I have been accepted to CU for Fall 2019, and I just have a few questions about the campus. Could someone talk a little bit about:
Housing - Or lack thereof?
Partying/Drugs/Alcohol - Is it a problem that everyone has to deal with or is it easy to avoid and ignore if you don't want to take part?
Political sway of Professors/students - People have claimed that they felt like they couldn't say how they truly felt about various things due to fear of ostracization. I am socially very liberal but rather conservative when it comes to government functions if that makes sense.
-Anything else you feel like mentioning.
I’m not trying to bring up all the reasons one might not want go to CU, these are just concerns that I have. CU has been my top school since freshman year so I certainly would like to think it’s a school I will enjoy.
@cate1121 I’m a parent (so take my responses with a “parent” grain of salt) but have lived in Colorado for 40 years (went to high school, undergrad, graduate school in Colorado). My S19 was just accepted to CU’s business school and has already accepted the admission offer. S19 is fairly straight-laced - he does drink occasionally but is not a big partier.
I think partying/drugs/alcohol can be a problem regardless of which school you attend. I think CU has a reputation of being a party school, but I went to Colorado College (which doesn’t have a party reputation) and you could get a secondary high walking through certain dorm halls (and that was in the 1980s - pre-legalized pot). I am confident you will be exposed to drinking and drugs (even if it’s just seeing someone who is impaired). But I’m also confident you can find a group of friends that doesn’t partake in these regularly. I think CU’s party reputation is a bit overblown, as I know there are a lot of studious kids who attend CU and who excel there.
If you haven’t visited Boulder, you really should. It’s a truly unique area of Colorado - it definitely has a liberal bias.
Boulder is more expensive than most college towns because it has a lot of high tech, high income folks. Boulder is more sophisticated than one might expect if viewing it as a college town. There are parties, alcohol & marijuana. But not so prevalent as to be unavoidable.
While Boulder & CU lean liberal, no one is screaming in your face about their cause or beliefs.
If funds are not a major concern, and winter sports is one of your passions, Boulder is as good as it gets.
The real question, which I cannot answer, should focus on the college freshman experience. Might help to ask about on campus housing options & reputations of certain majors.
Another “parent grain of salt here” here ;), but I will take a crack at some of your questions/ concerns. My son was also accepted to CU and is in the process of making a decision. We have lived in Boulder for 5 years, and my kids attend a local high school.
Housing: Always an issue here in Boulder. Housing is expensive, and there is a lack of affordable options. I have heard students will drive in to classes from the surrounding areas like Superior, Longmont, Broomfield, etc., which from my perspective takes away from the college experience. Housing is guaranteed for freshmen, but thereafter, you would have to be on your game and apply as soon as you could to upperclassmen options. There are the Bear Creek Apartments in the Williams Village complex, and students rent in the surrounding neighborhoods. Housing is available, but more of a challenge than other universities and parts of the country.
Partying/ Drugs/ Alcohol: Can easily be avoided. Many students are outdoorsy, active, super fit, and into living healthy lifestyles. I don’t think CU is unlike other state universities. It certainly is not any worse than UT Austin, where my husband and I graduated from. There is a marijuana culture in Boulder, but it can be very easily avoided. I will also note that we do have a significant homeless population. Most crime is of the petty variety, but there have been a handful of more violent incidences. The CU campus itself is very safe, but I would not jog on the Boulder Creek Path or up and down Pearl Street late at night. Use common sense and be aware of your surroundings. Obviously I wouldn’t be drinking alcohol from random parties, but this is all common sense.
Political sway: Super liberal. Don’t let anyone tell you different. We are middle of the road type people. My kids have been totally ostracized at the high school for expressing any view not on the extreme left of the political spectrum. They have learned to keep it zipped unless they have a liberal view point to express. It is a very political environment. We find the teachers try to bring their liberal politics into any class discussion. Sometimes it is frustrating because you want the teachers focusing more on the base curriculum. Try reading the local papers online for the next weeks or look up archived articles. That might help give you a taste of the political environment here. Colorado itself is a mixed political bag, but Boulder is squarely liberal.
Boulder is absolutely beautiful. The campus is gorgeous. The city does an amazing job of preserving outdoor space. There are endless miles of hiking, and the weather is fantastic!
@WinterIsComing21: Do you think that the ultra liberal political fervor extends into university classrooms as well ?
I have spent a good deal of time in Boulder and have never had anyone try to force their views upon me or to suppress my views–although I was an adult long past my college years.
@Publisher: Good question. I think the majority of college campuses across the country lean liberal. The question is how do the students feel about expressing their opinions. Do the professors/ instructors foster a safe environments for different view points? I have not seen this at the local high school. The political fervor can be borderline outrageous at times, but the high school in question has been in the national news several times for these antics. Maybe some current conservative CU students can weigh in.
There was a survey that was a published recently about how welcome people felt in Boulder. 85% of residents felt welcome, the exception to the rule were 1) those with a lower income and 2) conservatives.
Having gone to CU grad school in the early 1990s and have lived in Boulder since, I will say Boulder is liberal. But everyone assumes you are liberal, too, so they don’t bring it up.
I lived in Colorado Springs for eight years, which is a conservative town. The same thing. Everyone assumed I was conservative, so they didn’t challenge me on anything.
My CU classes weren’t the sort where politics were discussed, so I can’t say whether or not the professors forced the issue.
You know, I would say that rather than defining CU as liberal, I would say it is affluent. Not as affluent as expensive private schools, but you will still run into quite a few kids who have nice cars, live in expensive condos, etc.
Boulder is a liberal enclave in the state of Colorado, so you could say its defining characteristics are liberalism, tech and start-up focused, healthy living, and affluence.
I love living here. I live very frugally. I can afford to do so because I bought my small condo back in 1994.
I think people can afford to live here if they are prepared to rent or own with a group of people.
I’ll tell them different. Two of the most politically conservative people I know were born and raised in Boulder, went to CU, and survived liberal influences to come out as firm conservatives. I worked at the courthouse and people who showed up for jury duty were more on the conservative side. Small business owners, IBMers, government employees. We had only 2 CU students on juries during the time I was there, one a young 18 year old kid who was a local and lived at home, and one grad student who lived up the canyon and was your stereotypical Boulder students (she studied field mice in a 2 yard sq plot of land for like 5 years). CU students and faculty either didn’t do the things that would get them called for jury duty (vote, register their cars, keep their addresses up to date) or didn’t show up for jury duty.
The House seat isn’t in any danger of going red but remember that Boulder is also the home of Promise Keepers, the religious group started by Bill McCartney, a former CU football coach.
I don’t think there is a major university or flagship that doesn’t lean liberal even if the state is more conservative, and Boulder is definitely on the more liberal side, but there are republicans right out in the public view.
@twoinanddone Actually, according to a recent poll 16.3% of Boulder residents are conservative. I consider that spread very liberal. It’s a super liberal when you have to give examples of people you know from Boulder who are conservative. Hats off for knowing 2! I stand by my original statement after living here for 5 year and having 2 kids in the school. I have lived in many places in the US and internationally, and Boulder is the most liberal place, but this is common knowledge. The question is whether students coming here are ok with that. I suspect the majority of them are.
I know this isn’t one of OP’s questions, but can anyone comment on the winter weather in Boulder? My S19 really has no idea what to expect and I have never been so I can’t help. We’re in NYC so we have cold winters, but is Boulder colder and snowier than NYC or is it more mild? I know the mountains have great snow for skiing, but does the city get ‘Buffalo’ type snow? Are 12-24 inch snowstorms common? Are 10 below zero days/nights common? Thx.
@STEM2017 The weather here is fantastic. Due to the altitude, the snow melts very quickly. We sometimes get snowstorms of up to 12-13 inches, but not very often. Sun is everything here, so 40 degrees on a sunny day can feel very pleasant. Snow doesn’t usually accumulate on the roads and sidewalks for long.
I’ll add that while Boulder is heavily liberal, people are normally more relaxed and friendly than on the coasts. As an example, Milo Yiannopoulos’s visit to Berkeley resulted in violent clashes and canceled talk, and at CU there was just a generally peaceful crowd of protesters. Colorado in general has a significant libertarian streak (in fact, the new governor is a Boulder liberal but also somewhat libertarian), so your views might not be too unusual.
@STEM2017 being an “almost” native Coloradan, the winters aren’t as bad as national news make them out to be. We often have 50-60 degree weather days in the middle of winter. And we get 300 days of sunshine/year! The snow rarely lasts on the ground for more than a few days. I’ve lived in Longmont (just outside of Boulder) and agree with @coloradobased that the winters in the northern communities outside of Denver have milder winters. Although you can still get the once every few years major snow storm (say 12+ inches in one storm). I live south of Denver and we just had a 10 inch snowstorm on Friday-Saturday but the roads were fine by Saturday.
The bigger challenge may be getting used to the low humidity and higher altitude. But if your S drinks plenty of water and brings a humidifier (and lotion - I recommend Eucerin Aquaphor for knuckles, cracked heels in the winter months) with him to college, he’ll be fine.
I don’t think Boulder has the amount of snow people think it does (or Denver for that matter), and often there is a storm followed by a week of very nice weather (sunny, 50 during the day) so all the snow gets cleaned up quickly. Not like in Minnesota when it snows in Oct and you are still looking at that same snow pile come April. When I went to school in Boulder many years ago, we had exactly ONE snow day. Well, half day. It was a Friday afternoon in early May and Boulder got about 5 FEET of snow. They closed the university at 1 pm. On a Friday. Not much was missed. It was one of those storms of heavy, wet, spring snow. Roofs collapsed, power lines came down, cars were buried. And by Sunday it was melting and we were wearing spring dresses for an event and taking pictures with snowbanks in the background.
Now CU is closed more often for weather. Wimps.
Boulder is also a lot windier than people expect. I mean the kind of wind where you need rocks in your pockets to stay on the ground.
Will waiting to commit until after the first week of April (when I’ll get a chance to see the campus) keep me from being my top two residence hall choices?