<p>College2332, talking about the eating clubs in Princeton. especially the bicker clubs such as cottage, ivy and tiger. it's pretty tough for a person from an average background to get in them....... Ivy barely has minorities (no asians whatsoever). tiger and cottage inn have VERY few minorities as well. they are the eating clubs for the "priviledged" and the "elite" sons and daughters, like Bill Frist's two sons.</p>
<p>I'm not much of a fan of eating clubs myself (for different reasons), but I'd like to say:</p>
<p>a) Approximately 75% of Princeton undergrads belong to eating clubs. It's hard to be elitist when three-fourths of the school belongs to an eating club.
b) With regards to lack of minorities in bicker clubs, have a look at the facebook groups for one of those clubs sometime (uh, not that I'm advocating cyber-stalking of any sort). You'd be pretty surprised.</p>
<p>caps and gowns does have a good amount of minorities. but Ti, cottage and ivy are kind of..............exclusive. Three of the hottest/most talented/most popular asian girls tried to bicker Ivy last year, none got in and there was a controversy about if their race is a factor. Cottage unofficially allows one asian girl a year. Keep in mind Pton has a lot of asians. I agree the whole system isn't that elitist. But the three houses can be.</p>
<p>UCSB.....mmmhmmm</p>
<p>Go Rice! Their residential college system is awesome!</p>
<p>It's not tough at all for a person from an "average background" to get into an eating club. I know people from pretty modest backgrounds who are in clubs like Ivy and Cottage. You also have to consider that the populations bickering/signing in to eating clubs are highly self-selecting. So if a lot of minorities aren't bickering/signing into certain clubs, it's because they don't want to, not because they can't.</p>
<p>Duke, Stanford, Notre Dame, Princeton, Yale. LAC'S- Williams, Davidson, Colgate, Holy Cross, Bucknell.</p>
<h2>Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, Penn </h2>
<p>Lehigh, Boston College, UMiami, USC</p>
<p>washington and lee. best combo. but not large, and certainly not in a big city as the OP requested.</p>
<p>OP didn't request a big city and seemed to at least be steerting away from a school with > 15,000 students. All but Rice and Vanderbilt on his top 10 list were not in a big city and Colgate, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Davidson aren't really near a big city, either. Notre Dame, to some degree, could probably fit with the OP's top 10 list too.</p>
<p>To clarify the original intent of this thread...</p>
<p>My son is a rising high school senior doing a fairly wide-ranging search for the best college "fit." He has a list of schools in which he is interested but, before he gets too settled in his choices, he wants to tap into the fabulous knowlege base (and strong opinions) that can be found on CC. For now, his mind is open to any school, but he is pretty clear that he wants more than just an academic experience. </p>
<p>He (and I) believe that so much of the learning during the college years takes place outside of the classroom, yet frequently the discussions on CC ignore these other areas. The hope was to generate both academic and non-academic comment that would provide a broader and more critical evaluation of many of the nation's top schools. The ultimate objective is that new and better information is learned and a more informed college search results. </p>
<p>Many of the threads and posts on CC have a singular line of thought, eg, I want the best physics department so what is the highest ranked physics program that I can get into. All too often, the discussions ignore how you will spend the non-academic hours and whether the school is somewhere where you would be happy and or where you'd be able to grow intellectually, socially, athletically, spritually, etc. This thread seeks to extend the conversation to think more about the whole package that a student will experience. </p>
<p>The criteria for the comparison:
1. Academic excellence (previously defined as Top 20 ranked schools, but disagree if you wish and explain why a certain school deserves consideration)
2. Vibrant social life
3. Varied and deep athletic life (preferably Division I)
4. Appealing physical attributes, such as:
a. campus beauty and architecture;
b. location;
c. weather; and
d. size (preferably no more than 10,000 students) </p>
<p>So think expansively. ruminate on and advocate for which schools YOU think have the absolute best combination of academic/social/athletic/physical characteristics. My son and I (and hopefully others) greatly enjoy the various posts and passions expressed. Keep it comin'!</p>
<p>I thought the top 10 schools you listed plus Notre Dame have the best combination of attributes you've listed. All are highly academically respected, are known to be fun, sports are a foundation of the school, are well recognized as having a great campus (I can personally vouch for eight of them) and are all medium to small sized. I'm not sure what you consider as to what would be desirable in location and weather. Dartmouth and Colgate are about as different from Rice and Vanderbilt as possible in this regard and this would come down to personal preference.</p>
<p>gellino,</p>
<p>I know a lot about Dartmouth, a little about Vanderbilt and next to nothing about Rice and Colgate. As you mention, all of the schools have very strong academic reputations, so I am not overly concerned about the quality of the academic offerings at any of these schools. But can you give me a little more insight into your view of the personalities of Vanderbilt, Rice, and Colgate as there is so much I don't know. Expound as you see fit and I really appreciate any effort you make. Some questions that jump quickly to mind:</p>
<p>What do the students do for fun at these schools?<br>
What is the tone of the student body-do they work well together or is it a competitive, dog eat dog world?<br>
How big a deal/exciting is it to attend a football or basketball game or is there some other sport on campus that is a big deal (eg, I suspect/would hope that baseball is big at Rice as they were in the CWS, but is it popular on campus and do the students strongly support the team?)?<br>
Who is the big athletic rival?<br>
How good are the club sports and intramural sports offerings?<br>
How is the location of the school a good thing or a bad thing and what kinds of UNIQUE aspects exist at the school (eg, at Dartmouth, students frequently enjoy winter by going to the schools's ski-way so skiers would want to know something like that was available or outdoorsy types would really be turned on by the Dartmouth Outing Club which is involved a very wide range of activities)?<br>
How supportive are the alumni of the school (both financially and in terms of school spirit)? Do they go back regularly to campus??
What will it mean to be an alumnus of that school (and I don't mean just in terms of what doors it might open professionally)?</p>
<p>If you have any specific questions about Stanford, Dartmouth, or Duke (which seem to be the reachiest of the schools with good social lives) check out the boards for the schools</p>
<p>I would suggest Berkeley, although it does not pass your size request. Best of luck.</p>
<p>Both club sports and varsity sports are a very big deal at Colgate. It is rural and in an extremely small town, a pretty campus.</p>
<p>Based on prior comments it appears that a consensus has developed that the following schools have the best combination of academics, social life, athletic life and physical characteristics:</p>
<p>NORTHEAST
Colgate
Dartmouth
Princeton</p>
<p>SOUTH
Duke
North Carolina (CH)
Vanderbilt
Virginia</p>
<p>MIDWEST
Michigan
Notre Dame
Wisconsin</p>
<p>SOUTHWEST
Rice</p>
<p>WEST
Stanford
UC-Berkeley
UCLA
USC</p>
<p>Given this list of 15 schools, how would you rank them if you weighted each category? Choose you own weighting or use the following:
1. Strength of academics (40%)
2. Vibrancy of social life (30%)
3. Broad and exciting athletic life (15%)
4. Attractive physical characteristics (15%).</p>
<p>I'd say it is imposible to rank them because they are all awesome. I'd probably put Stanford at #1, but after that, it really depends on individual interests.</p>
<p>i would say W&L beats all in the south with the exceptions of maybe UVA and Vandy.</p>
<p>Yeah, I know it's impossible and these are all pretty great places, but...</p>
<p>For amusement purposes, I did a little spreadsheet and used a mix of public surveys and personal impresssions of various schools to create a ranking. For example, for the academic weighting of my methodology, I used the USNWR rankings and said that all schools ranked 1-10 got 10 points, then all schools ranked 11-20 got 9 points and all others below 20 got 8 points. </p>
<p>I continued this 10, 9, 8 scoring in all categories and then, using the aforementioned weighting, created a score and ranked the schools. Without question, some of my impressions are wrong (like I really have no clue about the social life at Rice or the athletic life at Colgate). My "system" did rank Stanford as number one, but I question whether I should have Vanderbilt ranked so highly. I like the school a lot, but wonder if I overrated its athletic offering (perhaps) or social life (I don't think so). In any event, use your own scoring and weighting system and make a stab at a ranking of these schools. I welcome comment and argument. </p>
<p>Here is what I came up with:</p>
<pre><code> Acad Social Athl Phys.
40% 30% 15% 15% Score Rank
</code></pre>
<p>NO EAST<br>
Colgate 8 10 8 10 8.900 9
D'mouth 10 9 8 9 9.250 3
Princeton 10 8 8 10 9.100 7</p>
<p>SOUTH<br>
Duke 10 8 9 10 9.250 3
UNC (CH) 8 9 10 9 8.750 13
V'bilt 9 10 9 10 9.450 2
Virginia 8 10 10 10 9.200 5</p>
<p>MIDWEST<br>
Michigan 8 9 10 9 8.750 13
N Dame 9 8 10 9 8.850 12
Wisc 8 10 10 9 9.050 8</p>
<p>SO WEST<br>
Rice 9 8 9 9 8.700 15</p>
<p>WEST<br>
Stanford 10 9 10 10 9.700 1
UC-Berk 9 9 10 9 9.150 6
UCLA 8 9 10 10 8.900 9
USC 8 10 10 8 8.900 9</p>