<p>Hi everyone. My stats and ECs more or less qualify me to have about a 20-40% shot at Ivies and other top universities. I am wondering out of the following, which might fit me best (or the worst) in terms of the social scene-</p>
<p>-The Ivy League schools
-Stanford
-Northwestern
-Georgetown
-WashU in St. Louis
-Johns Hopkins
-Duke
-Pomona/Claremont Colleges
*Don't worry everyone, I'm applying to matches and safeties as well. However, I like all of the schools above but I obviously cannot apply to all of them.</p>
<p>Socially, I like to either hang out with friends- watch movies, play games, talk (about intellectual and nonintellectual subjects)- or to go on outings with them- I like to hike, bike, sail, ski, etc (although I'm not gifted at any of them), and I like to go to restaurants, museums, and other city attractions. I'm not a big drinker or partier, but good sports teams would be viewed as a plus. </p>
<p>There are other aspects (programs, size, climate, etc.) that I will use in determining which schools to apply to, but for now I'm interested in hearing about the social scene. All I've gathered so far through research is that I might be able to eliminate Dartmouth (geographically isolated and big frat scene).</p>
<p>Thanks for reading and helping!
Hopefully this will also help other high school juniors in similar situations.</p>
<p>Columbia is located in a city that will allow you to go to restaurants, museums and city attractions. We don’t have good sports teams, but we do have the Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program (CO-OP). I’m familiar with them because they check-in early and check-out late every year for residence housing and I worked in residence life here. They origanize outdoor activities for students like hiking, biking, skiing, etc. I know their last trip at the end of the school year is a biking trip, and I think their first one is a camping trip. The students here joke that they’re like a cult.</p>
<p>The students here aren’t big on drinking and partying, and the Greek system isn’t very large here - it’s here, just not…large or dominating the social scene.</p>
<p>Cornell definitely affords you the opportunity to “hike, bike, sail and ski.”. It is located in a beautiful location on a NY Finger Lake with many gorges on campus and nearby. So hiking, sailing, swimming are regular activities. There are also ski resorts nearby. The Finger lakes also have many wineries. So students often organize winery tours, especially senior week.</p>
<p>Cornell does have a Greek scene, but my D1 never considered a sorority and had a great social life. I think the only time she attended a frat party was her first year. She was never without something to do. Ithaca is not a big city, but it has good restaurants, a great on campus museum and regular activities, speakers and events on campus and downtown. The Downtown Commons is closed off to traffic. And there are also numerous daily buses to NYC. </p>
<p>All Ivy’s are D1 sports. Hockey and basketball are particularly big at Cornell. Football games are also well attended. D1’s close friend and house mate ( with several others) was a Cornell cheerleader. She did not belong to a sorority. Just to counter any stereotypes! Haha. She was also an engineering major.</p>
<p>The Ivy League is, by definition, an NCAA Division I sports conference.</p>
<p>However, football is played in the lesser known Football Championship Subdivision rather than the better known Football Bowl Subdivision (which includes teams from Stanford, Duke, and Northwestern which are in the Pac-12, ACC, and Big “Ten” conferences respectively).</p>
<p>Stanford fits the OP’s description well. As mentioned in posts above, Stanford does well in most sports. They have won the Sears Director’s Cup for each of the past ~18 years, which is given to the college with the best combined ranking across 10 sports (10M + 10W). The football team has had a BCS bowl each of the past 3 years. Most students bike to class, and there are decent areas to ride nearby campus. When I was there, the cycling club/team had group rides each afternoon. There are areas to sail nearby. I was briefly on the crew team. We practiced by the Redwood city boathouse, which was ~15 minutes away from campus and has sailing opportunities. Stanford is under 4 hours away from Tahoe, which has skiing in the winter. There are several places that show movies, both on and off campus.</p>
<p>You might want to check the subforums for each school. I believe a number of different posters that are current/former students post on those boards.</p>
<p>Claremont is not a hopping town, but there are outdoor activities nearby if you have a car. I assume there are outing clubs from the Claremont colleges as well. It is near LA and San Diego as well. But agree with the poster above, try posting on their subforums for more info.</p>
<p>I was thinking Georgetown might fit the bill for you. The kids are very smart, involved in all kinds of interesting things, there is somewhat of a campus sport scene although certainly not a dominating presence, and all kinds of participatory sports are available. Being in DC there are always a million zillion interesting things to do and interesting conversations to be had…free concerts at the Kennedy Center, free access to all the Smithsonians, all kinds of clubs/restaurants/lectures/professional sports…</p>