<p>PR is bad because its a student rating...and students have no basis of comparison</p>
<p>Who is to say students at one school have an overall basis for comparison for how enjoyable their experience is?</p>
<p>I agree with thethoughtprocess. I think the PR ranking is almost completely and utterly useless, especially because it fluctuates so much year to year. For example, recently Yale was voted by students the #1 "Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates" and the next year it didn't make the list. Yale wasn't on the list of "best college newspapers" two years ago, and this year it is #1 on the list. I would use it for the party, pot smoking and beer drinking rankings, and maybe to glance over some of the extracurricular rankings, but little else. Your best bet is to visit campuses for a few days each, talk with lots of students, sit in on a couple classes, hang out, and see what it is really like.</p>
<p>I think the pot smoking one is the only accurate, or most accurate, ranking there is - I've spoken to many people who have verified it first hand</p>
<p>Even that ranking is a bit suspect, given that pot smoking really depends on what social circles you're in. At any school I'm sure you can find potheads, cokeheads and other drug abusers just as you can find (even more) people who don't care about that stuff. Of course, there are some schools with lackluster social scenes on campus where it might seem your only choice is to hang out at private parties with a lot of drug use. Trust me, I've visited those kinds of places.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the schools with the best social scenes are ones such as Yale:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Where there is an infinite variety of events going on on the campus, e.g., dozens if not hundreds of different free events (e.g., music, theater, art shows, sports, volunteer events, lectures) every weekend.</p></li>
<li><p>Where 100% of the campus dormitories are in a small and compact area. This way anyone can get anywhere within two or three minutes, making everything significantly more accessible and making it possible to do 5 or 10 different things in one night. Almost all universities other than Yale, unfortunately, have undergraduate dorms that are spread out over a much wider area. But there are several LACs that have a pretty compact campus.</p></li>
<li><p>Where funding and campus social life is structured such that there are tons of parties that literally anyone can and does attend, e.g., the school literally "pays for the cups" and has "designated" party-throwers. This makes parties more egalitarian and therefore limits alcohol binge-drinking and drug abuse by making parties more of a social event, encouraging literally everyone to participate, and are not an opportunity for a few people to get together privately and get wasted. This is something your college admit brochures or tourguides will not be able to explain. You have to stay over on a normal campus weekend to see what the social scene is like. It's not only about the funding and such, it's also about whether or not there are attractive physical places to hold weekend social events like these.</p></li>
<li><p>Where there are tons of social activities in the immediate area (e.g., hundreds of restaurants, cafes, shops, bars and nightclubs), that don't require students to travel for miles in a subway or car to have fun. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Again, your best bet is to visit each campus for a good few days and see if you feel that you would fit in, socially speaking. Attend classes, talk to tons of students, and stay over on a Friday and/or Saturday night to see what everyone is up to.</p>
<p>What i meant to say was "what schools would you rate as the happiest/unhappiest?" not how to find out if a school is one way or the other.</p>
<p>It is reported in the PR or other college-related magazines that students attending the ivy school or private univ. are happier than those attending public schools. IMO, the reason behind that is that the majority of ivy-school (or private school) kids are from financially well-off family.
One of the more financially dysfunctional notions I hear from poor people is that "money doesn't make you happy." I don't know about that cuz I'm much happier when I have an abundance of money. IMO, this “money makes me happy” extends to college-life as well.
Quite coincidentally, the percentage of Pell Grant recipients are much much lower at ivy-league schools than your local state univs – Happier (Richer) Kids are abundant at those o so precious I vie schools, which results in more happier learning environments for all.
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>People also might be happier because they get better financial aid at the Ivies than they do at the supposedly-egalitarian state schools. </p>
<p>If you're from a lower or middle-income family, and you go to an HYP, you'll probably have most of your expenses covered, and maybe have a 10 hour per week work-study job cataloguing 12th-century manuscripts or sitting at the circulation desk for $11/hour to help you pay for the occasional visit to a local gourmet restaurant or trip home for Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>If you go to local State U., you may very well be flipping burgers for 30 hours per week at $6/hour to help offset some of your crushing, unmitigated tuition burden.</p>
<p>LoL </p>
<p>
[quote]
for the occasional visit to a local gourmet restaurant
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Does your definition of a local gourmet restaurant includes “Ruth’s Steakhouse” or “Ichban for TeppanYaki” ?</p>
<p>Yeah, I get your point. But, the fact of matter is that 1) if youre from poor family, youre covered cuz the schools will pick up the tap for you 2) if youre from filthy rich family, your dad gonna cover u.</p>
<p>It is the middle class (or upper middle class people) who will get burned.</p>
<p>Is this fair? –No
Can we do something about it? –Yes. [bold]Vote Democrats[/bold]</p>
<p>My point is that they'll often get "less burned" by choosing the elite private with good financial aid over the good state school. </p>
<p>Voting Democrat is great, especially if it helps raise teacher salaries and federal educational grants, but it's not going to solve the fundamental problem of health care and educational costs rising faster than most people can afford. The only way to fix the system is to reduce waste by getting people out of their cars - this will ultimately prevent our environment from being destroyed with urban sprawl, allow people to better take care of their neighbors, save money on ridiculously expensive highway construction and maintenance and eliminate our country's dependency on foreign oil. Avoiding wars that cost trillions of dollars would help, too.</p>