Social Life at the USNWR Top 30

College Search & Selection
1

<p>A few years ago, I created a popular thread on the social life at the USNWR Top 20 and I thought it might be time to update this topic and expand the “rankings” to the USNWR Top 30 national universities (sorry LACs), thereby including many of the top publics (who dominate most of the privates in providing the best collegiate social life). </p>

<p>With a major assist from the folks at Coll.. Pro..wler who have visited the schools and done extensive research on each, I created the following subjective “rankings” using much of their criteria and grades in coming up with the list below. </p>

<p>Rank , College , ( Score )</p>

<p>1 , U Southern California , ( 6.5 )
2 , UCLA , ( 6.3 )
2 , U Virginia , ( 6.3 )
4 , U N Carolina , ( 6.2 )
5 , Stanford , ( 6.2 )
6 , UC Berkeley , ( 6.2 )
7 , Vanderbilt , ( 6.1 )
8 , Georgetown , ( 6.0 )
8 , U Michigan , ( 6.0 )
10 , Wake Forest , ( 5.9 )
10 , Notre Dame , ( 5.9 )
10 , Duke , ( 5.9 )
11 , Rice , ( 5.1 )
12 , Northwestern , ( 5.0 )
13 , Cornell , ( 5.0 )
13 , Princeton , ( 5.0 )
16 , Harvard , ( 4.7 )
16 , Johns Hopkins , ( 4.7 )
18 , Dartmouth , ( 4.5 )
19 , U Penn , ( 4.3 )
20 , Brown , ( 4.1 )
20 , U Chicago , ( 4.1 )
20 , Wash U , ( 4.1 )
20 , Yale , ( 4.1 )
24 , MIT , ( 3.9 )
24 , Carnegie Mellon , ( 3.9 )
26 , Emory , ( 3.5 )
27 , Tufts , ( 3.4 )
28 , Caltech , ( 3.0 )
29 , Columbia , ( 2.6 )</p>

2

<p>Great list. Your work never ceases to amaze me, Hawkette.</p>

3

<p>Columbia less social than Caltech? No way!</p>

4

<p>Harvard ranked higher than Brown or Yale? That’s interesting…</p>

5

<p>^why? its right outside a great city, unlike either of the schools you mentioned</p>

6

<p>Columbia has a higher Greek life and Nightlife rating than Harvard, I don’t know how you calculated this.</p>

7

<p>Could anyone expand on the social life at Northwestern/Georgetown?</p>

<p>And Emory is practically in ATL… anyone else find that a bit odd?</p>

8

<p>Not to mention Columbia… self explanatory…</p>

9

<p>also Caltech doesnt even have a greek life and nightlife is a C.
Even if you did include stuff besides social life, like Local Atmosphere, its highest grade would be a B+, which is lower than everything you listed below Caltech.
What factors did you include?</p>

10

<p>

I second the request for a methodology.</p>

<p>Also, you seem to be having difficulty with ties.

</p>

11

<p>1) No methodology, certainly helps the credibility along!
2) You have created this ranking yourself, I have no faith whatsoever that you do not have an agenda, even if you pull up a methodology. You have biases in picking factors and then picking weightages, and you can always change methodology before you post on here if the results are unsatisfactory to your biases.
3) you really think you can rank the “social lives” at these universities?..I’ve never come across something more subjective or individually centered. seriously, what next, rank schools by how much you’ll get along with people there?
4) A completely random ordering of schools might have been just as good, doesn’t seem to make any intuitive sense to me, Harvard > Brown? Even the kids at Harvard will grant that Brown is more “social”. And Caltech > Any other university, even the kids at Caltech will tell you that they don’t go there for the social life.</p>

<p>Hawkette, this is one of the worst threads you have started, even if Columbia (my school) was ranked 1st, I’d say it’s ridiculous to think you can create a hierarchy of social lives. Social life is entirely based on preference, some hate large parties, others hate frats, others hate clubbing or barbecues or board games, or concerts etc. Even many kids at Caltech will say that they are socially extremely happy to go to Caltech because it fits them. It is meaningless to put social life on a one dimensional spectrum.</p>

12

<p>I agree it is subjective. Different people look at different things in social lives. At UCLA and USC people are laid back. At Columbia, the people are very open minded and love to help people out.</p>

13

<p>

Pffft…best social life my ass…</p>

<p>USC - South LA, car dealerships and huge parking lots, shady Exposition Park
UCLA - high end shopping, traffic nightmare, football 20 miles away
Stanford - high end shopping mall and office parks</p>

<p>Fun!</p>

14

<p>@UCBChemEGrad
That’s not what social life is. If you do not know what a social life is, it is the social life between people and not inanimate objects.</p>

15

<p>

</p>

<p>Have you seen her other threads? This is mild by comparison.</p>

16

<p>Wow. Surprised at some of the reactions. No agenda here. Heck, some of the schools I’m accused of supporting didn’t compare too well. </p>

<p>Let’s try to make this fun and use my “rankings” as a conversation starter. If you have a different idea, then post it. I don’t think that the list is that bad, but maybe others will have better insights.</p>

<p>As for methodology, I took the CP grades for several categories, weighted them equally and then I provided my own score for Athletic Life (see below for grades). Here are the categories and weightings:</p>

<ol>
<li> Nightlife (1 point)</li>
<li> Local Atmosphere (1 point)</li>
<li> Greek Life (1 point)</li>
<li> Guys (1 point)</li>
<li> Girls (1 point)</li>
<li> Diversity (1 point)</li>
<li> Drug Scene (1 point)</li>
<li> Campus Strictness (1 point)</li>
<li> Weather (1 point)</li>
<li>Athletic Life (2.5 points)</li>
</ol>

<p>If anyone is curious how I scored Athletic Life, it was subjective and heavily influenced by the data gathering that I have done over the last few years on the relative football, basketball, and baseball scenes at the various schools and if a school is nationally prominent in another sport. My grading preference was for environments with larger fan support, both student and local, and for schools that are nationally competitive and relevant in major sports. Here are those grades:</p>

<p>GRADE OF A: ( 4 ) Stanford, Notre Dame, UC Berkeley, UCLA, U Virginia, U Michigan, U Southern Cal, U North Carolina</p>

<p>GRADE OF A-: ( 3.75 ) Duke, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Wake Forest</p>

<p>GRADE OF B+: ( 3.25 ) Northwestern, Cornell</p>

<p>GRADE OF B: ( 3 ) Princeton, Rice</p>

<p>GRADE OF B-: ( 2.75 ) Harvard, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins</p>

<p>GRADE OF C+: ( 2.25 ) Yale, U Penn, Wash U, U Chicago, Brown</p>

<p>GRADE OF C: ( 2 ) MIT, Carnegie Mellon</p>

<p>GRADE OF C-: ( 1.75 ) Emory, Tufts</p>

<p>GRADE OF D/D+: ( 1/1.25 ) Caltech, Columbia</p>

<p>Re the ties, I had done the calculations out to two decimal points, but presented as only one. Sorry for the confusion.</p>

17

<p>Confidentialcoll,
I know that you don’t like these “rankings.” Sorry. Not my intention to inflame. Columbia didn’t score too well on CP’s factors. Here’s how CP graded Columbia:</p>

<p>A Nightlife
A Local Atmosphere
C- Greek Life
C+ Guys
C+ Girls
B+ Diversity
B- Drug Scene
A- Campus Strictness
B- Weather</p>

<p>D+ Athletic Life (grade by hawkette)</p>

18

<p>In other words, you created an index that is geared more towards athletic life (despite the fact that spectator athletic life =/= social life), and then you weighted it towards the particular kind of athletic life that <em>you</em> personally like - which is nationally relevant competitions in very specific spectator sports! Honestly, Hawkette, I applaud your initiative, but you never seem to hear the message that for many people, watching sports from the stands is not equivalent to having a social life.</p>

19

<p>Why do the appearances of guys and girls a factor? Are beautiful people more social and interactive than other people? Like in the Fiske guide, he separates social life and the surroundings (atmosphere, housing, etc.) because those are not social factors. Social life is all about how the PEOPLE are and not anything else. Drug scene should not be a factor at all because a high score can be good or bad to different people. Even athletic life is a stretch because most do not participate in sports.
I think the Nightlife and Greek life should be 2 pts each, athletic life, local atmosphere and campus strictness one point each and everything else not factored in.
That does not mean the other factors do not matter, it simply means that they should not be involved in the social life.</p>

20

<p>What does the weather have to do with social life? For example, you ranked JHU above Penn, and yet I’ve been to both campuses. At JHU it’s extremely difficult to find a party. At Penn they’re everywhere you look. Your rankings may have some value as a sort of “fun factor” ranking of schools, but as a gauge of social life they have almost no value.</p>