<p>I'm a high school junior looking at colleges, and I'm from a really small town. There's around 10,000 people here, and the nearest large city is over 100 miles away. Yay, eastern washington XP.</p>
<p>When I go to college, I really want to go to a big city. I've been prepping hard and am looking at UChicago, Pomona, Brown, etc... But that's not what I'm asking about.</p>
<p>I want there to be something to DO friday nights. A choice between restaurants. Venues to listen to local musicians. Somewhere to indulge my role-playing/wargaming. Perhaps a night club. Even <em>gasp!</em> a mall or two.</p>
<p>I've been to NYC, Chicago, Seattle, and Portland before, and I really like the feel of the big cities. What I haven't really looked at is an inbetween place. Suburbs aren't really in existence anywhere near where I live.</p>
<p>Would a college like Vassar, Amherst, Wesleyan, etc. have the sort of off-campus entertainment I'm looking for? I'm looking at LAC's but have been put off by many of their locations in seemingly middle of nowhere. I've heard that new england is much more built up than eastern washington, but just by looking at the map and the numbers a lot of the college towns seem just as lame as the one I'm in.</p>
<p>Should I be so hardline on refusing to even really look at a school that isn't in a decently sized city? Or am I underestimating the power of east coast suburbia and mass transit (we don't have trains in eastern washington, either)? What are your thoughts, college confidential?</p>
<p>You should check out SoCal! If you have great stats, then you can apply to schools like UCLA (Westwood/Beverly Hills), UCI (Irvine), UCSB (Santa Barbara, which is not exactly SoCal), and UCSD (San Diego) that all have great nightlifes and as a bonus… great weather. I’m sure you’d greatly appreciate the warmth and close proximities to the beach at all locations. I’ve been to all schools because I have friends going to all of them and have always enjoyed the nights that I’ve had there.</p>
<p>I thought you were talking about something else too…personally, I prefer a medium to large city, which has everything you’re talking about and more. Suburbs are ok if you don’t mind a commute to the city. A campus ‘in the middle of nowhere’ is also nice because it’s more peaceful than the others…it’s really a personal decision.<br>
I wouldn’t completely dismiss schools that aren’t in the city is what I’m saying. Just make sure it’s no more than an hour commute to a good size city.</p>
<p>Amherst is probably not going to give you that kind of college town. It’s a good college town, but it’s also a bedroom community for professors and not nearly as geared toward students as, say, Northampton. You can get to Northampton (for free!) from Amherst for some of what you’re looking for, but it does take anywhere from 30-40 minutes or more. Furthermore, Northampton is a big town of about 30,000, but it is by no means a city in the same category as Chicago, Seattle, etc. </p>
<p>Also, the Hampshire Mall in between Amherst and Northampton is not a hotspot for shopping. If you need something from Target or Best Buy, you can get it. If you’re looking for a multitude of stores, they won’t have them. You can get to the mall in Holyoke, but then you’re talking about another, longer bus ride, and this one isn’t free. You can also take a bus or a train to Boston (though the train service out of Springfield is mediocre at best), but that’s impossible on most weekends if you have an Amherst/Mount Holyoke/Smith workload. I can’t speak to UMass or Hampshire, but I’d imagine the same holds true. </p>
<p>This being said, I definitely prefer the smaller town environment for myself, though I am glad that I didn’t limit my options to only schools in small towns when I was applying. Don’t let where a college is in terms of off-campus opportunities prevent you from finding a really great place.</p>
<p>I also noticed that you like role playing! Some of the smallest colleges in more rural areas or smaller towns have great RPG opportunities. Smith is a good example of that.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m somewhat of a closet nerd, but I’d really love to be able to attend some sort of con or something eventually. There’s a few other gamers here too, but their either really annoying or not that into it… So I’d like a larger pool of people to play with.</p>
<p>I guess, having grown up in a small town, that I’m just really sick of the thought of living in another small town for another four years. My small town doesn’t have any big towns remotely near it though, so maybe a smallish town near a big city would be good. Heck, I bet pretty much anywhere would be better than here :p</p>
<p>It sounds like I’m looking at colleges based solely on location, but I am looking at the colleges themselves too. It’s just that I feel like I have a fairly good idea of how to judge how I’d fit into the college, and not many places talk about locations much. So that’s why it seems like I’m only looking at location, but I’m just only asking for advice on location because I couldn’t find it anywhere else.</p>
<p>Swarthmore College is in a suburban LAC. You can easily take the train (It’s on the edge of the campus) and arrive in Philadelphia in about 20 minutes.</p>
<p>As awesome as multiple music venues, clubs, malls, etc. sound, they are all off campus and require a commute. If you are looking into top LACs, you just won’t have very much time to get off campus. I attend Reed and have been making an effort to get off campus for the day every saturday, but it dramatically increases my workload for sunday.</p>
<p>That being said, colleges provide tons of on-campus events most (if not every) weekend. We have at least one dance party every weekend—usually two or three—and tons of people throw parties in their dorms/on-campus apartments. If there’s not a party, I still find a good amount of friends to have fun with.</p>
<p>I was also turned off by the small towns in which many LACs are located. Bates and Colby were crossed off my list pretty quickly because, quite frankly, the surrounding areas are $h!tholes, though the schools themselves were okay.</p>
<p>^Reed and L&C are both just a short commute from downtown Portland, and Swarthmore/Haverford/Bryn Mawr are just outside of Philadelphia. I wouldn’t make such broad generalizations.</p>
<p>^Keyword commute. Commuting to a city and living in one are two completely different things. Judging by OP’s words, he/she wants to be right in the thick of it, and you aren’t going to get that in suburban LACs.</p>
OP obviously enjoyed Portland and Seattle, which do extend to suburban areas while keeping the big city feel, downtown being a 15-20 commute by bus away.
^i.e. OP is not in opposition towards suburban LACs, especially since, as the subject of the thread shows, he is curious about schools such as Amherst. Reed is in a suburban area, but it is also ~15 minutes away from downtown by bus, and there are areas such as Hawthorne even closer.
Schools in a decently sized city does not restrict the pool to schools in the middle of downtowns.</p>