<p>Johns Hopkins internally is low. However, students mingle with Towson, U Balt, and Loyola students. In reality its not as bad as its reputation serves it.</p>
<p>This whole ranking is pointless. None of you know much about schools you've never attended, let alone anything about the quality of social life (which is a completely subjective measure in the first place...)</p>
<p>i agree, i was just trying to.....in fact i know nothing about any of these schools</p>
<p>this holds true with US News. There is no way to rank every college since they have not been to every one of them. Numbers can only go so far but each person requires a different campus environment. Some may prefer a smaller school like Case Western rather than a bigger school like Georgia Tech so Case Western would be ranked for those people higher than Georgia Tech instead of using US News rankings which place Georgia Tech ahead of Case</p>
<p>Just an example, don't kill me for any flaws =)</p>
<p>Sorry ironmetal, I got the mascots mixed up.</p>
<p>University Presidents are asked to review and submit a survey about the education quality of peer schools of the same caliber level as their own school.</p>
<p>It's like saying business companies do not know what their competitor down the street is doing. Peer review occurs in almost every industry group in the nation. Peer review in higher education is no different than say Presidents of HYP and CEOs of Ford, GM, and Chrysler rating their each other on quality of products, sustainability of each others business model, efficiency of business model, and effectiveness of marketing, all that goody good good stuff.</p>
<p>Universities essentially confer 'degrees/diplomas' that is a far more valuable durable commodity/asset that automakers could ever muster up. Failure to know what other universities are doing in a highly competitive marketplace for students and applicants...means ultimate failure on the presidents part in doing his job!</p>
<p>Bump.
I'm definitely into those lower ranked schools.
Where fun comes to die ftw!! (Should read: Where the traditional college-kid idea of fun comes to die.)</p>
<p>With Brown listing as self-reported happiest students (one or two the last like 5 or 6 years at least), and approximately 10 students per year transferring out (~.16%) each year, I'd have to say that regardless of what everyone here is using as their measure for social life, Brown must be doing pretty damn well.</p>
<p>Interestingly, one or two transfers typically return to Brown, making that percentage drop even further.</p>
<p>(Leaving</a> the 'happiest' Ivy for other colleges - Features)</p>
<p>There is only a mild correlation between happiness and social life. Social life at college, in the traditional sense, is the access to, quantity of, and quality of greek life, off campus parties, town/city nightlife, and music scene. The people I know that go to Brown wouldn't be very happy at schools that ranking highly in the traditional sense of social life. Two last musings: 1. Ranking Social Life w/out a very well defined set of criteria is useless. 2. Appreciate the fact that the type of social life Vandy offers is not indicative of the type of social life the majority of people enjoy- i.e. fantastic greek life, but in a city I personally would not want to spend 4 years living in.</p>
<p>I don't know, I would say "off-campus parties, town/city nightlife, and music scene" sound pretty damn fun to me!! Remove the campus party scene and most adults would love to have access to that type of entertainment. Its ALWAYS best to have options -- enjoy them or not, but at least they are there! </p>
<p>Four years is a long time to not have different social outlets to explore.</p>
<p>1 Vanderbilt
2 Northwestern
3 Duke
4 Stanford
5 U Penn
6 Notre Dame
7 Dartmouth
8 Wash U
9 Cornell
10 Brown
11 Princeton
12 Rice
13 Harvard
14 Yale
15 Emory
16 Columbia
17 MIT
18 Johns Hopkins
19 U Chicago
20 Caltech</p>
<p>Jkh411,
I don’t think that many will disagree with your observation that one type of collegiate social scene is not necessarily best for all students just as one type of college won’t fit all students. But I think that there are very important differences in the social experiences available at the USNWR Top 20 and, given the similarity in student/academic strength, these factors can sometimes be very important in the selection of a college. </p>
<p>When I created this thread, I tried to identify several criteria that students could use in evaluating and comparing the social scenes at various colleges. Here again are those criteria:</p>
<p>*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>Different folks will weigh these differently, but I think most would agree that, for nearly all students, some relevant elements are in this list and should be considered in comparing ABC College to XYZ University.</p>
<p>Aside from the weather, I can’t think of a negative for WashU (according to this thread’s criteria). Obviously, St. Louis isn’t New York, but I’m pretty sure that it compares quite favorably to Ithaca and Princeton.</p>
<p>Get back to me when you have Girl Talk playing in a fraternity basement.</p>
bumb. this is important to me and want to see more recent stuff if anyone has anything to add
Penn state should be #1
BUMP this is an old thread but could someone give their rankings based on more current conditions for the colleges… v. important as I’m trying to choose b/w Dartmouth, Duke, Cornell, Columbia, and Penn for ED
@purplepuffin
My (slightly biased) ranking of the schools in your list is:
- Penn
- Duke
- Dartmouth
- Cornell
- Columbia
Penn has a diverse and vibrant social and party scene, very social students (work hard play hard is the school motto haha) and the location is ideal. It is within Philly so you can take advantage of all the philly nightlife, restauarants, bars theaters etc. Yet it has its own very distinct campus and it is not in the city center but like a 15 minute walk away (5-10 by cab). Also Philly is a big city nut it is not huge and overwhelming like NYC.
Duke has a great party scene and people are very sociable but i think it loses a few points because of location.
Dartmouth has a great social and party scene but it loses more points because of its location in the middle of nowhere.
Cornell again same as Dartmouth, great scene social people who know how to have fun, but again loses points because of its location.
Columbia is last on my list because I have heard from many people that there is not much of a campus atmosphere and cohesiveness and everything gets drowned out by NYC, and I don’t think most students are really that social. Also NYC is quite expensive too to go out and stuff.
This is my take but of course these things are highly subjective.
Thanks that helps a lot! I’ve always been leaning to Penn ever since I visited.
^^
I’m assuming FA is not a concern?
Im sure you have visited but for the enlightenment of others, Ithaca is a very vibrant town and the countryside and Cayuga Lake are beautiful.
.
@CrewDad Yes, I loved Cornell when I visited! The setting and nature was breathtaking. But what also SEEMED to be breathtaking was the stress (which I thought contributed to an almost antisocial atmosphere) could you touch upon that?