<p>Which school is better socially and academically?</p>
<p>If you’re asking such a broad non-specific question, apparently expecting a straightforward answer, I think you should strongly consider Colgate.</p>
<p>I think both schools are excellent in terms of academics, but they are very different. Although I have never been to Colgate, it is a small ( less than 3,000) school located in upstate NY. A friend of mine has a son who looked at it and he is very much into the outdoors- hiking etc. Being " better socially" is very subjective and is highly dependent upon an individual’s interests. </p>
<p>I’ve heard Colgate has a very high level of Greek life (if that interests you); Emory has about 25-30% pledging, which is lower than other southern schools such as Vanderbilt, Rhodes and Duke. Emory students take advantage of being near Atlanta for sports, culture and internships, but there’s a lot to do on campus. Emory academics are challenging, but not cut-throat and professors are very accessible (D is at Emory.)</p>
<p>A smaller school with a very high level of Greeklife would be suffocating to me (I was very academically and intellectually engaged and a lot of literature suggests that while Greeks get higher GPA’s than the student body on average, they, overall, often are a bit less intellectually and academically engaged. To me, this suggests that the sampling of majors is not as “diverse” among Greeks. And then there is the extensive old course materials system)…however, I guess many would claim it creates a “better” social atmosphere, you know, because you need the Greeks to turn up the social scene lol. Without it and sports, smart students are incapable of a cultivating a vibrant social atmosphere at least if it is defined as what you see in American Pie like movies and Animal House. Oh wait, but smart schools that look like those movies are considered “well rounded” because students make good grades and have wild parties. And making good grades is the only thing that constitutes academic and intellectual engagement so that descriptor must be right and these sort of schools have the best of both worlds. In such a case, I suppose I would go to Colgate lol. But seriously, it is difficult to answer this question. You would need to define good academics. I can tell you that having a good social life is really centered around getting directly involved in things and being outgoing at Emory more so than it would at D-1/very high Greek influence sort of schools. While the campus is pretty vibrant and has lots of things going on, don’t expect many things other than concerts and greek parties if you’re into that to automatically rile you up. Being involved in stuff (as in creating or facilitating the events and stuff) is key at Emory. With that said, SPC, SGA, and CC have worked hard to make sure that Emory hosts a lot of formal events that give students stuff to do, however, being involved in the events hosted by the student multicultural (and other) organizations makes for a much better time IMHO. </p>