<p>I agree with whenhen about UC Santa Cruz. We visited there the summer before QMP’s senior year. QMP was not especially interested, but it seemed to me like going to college in a national park. Gorgeous campus! Wooden bridges over greenery-filled ravines as you moved between some parts of campus! Deer! And when we were there, baby squirrels! That certainly beat the dead, practically totally flat, desiccated squirrel that we saw on our tour of Stanford. Stanford Guide: “You might want to step over this.” The squirrel looked like an element of a Star Trek show. “Captain, something or someone has rendered this earth creature two-dimensional.”</p>
<p>Overall, I loved my educational experience at Oberlin. However, I did feel quite a few classmates there at times felt being extremely dogmatic/zealous in their positions and browbeating others was enough to make their case…even in the absence of supporting logic and/or evidence. </p>
<p>I am partial to Harvard/MIT, Brown, Tufts, Columbia, Cornell<em>, UW-Madison</em>, UMich<em>/MSU</em>, URochester<em>, Caltech</em>, UCs…especially Berkeley & UCLA, etc.</p>
<p>Schools I don’t care as much for:</p>
<p>Princeton because of their snobby attitude towards my HS, bad experiences from older HS classmates, and with exception of a relative and handful of friends…have a serious snotty attitude towards others…including other Ivies/elite college alums. </p>
<p>Dartmouth because they seemed to attract a high proportion of jerks from my HS…especially the stridently HS conservative/libertarian jock types. The few exceptions, however, happen to be close HS/post college friends who understand my impression as they’ve admitted encountering a huge proportion when they attended. </p>
<p>NYU for being a bit hypocritical about “Private college in public service” when their miserly FA policies effectively barring access to lower SES students, screwing several friends over because of byzantine bureaucratic screwups, and treating undergrads like numbers. I turned down admission there because of those factors…especially when my LAC offered me a near-full ride. </p>
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<li>Schools cousins attended and had much esteem from family.<br></li>
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<p>I graduated Stuy in the mid-'90s. Graduated somewhere around 350-500/~700 graduates. </p>
<p>In my year, admissions stats were 90 Columbia, 118 Cornell, 20 Harvard, 30 MIT, ~20 Yale, ~5 Princeton, ~243 to NYU STERN & CAS.</p>
<p>All of ~7 who applied to Oberlin were admitted. </p>
<p>Keep in mind we were all limited to 8 total applications and no one was allowed to make all 8 to elite schools.</p>
<p>We were only allowed four applications, one of which had to be to a CUNY school. </p>
<p>Back in those days, Princeton was well-known for its anti-Semitic policies, and their way of dealing with it with Stuy was to admit no one. Williams was close to the same (they still had a Jew quota, which I got around almost as an afterthought. The head of the math department at Williams actually was a graduate of Stuy, and he really wanted to get at least one! And that was me…off the waiting list.) Yale had recently changed, as had Hamilton. I don’t even remember knowing what Swarthmore and Haverford were.</p>
<p>My favorite college by far these days is Earlham. Never heard of it back then, and the idea that someone would go to school in Indiana (which my grandfather thought was the capital of Iowa…)</p>
<p>I fell in love with UC Santa Cruz when I visited the campus… let’s see… must have been 1967. I was determined to apply, but I missed their very early deadline for out of state applicants.</p>
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<p>Stuy wasn’t THAT masochistic towards its own students. Moreover, I’d doubt the GC/admins would be eager to spark a parental/student revolt considering the abysmal academic state the CUNY system was in during the late '80s/early-mid-'90s. </p>
<p>We didn’t have to apply to CUNY if we didn’t want to…and most of us didn’t. </p>
<p>With exceptions like Sophie Davis and Brooklyn Honors, even the old neighborhood kids attending the zoned HS regarded CUNY as a system of absolute last resort back then.</p>
<p>I am partial to UCBerkeley, Michigan, Ohio State, Columbia, UCDavis and Stanford.</p>
<p>I haven’t been to Brown, but I like the way Brown is set up.
I have this feeling that I would like NYU.</p>
<p>I don’t loathe any schools because there are students that go to every school.</p>
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<p>I also find this to be the case. That said CC gave me insights in to schools I knew little to nothing about. It’s kind of like Cliff notes for ALL Institutions East.</p>
<p>So…as a representative from that other coast…</p>
<p>Love, Love, Love Cal Poly SLO. Lucky for us one kiddle goes there. Amazing college town and the student body regularly wins the ‘most happy college students’ designation. Famous weekly farmers market and minutes to the beach. And, the student body is, disproportionately to our bulging general populace very physically fit. That’s what happens when you can walk, bike, skateboard, roller skate or jog where ever you need to go 360 days a year. Other kiddle will be attending here. *</p>
<p>Love Love Love UCSB. (3rd most happy college students) Chances are your dorm room overlooks the pacific ocean sunsets. 14,000 bicycles have the right of way and when students are traveling between classes the interaction of all these bikes is like a road ballet. Close to the beach, easy access to skiing and far enough away from LA not to be affected by the pollution and traffic. Santa Barbara is just hands down beautiful.*</p>
<p>Occidental…beautiful campus on a hill. What would you expect from a place that served as a shooting local for Beverly Hills 90210. Interesting ‘in transition’ neighborhood. Very friendly students.</p>
<p>UCB ehh. Nice campus but the surrounding city is grungy and off putting. Off campus housing is very expensive and often…grungy. Great for Grad school, a bit of a soul crusher for UG’s.</p>
<p>USC. For someone who doesn’t like the flat lands, I found the campus depressing. Air quality was challenging and I have to say those students/others with whom we spoke on a casual self guided walking tour were among the least friendly of any we encountered. It could just have been a bad day. As we were leaving, a group from the surrounding 'hood was bent over the bushes vomiting and behaving …um…badly. We drove out the ‘wrong’ gate and I noticed we were the only car with all it’s hubcaps. Frankly, the place scared me. Luckily DS was not interested.</p>
<p>*DH and I are looking forward to may visits in respective kids college towns. We have informed them then need not necessarily be available during our visits. If that’s the case, they will miss out on free meals and somewhat generous shopping sprees :)</p>
<p>I have an affection for Swarthmore, though no one from my family has attended. When we visited, it just seemed like a great place for the right kind of student. Also, despite no connection at all, I’ve developed a soft spot for Baylor and their athletes, and for VCU because of it’s basketball team. </p>
<p>I loathe Notre Dame. I’m not sure why exactly (also no connection), but I think it’s because ND parents around here are really over-the-top in their admiration for the school and its football team. They think ND is academically better than HYP and every other top school, for which there is no evidence. I also dislike lucky charms of all kinds, including shamrocks and leprechauns. Furthermore, the motto “Fighting Irish” seems to me like an immigrant racial slur dating back to the days of New York City tenements.</p>
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<p>Wouldn’t the students at almost any college be generally more physically fit than the general population, simply because of a youth bias (even for non-traditional students)?</p>
<p>Cal Poly is one of the best deals out there.</p>
<p>I have known a lot of Dartmouth grads, male and female, over the years, dating back to the early 70s, and ALL of them have been intelligent, interesting people who tended to be if anything more laid back than my many other elite school friends, and completely non-pretentious. Including my own S. 
I’ve never known one these right-wing jocks that a few of you claim to have encountered in such numbers. Maybe you are just hanging out with the wrong people.</p>
<p>Maybe they mean dartMOUTH.</p>
<p>I’m partial to the first 11 of 12 Florida public universities comprising the Florida State Univ. System. My dad graduated from the Univ. of Florida, I graduated from the Univ. of South Florida, my sister is a student at Florida State Univ. The 11 public universities do an excellent job educating Florida students. </p>
<p>I loath the 12th Florida public university, Florida Polytechnic Univ., which was created by the Florida legislature last year after a retiring legislator pushed for its creation as a legacy for himself in his home community. The new university is a complete boondoggle in my opinion, and I predict the school will eventually be merged back into one of the old universities before enrolling the first student in the unaccredited Florida Polytechnic University disaster.</p>
<p>I’m partial to my alma mater, Indiana, obviously…but that’s because it is gorgeous and I spent 5 amazing years there for ugrad and grad school. Outside of that, I am partial to Notre Dame and Yale. There’s something about that ‘Oxford’ feel that I really really enjoy.</p>
<p>I loath Purdue, and not just because of the sports rivalries. 3 of my cousins went to PU, I was the first to venture to the dreaded cream and crimson. I visited campus and hated the brick buildings and the smell (those of you that know PU know what I’m talking about). I also loathed ASU–gorgeous campus but too commuter for me. Also not a fan of GWU, although I do love their Greek townhouses. Not a fan of urban campuses</p>
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Are you referring to Arizona State? If so, how is it too commuter for you?</p>
<p>Love and honor to Miami, forever and a day. </p>
<p>And take whatever poetgrl said and swap the references to Duke and Carolina. I also “loathe” most of the MAC for sports reasons and believe that Ohio University must be destroyed. (Akron may have already been destroyed, but it will take carbon dating and a visit from Chrissie Hynde for anyone to actually notice the difference.)</p>
<p>Favorites - Tulane, UMD-CP, Clemson, UNC, U Miami, MIT (spent a few months working in Cambridge), Georgetown.</p>
<p>Attitude adjustment welcome: Tie: UMich, Notre Dame, 2nd: UT Austin</p>
<p>Why would you go there: Any school under 10,000 students (the bigger the better)</p>
<p>What were they thinking: University of New Orleans (nice school, location, well, :))</p>
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<p>I stopped complaining about the Purdue fragrance when I recalled that the Central Elbonia College of Engineering and Mines was next to a butter / margarine processing plant… After experiencing that for four years, Purdue was a breeze (pun not intended).</p>
<p>Based on name confusion how about Stamford. Who wants to explain Stamford not Stanford over and over.</p>
<p>^ Or Cornell College vs Cornell University.</p>