<p>So, I've been thinking about a couple of different universities since my trip up to Michigan to see my grandfather; based mostly on student life (active) and campus attractiveness, which of these ranks on the higher end?</p>
<p>Western Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Grand Valley State
Ball State
Bowling Green State
Northern Illinois (and yes, I've heard about the shootings...)
University of Toledo</p>
<p>And any others similar to those listed about</p>
<p>Please help me out here :)</p>
<p>Western and GVSU are completely and utterly incomparable.</p>
<p>Western has a fairly bland campus and awesome, legendary party scene. GVSU has a pristine, new campus and has a lame party scene and has a stronger religious presence than Notre Dame, Georgetown, Fordham, etc.</p>
<p>Both are decent schools, GVSU probably slightly better academics, and don’t mistake a lame party scene for none, there is still some stuff going on, but generally about 1/3 of the kids from my HS transfer due to the blandness. Another 1/3 are neutral, the last third is in heaven.</p>
<p>Eastern probably has the least appeal of the ‘directional schools’, at least near me. They actually have a pretty solid campus, and their football stadium is better than you would expect for as bad as they are, but their proximity to UM leaves them in a pretty big shadow.</p>
<p>Toledo has a relatively run down campus, but has the best ‘city’ of those schools.</p>