<p>I know holy cross is a good academic school. I'm not sure if Worcester is a great location and also i'm not sure if i would have a good time if i choose to go there. Any advice?</p>
<p>Worcester is the second largest city in New England and is a working class industrial city but despite its gritty atmosphere has a lot to offer. The Art museum is superb and the downtown is being revitalized. Also Worcester is close enough to Boston (40 miles) that it is on the commuter rail with 12 daily trains. Many people who live in Worcester commute to Boston for work. Holy Cross provides free shuttle service to area malls as well as Boston and Providence every Friday and Saturday. There are lots of activities going on including sporting events, speakers, on campus movie theater, plays, etc which will keep you plenty busy.</p>
<p>Worcester has 13 colleges (including Clark University, College of the Holy Cross, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Mass. Assumption College, College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, UMass Medical School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute) and over 30,000 college students. </p>
<p>The Colleges of Worcester Consortium, Inc. is a 40-year-old alliance of the 13 area colleges and produced this video on Worcester last year:Worcester</a> Rocks | Colleges of Worcester Consortium (COWC)</p>
<p>We positively hated Worcester when we visited it. It was a dirty and old city with a lot of rough areas. I drove around extensively when my daughter went to an orientation session. Despite what I read on these posts it was a complete turn off to both of us.</p>
<p>There is a lot to like about Worcester and Central Mass. If you don't know where to go or look, you can certainly get a misrepresentation of the city. At the end of the day, your life as a student will center on the campus - which is vibrant and beautiful.</p>
<p>I agree with nurseratchet. I hated Worcester when I visited a friend at Holy Cross. I just didn't like the people I met, I didn't like the city. The campus was pretty, but I still just really didn't like anything about it. </p>
<p>Of course, I'm a city girl, and I go to school in Boston, so maybe it just wasn't for me.</p>
<p>Worcester is an acquired taste. There are a lot of hidden gems in Worcester even though on the surface it is very industrial looking and has lots of old brick warehouses and three deckers. It was once one of the biggest manufacturing cities in America and unfortunately the legacy of that era is still present. At the turn of the century, it was the world's largest manufacturer of wire which was heavily in demand as people moved to electrical lighting. That said, it is slowly being revitalized and is only an hour to Boston, Providence and Cape Cod.</p>
<p>I think the OP should visit HC for the accepted student's weekend if he is accepted and see what he thinks. My DD was accepted there last year visiting and changed her mind once she went to the weekend. It's very easy to to read these posts and be persuaded especially by the same person who posts over and over and using different names to sing the praises of holy cross. It is a very nice campus but worcester itself is a very old and dirty city. A campus can become very small when you are not looking forward to venturing off of it.</p>
<p>First off, I am a current HC freshman. Personally, I was not overly excited that HC was in Worcester, but I came here anyways for the academics and community. That being said, there are parts of Worcester that are great. There is a street with great restaurants of varying price ranges and a shopping center with tons of shops, food, and a massive movie theater which buses and shuttles run to from campus every weekend. The only downfall is that you can't walk to any of these places- you do need transportation to get there which though as I said HC provides either through its own services or the WOO Bus (pretty sure it is run by the Worcester Colleges Consortium). HC does a good job of bringing events to campus so that you don't feel the need to go off campus all the time. Also, Boston and Providence are easily accessible.</p>
<p>There are many colleges that thrive in spite of less than stellar locations. Colleges that are in a bubble, such as HC, are usually beautiful and insular, and the town/city itself has little effect on student life. Yale has New Haven, Duke has Durham, Notre Dame has South Bend, UPenn in bad area of Philly, etc. All of these locations are arguably worse than Worcester.</p>