<p>Didn’t read the whole thread but for Petro engineering, business, good weather, beautiful neighborhood, crazy sports fans my suggestions is SMU.</p>
<p>I don’t think people responding recently have read the OP or realize what this thread is about. PurpleDuckMan is right, and I completely agree with him. On most accounts at least. Ivy league/other small private universites/LACs can get out of thread. This isn’t about best school or most complete education, it’s about most complete university. Even if my school’s football team isn’t that great (and we will be really good soon, mark my words) there is nothing like a D1 Major Conference football game that can be recreated at an LAC. I’m going to be extremely happy when 25 years from now I can turn on my TV and watch a college football game and say, “Yeah, that’s my team right there.” OCELITE, I don’t know if you’ve been to very many athletic events or where you even go to school, but I can tell you that even going to the lacrosse national championship last month was amazing and added to the complete university feel of UVA.</p>
<p>“Ugh, fine, Chapman is gods gift to Earth.” </p>
<p>^I fell out of my chair laughing</p>
<p>This thread has mostly run its course, but I thought it should be said: For the criteria the OP listed, Stanford is incontrovertibly the best. Michigan doesn’t even come close. In fact, no school comes close to Stanford in this regard, for all criteria. For full disclosure, Stanford is my alma mater, but I’ll back it up with data.</p>
<p>“good at most sports” - Stanford has the most individual championships (465, #2 USC has ~350) and the second-most team championships (101, behind UCLA at 106). It has a top football program + has been ranked #1 for the Director’s Cup every year for 17 years. The only year it wasn’t #1 was the first year the Cup was offered and Stanford came in #2, behind UNC. Michigan often doesn’t even make the top 10.</p>
<p>“great education in most departments” - virtually every one of Stanford’s programs is in the top 5. In the US News rankings, every single one was placed in the top 5 except for bioengineering, which was #8. No other university can claim that, not even Berkeley or Harvard. Stanford’s professional schools also are all top 5 - business (1), law (2), med (5), engineering (2), education (4). Stanford is the only school in the world to make the top 5 in all broad disciplines measured in the THE ranking.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/engineering-and-IT.html[/url]”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/engineering-and-IT.html</a></p>
<p>“good weather” - the average temperature is 71 F. You can go outside in a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops in December, or go tanning in January. There’s not a lot of deviation from the average. It gets only 15 inches of rain per year; by contrast a desert has 10 inches or less per year. And this is why Michigan is disqualified: it has terrible weather (I’m from the Midwest). 35 inches of rain per year + 52 inches of snow? No thanks.</p>
<p>“a lot to do on campus” - Stanford has over 650 student groups (by contrast, Berkeley has about 700 but its student body is more than 2x the size of Stanford’s). There are plenty of other things to list, but I’m sure that other schools could match Stanford here.</p>
<p>“recruiters in the area” - Stanford is nestled in Silicon Valley. There are so many recruiters on campus it’s absurd. And not just tech companies, but any of the myriad companies throughout the Bay Area and SV. People from local areas come on campus constantly - Mark Zuckerberg might pop into the intro CS class, or tech company CEOs will guest speak in classes or in a speaker series (including the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo, Cisco, etc.). Stanford has founded over 3,000 companies in SV today and so it maintains a strong bond with companies throughout the valley.</p>
<p>“low crime” - Palo Alto isn’t a crime-ridden city; it’s an upper-crust area with minimal homelessness and crime. Either way, Stanford’s campus is very distinct from the surrounding areas - anyone who’s visited has heard of the “Stanford bubble.”</p>
<p>“nice location” - Stanford not only is a short drive from San Jose and San Francisco (so you get the best of both worlds: urban life when you want it, and the bubble when you want to return), but the Bay is a few minutes away (for rowing, sailing, etc. + the places all around the Bay), and the ocean (Santa Cruz, Half-Moon Bay, etc.) is a short drive away as well. Tahoe is a few hours away and every year, all the dorms at Stanford take an all-expense-paid trip to Tahoe for skiing and fun. Here’s what’s awesome about Stanford’s location: it’s on the peninsula, so on one side, there’s the Bay, which gives Stanford the benefits of being near water (cooler temperatures, little variation in temperature), but on the other side there’s the ocean, which would create harsher weather if it weren’t for the Santa Cruz Mountains creating a “rain shadow” and blocking the ocean from messing with the weather. That’s why it only gets 15 inches of rain a year. The Stanfords honestly couldn’t have picked a better location to found a school, both in terms of climate and (though they didn’t know it then) proximity to cities and culture throughout the Bay and Santa Clara Valley.</p>
<p>I’m sure there’s a strong case that can be made for other schools as well, but Stanford seems to be the only one that fully satisfies *all *the criteria.</p>
<p>Seems like there is just as much in your post attacking Michigan as there is praising Stanford</p>
<p>One thing though</p>
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<p>Michigan has been in the top ten in the directors cup 14 out of the 18 years its been around.</p>
<p>Plus the directors cup is a crappy way to rate schools athletic programs. Because we all know a championship in Womens Tennis is just as important as a BCS Championship … right? … right?.. anyone?</p>
<p>^It is to people who watch/play collegiate women’s tennis… It depends what you are interested in. What’s with the attitude?</p>
<p>Football is not the center of the universe. He asked for most complete university and you’re assigning arbitrary values to things. Anyway… Stanford’s going to be much better than Michigan this year just like it was last year… so I don’t get why you keep pushing the “forget academics, when I’m living in my suburb as an engineer 20 years from now, I’m going to turn on my TV and see my Wolverines having another mediocre year!”</p>
<p>I want to go to a college in the desert, because I might see camels…</p>
<p>If you haven’t noticed I’m being sarcastic. :)</p>
<p>As I’ve said numerous times, stanford is my dream school and you guys are just making me feel worse about not getting straight 4.0s in high school. (3.7 weighted, 3.6 unweighted)</p>
<p>Yankees I think you need to reread some posts.</p>
<p>^ sorry CGeresti, I thought this thread had become more of a general discussion after 20 pages. </p>
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<p>Really? I mentioned it three times:</p>
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<p>A tiny portion of my post is on Michigan, and the rest is on Stanford. None of this is an “attack” on Michigan. It’s objectively true that Michigan is not in the top 10 in the Director’s Cup (nor was it last year), and that it gets nearly 90 inches of snow/rain on average. That, I think, would disqualify it given that one of the factors was good weather. Yet throughout this thread - and now - you seem to take any comment which isn’t direct praise of Michigan as anything less than an attack on it.</p>
<p>Sorry if you don’t like the reality, but in athletics, Stanford beats Michigan; in academics, Stanford beats Michigan; in weather and location, Stanford beats Michigan. That doesn’t mean that Michigan isn’t also amazing, but you have to realize and admit that, yes, there are schools that might be better at the given factors than Michigan is.</p>
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<p>You keep dismissing every other sport except the ones that Michigan does well in, like football. Newsflash: not everyone cares about football. Many students care about tennis, or basketball, or baseball, or gymanstics, or even synchronized swimming. So the question becomes, which school has the best all-around athletic excellence? That’s what the Director’s Cup measures.</p>
<p>U Mich (obviously weather is not that great, but I like the cold).</p>
<p>PurpleDuckMan, I think you are missing the point about the weather. The OP clearly stated, Good weather. I doubt the OP meant wanting good weather in the sense to dress like an Eskimo to shovel snow, or to live in a flood zone or tornado land, so to speak. </p>
<p>As for an all around college experience, people usually think of academic first before sports, that is what I meant when I said academic experience. While I agree that sports is exciting and is part of an experience, it may not be on top of the list for everyone. Based on the people that I know, they all have selected their schools based on either academic or financial first, weather or location second, and then the size or sports, etc. in that order. Many of these people are sports fans as well. You can go on and on about D1 or D3, that is not going to matter when an employer hires someone for a job. They’re not going to base on whether you came from a D1 or D3 school. It is what is on your resume that counts in terms of knowledge, skills and work experience. That’s no joke.</p>
<p>m4dskillz, Your statement of "I’m going to be extremely happy when 25 years from now I can turn on my TV and watch a college football game and say, “Yeah, that’s my team right there.” That maybe fine and dandy if you had played in that game or a member of that team or perhaps that sport is going to be your career goal. What does that have anything to do with being a spectator? As a spectator, I go to support my team and cheer them on. That is for entertainment purposes only. Keep in mind that there are more to an all around college experience than just going to sporting events. Many students that I know have internships or jobs, or research work to do. So it depends on what is more important to you. Which one of these experiences is going to help land you your career? The students who choose wisely will be the ones laughing all the way to the bank.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter which factors are at the top of the list. The MOST COMPLETE university needs to excel in all areas.</p>
<p>Not everybody likes the heat.</p>
<p>I really think University of Texas at Austin has a complete profile. You have many areas Academic, Social Life, Location, Athletic Team, Networking. UT has a very large and well known academic program, ranked high in many programs PolySci, Engineering, Business. Then for the Social Life and Location, Austin is a large, bubbling and fun city to live and work in. The Longhoirns are great football team and the alumni network stretches far and wide!</p>
<p>Weather preferences totally vary by person. I grew up in Minnesota, Michigan will be slightly warmer and I look forward to winter. I actually do enjoy the snow. The state of Texas on the whole is indisputably horrible and disgusting.</p>
<p>I am a hardcore cold and snow person. Winter isn’t winter unless it drops below zero a number of times. But I like hot weather too if it isn’t too humid. I like to have all four seasons.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why anyone in their right mind would openly PREFER cold, harsh weather that literally kills people (every year, too!) over moderate, mild temperatures. </p>
<p>Sure, seasons are nice and snow is pretty to look at for a little – but I really love the fact that in my entire life, the most clothing I’ve needed to survive outside in winter has been a will coat, jeans and boots. Maybe an umbrella. </p>
<p>I would think that living somewhere where your pipes freeze, you have to shovel your driveway, you can’t go outside, etc. would be very, very miserable. </p>
<p>People like to say, “Oooh but California has earthquakes!” but that argument is so far from being meaningful. We can’t predict earthquakes and the “big ones” happen so rarely. I’d rather take the pick of the earthquake every 10+ years over hurricanes/blizzards/tornadoes/flooding that happens at the same time every year and kills half a town in one solid blow.</p>
<p>Stanford is the most “complete” school on this list and anything else really doesn’t fit ALL the criteria. The only other California school I would say is a close second would be USC. Both are incredibly difficult to get into and both are very different schools. But, I think for what the OP wants, he’d be happy with either.</p>
<p>UT Austin is great, but someone just told me they give in-state preference. I think it’s the best public school that fits this list, but it really doesn’t beat Stanford or USC.</p>
<p>Never been to Stanford or Michigan, but regardless of the Director’s Cup, Stanford still has a better football team. The energy surrounding a Saturday game may differ, but Stanford went 12-1 last year and Michigan went 7-6. An academic powerhouse like Stanford should have no business in contending for a Top 5 spot, but they do (imagine an Ivy putting together a squad like that). And unless he gets hurt or has a serious, serious off year, a Stanford grad will be the Heisman winner and the number one pick in the 2011 draft.</p>
<p>"I don’t understand why anyone in their right mind would openly PREFER cold, harsh weather that literally kills people (every year, too!) over moderate, mild temperatures.</p>
<p>Sure, seasons are nice and snow is pretty to look at for a little – but I really love the fact that in my entire life, the most clothing I’ve needed to survive outside in winter has been a will coat, jeans and boots. Maybe an umbrella. </p>
<p>I would think that living somewhere where your pipes freeze, you have to shovel your driveway, you can’t go outside, etc. would be very, very miserable."</p>
<p>If you freeze to death, it is because you weren’t prepared.</p>
<p>I actually kind of like shoveling snow lol. Also, you can’t enjoy nordic skiing in places where it doesn’t snow.</p>
<p>“People like to say, “Oooh but California has earthquakes!” but that argument is so far from being meaningful. We can’t predict earthquakes and the “big ones” happen so rarely. I’d rather take the pick of the earthquake every 10+ years over hurricanes/blizzards/tornadoes/flooding that happens at the same time every year and kills half a town in one solid blow.”</p>
<p>I agree that tornadoes suck, but blizzards aren’t that dangerous unless you are out on the road. Actually, the worst blizzards are usually ice storms and these are more likely in places that hover around 32 F instead of getting cold in the winter.</p>