<p>My family and I recently visited a few colleges and I was wondering just how safe they are. So far:</p>
<p>Rhode Island School of Design
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh
UMASS Amherst
NYU in NYC</p>
<p>We are also planning to visit MICA in Baltimore, but Baltimore seems to be quite unsafe.</p>
<p>Does anyone have an opinion as to which of these schools is in a safe area?</p>
<p>Thanks,
MommyGirl</p>
<p>Baltimore is tricky. There are very nice areas, however you can go a couple of blocks and find yourself in am area you might not be as comfortable in. I’m not familiar with MICA so I can’t give specifics on that. The very recent tragedy near JHU was off campus. I believe it was a medical student walking home late. I am familiar with the area. If they were walking home from the hospital, you do go quickly into areas you would want to keep eyes and ears open.
Baltimore is a beautiful city with a lot to offer, you have to know where you are going and where your buffer zone is. I think you’ll find this in most major cities, from Pitt to DC.</p>
<p>School of the Art Insitute in Chicago…hmmmm…typical downtown big city. But there are a lot of college students living around there (Columbia, Roosevelt, and some DePaul) but I wouldn’t recommend walking around alone at night. I attended night school at DePaul in the area and had to walk to train every night. I made sure I was with a group of people. Daytime is fine - lots of tourists, although lots of homeless as well, esp. on State St.</p>
<p>My son is starting UMASS-Amherst in a few weeks, and I formerly lived in the area for a number of years.</p>
<p>Aside from being ranked as the Number 1 college town in America–a problem would be having too much fun to study–the area is quite safe. I would say it’s the safest of your choices, and I grew up in NY and went to school in Chicago. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t be safe, or that you shouldn’t exercise appropriate caution in Amherst. But the biggest problems there would be pilfering in the dorms and the consequences of whatever students do when they’re partying and drunk.</p>
<p>Three of those five are in or at the edge of the center of a large city. (NYU, AIC, RISD) They may be intensively policed (NYU), there may be lots of people around at all hours of the day and night (NYU, AIC), it may be a nice-ish area of a smaller city without lots of apparent problems (RISD), but it’s still going to be an urban environment with some street crime.</p>
<p>CMU is in a semi-suburban area of a smaller city, but probably not unlike RISD in its risk profile.</p>
<p>UMass Amherst is going to have the least crime in the environment around it.</p>
<p>At all of these places, including NYU, students face considerably more risk from other students than they do from street criminals. Not so much that other students will beat them up or rob them at gunpoint – although I’m sure that happens sometimes – as that other students will steal their stuff, wreck their stuff, get them drunk or high, date-rape them, get in fights with them, etc. At UMass, especially, they are much more likely to drive drunk or to be a passenger of a drunk driver than at NYU, with its subways and cheap cabs. Being around a lot of 18-22 year-olds means being exposed to a lot of 18-22 year-old negative behaviors.</p>
<p>My son is at CMU and it feels very very safe to me. There was a mugging off campus a year back. The victims were able to track the thieves through their iphone software: [College</a> Student Uses iPhone to Catch Robbery Suspects - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com](<a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,544880,00.html]College”>Fox News - Breaking News Updates | Latest News Headlines | Photos & News Videos)</p>
<p>I agree that the NYU area nearly always seems to be teeming with students.</p>
<p>Thanks to all of you for your input. I now have some “food for thought.” I appreciate your time.</p>
<p>Thanks again,
mommygirl</p>
<p>MICA is an urban campus so like any other, you need to be very aware of your surroundings. There is a very tight radius I’d consider “safe” which is beautifully revitalized BUT if your teen were to stray even just two blocks in the wrong direction he/she would certainly be in an undesirable area (that’s putting it mildly)</p>
<p>Biggest danger to CMU students: they don’t know how to cross the street! I am serious! Please tell your student to go to the corner, look both ways, wait for the light, etc., etc!</p>
<p>Laughing about the last post. It is dangerous to drive down University Ave in Madison, WI during the times between classes- was in my day and sure it is now. Students climb over/under the metal rope swags between corners. Fact of college life- cars beware. Telling any student to do the safe, legal thing is useless. They OWN the campus territory de facto if not legally.</p>
<p>Rhode Island School of Design - Safe. Large gay population nearby. Good atmoshpere.</p>
<p>School of the Art Institute of Chicago - Chicago is not the safest city in the world, but the school isn’t in the worst area.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh - Good school, but it is in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has a tendency to be pretty trashy.</p>
<p>UMASS Amherst - Safe area. However, UMASS usually ends up with the towneys from the public school system in Massachusetts. The students are not great influences on the other students. Try a Northeastern or BU to get a better quality student body.</p>
<p>NYU in NYC - It is New York, so it can be dangerous. But then again, if you want to live in New York, you’re willing to sacrifice your safety a little for the plethera of things to do in NYC.</p>
<p>NYC is one of the safest large cities in the country and Greenwich Village is one of its safest precincts. Sent D there with no more safety worries than I would have at any other school.</p>
<p>Ahem - Pittsburgh is NOT trashy! It is a beautiful city - one of the best kept secrets in the U.S… And, CMU is in Oakland, the University area, adjacent to Squirrel Hill - you will not find such a beautiful neighborhood that close to downtown in any city - unless you go to other Pittsburgh neighborhoods, of course.
Now, if you want suburban sprawl, box store after box store after fast food joint, next to gated community next to tract housing, you will NOT find that in the neighborhood where CMU is located. You will find gorgeous homes built anywhere from 1900 to 1930, a huge magnificent park with wooded trails, along with a skating rink and soccer and baseball fields, a plaza with kiosks and plantings, the first free library in the country restored beautifully - they just don’t build stuff like this anymore - and more.</p>
<p>I was about to say the same thing as FallGirl. NYC has a reputation as a dangerous place simply because it’s a large city - also sometimes because of its reputation from the mid 1980s. But the crime statistics don’t hold up to that reputation. New York is never on the list of “10 Most Dangerous Cities” and violent crime has plummeted in the city. And Greenwich Village is a somewhat tony area, so no worries there. A college student who kept her wits about her should be safe in the city.</p>
<p>I go to Columbia (both the Morningside Heights campus and the Washington Heights medical center campus) and I feel pretty safe in most places in New York, and some nights the sun has beaten me home. You just follow the common sense rules - travel in groups, stay in well-lighted populated areas (not at ALL difficult in New York - there are always people on the street, even at 3 am), don’t get TOO drunk, etc.</p>
<p>levirm is right. The CMU neighborhood is really very pretty. Downtown Pittsburgh looks as nice as the downtown of any city I’ve been in. There are some seedier neighborhoods, but none that a student needs to walk through.</p>
<p>NYU is in one of the safer NYPD precincts, the 6th. NYU also has intense campus security, where swipe cards are required at all dormitories and most buildings. If you don’t swipe in, you flash your ID at the officer. Public safety is 24/7. NYU also offers free building-to-building shuttles after 11PM for students. The shuttles are run by public safety and Coach USA. You call a number and speak to an officer, and the marked van picks you up and takes you directly to the NYU building and does not leave until you are safely inside. The NYU-run bus system runs until 11PM, with clearly marked buses and trolleys ferrying upperclassmen from campus to their dorms.</p>
<p>As a freshman, all of the dorms are clustered around the Washington Square campus, which eliminates the need for taking the subways very much to visit people from other dorms. NYU also runs a number of “Safety in the City” seminars during Welcome Week for freshmen. </p>
<p>Yes, it’s NYC, which means the average student has to be a little more vigilant about safety. But NYU takes great measures to make sure that every student feels safe.</p>
<p>^
Dorm security at NYU is tight. The guard in D’s dorm made me show ID every time I went in. He was annoyed that S (age 13 at the time) had no ID to show! They were very strict with other visitors too.</p>
<p>Greenwich Village is a great and very safe neighborhood. Always busy and always interesting. It’s simply of matter of getting acclimated to a new city before you can enjoy it and not walk around in fear.</p>