I would classify Notre Dame and Villanova as suburban.
@Cheeringsection – I guess what our comments show is that we introverts are not all alike!
I guess our comments also show that location really does matter, and the answer is personal. In the end, he didn’t apply in-state because our best engineering school is in a tiny mountain town and our second best is filled with frat boys. However, he has friends headed toward those schools for whom it is a perfect match.
Well said @brooklynlydia !
@lastone03 our perception of ND is very different. The “town” around ND is not enough “urban” to make ND “suburban”. Another example of location being very personal. It is the school my DD uses as an example when she says she does not want to be out in the middle of nowhere.
@Cheeringsection Notre Dame, Saint Marys, and Holy Cross have a postal address of “Notre Dame IN” and sit due north of South Bend which has a population of 100,000. It’s not a great city, but it’s certainly bigger than Charlottesville, a town that was noted in another post.
Suburban just means on the outskirts of town, which Notre Dame is. The location isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but many road trips are made to Lake Michigan, Chicago, Indianapolis etc when South Bend feels too small.