<p>Milwaukee is connected with Chicago by Amtrak [Train</a> & Bus Tickets - National Railroad - USA & Canada | Amtrak](<a href=“http://www.amtrak.com/home]Train”>http://www.amtrak.com/home) and by Megabus [megabus.com</a> | Now serving over 25 million bus customers in North America](<a href=“http://us.megabus.com/]megabus.com”>http://us.megabus.com/) You can get anywhere else in the country from Chicago. Milwaukee also has a decent-sized airport so it isn’t like you would be in a truly remote location.</p>
<p>SUNY Buffalo has very few trains to the cities you’ve mentioned and it would take a long time to get to a major US city by train. You would generally have to fly to get to most of the cities on your list, but Buffalo has a good-sized airport and there are many flights available to NYC and DC. Also, Buffalo is pretty cold and snowy, which is something you didn’t seem to be interested in.</p>
<p>I think that UMaryland-College Park is the clear winner here. I myself would then put down the UCs (probably UCLA, UC-Berkeley and UCSD). After that, it’s up to you - Marquette, SUNY-Buffalo or even University of Miami, which is located in a very fun city.</p>
<p>Remember, once you are settled into your classes, it is most likely that your life between regular breaks will be spent on or close to campus. There are plenty of students at UM-CP who never, ever go into DC - you could turn out to be one of them. If you do want to be able to travel to any particular places while you are here, it is almost certain that your “big trips” will have to be fit into the longer breaks and holidays. This means that when you are researching the various options, you need to check out their academic calendars (as well as current travel costs for the locations you want to visit). Is there a fall break, and if so how many days? Is Thanksgiving break two days or a full week? How long is winter break, and would you plan to go home then or to travel in this hemisphere instead? Is there a January term (or May term) during which you could study at yet another college/university? Is spring break a full week? If any of the colleges/universities on your list are on quarters or trimesters, when do the breaks fall and how long are they?</p>
<p>Coming from Britain I think your best choices in terms of getting the best “American experience” would be one of the California schools on your list. And sorry Buffalo, I would put Buffalo at the very bottom of the list, actually off the list . Buffalo is not a great college town, it is not a tourist destination, it isn’t really close to anything cool (except Toronto if you have a car, and no, I don’t think Niagara Falls is cool), and the winters are brutal.
After California, I would go with Maryland for proximity to Washington D.C., NY, other majors cities and other major tourist destinations (assuming you will have some time to travel).</p>
<p>It is impossible to define the “Quintessentially American location”! We are just too big and have too many different regional differences, even if you are just thinking about the landscape and weather, not to mention regional population differences. And that’s excluding Hawaii and Alaska which are very different from every other region. With the traveling I have done, I would pick California as the most interesting location to spend a year abroad. Of course, then there is the Northern California versus Southern California debate ;)</p>
<p>^^^^I’d agree that Buffalo should be waaaay down on the list. Buffalo is not a great city and it is not close to great transportation links (and yes, Niagara Falls is cool, but after that trip there isn’t much to see or do). Milwaukee is a small Midwest city.</p>
<p>Out of your list, I’d go for UMaryland, University of San Diego, UMiami</p>
<p>If you’ve narrowed it down to MD, MU and Buff, I’d choose Maryland as well.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies once again.</p>
<p>^ Do you mean UCSD or San Diego State? San Diego does look very interesting from what I’ve read after the suggestions.</p>
<p>Also, looking up Buffalo - I’d have to agree that it does look pretty dull.</p>
<p>My study abroad coordinator has told me that there are 5 extra universities next year (not listed on the website list in the OP). These extra unis are:</p>
<p>University of Missouri-St. Louis
University of Richmond
Roanoke College (Virginia)
Goucher College (Baltimore)
Middlebury College (Vermont)</p>
<p>Any info on these would be very much appreciated!</p>
<p>Middlebury is a small Liberal Arts College (LAC), however, although isolated, it is spectacular. One of the best colleges in the USA (think - Harvard without grad students).
It is probably not too difficult to get to Boston from Middlebury but, by no means easy to jaunt off to “the city.” This would be my first choice.
From your former list, my choices would be: UIndiana, Lehigh, UMaryland, in that order. This list assumes UC’s are too difficult to pinpoint.</p>
<p>Including the new list, I would focus your search on the following 6:</p>
<p>Indiana University-Bloomington
Middlebury College
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of California-San Diego
University of Maryland-College Park</p>
<p>UCLA seems to fit most of your criteria. If you are willing to put up with a rural location, Middlebury is an elite LAC (arguably the most selective school on your list).</p>
<p>Yep, Middlebury looks amazing! Vermont - although not the quintessentially American place I envisaged - seems a beautiful place and Middlebury College will look good on my CV from the way people respond to it. I think I may have made a choice. 5 others left to consider (disregard others):</p>
<ol>
<li>Marquette (Pros: In a big city, good rep. Cons: No rapid transit system in Milwaukee).</li>
<li>Middlebury (Pros: Great rep, beautiful campus. Cons: Hard to travel, rural).</li>
<li>UCSD or San Diego State (instead of Buffalo) (Pros: California based, UCSD = Good rep. Cons: SDSU = Average rep, too Mexican aesthetically).</li>
<li>Maryland (Pros: All-American feel, good location. Cons: Apparently there are a lot more men than women [obviously not ideal], high crime rate according to Y! Answers).</li>
<li>UCLA (Pros: LA-based, good transport, typical US experience. Cons: Oversubscribed).</li>
</ol>
<p>Any help?</p>
<p>I’d keep University of Richmond too. It’s highly ranked, it’s quintessentially “American” (as per your definition), the city’s well-located, and it’s quite dynamic.
I agree that Middlebury would match your first wishes best though.
Both are LACs, so you could easily take interdisciplinary classes, seminars, etc. The experience would likely be very different from your current one. The classes wouldn’t be written as Master’s level but would definitively match the Master’s level of many other universities on your list, especially Middlebury.
UCSD is an amazing school (absolutely love it when I go there for conferences and try to extend the stay), SDSU is more of a commuter school. San Diego itself is a great city.
Goucher is small but well-located, but may not be challenging enough for you. I’d pick UMD-CP over it. Not sure where the “high crime rate” comes from, you might want to post on the specialized forum about it.
Marquette has an image of fairly athletic, not “intellectual”, down-to-earth, mostly Catholic students. And as far as weather goes, if I picked something fairly brutal, I’d prefer Burlington in VT to Milwaukee, but perhaps that’s just me. 
(I know there’s no school on your list around Burlington, it was just an example)
UCLA: only if you get registration privileges. Get information first about whether you’ll be able to choose your classes and register for them early.</p>
<p>Unfortunately UCLA is full. Only UC-Irvine, Merced and UCSD is left.</p>
<p>I have heard Goucher isn’t very challenging from reading posts on this forum and others. I don’t particularly like the look of Baltimore anyway!</p>
<p>Maryland-CP seems a good choice, however, I’d like to go to a smaller college. My current university has 15,000 students enrolled. Middlebury and Richmond have 2,000 so the classes would be smaller, and this would probably be better for me studying abroad as I can get to know more people personally.</p>
<p>What would you recommend: Middlebury or Richmond? I need to make a choice by Friday.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I would choose Middlebury over Richmond. IMO it’s a better school. However, be warned that Middlebury is located in a very small town out in the middle of nowhere. You will likely not be making all that many trips to anything that could be called a “city.”</p>
<p>I’d go with Richmond. IMO the differences in academics aren’t enough to justify going to school in the middle of nowhere (although a beautiful middle of nowhere), and you stated that you’d prefer more moderate weather. While neither Middlebury nor Richmond offer San Diego’s constant sun without the humidity, Richmond’s is far better than Middlebury’s.</p>
<p>I’m not sure where you’re getting your stats for in connection with Maryland. The male female ratio is 53/47, which is not that much of a difference and probably wouldn’t be particularly noticeable.</p>
<p>U Richmond is a good smallish school, extremely beautiful. It has some excellent programs, particularly in the area of leadership. Greek life is extremely important at Richmond - over a third of the school is involved in it - and while the school has definitely been attempting to became a more diverse place, it still has a sort of wealthy, somewhat preppy vibe.</p>
<p>Middlebury is really in the middle of nowhere - although beautiful, it’s extremely difficult to get to. You might want to check whether you would have to be around for the Winter Term - while Middlebury students have to attend at least 2 winter terms, it’s possible that you could opt out of it, which would give you some time to travel during the year (and avoid some of the potentially bad weather). It is one of the top liberal arts schools in the US, but it’s not located in a quintessential American city and it’s not convenient.</p>
<p>Middlebury is 35 miles from Burlington and just over two hours from Montreal. City life isn’t far if you really want it. In terms of reputation, Middlebury is the superior school. Richmond draws a more regional student body, while Midd draws from throughout the country and the world. There are more Californians at Middlebury than there are students from Vermont.</p>
<p>You might be under snow in April in Vermont.</p>
<p>Coming from the UK you ought to lower your expectations of what train travel is like in the US.</p>
<p>Amtrak does provide train service from Vermont to NYC -
[Vermonter</a> - the Train Travels between Washington, DC and St. Albans, in Northern Vermont | Amtrak](<a href=“Amtrak”>Amtrak)</p>
<p>But I think you would need to get to the Rutland train station via car or bus - there are local shuttle and bus services -
[Addison</a> County Transit Resources | transportation for everyone](<a href=“http://actr-vt.org/]Addison”>http://actr-vt.org/)
[Middlebury</a> Vermont Transit and Vermont Chauffeured Transportation Services - use us for your taxi, bus, cab, shuttle, or limousine transportation](<a href=“http://www.middleburytransit.com/]Middlebury”>http://www.middleburytransit.com/)
[Visiting</a> Us & Visiting You | Middlebury](<a href=“Visit Middlebury | Middlebury College”>Visit Middlebury | Middlebury College)</p>
<p>So you wouldn’t need to be “stuck” in the beautiful countryside of Vermont, but it certainly won’t be as quick and easy to travel as it would from some of your other choices that are more urban. </p>
<p>It depends on how much time and money you have for travel anyway. The more remote location but actually work as well since you will be busy with school and campus activities most of the time anyway.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone. I had to select 5 options and send it off to the study abroad office. Waiting for a reply. I put down:</p>
<ol>
<li>Maryland</li>
<li>California (UCLA/UCSD/UCSB)</li>
<li>Marquette</li>
<li>Middlebury</li>
<li>Kansas</li>
</ol>
<p>They’ll allocate me a place. Thanks.</p>