I have an uncle who’s lived in Boulder since the 1970s and he describes it as practically utopia. Of course, most people could never afford a house there now – unless maybe you’re moving from California, @NateandAllisMom! 
Feels far away for this Mom! Funny how COVID has changed that for me. I’m not going to push Boulder, but if he advocates we’ll see…
Our city is very nice but sadly, big differences in means among its residents. Also sadly we have a good number of homeless and mentally ill living on the streets amid all of this luxury. (We are just making a living servicing the rich here.) It was weird to go to a park in Boulder and see dogs with frisbees and kids using it. Also the school was consistently nice, where I think California school budgets are more strained.
You might take a look because Boulder does have some automatic merit scholarships and they just went TO on those as I mentioned. They told us S GPA would likely get us at least the first level of that.
"CU Boulder Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarship
The CU Boulder Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarship is available to out-of-state students who are in the top 25% of the admitted nonresident class at CU Boulder.
$25,000 total ($6,250 per year)
Presidential Scholarship
The Presidential scholarship is available to out-of-state students who are in the top 1-3% of the admitted nonresident class at CU Boulder. Your admissions application must be submitted by January 15 to be considered for this scholarship. $55,000 total ($15,000 per year freshman and sophomore year & $12,500 per year junior and senior year)"
We visited Boulder back in Feb. when visiting family in the area. It looked like a great place to go to school.
S21 just made a switch in his Fall schedule. I’d been a bit concerned about how heavy his schedule was – all IB/AP/DE classes - and last Spring I’d encouraged him to do at least one regular class but he insisted he wanted those classes. But now he decided to switch IB Biology for Astronomy. He doesn’t really like bio, just picked the class to do it with friends but decided that if they aren’t even at school, that’s not much of a reason any more. His non-AP/IB options were earth science and astronomy and astronomy fits that slot in his schedule, so going with that. Makes me feel a bit better about his juggling everything else since his schedule is otherwise very quant heavy – AP Calc BC, AP Stats, DE Geospatial Analysis, IB Economics. Plus AP Literature.
Oddly, we visited UC Boulder last year and, after seeing the campus, neither of my kids were interested.
@HMom16 – what didn’t they like about Boulder?
@AlmostThere2018 Nothing in particular, they just didn’t like the campus. They didn’t love the city of Boulder either though.
@AlmostThere2018 To me Boulder feels like upscale coastal California, but in the Rockies. Much of the campus has a clean, modern look. Outdoor recreation opportunities abound. Very nice if you can afford it. Off-campus rental student housing is very pricey.
@mamaedefamilia - The CU-Boulder book store used to sell sweatshirts that said University of California, Boulder - you described the vibe perfectly!
It did feel a lot like here without the ocean. We liked the tour presentation and the campus. Unfortunately we weren’t there when the students were present. If S was put in pre-engineering that would be an issue since we consider it his main “safer” school. I’m not super excited about the party reputation since I went to a big party school and it was distracting.
D21 had her in-person college class today, but since she doesn’t yet have her COVID test results yet, she attended via Zoom. She and the other three Zoom students could not hear the teacher as the audio was off - the class could hear the Zoom students, but the Zoom folks could not hear the professor or the class. At one point, one of the Zoom students held up a big sign that said “We can’t hear anything.” The professor said she would work with tech to fix the issue this afternoon.
D21 said that for some reason, she was often the on my one on Zoom that was visible to the rest of the class. So she was there in class on a giant movie-like screen. She found the whole thing amusing. Hopefully she will be able to join the actual class later this week.
@JanieWalker hope your D’s test results come back soon. Sorry for the tech challenges on day 1 - glad she didn’t get thrown by it.
We’ve had a few tech issues with K-12 here, but everyone’s been rolling with it pretty well so far.
K, 1st, 6th, and 9th graders start in person here tomorrow (those who signed up for in-person…A little over 60% of the 9th graders at my D23s’ school will be there in the school building tomorrow while other 9th graders and all 10th-12th graders will still be remote). Next week more grade levels phase back in, and then the rest (of those who chose f2f) the following week. My D23s are staying remote. School started two weeks ago.
(S21 still has two weeks before he goes back…small hybrid homeschool with about half choosing to attend in person, including S21…I’m hopeful they can pull it off since it’s just ~6 kids who will be there).
CU Boulder is our state flagship so I hope I can provide some perspective. Again, this is just my point of view based on my experience and those that I know. Both my parents went to CU and a large portion of our friends send their kids there.
PROS
Boulder is a beautiful town, picturesque. We LOVE to go hiking there regularly. Among some of the best trails you will ever find. The campus is gorgeous and unique. It doesn’t look like any other campus with the red stone buildings. Lots of green spaces.
The vibe is very laid back and people are very friendly. Colorado people are fit and healthy.
The school is strong for engineering and business. You can study just about anything in Boulder.
Sports are big. The school will provide you a quintessential experience.
Weather. Colorado provides all 4 seasons and it is beautiful.
There are more OOS than in-state people so it is not cliquey in state kids.
Lots of restaurants and places to go when visiting the kids.
Only 30 minutes from downtown Denver.
CONS
Pot is rampant. I know it’s on a lot of campuses, but Colorado is a hub for pot smoking. It is EVERYWHERE. You can smell it on every street and it permeates into everything (literally and figuratively). I’ll leave it there. That is the biggest reason my kids don’t want to go there. I know of tons of kids who never did drugs and went to Boulder and became addicts and/or smoked 7 days a week.
Boulder is very expensive. They instituted a no-growth law back in the 70’s so there is very little construction and it artificially increases the price of housing significantly.
Colorado is among the lowest in the country for state funding for higher education (I think we are 48/50). As such, you will pay SIGNIFICANTLY more in tuition both in state and out of state that just about anywhere in the country. I’m not sure I would pay full price OOS. Like someone mentioned, there is merit aid available. As a result, Boulder takes more OOS than in-state students. I think this is a positive when coming from OOS.
Greek life is very competitive. I know of very few girls who were asked to be in a sorority last year, despite a ton of them rushing. There are just not a lot of spots available. Not sure about boys.
Dorms are run down and need to be remodeled.
This could be a pro or con. Boulder is EXTREMELY liberal. Think Berkeley, California. They are very vocal about their views. Great if you are a SJW. Not so great if you are more moderate with your views.
University System of Georgia has gone test optional! The devil is in the details though. I think the minimum GPA’s are going up.
@kanfly: Love your post #8257 above , but slightly disagree about two of your “cons”.
While Boulder is liberal, it is not populated by SJWs (social justice warriors) in my experience.
Also, pot is prevalent, but I have never smelled it on the streets as you experienced.
Boulder is spectacular. The average cost of a home in Boulder is slightly over $1,000,000 (if my source is correct).
The drive from Boulder to downtown Denver is an easy 40 minutes.
We lived in CO for eight years and went to Boulder frequently. Many people, streets, buildings and parks smelled strongly of pot, and this was pre-legalization.
I really don’t think pot used to reek (in the 80’s-90’s) the way it does now. To me, it smells like skunk, mildew, and dead dank things. Unfortunately, D21 smells it the same way and is thinking of removing colleges from her top 5 list because of it ?.
I used to visit Boulder for 2 weeks at a time. Never had that experience even though I went out very often. Guess we visited different parts of Boulder. I do know that pot is prevalent, just never smelled it while out & about in Boulder.
P.S. It has been a few years since my last visit however.
@Sailaway my S removed Amherst from his list recently after reading that students smoke pot in the dorms and it is not discouraged. I don’t know if it’s true, but he claims to have read it on another site.
DW and I visited Boulder back in January and you could definitely smell pot quite often.
@Aguadecoco , D21 has been talking to older kids from our high school who attend different schools. A Skidmore student told her that she should request a substance free dorm, but she would rather go somewhere where pot smoke is not prevalent in the regular dorms. She prefers that kids vape?.
Yup. The year after pot was legalized in Colorado, applications to Boulder increased 33%. That overall rise in applications included even larger jumps in the number of prospective students from out-of-state — a 43 percent increase — and from other countries, with international applications up 65 percent.