@OCDaddy D18 and I toured St. Olaf and Carleton. We LOVED St. Olaf, and D had spent time at camp there, and loved the food, the music, the vibe, everything.
I will add to my D’s visits.
UP: SUNY Geneseo - wonderful small college, nice campus with solid programs and a very safe campus/small town. The town is a postcard New England style. People very friendly and everyone seemed to love the school.
UP: University of San Diego - location, location, location!! Can’t say enough about that. Solid programs. Not totally sure about the student body - seems like a lot of rich students. Still we loved it.
UP: UC Berkeley - stunning campus, on a hill overlooking SF Bay. Telegraph ave and the campus had a buzz to it with a ton going on. Academics are world class but on the downside class size and workload seem very high.
UP: Whitman College - small, super friendly. Downtown is nice but small. My D liked Geneseo better. Heard that while the student body is very collabortive, the workload is immense.
UP: Hobart William Smith. Nice, IVY looking campus. Students seemed happy but did point out that since the University cracked down on alcohol, parties are sparse affecting campus fun. Still, we really liked the college and location on the lake.
UP: University of Norte Dame: We loved everything about this campus. Very high school spirit that you could feel. Students said that so much is going on that you really don’t venture far from the campus. Sports are huge and a lot of fun. Academics are good and workload is considered manageable. Another Top pick for my D.
UP: University of Southern California: Beautiful campus and the new honors college quad is out of Harry Potter/Oxford. Dorm rooms are brand new and like condos. The school has so many awesome majors, with a real professional tilt. Everyone talks about the school spirit and the “Trojan Family connections”.California weather, students in shorts in January and people seemed very eager to convince us its the best college. Definitely had a vibe to this place. The downside is that we heard it is in a bad location of Los Angeles but the area right around it seemed ok to us. A huge plus was the ease to get to downtown, Staples center and all around it are a huge draw for my D. I did not feel unsafe in the same way we did at Chicago or Columbia at night. Another top pick for my D.
Down: Univ. Chicago - I had super high hopes for this school. Main academic quad along the park is very impressive. Everyone seemed stressed, no fun. Even the T shirts say “U of Chicago - where fun comes to die”. Many said they regretted their choice as the workload is just too crazy leaving little time for breathing. The neighborhood gets a little sketchy really quick and no matter how much they downplay the area, it is not the safest. Eliminated this from our list
Down: Columbia: Originally daughters first choice. Nice city campus, very compact but main quad is beautiful. Not in the best part of NYC and you really would not want to go outside of the boundaries of the campus at night. The workload is very demanding and I got a mixed reaction if the students would attend again if they had to choose.The student body, in general, seemed very to themselves (kind of like NYC in general). Too many people all minding their own business. Very different from Geneseo, Whitman where they really said hello to strangers.
Cornell: Beautiful campus, frozen tundra with hills in the winter (this is when we went, unfortunately). We heard the hardest of the Ivies to graduate from. Students mixed again if they would attend.
Univ of Rochester: Another stunning campus but very dead on the weekend we visited. No gen ed requirements is a draw but not enough to sway my D.
Colgate: Got a very yuppie/snobby feel to this beautiful campus. Look at the percentage of students who foot the full $70k.
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@OCDaddy University of Richmond is awesome but I am totally biased as I live about 10 mins from campus. Downtown isn’t that far - straight shot down Cary and through VCU and you’re there (about 6-7 miles).
Just so you know, Morningside Heights is one of the safest neighborhoods in one of the safest cities in the US.
My S’s review of his diverse group of colleges for Engineering–these are not in any specific order:
Moved up:
Olin: a bit small but he loved the culture and project-based education. Liked connection with Babson. The students were busy in labs and without a beat welcomed the guests.
Cornell: cousin attended and recommended; students invited him to join a Frisbee game–now that’s friendly; met prof one-on-one and he had such enthusiasm for undergrad teaching. Loved campus.
Purdue: attended STEP in summer–professor was great; felt good about the campus and the engineering program.
Stayed the same–all great universities–one is our alma mater but we know he has to find his own place:
Harvard–really liked Harvard but not as strong as other engineering programs. Might consider for grad MBA or law.
U of IL
U of MN
U of WI
Dropped:
MIT: After visiting Olin and Harvard in the same trip, MIT did not make the cut. Sat in one Freshman class–prof lectured and students typed notes. May be for some students but son passed.
I’ve worked in NYC for many years and I’ve never heard anyone describe where Columbia is as a bad neighborhood.
@citivas In the 80’s the area was pretty bad. My D is at Columbia now for grad school, lives in an apartment in Morningside Heights, and feels very comfortable. Still, anyone has a right to not like the school or the urban location.
@happy1 None of my kids even considered the NYC schools because they didn’t want urban, so I relate to that. I was commenting on the more specific suggestion that Columbia was in a bad neighborhood for NYC as opposed to urban.
With regards to Columbia and the area…maybe it was just us and being a little more paranoid in a big city. We were definitely advised to be street smart and saw on a map that Harlem surrounds Columbia on a few sides. Morningside park was not someplace we would jog through. I also think it depends on your perspective of “safe”. The crime stats of Columbia are on college factual.
I live in NYC. Columbia is fine, but there are some surrounding neighborhoods that aren’t great. I would think most out of staters would feel more comfortable around NYU. As a life long NYer who lives in a very safe neighborhood, I wouldn’t walk around late at night by myself in any neighborhood here.
It’s refreshing that this isn’t another conversation about the neighborhood around USC. 
What I have come to realize is that learning to navigate all kinds of urban areas is a valuable lesson to have in college. Makes that first solo business trip a lot less stressful.
@OCDaddy Excellent posts, spot on for keeping this thread on track (unlike mine). Thanks for taking the time to post, enjoyed them!
The areas around Columbia are safer than many other neighborhoods in NYC
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/crime-safety-report/ranking
And NYC overall is the only US city to make it to the “Safest Cities In The World” list.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-safest-cities-in-the-world-2015-1
Anyone who has spent time here know you have a much greater chance of getting messed with in Times Square than virtually any other neighborhood.
I respectfully and with good intent suggest that anyone who feels the areas around Columbia are “not great” examine their perspectives regarding economic and racial judgements and re-assess them. It is no longer the crack epidemic nor the city protrayed in “Death Wish” and “Serpico”.
@Charlietrojan Any urban school, no matter the location, requires a level of street smarts. You are entitled to feel however you did about the area around Columbia without any excuse. If you were uncomfortable there then Columbia is simply not the right fit for you. Some city dwellers may feel uncomfortably at a very rural school and that is OK too. To my thinking is a good thing that not everyone falls in love with the exact same college. (As an aside, FWIW Harlem is an up and coming area now).
A good thing to keep in mind in these sorts of discussions. This is a thread about subjective reactions to campuses—there is absolutely no need (actually, I’d argue it’s precisely wrong) to be defensive about any given college or city or whatever just because your own subjective reactions are different.
I just noted that a subjective reaction was posted here as an objective fact - “Not in the best part of NYC and you really would not want to go outside of the boundaries of the campus at night”.
It’s one thing to say “we felt uncomfortable” and another to declare that it’s an unsafe area where students should stay inside the campus at night. I felt the need to add an objective crime source.
Of course if you find the area around Columbia uncomfortable, you probably shouldn’t apply there.
@Postmodern that’s an interesting link…the most dangerous neighborhood in the city is midtown??
@dfbdfb your intent is also positive, and appreciated. Just wanted to add that my point was that the statistics are not subjective and in direct conflict to some of the subjective positions stated.
Also not sure how expressing one reaction is right and another is “precisely wrong”. But if I stated yours was that would be hypocrisy! Caught in a catch-22 again…
@OHMomof2 I know it seems weird, but isn’t the case in every city that the tourist areas are exploited? Spend an hour outside The Colosseum for instance… you might have more risk attending FIT than Columbia, IMHO.
there are many ways to feel unsafe, not just the likelihood of being a victim of one of the 6 enumerated violent crimes in the published stats.
Just want to add that I’m not a racist because I don’t want to walk around Harlem at 3am. I don’t want to walk around the upper east side at that time. In fact I wouldn’t walk around a quiet, rural area by myself in the middle of the night. NYC has gotten so much better in terms of crime, but thing still happen, especially late into the night.
LOL, I attended FIT and grew up next to Columbia. Both were crime-free experiences, even late at night alone 
But yes, certain types of crime follow tourists for sure. If you switch that site over to only violent crimes the list changes slightly, I note…midtown still pretty bad though!
Off list: Kenyon. S did not like the isolation or the somewhat quirky vibe. (I loved the place, though, and believe that the education there is likely to be extraordinary.)
Move up: Miami of Ohio and Xavier (Cincinnati). S was concerned that Miami would be too preppy, but didn’t find that vibe to be overwhelming. Xavier’s campus was pleasant if unspectacular, and its students seemed the friendliest and most wholesome of all the colleges we’ve visited.