Tufts has a “LAC like” campus located in a city (Somerville) with the second highest density of young people in the country. Adjacent to that is Cambridge which has the third highest density and where you will find MIT and Harvard. Adjacent to that is Boston where you will find Northeastern which has some green space. BC is in the wealthist city (Newton) and feels more suburban, but has good access to Boston. Brandeis, in Waltham also might work. Clark University, Holy Cross and WPI are located in Worcester which is slightly larger than Providence.
No, it’s not. OP is looking specifically for distinct campuses within urban areas. GW is just a cluster of buildings, much like NYU and BU.
Emory is not urban at all. It’s technically in Atlanta, but very much suburban. You need to take a bus or car to get downtown. Tufts is pretty much the same, though at least walkable to transit. These are not distinct campuses in urban areas.
Tufts and BC do have access to Boston, but it’s significantly different from MIT/Harvard/Northeastern/BU types. From Northeastern it can take me up to 50 minutes to get to BC, and Northeastern is still 20 minutes outside of areas like the North End.
Lewis and Clark College? You’re joking, right?
L&C is by no means urban, at least not by any Eastern or Midwestern standards. The L&C campus is essentially very wooded parkland.
GWU is not a cluster of buildings in a city. The campus makes up 98% of the Foggy Bottom neighborhood in DC and its very distinctive.
The biggest (pleasant) surprises we found during our college search (and using this criteria): University of Pittsburgh. Georgia Tech. Vanderbilt. Northeastern.
University of Illinois-Chicago (but it’s something of a commuter campus, but there are plenty of dorms);
Loyola, Chicago
University of Chicago
Georgetown
St. Louis University
Washington University, St. Louis
Butler University, Indianapolis IN
Macalester, St. Paul MN
Hamline, St. Paul MN
University of St. Thomas, St. Paul MN
Augsburg College, Minneapolis MN
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (not sure if the campus is contained or scattered throughout the surrounding neighborhood…)
University of Nebraska-Lincoln (how big does the town need to be?)
@pengsphils Tufts is about 2 miles (two subway stops on the Red Line) from Harvard. It takes about 15 minutes (according to Google Maps) to get from Tufts to Harvard via public transportation. You can walk from Tufts to Harvard in 45 minutes. Davis Square (.5 miles from Tufts) and Harvard Square are among the top hangouts for young people in the Boston area. You should check them out. MIT is about 2 miles (two subway stops on the Red Line) from Harvard.
Be careful judging transit times relative to your BC to Northeastern experience. Northeastern is on its own spur of the Green Line, so there is not a real efficient way to travel between BC and Northeastern. BC and BU are on the same spur. The area around BC is nice, but not a hot spot for young people. The Green Line is less efficient than the Red Line (there are significantly more stops) but it is about the same time to get from BC to the North End as it is to get from BC to Northeastern (due to the layout of the subway system).
University of Minneapolis - Twin Cities.
URochester is near an urban area but not walking distance. They have built a ‘college town’ - it’s convenient but does not have an urban feel.
By urban do you mean in large city or do you also consider college towns such as Bloomington, IN and Champaign, IL urban? And then there are larger college towns integrated into campus such as Ann Arbor (University of Michigan).
Are all of the areas frequented by undergraduates in one of the four campus areas shown on the campus map at http://campusmaps.umn.edu/tc/map.php?extent=full ?
Rice has a spectacular contained campus, but is right in Houston.
When traveling to BC I walk to the BC spur’s stop (Hynes) and that walking time isn’t much from many places on campus. It may still be close to the same as the North End, but that’s still a good deal of time. I know some BC and Tufts students, and they go into the city significantly less because of their location, and often express frustration with it when the are in the city. I do think Tufts is better if you prefer the Cambridge area, but it isn’t quite the urban/city experience if that’s what you’re looking for, at least not as easily accessible.
I’m very familiar with all of the areas you listed and their travel times.
That’s not my idea of close. From any of the colleges I listed, you can get between them easily and to downtown within 30 minutes on a good day. That type of access makes it very easy for students to take advantage of what the city has to offer. BC faces significant commute times and Tufts, while better for Cambridge, faces an added 15 minutes to that 30 minute radius. I’m not saying they aren’t in Boston or don’t have access, I’m just saying that for a college student, via people that go there, there’s a difference that significantly affects lifestyle.
Here’s a good map. I think that you’ve got a point with Tufts, but this is a great illustration of BC’s true distance.
http://www.stonebrowndesign.com/uploads/9/7/6/9/9769402/t-time.jpg
All of the schools except Tufts are at or near the 15 min radius of said hub. With transfers that makes travel between in the 30 minute radius.
Meanwhile, BC (the far left of the graph) takes 40 minutes. Their line is by far the longest in length and stops, only competed with by Riverside.
@ucbalumnus - undergraduates except for those in biological sciences (st. paul campus) are predominantly in the east and west bank portions of the campus. There is a light rail system running through the middle which easily takes students to either the city core of Minneapolis or to S. Paul. There are also campus buses to transport students around the campuses.
Seattle U
@pengsphils - Great map! Never seen that one before.
The 15 minutes I quoted in Google maps includes the time to walk to the public bus and take it to Davis Square as well as the subway time between Davis and Harvard Squares. For students, Tufts runs a continuous shuttle (with a cell phone app to show where it is) between the campus and Davis Square - so that is more efficient than walking to the public bus stop.
Note that the city of Somerville is small (4 square miles), but it is ranked 15th in the US in population density (more dense than San Francisco, Cambridge or Boston). So if “urban” means lots of people, then Somerville fits the bill as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density
Tufts also runs a shuttle to the New England Conservatory and Museum of Fine Arts (they have joint degree programs) so there is no excuse for your Tufts friends not coming to visit you- even if they don’t want to take the subway!
My daughter worked 20hrs per week downtown at an internship during her senior year at Tufts, but it all depends on the individual. In general, students tend to venture into Boston more often with each passing year.
In 2020 the Green Line extension (from Lechmere) will place a new subway station on the Medford Side of the Tufts campus providing easy access to both the Green and Red lines.