Claremont McKenna, or Pomona. Hey, all the Claremont Colleges. You really can’t beat Claremont as a college town IMO.
I also like Berkeley. Some people don’t like the area, but I LOVE it.
Agree with @Ruby789. Claremont was the first thing that came to mind for me but then really any well rated school in California could be said to meet the criteria.
Outside CA, and not yet mentioned: Rice, Emory, Duke, UNC-CH, U Georgia (Athens is lovely), GA Tech, Vanderbilt, Davidson.
My kid hated CM…hated it…when we visited. she actually hated the little town.
Stanford and UCLA 
UCLA and USC (ignoring the cost!)
UNC-CH, UT-Austin, UCSB, UCSD, UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley, Pomona/Mudd/CMC/Scripps/Pitzer, Occidental, Tulane (if you don’t mind excessive humidity) . . .
UC Santa Barbara…could hear the waves crashing every night from my bedroom window. UCSB checked every box!
Cal Poly SLO
Yeah, at Hogwarts, the mud bloods are badly discriminated by the rich legacy kids. Also, the faculty retention for Defence Against the Dark Arts is not good at all. I will give A+ for the dining facility, though.
C’mon – everyone is on a full scholarship, including transportation to school! They could give some scholarships for books, though, so no one needs second hand robes. And diversity – Dean Thomas, Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson (Quidditch player), the Patel twins, Cho – those are just among Harry’s friends. Although I have to say that Slytherin seems to have little diversity… And they don’t even require an essay to apply!
@thumper1 , Can you elaborate? My D is interested in Scripps but since we did East Coast tour during spring break, we are not doing anymore big college tour. She loves big cities. I understand that Claremot consortium is not that close to LA? However, since 5 colleges are put together, I thought it would be a vibrant college town where everytning is happening all the time.
U of Miami
Seems harder to get into, with a better rep, than when I went to school in FL in the 80’s.
Can we get some love for the midwest?
Drake University.
Depending on how picky you are about “nice town” and “high ranking,” you can pretty much start at Western Washington University, travel down the West Coast, swing through the Southwest and Texas to the Gulf of Mexico, decide what to do about the colleges in Florida, and proceed north until you hit Northern Virginia or just south of wherever else you think the weather stops being mild. Then maybe add a few schools in the middle of the southern half of the interior. The names of the colleges are hardly secrets.
So (with apologies for any I’m forgetting):
Western Washington University
University of Washington
Evergreen State
Reed
University of Oregon
Lewis & Clark
Berkeley
Stanford
Santa Clara
UCSC
UCSB
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Pepperdine (I guess, for the right student)
Any of the Claremont Colleges
Cal Tech
Occidental
UCLA
USC
UCSD
University of Arizona
Arizona State
University of Texas
SMU
Rice
Tulane
Miami
Georgia Tech
Emory
University of Georgia
UNC
Duke
Elon
Davidson
Wake Forest
Warren Wilson
UVA
William & Mary
Vanderbilt
Sewanee
Rhodes
Too much death and destruction at Hogwarts. I’m going with my alma mater: UC Berkeley. Lots of negatives that are also (IMO) made up with even greater number of positives.
@HiToWaMom my kid just didn’t like the feel of the Claremont colleges. She hated the feel,of the town. I think the Birkenstock store on the corner cinched that.
Our tour guide at CMC was a slob. Looked like she had just rolled out of bed. She was a freshman who,kept saying “there isn’t anything like this ANYWHERE else”. My daughter finally looked at me and asked “how would she know? Has she been EVERYWHERE else?”
The impression my kid got was that the students there thought they were superior to students elsewhere. This was her impression.
There are plenty of kids who like the Claremont colleges. Just not for my kid!
The death and destruction at Hogwarts was many years ago, pretty much a whole generation now. (The Trio’s kids are there now.) It’s been a place of peace for many years, no worries
Forgetting weather really helps!! I love Colgate. Northwestern is in Evanston, I love Evanston. My kids attend/will attend Notre Dame, but other people complain about South Bend, I don’t mind the area though. I love Providence, so Brown.
If high ranking is not important, I think SMU and TCU are up and coming.
The person who said USC may not have been to the campus? I don’t think the neighborhood qualifies as a nice town.
@thumper1 Thanks! I did read somewhere that their tour guide kept saying how (I guess) Pomona was AWESOME.
I think it’s one thing to love your college, it’s another thing how to convey that love without rubbing it in.
I admit, I have been to Claremont many times, and haven’t seen this store. Going to guess it would be frequented most by the Pitzer students. 
And CMC is just one of the colleges, each of them have their own vibe. My kid (STEM) thinks Harvey Mudd is as perfect as it gets. The good thing about the Claremont colleges is that there is truly a different fit for different students there, and the benefits of an LAC with some of the same benefits of a mid-sized school because of the consortium.