Ranking the Social Life of the USNWR Top 20

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Much has been made of the academic life at these schools, but how do these schools compare outside of the classroom? I consider 10 criteria for evaluating a school’s social life:
*Welcoming nature and friendliness of the students
*Musical scene (both locally and for bands that come through)
*Athletic scene for entertainment purposes, ie, sports teams
*Greek life (good or bad)
*Strength of party scene
*Size, diversity and cohesiveness of the student body and how this impacts social life
*Weather and its impact on social activities
*Proximity to urban life/arts
*Student activities including community service, club activities, intramural sports, etc.
*Alcohol and drug scene</p>

<p>Based on my own experience and what I have picked up over the years and here on CC, here is one person’s ranking of the quality of social life at the USNWR Top 20:</p>

<li> Vanderbilt</li>
<li> Stanford</li>
<li> Duke</li>
<li> Northwestern</li>
<li> Rice</li>
<li> U Penn </li>
<li> Dartmouth</li>
<li> Brown</li>
<li> Notre Dame</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Wash U</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>U Chicago</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
</ol>

2

<p>I might move Princeton up a bit as they do have great parties at the clubs and a fair number of concerts come to the area.</p>

3

<p>^ same with Brown and Dartmouth
Duke is going down</p>

4

<p>I'd put Penn over Rice.</p>

5

<p>Duke parties really hard (compared to similar calibre students)</p>

<p>I'd move Chicago below JHU, and put Dartmouth and Penn over Rice.</p>

6

<p>I would put Cornell about Princeton. I visited both, and lets just say, Princeton was so quiet you could hear a pin dop!</p>

7

<p>Emory should be top 10... Atlanta, great greek system, plus great bar/club scene.</p>

8

<p>Yale's not nearly that bad.</p>

9

<p>brand is right. Admittedly I'm biased, but Yale is at least top 10 if not higher.
Also, it's interesting that your top 5 all have major sports programs, whereas only 1 of the next 15 (Notre Dame) does. Is this component perhaps being considered too highly, or do you think top athletic programs are really that strongly correlated with strong social life.</p>

<p>Also, I'm confused about how you consider some of the factors you list. Is a heavy fraternity presence good or bad? I have no interest in Greek life, so I would call high frat membership a negative, but I know many would disagree with me. As for "alcohol and drug scene", what constitutes good or bad? Most college students would probably consider easy access to alcohol good, but again, some disagree. For drugs you would probably find even more debate. Though many college students are probably fine with pot (being around, even if they don't use it), would a harder drug (say cocaine) being prominent on campus be good or bad for the purposes of your rating? When you talk about size of the student body, is bigger better? There's probably a lot of debate about that.</p>

10

<p>yale should go WAY up</p>

11

<p>IMO
Social Scene positively correlates with:
Number of fraternities, amount of booze, amount of drugs, large sports events, music scene, number of bars and clubs, and down-to-earthness of students</p>

<p>I can tell you that fraternity life ---> more parties --- > more people going out.
However, pot is an iffy drug, as people don't really go out when they are smoking since they get lazy, but at the same time they smoke with other people who also just bum around...which is kind of like a social scene.</p>

12

<p>I'd put WashU higher. There's a lot of dorm activities designed for freshmen, there's a concert venue nearby and several major campuswide music-dance-party events and a big spring carnival. And I think the St. Louis Mardi Gra celebration is second only to New Orleans's. There's something special about the way the campus is laid out, with the living area for most students concentrated around quads on the west side of campus so there always seems to be people to hang out with. It's true that the "midwestern vibe" is a friendly one. The Greek system is there, on a far end of campus, and sponsors parties open to everyone, but the Greeks don't dominate the social atmosphere according to my S. He hangs out and parties mainly with the ultimate frisbee team and his dorm and has no complaints about his social life.</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
Yale is at least top 10 if not higher.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yale is a great school but I believe it lacks somewhat socially. The residential colleges are obviously amazing. But New Haven isn't exactly the most exciting city. Most of the bars/clubs are sketchy with "Bar" being one of the few cool hangouts. Toad's is a pretty good place to see live bands but that has to get old after awhile. Chapel and Broadway have some nice restraunts, the "Butteries" are pretty cool, but I don't know if that makes it top 10 socially.</p>

<p>I would drop Rice below Penn, and move ND above Brown but overall the list looks good. However, I think people exaggerate Duke's social scene on this board unless I visited on a bad weekend (although I agree with it being top 5 on this list).</p>

14

<p>svalbardlutefisk,
I'm flattered that you think that there is some kind of method to the madness of my rankings above, but I must admit that this is pretty much a total guess. While I do have some feel for the social life of many of these schools, more than a few of my rankings reflect the opinions of others. Probably most important is that a good social life means different things to different people. This ranking is just my opinion and nothing more and I'm sure others will differ (as they have above). </p>

<p>If you are asking about my personal preferences, I listed in the OP the ten factors that I consider important.<br>
(1) The students are the personality of a school and I think it is essential that students be in an environment with others that they respect, they can learn from, and that actually enjoy being with.<br>
(2) I am a music fan and this is often of interest to students so I included that.<br>
(3) On the issue of major sports programs, which you asked about, I think that these activities can have a very strong positive impact on a school environment and the overall student experience. If you have ever attended any of the following-PAC 10 football game at Stanford or Big 10 game at Northwestern, ACC basketball game at Duke, SEC baseball game at Vanderbilt or any game at Rice-then you understand how different that is from attending almost any Ivy League football or basketball game (U Penn basketball might be an exception but still nowhere near the level of intensity you'd find at Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Northwestern).<br>
(4,5,10) The Greek life is bit more controversial as lots of folks love it and others loathe it. Same is somewhat true with the overall "party" scene, but generally I think that going to school in a universe of socially outgoing students is preferable. Having said that, I’m NOT a fan of huge alcohol abuse and the drug scene scares me.<br>
(6) Size, diversity and cohesiveness are increasingly important in today's multicultural college environments and I think it is desirable that students should mix with other ethnic groups or students from backgrounds with which they are not familiar. And not only mix, but actually work with regularly and constructively.<br>
(7) I'm a big fan of good weather and probably so are others and this does affect what types of social activities take place on a college campus (and when). Stanford's weather is truly magnificent while it's not too shabby either at Emory, Duke, Vanderbilt, or Rice.<br>
(8) I also am a lover of the arts so I like being close to cities that have some cultural attractions, eg, symphony, art museum, visiting exhibitions or artists, etc.<br>
(9) Finally, I think a school should have a ton of student activities that appeal to and involve a broad cross-section of students. There should be something for everyone so that students don't isolate themselves and spend all of their time in the library or in front of their computer. The best learning at college often comes outside of the classroom. </p>

<p>I'd be interested to see anyone else's rankings if they are interested in giving this a try.</p>

15

<p>Socially I'd rank them --</p>

<ol>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Northwestern </li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Emory</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Wash U</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>U Chicago</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
</ol>

16

<p>I wouldn't say that watching Stanford, Vanderbilt or Rice getting pounded regularly in sports creates much of a high.</p>

17

<p>Or Northwestern!</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
Yale is a great school but I believe it lacks somewhat socially. The residential colleges are obviously amazing. But New Haven isn't exactly the most exciting city. Most of the bars/clubs are sketchy with "Bar" being one of the few cool hangouts. Toad's is a pretty good place to see live bands but that has to get old after awhile. Chapel and Broadway have some nice restraunts, the "Butteries" are pretty cool, but I don't know if that makes it top 10 socially.

[/quote]

Only 2 of the OPs 10 listed qualifications involved the surrounding city: musical scene and urban life/arts. As far as the "arts" part of urban life/arts goes, Yale creates plenty of that itself, with possibly the best university theater in the country, good museums, and strong music programs. Urban "life" is admittedly weak, and the musical scene probably isn't as good as it would be in Boston or New York. Regardless, those are only 2 of the 10 categories the OP created as criteria, and many of the other top 20 schools are just as weak in them, if not weaker (are Palo Alto, Durham, Hanover, South Bend, Princeton, or Ithaca particularly more vibrant cities than New Haven).
As far as the remaining categories go:
"Welcoming nature and friendliness of the students": Extremely subjective, but I would say Yale is as good as any.
"Athletic scene for entertainment purposes, ie, sports teams": As good or better than most of the top 20 (for instance, unlike Harvard, alcohol is allowed at tailgates), with obvious exceptions (Vanderbilt, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, and Notre Dame)
"Greek life (good or bad)": As I mentioned earlier, I'm confuse by what counts as good in this category, but I think Yale has a healthy balance of active frats with significant membership, but that do not dominate the social scene
"Strength of party scene": Again a subjective category, but is Yale actually worse here than the other top 20 academic schools?
"Size, diversity and cohesiveness of the student body and how this impacts social life": Residential colleges ensure that everyone at least lives in a diverse community, unlike at colleges where students can self-segregate in housing much more easily.
"Weather and its impact on social activities": So the Southern and California schools win in weather, but only about 5 schools on in the top 20 fall into the category of having weather definitively better than Yale
"Student activities including community service, club activities, intramural sports, etc.": Yale shines here, with its extremely active student body, and its plethora of activities that compare favorably with those at any other school.
"Alcohol and drug scene": At least for the "alcohol" part, Yale is better than any of its peers. The university's policy of treating alchol as a health issue, not a disciplinary issue means that students have easy access to alcohol, don't have to worry about being caught drinking (so it isn't necessary to drink in secret behind locked doors as it is at some of the schools listed) and when someone gets dangerously drunk, they don't have to worry about getting in trouble if they seek medical attention.</p>

<p>Overall, Yale is certainly better than Columbia (unless you are a huge New York City fan), Harvard, WashU, MIT, Cornell, Princeton, and Notre Dame (unless football is extremely important to you). It is as good as Brown, Dartmouth, and Penn, and compares decently to Stanford. I don't know enough about Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Rice, or Emory to comment, though I
would say that Vanderbilt is almost certainly better.</p>

19

<p>I guess I'll give a quick try at ranking, with the caveat that a few schools that I listed earlier, I don't know too much about, and that I think more than just intense partying is required to create good social life (hawkette is right to consider the arts scene and student activities important).
1. Vanderbilt
2. Duke
3. Stanford
4. UPenn
5. Dartmouth
6. Yale
7. Notre Dame
8. Rice
9. Northwestern
10. Brown
11. Cornell
12. Emory
13. WashU
14. Harvard
15. Columbia
16. Princeton
17. MIT
18. UChicago
19. Johns Hopkins
20. Caltech</p>

20

<p>1) Vanderbilt
2) Dartmouth
3) UPenn
4) Notre Dame
5) Princeton
6) Brown
7) Cornell
8) Duke
9) WashU
10) Stanford
11) Northwestern
12) Rice
13) Emory
14) Yale
15) Harvard
16) Columbia
17) Johns Hopkins
18) MIT
19) CalTech
20) U Chicago</p>