<p>I think you’re focusing too much on skiing…that’s just one example. Picking a nice city for cultural and entertainment advantages is another option. Like suppose your first choice was an elite small rural LAC, and the main reason was you liked to be in a tightly knit group of really smart students. And your reach and match schools (Williams, Middlebury, Colgate, etc) did indeed offer that. </p>
<p>But by the time you get down to small rural LACs that are a lock to get into, they no longer have wall-to-wall really smart students. There are SOME really smart ones, but they are outnumbered by prep school slackers, folks mainly there to play varsity sports, and party animals with decent SATs who got mediocre grades in high school. There are also some folks who aren’t all that bright but they tried really hard and got good grades in high school. </p>
<p>Bottom line is that the students don’t provide the critical mass of brainpower that was the main reason to go to that type of school in the first place. So you opt for, say, Boston University instead…and the excitement of the big city, the museums, the Red Sox, the proximity to other colleges, the bigtime college hockey, concerts, the increased research possibilities, and the wider variety of majors are preferable to the 2nd-rate LAC that was your other safety.</p>