<p>I've pared down my college choices to the following four:</p>
<p>William and Mary
UT- Austin
George Washington
McGill</p>
<p>I'm pretty undecided on what i want to do, and, like its been recommended to me, i've requested brochures and course catalogs from each, to compare interesting classes and such.</p>
<p>Now, though, since i probably won't get a chance to visit them again (i've seen them all except UT in the past), could anyone give advice/rankings/comments on how they are outside the classroom? Obviously, they are all good academically, probably with William and Mary slightly on top, but, the rest of the stuff matters.</p>
<p>Like, W&M has scared me off because of its rural nature...but a city like Virginia beach is only an hour away. does that make the rural aspect moot?</p>
<p>Congratuations on those schools! W&M is a beautiful campus. It isn't small like a LAC but is a medium sized university. It is of course a state school, but even oos tuition isn't that bad. After freshman year, a car could take you to a lot of nearby places, but campus life tends to center on campuses. UT-Austin is a huge school with about 40,000 students but I don't know much about it. GWU has an urban campus. It is only about 6-7 blocks from the White House. City streets run thru the campus so that you cross streets in order to go from class to class. McGill isn't ranked by USNWR report since it is not a US college, but it is one of the most prestigious colleges in the world. Montreal is very nice, and it would help if you spoke some French. I assume that it is cold. </p>
<p>I would recommend that you check the Princeton Review and the Fiske guides. It would help if you could visit.</p>
<p>Here's a video clip to tide you over until you can visit UT. Not terribly informative, but fun. I agree with dufus in that visiting is the best way to decide- you should stay overnight if possible; it gives you a better idea of the college life than a brief tour. </p>
<p>McGill is the most well-known and highly regarded internationally. If you want to be in a city, it could be a very good choice. But you need to decide whether you want to live in another country, which could be a difficult decision. </p>
<p>Personally, I would choose McGill, then W&M or George Washington, then Texas.</p>
<p>acormon, here's my two cents. When I was applying to schools one thing my dad kept telling me was to look at the schools endowment and alumni association. After I applied to the UC's my dad said I should apply to UT Austin because of the very big alumni association. He told me that schools with very big alumni associations can help you get job opportunities and progress yourself further than schools that don't have large alumni groups. And don't forget larger endowments mean that the schools has money to spend on it's students and campus to better itself so keep that in mind as well if you need to make a choice. That's my two cents.</p>