesn’t play hard at all. Can anyone give some insight into this?</p>
<p>Dartmouth and Cornell should be in that list.</p>
<p>Cornell…what?</p>
<p>Do you want like Work Hard/ Play (= drinking/partying) hard or socializing hard? Because if you are talking about over the top college parties etc, some of the suggestions people are giving you are crazy. I would say for crazy partying yet solid academics:</p>
<ol>
<li>Vandy</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>U Mich</li>
<li>UNC</li>
<li>UVA (kind of, more drinking than anything else)</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Duke (sort of again)</li>
<li>UCSB</li>
<li>U Miami</li>
<li>Notre dame.</li>
</ol>
<p>Some schools like NYU, UCLA, etc, have good parties, but its not because of the school, its because of the surrounding environment. You can’t say that columbia has an amazing party scene but you can say that New York does and so Columbia benefits off that. Just keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Trinity College in Hartford, and Lehigh Univ.</p>
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</p>
<p>I’ve spent weekends there with friends…no partying. It’s actually really work intensive. I agree the OP has to better define what work hard/play hard means. In terms of academics and partying/drinking, I’d go with Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Michigan, Vanderbilt…Then again, any school can be work hard/play hard. I have friends that go to small LACs who party just as much, if not more, than some of my friends at Penn or Dartmouth or Duke. College is what you make of it. You’ll always find at least one other person who shares your values/party habits.</p>
<p>When I originally put up the thread, I was mainly interested in schools where everyone works hard and does their work, but then still finds time to go out with friends and go to parties, etc. I didn’t really mean study, study, study, and then get hammered, but just schools with a healthy mix of challenging academics and a good fun social life.</p>
<p>It’s been helpful though how everyone is making their own lists based on what they think the statement means, so thanks to everyone</p>