Help! University Locations.

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Call me lazy, if you’d like, but I can’t bother researching every school and finding out its location and whether these schools are in a big city setting (like NYC) or rural setting (like Ithaca), but if you know about the surroundings of any of these schools, I’d greatly appreciate it:</p>

<li><p>Princeton University (NJ) </p></li>
<li><p>Harvard University (MA) </p></li>
<li><p>Yale University (CT) </p></li>
<li><p>Stanford University (CA) </p></li>
<li><p>University of Pennsylvania<br>
West Philly, big city, dangerous I suppose</p></li>
<li><p>California Institute of Technology </p></li>
<li><p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology </p></li>
<li><p>Duke University (NC) </p></li>
<li><p>Columbia University (NY)<br>
NYC, right?</p></li>
<li><p>University of Chicago </p></li>
<li><p>Dartmouth College (NH) </p></li>
<li><p>Washington University in St. Louis </p></li>
<li><p>Cornell University (NY)<br>
Ithaca, Rural, sorta like vacation place with beautiful scenary</p></li>
<li><p>Brown University (RI) </p></li>
<li><p>Northwestern University (IL) </p></li>
<li><p>Johns Hopkins University (MD) </p></li>
<li><p>Rice University (TX) </p></li>
<li><p>Emory University (GA) </p></li>
<li><p>Vanderbilt University (TN) </p></li>
<li><p>University of Notre Dame (IN) </p></li>
<li><p>University of California—Berkeley *
Not much there, but is a 15 minute subway ride to San Francisco</p></li>
<li><p>Carnegie Mellon University ¶ </p></li>
<li><p>University of Virginia * </p></li>
<li><p>Georgetown University (DC) </p></li>
<li><p>University of California—Los Angeles * </p></li>
<li><p>University of Michigan—Ann Arbor * </p></li>
<li><p>University of Southern California </p></li>
<li><p>University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill * </p></li>
<li><p>Tufts University (MA) </p></li>
<li><p>New York University<br>
NYC, self explanatory</p></li>
<li><p>Boston College<br>
Boston, so big city.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Babson College
Same as above, Boston.</p>

<p>(You can just change stuff/add on if you’d like)</p>

2

<p>you are so lazy luckily im bored...</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Princeton University (NJ) suburban. campus is gorgeous i hear the traffic in the area is really congested though...</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard University (MA) city just outside boston. </p></li>
<li><p>Yale University (CT) crappy gang infested city. very nice hogwartsy camus though</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford University (CA) ??? im from the east coast</p></li>
<li><p>University of Pennsylvania : city also crappy and broken down. my least favorite IVY league campus. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>West Philly, big city, dangerous I suppose :ditto</p>

<ol>
<li><p>California Institute of Technology ???</p></li>
<li><p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology : </p></li>
<li><p>Duke University (NC) durham, NC .suburb gorgeous campus. gothic. warm.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia University (NY)
NYC, right?: upper west side.... right next to harlem. but awsome overwhelming campus.</p></li>
<li><p>University of Chicago ???</p></li>
<li><p>Dartmouth College (NH) RURAL i didnt think its possible but its even more rural than cornell! and its small and feels the wilderness. super cold too </p></li>
<li><p>Washington University in St. Louis ???</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell University (NY)
Ithaca, Rural, sorta like vacation place with beautiful scenary: yea but its kinda cold like my screen name implies. central campus is so pretty. gorges are sort of scary but u get used to it and eventually we jump into them for fun!</p></li>
<li><p>Brown University (RI) : havent been there supposed to be nice</p></li>
<li><p>Northwestern University (IL) : suburb right along like michigan. 30 min to chicago by train</p></li>
<li><p>Johns Hopkins University (MD): never been but heard the area is sketchy </p></li>
<li><p>Rice University (TX) ???</p></li>
<li><p>Emory University (GA) ???</p></li>
<li><p>Vanderbilt University (TN) </p></li>
<li><p>University of Notre Dame (IN) </p></li>
<li><p>University of California—Berkeley *
Not much there, but is a 15 minute subway ride to San Francisco</p></li>
<li><p>Carnegie Mellon University (PA): attrocise city. disgusting campus. top tier engineering though #1 for comp sci</p></li>
<li><p>University of Virginia * </p></li>
<li><p>Georgetown University (DC) city. very nice location. rich area lots of stores. washington DC is like 5 mins away. </p></li>
<li><p>University of California—Los Angeles * </p></li>
<li><p>University of Michigan—Ann Arbor * </p></li>
<li><p>University of Southern California </p></li>
<li><p>University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill * : right near Duke. suburb GORGeous campus. colonial style, big trees everywhere. very quiant town </p></li>
<li><p>Tufts University (MA) ???</p></li>
</ol>

3

<p>thanks, I liked your response</p>

4

<ol>
<li>Stanford University (CA)----surrounded by wealthy suburb (not too much that caters to college students) but very beautiful. An hour away from San Francisco and very close to San Jose, both urban centers.</li>
</ol>

5

<p>Tufts -- 8 minutes outside Boston. As a result has a leafy campus but is still very accessible (with public transportation or car) to a major city.</p>

6

<p>A more informed view of Penn and Philly:</p>

<p>Penn has a beautiful campus, with about 280 acres of leafy, green spaces and beautiful shaded walkways. Among truly urban campuses in the midst of large cities, it's one of the nicest.</p>

<p>Philly, while having depressed areas like any large city, also has some of the nicest neighborhoods to be found in a large city. Penn has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the area immediately around campus for the past 15 years, and the blocks right around campus have become quite nice--high-end apartments, restaurants, top-flight stores and boutiques, etc. In fact, Penn has become THE national leader and model for how urban universities can improve their surrounding neighborhoods:</p>

<p>Urban</a> Colleges Learn to Be Good Neighbors</p>

<p>Also, very close to Penn's campus is Philly's Center City, which has been booming with high-end residential development in the past decade (lots of million-dollar-plus condos, etc.), and boasts an incredible array of cultural amenities, restaurants, and beautiful and interesting neighborhoods (Rittenhouse Square, Society Hill, Old City, etc.). For example, Center City--a relatively compact area--now has over 200 sidewalk cafes. </p>

<p>And Philly has lots of other great neighborhoods, with terrific restaurants, clubs, boutiques, etc., including, for example, Fairmount, Northern Liberties, Manayunk, and Chestnut Hill, each with its own distincitve character. Philly also has Fairmount Park, the largest landscaped urban park in the US, if not the world, which even attracts folks from the suburbs to its 9,000 acres of rustic trails and beautiful vistas. But don't just take my word for it--National Geographic Traveler Magazine, the most widely circulated travel magazine in the world, recently proclaimed Philadelphia to be America's "Next Great City":</p>

<p>Next</a> Great City: Philly, Really @ National Geographic Traveler</p>

<p>Sure, Philly has its problems, as any large city does, but only a culturally uniformed and unsophisticated perspective would write off the city as "crappy", "broken down", or "dangerous". Those in the know (i.e., people who appreciate great architecture, neighborhoods, symphony orchestras, museums, historical districts, restaurants, nightlife, parks, etc.) think of Philly as one of the nicest big cities in which to live and go to college.</p>

7

<p>Dartmouth: best social life in the top 10.</p>

8

<p>Filling in a few:</p>

<p>MIT -- Next to Harvard, same scene</p>

<p>U of Chicago -- Leafy, urban neighborhood. Oasis in surrounding rough neighborhoods. 20 minutes to downtown, probably.</p>

<p>Rice -- Houston. Urban. Very green and lots of trees. Train ride to downtown, but not much to do in downtown.</p>

<p>Virginia -- Charlottesville, small city, feels suburban on the UVA end.</p>

<p>Georgetown -- In Georgetown in DC.</p>

<p>UCLA -- In Westwood, minutes from Beverley Hills and Hollywood. Palm trees. Green. Lovely.</p>

<p>UNC Chapel Hill -- Much like Charlottesville, but a closer to cities.</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
Sure, Philly has its problems, as any large city does

[/quote]

I should say so. Two Penn students have been shot in the last two years.</p>

10

<p>
[quote]
21. University of California—Berkeley *
Not much there, but is a 15 minute subway ride to San Francisco

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Not much there? Berkeley has tons of bookstores, restaurants, and shops adjacent to campus...ever hear of Telegraph avenue? </p>

<p>Also, you can take BART to Oakland Airport, SFO, Oakland Colesium for Athletics/Raiders/Warriors games, or go into the city of San Fran.</p>

11

<p>I think it would be easier to tell us what YOU want so we can tell you which schools fit you.</p>

<p>And just saying that the Top 30 US News schools are not surely all the schools you are looking at....</p>

12

<p>CalTech: in Pasadena, a small city, fairly diverse population, on the northern edge of big and diverse Los Angeles.</p>

<p>UCLA: large, urban campus in surburban west L.A. "Westwood" neighborhood, upper middle class mostly family oriented neighborhood. Very near to storybook LA: the wealthy Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, Santa Monica, and a few miles to the beach and Malibu, Pacific Palisades. Also a few miles from the grittier city of Hollywood. Campus itself has pockets of beauty but is built up and spread out. </p>

<p>USC: large, urban campus not far from downtown LA. Lower middle class/working class neighborhood on one border. Urban museum area at the other. Inside the gates, a lovely leafy red-brick campus. </p>

<p>Northwestern: located in suburban city, Evanston, on edge of one of those Great Lakes (absolutely beautiful in the summer/spring). E. struck me as kind of upscale, with fairly expensive shops and restaurants mostly. But Chicago, with everything it has to offer, is only 30-40 minute train ride away. </p>

<p>WashU: suburban neighborhood (Clayton) on western edge of St. Louis. Connected to city and environs by metro, but separated from the city by an enormous urban park (with zoo, art museum, skating rink, running trails, big fountain, etc.) Walking distance is the "University City Loop" district with college student-friendly restaurants, boutiques, vintage shops, arty movie theaters, music stores, and concert venues.</p>

13

<p>I'm pretty sure only one penn student has been shot in the last 2 years. With 20,000 students, that puts your odds of getting shot at 0.00005.</p>

<p>I'll take those odds. University City is a great little urban enclave of shops, venues, restaurants, cafes (coffee availability borders on ludicrous).</p>

<p>Penn is also minutes away from Center City, a model for urban revitalization as evinced by the current condominium building boom. Is Center City the new Manhattan? No. But it is a great place to spend your college years--even better than NYC as it's not so big and grand as to overwhelm your own on-campus experience.</p>

<p>Crime is a problem, to be sure. But the vast majority of that is not in University City (the easternmost portion of West Philadelphia over which Penn has assumed campus-state sovereignty). The heavy crime areas are the western half of West Philly and northeast Philadelphia The election of Michael Nutter should help that a good deal.</p>

14

<p>Sophomore</a> shot on campus - News</p>

<p>[One</a> dead, two injured in shooting - News<a href="not%20a%20student,%20my%20mistake">/url</a></p>

<p>
[quote]
Apartment buildings like Hamilton Court and Chestnut Arms, both located at 39th and Chestnut streets, house hundreds of students, and many say they have always felt somewhat unsafe living in the area.</p>

<p>"I definitely look over my shoulder much more often, and I don't tell my parents about it because I don't feel like having them make me move out," said College senior Mikhail Gasiorowski, who lives near the corner of 39th and Ludlow streets, of the robberies in the area.</p>

<p>"I still don't feel safe," added College senior Jon Tamblyn, who also lives near 39th and Ludlow streets. "But it's no worse now than it was earlier this year. … There are always lots of sirens going on all over the place, the streets are always dark and sort of deserted after eleven. … It's really, really sketchy, and you kind of have to watch out."

[/quote]

[url=<a href="http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2007/10/30/News/Shooting.A.Sign.Of.NorthEnd.Violence-3065087.shtml%5DShooting"&gt;http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2007/10/30/News/Shooting.A.Sign.Of.NorthEnd.Violence-3065087.shtml]Shooting&lt;/a> a sign of north-end violence - News](<a href="http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2007/10/29/News/One-Dead.Two.Injured.In.Shooting-3062500.shtml%5DOne"&gt;http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2007/10/29/News/One-Dead.Two.Injured.In.Shooting-3062500.shtml)&lt;/p>

<p>I don't mean to pick on Penn; I have friends at Penn and Drexel who love their colleges and the area, and I am desperately hoping to get into a graduate program there. I do think safety is a relative term, though, and Philadelphia does seem to have its problems.</p>

15

<p>More on Rice -- only a few miles from downtown, but located in a beautiful upscale area with the Texas Medical Center on one side of the separate distinct campus (largest medical center in the world with 13 hospitals and 2 medical schools), upscale homes on 2 sides, and Rice Village (a 16-block area of eclectic shops and restaurants on the other side). The campus has a lot of trees and beautiful Spanish architecture.</p>

16

<p>Columbia and NYU are both in Manhattan, but have very different feels. Columbia is in Morningside Heights which has much more a campus feel than NYU in Greenwich Village. NYU doesn't have a defined campus; its buildings are spread out throughout Manhattan. The nightlife in the area is great, while there is not much up by Columbia.</p>

<p>I visited Carnegie Mellon once, and I wasn't particularly impressed. There didn't seem like there was much to do outside of school. The cost of living is ridiculously low... I read somewhere it was about 1/4 of NYC's.</p>

17

<p>kemet, in the first of the incidents you cite, a Penn student was, indeed, shot in the leg almost 2 years ago. In the second incident, no Penn student was shot.</p>

<p>But Penn is not unique in this regard. Harvard students have been the victims of violent crime as recently as a week or so ago. Yale and Columbia have had their share of violent crimes perpetrated on students. I'm sure the same is true of the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, and any other schools located in the midst of large urban areas. Yet we rarely hear those schools characterized by the crime problems of the cities or neighborhoods in which they're located. As you point out, safety is a relative term, and Philadelphia does, indeed, have its share of problems, but it's really no different than Boston/Cambridge, NYC, New Haven, Baltimore, Chicago, and a host of other cities in that regard. Those who claim that Philly or Penn are uniquely dangerous--and I realize that you're not one of those--demonstrate a lack of perspective and knowledge.</p>

18

<p>And unlike New Haven and Baltimore, Philadelphia actually has a real city thrown in as part of the package ;)</p>

19

<ol>
<li><p>Vanderbilt, Nashville, TN. Very nice, compact campus, leafy and quiet despite being an urban campus. One and a half miles from downtown Nashville. Lots of on-campus entertainment, however, and I get the impression that freshman do not go into downtown regularly. There are many restaurants and coffee shops on the campus periphery, however.</p></li>
<li><p>Notre Dame, South Bend, IN. I haven't been there is years, so I might be out of date. I don't think the students get into town, much. Then again, there isn't a lot going on in town. There is an electric commuter train that will take you into the Loop area of Chicago in a couple of hours.</p></li>
</ol>

20

<p>As few of you have brought up the Philly and Penn crime issue, I just wanted to throw in my two cents having studied there. Although I could not find the most recent figure on this, here is what I did find, an article from USToday, in 2005:</p>

<p>"As homicide figures in other big cities fall, Philadelphia will once again experience more than 300 murders this year. In mid-November, the city surpassed its 2004 death toll of 330 homicides. Now, 352 people have been slain in the city this year. Except for 2002, when an intensive police campaign against open-air drug dealing cut gun violence significantly, Philadelphia has experienced more than 300 murders annually since 2000.</p>

<p>"...Philadelphia also has fewer murders today than it did in 1990, when 503 people were killed. But the decline is nowhere near as sharp as it is in other cities: 34% fewer murders from 1990 to 2004, compared with a 75% drop in New York and a 48% decline in both Los Angeles and Chicago. Philadelphia's 2004 murder rate of 22.4 per 100,000 residents is the highest of the nation's 10 largest cities and ranks third among the 25 largest cities, behind Baltimore and Detroit."</p>

<p>(source: USATODAY.com</a> - Murders on rise in Philadelphia)</p>

<p>Again, this article is from 2005, but it does speak on behalf of Philly's crime problem. This may or may not be closely relevant to the situation in Penn. As far as I know, many students are able to study without confronting a problem in in the duration of their study there. But for those of you who care: after all, Penn is in West Philly.</p>