Searching for a balanced school

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi, i was wondering if anybody could help me pick out of the top schools, which are the ones with a bigger party and social scene. I see myself as a pretty smart kid who might have a decent shot at getting in to top univiersities, but don't want to get stuck with a bunch of kids who just study on saturday and sunday nights. One of the schools i was thinking about was maybe Berkeley, but that was just a thought.</p>

2

<p>duke comes to mind as being balanced, but more in terms of being both good at both sports and academics.</p>

3

<p>UCLA, perhaps?</p>

4

<p>Duke, definitely for what ou describe. But I’m not sure balanced is the word I would use.</p>

5

<p>Great thread topic. I believe strongly that, for many students, this is the best way to evaluate colleges. Consider the academics, but also think a lot about what happens in those 150+ hours per week when you are not in the classroom. </p>

<p>A few years back, I created a thread that you might find useful:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/348753-ranking-social-life-usnwr-top-20-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/348753-ranking-social-life-usnwr-top-20-a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Please take the thread and the comments and rankings with a grain of salt as not everyone agrees on what constitutes a good social environment. I tried to be comprehensive in the thread and here are the criteria that I set out:</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>Here is how the “social life rankings” looked the last time that I tallied the votes in the thread:</p>

<p>SOCIAL LIFE OF THE USNWR TOP 20</p>

<p>1 Vanderbilt
2 Stanford
3 Duke
4 Dartmouth
5 U Penn
6 Notre Dame
7 Northwestern
8 Rice
9 Cornell
10 Brown
11 Princeton
12 Wash U
13 Harvard
14 Yale
15 Emory
16 Columbia
17 MIT
18 Johns Hopkins
19 U Chicago
20 Caltech</p>

6

<p>Duke, Dartmouth, Princeton, Stanford, Brown, Northwestern, Vanderbilt</p>

7

<p>USC, UCLA, Stanford, Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State. Any of the big state schools are good.</p>

8

<p>duke, penn, and stanford. yeeyeee for balanced schools :)</p>

9

<p>RICE!!! We’re ranked number 2 in quality of life by Princeton Review (behind WashU).</p>

<p>Other balanced schools to consider: Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Stanford, Vanderbilt (in my opinion, they party too hard!), WashU, and Yale.</p>

10

<p>Michigan. Big ten!!!</p>