<p>I’ve visited a lot of colleges in my day. UVa has always felt like a medium sized school to me. There are times when my grad alma mater (liberal arts, private) feels larger than UVa.</p>
<p>When I think of big publics, I think of Arizona State, OSU, Illinois, and Florida (both of them). There are campuses out there that feel like cities. </p>
<p>Everyone has different criteria for assessing the feel of a school. I remember a visitor once being in awe that we had shuttle buses to help people get around and they seemed to think that was a sign that UVa was terribly large. They said other schools they looked at had vans (the other schools must have been quite small).</p>