<p>Very good list but might add some others: Northeast-Holy Cross, Bucknell, Williams. South-Davidson, William& Mary. Midwest-Northwestern.</p>
<p>slow day at work so i judged using dajada07's rating system. </p>
<p>(The perfect score a school could get was a 10.0, and I rated each factor on a scale of 1-10. I follow college sports religiously, so I took into account success and popularity of major sports. No school was rated below a 6.0 on any one factor because they are all phenomenal schools, academically and socially)</p>
<p>Stanford = 9.55</p>
<p>Duke = 8.85
Notre Dame = 8.75
UVA = 8.75</p>
<p>Vandy = 8.45
UCLA = 8.20
UNC-CH = 8.20</p>
<p>Dartmouth = 7.95
Michigan = 7.90
Berkeley = 7.80
Wisconsin = 7.75</p>
<p>Princeton = 7.45
Colgate = 7.40
USC = 7.40
Rice = 7.40</p>
<p>Can you break-out the scores?</p>
<p>I don't think/ can't believe anyone hasn't mentioned maryland! I think it is extremely well rounded... good academics, near 2 big cities, great social life, sports, all kinds of students (hot ones too).. etc etc everything that's been mentioned in this thread etc</p>
<p>"Stanford = 9.55</p>
<p>Duke = 8.85
Notre Dame = 8.75
UVA = 8.75</p>
<p>Vandy = 8.45
UCLA = 8.20
UNC-CH = 8.20</p>
<p>Dartmouth = 7.95
Michigan = 7.90
Berkeley = 7.80
Wisconsin = 7.75</p>
<p>Princeton = 7.45
Colgate = 7.40
USC = 7.40
Rice = 7.40"</p>
<p>not a bad ranking. it's quite accurate.</p>
<p>UMD does not have nearly the same academic quality student body that these other schools do. Plus, isn't it way bigger than the criteria the OP was using? </p>
<p>I think people are overranking the academic and athletic components of Vanderbilt, which is causing it to come out as one of the better schools on the list, instead of one of the lower ones.</p>
<p>gellino- vandy doesnt have many good sports teams, but it has a very very active social life and i included location in my ratings, which is why nashville is more appealing than hanover, new hampshire. also, because of its membership in the SEC, the sports culture there is a lot more prominent than that of the patriot league or the ivy league.</p>
<p>I'm not disputing the social side of Vanderbilt, just how high it scores mostly on academic (from the one poster who broke the ratings into four categories) and to a lesser degree on sports. Football games still attract a fair amount of interest in the Ivy and Patriot League and Colgate, Dartmouth and Princeton, at least, have perennial top 20 teams in hockey and lacrosse.</p>
<p>University of Florida has a great mix</p>
<p>i have to nix duke from this list. duke socially is possibly the lamest school I have ever seen. I spent a weekend there (friday night and saturday night), and honestly, what they thought was fun or cool was anything but. They stand around in the quad drunk and pretend to be cool (and probably more drunk then they actually are). The "frat bros" thought they were the **** because they, and I kid you not, have big painted benches that they sit on outside of the dorms. Real cool, real cool. Also I found that duke students tended to be pretty high on their horses. I definately got the impression i was talked down upon because "We go to duke, but you only go to UVa, a state school." Plus their football team sucks...and their girls are ugly. And its painfully obvious that 90% of that school wishes they were at unc down the road.</p>
<p>"...and their girls are ugly."</p>
<p>-To each his own.... :rolleyes:</p>
<p>why are people leaving out Penn, it's the party ivy!!! definitely more fun than the others.</p>
<p>As expected, Stanford gets the highest score of 8.95. All but 2 schools get average scores of 8.0-8.8. Only two schools (Rice and Colgate) get scores under 8.</p>
<p>"why are people leaving out Penn, it's the party ivy!!!"</p>
<p>-The Penn parties are just as lame as those at Northwestern.... :rolleyes: I feel like Iām in a room with a bunch of drunken business men</p>
<p>Penn isn't on there because appealing physical characteristics of the campus and location was one of the four categories of criteria.</p>
<p>Philly isn't a good place to be?</p>
<p>aw jags, someone has trouble making friends...in two days.</p>
<p>anyways, Duke is better than UVA but people talking down to somebody else for attending a certain school are almost always lame</p>
<p>However, Duke is portrayed alot less nerdy than it actually is. All the Rolling Stones stuff about how Duke students party all the time seems to be mostly bunk. For example, there isn't a frat row/street at Duke. Instead, all students that aren't seniors live in dorms. Also, only a small percentage of students party regularly. Its partying is definetely the most overrated (though better than similar schools academically, which warrants a good ranking.) This is all firsthand stuff I've heard. </p>
<p>Plus, with the whole Lax allegations, I can only expect the party scene to get worse and worse at Duke. The administration already seems to be crushing partying on campus. Now they will only do that more.</p>
<p>Duke isnt that much better. Standing is a quad and pretending to be cool is pathetic.</p>
<p>Penn certainly doesn't have the campus or bucolic wonderland atmosphere that Stanford, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, Colgate, UVA have.</p>
<p>I agree with untitled; Duke, Virginia and UNC are in the same neighborhood, geographically and academically. Virginia does have a nicer campus than Duke, while Carolina has a great campus town.</p>
<p>Also agree about Penn's campus, not the most beautiful, but the atmosphere is fun and Philly isn't that bad, Ithica, Palo Alto or Hanover could get pretty boring, two sides to the coin I suppose.</p>