<p>Just as a result of my curiosity, here are the top-rated U.S. News schools, in order of Q of L as measured by Princeton Review's rating on a 60 - 99 scale. According to PR, these ratings are "based on students' answers to several survey questions including how they rate: the beauty, safety, and location of their campus, their campus dorms and food, their ease in getting around the campus and in dealing with the administration, the friendliness of fellow students and interaction among different student types on campus, and their overall happiness.”</p>
<p>90 - 99 = A?: </p>
<p>Barnard 99
Bowdoin 99
Claremont McK. 99
Davidson 99
Macalester 99
Rice 99
Brown 98
Columbia 98
Dartmouth 98
Emory 98
Smith 98
Vanderbilt 98
Wash U 98
Penn 97
Penn State 97
Pomona 97
Whitman 97
Miami (FL) 96
Middlebury 96
Stanford 95
Wellesley 95
Yale 95
Bryn Mawr 94
Princeton 94
Skidmore 94
UCSB 94
UNC 94
Furman 93
Haverford 93
Tufts 93
UC-Davis 93
Pitzer 92
Texas 92
GWU 91
Mount Holyoke 91
Amherst 90
Cornell 90<br>
Harvey Mudd 90
Michigan 90</p>
<p>80 - 89 = B?: </p>
<p>BC 89
Carleton 89
Scripps 89
UCLA 89
William & Mary 89
UVA 88
Wisconsin 88
Richmond 87
Wesleyan 87
Colby 86
UC-Irvine 86
Centre 85
Florida 85
Gettysburg 85
Hamilton 85
Colgate 84
Kenyon 83
NYU 83
Swarthmore 83
Bates 82
Grinnell 82
Harvard 82
Occidental 82
Lafayette 82
Williams 82
Brandeis 81
Bucknell 81
Dension 81
Georgia Tech 81
MIT 81
Notre Dame 81
Sewanee 81
Washington 81
Annapolis 80
Carnegie Mellon 80
Conn. College 80
Georgetown 80
West Point 80</p>
<p>70 - 79 = C?: </p>
<p>Air Force Acad. 79
Illinois 79
USC 79
Colorado College 78
Johns Hopkins 78
Chicago 77
Cal Tech 76
UCSD 74
Vassar 74
Wake Forest 74
Dickinson 73
Northwestern 73
Rochester 73
UC-Berkeley 71
Union (NY) 71
CWRU 70
Duke 70</p>
<p>gadad, when we were college hunting we made a list based on Princeton Review’s quality of life ranking (just like you did) and then cross referenced it with the Fiske guide’s star system for Q of L, which often confirmed the Princeton Review number. Then we looked at academics and tried to figure out the prevailing school culture. S visited about 20 schools, near and far. In the end, I think we went about it the right way, he loves his college experience on all levels.</p>
<p>Very interesting. It would be interesting just to see the overall happiness responses. I wonder how closely they’d correlate with these scores given the huge number of other factors that the QoL figures take into account.</p>
<p>True, you’ve got to take them with a grain of salt. Last year, Harvard was an 88, this year an 82 - that’s a six-point drop on a 40-point scale. I’m not aware of any catastrophic impact on the Q of L there that would have caused it to lose 15% of its value in a single year.</p>
<p>And Duke - a 70? I thought Dookies all adored the place.</p>
<p>What a crock of crap. Sorry. Princeton Review is about as credible as USA Today is on reporting the news. Puhleeze.</p>
<p>I see schools ranked high that I wouldnt rate as a high quality of life (Barnard) and some ranked relatively low that have a phenomenal quality of life (Wake Forest)</p>
<p>Quality of life is VERY subjective, depending on who you ask and what is important to them. I mean really…they give Furman high marks and Wake low marks? They are nearly identical schools (except for the purple signs all over Furman). </p>
<p>Some people love the big city and some people hate urban schools. Some like a bucolic country setting and others would be bored to tears. Some like hyper competitive and others want more laid back. Some want huge distractions for things to do and others want to focus on schoolwork and stay on campus. </p>
<p>Isn’t “quality of life” a matter of personal preferrence. Would somebody who loves Columbia also love Dartmouth? Both get a score of 98, but are they comparable?</p>
<p>I agree that the PR is not a reliable source.</p>
I suspect Durham dealt a mortal blow to Duke’s quality of life rating. It is the only thing I can think of for Duke placing so much lower than UNC – even my friends at Carolina would admit that Duke has nicer dorms, better dining options (on campus), and much less red tape. (In my opinion, it also has a prettier campus.) I can’t otherwise justify UCLA placing better than Duke either, though it does have very nice facilities.</p>
<p>I’d be interested in knowing how the PR survey stacks up against the COFHE survey. Too bad most colleges don’t release that data.</p>
<p>warblersrule – I know several Duke graduates who pretty much hated the social scene there. They were from the South, did not come from financially privileged backgrounds, and weren’t into the drinking culture. All of them were academically successful, but they felt very out of place socially at Duke. They stuck it out to get the degree. That’s not to say that everyone feels that way. I’ve known some people who were very happy there. However, when I took my daughter to visit there on a beautiful day, we both noticed that students walked around with earphones and did not interact much with each other. I don’t think we even saw a single smile. That stood in sharp contrast to the seven other universities we visited where students were walking together, waving to friends, smiling, etc.</p>
<p>JamieBrown - you have to visit Harlem these days to understand. The neighborhood around Columbia and Barnard is pretty chill and living in a relatively inexpensive dorm, a subway’s ride from anything worth seeing in New York City registers pretty high with some families.</p>
<p>It’s easy to be waving and smiling when you are in community colleges or the equivalent with no pressure. Gag me with a spoon.
I could care less whether Harvard or Duke students “smile” at each other as they pass by. It’s Harvard, for christ’s sake! By the “smile” test, then Washington and Lee would be first on this list, as they actually ENFORCE a “hello” policy on their campus called the “speaking tradition.” Students HAVE to greet and talk to one another. Choose your cult, is all I can say. If smiley-faced students is your standard for great schools, then please apply to all of those schools – makes it less competitive for the rest of us who are applying to academic schools.</p>
<p>placido – Community college? No, I haven’t visited one, although I would never stoop to insult them, because I know that they provide a very good alternative for many students for various reasons. The schools I was referring to, where students smiled, interacted, and seemed to be happy, included UNC, UVA, and William & Mary, schools with fairly strong academic reputations.</p>
<p>I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you hadn’t read the original post before you posted. It refers to a ranking of colleges and universities based on overall quality of life, including “friendliness of fellow students and interaction among different student types on campus, and their overall happiness”. That is what this thread is about, thus my reference to whether students interacted with one another and seemed happy. Perhaps you have mistaken which thread this is.</p>
<p>By the way, if you plan to apply to academically rigorous schools, you may want to reconsider your uses of “could care less” and “gag me with a spoon”. They don’t exactly shout “highly qualified”.</p>
That’s a pretty ridiculous statement since the South is known for its drinking culture. Duke has a lighter one than any SEC school for instance from what I’ve seen.</p>
<p>
That’s kind of strange but most college students listen to their ITouch or IPod while walking to classes and around campus these days so that doesn’t surprise me. I wouldn’t judge the happiness of a student by how much he/she smiles though. Some people aren’t as expressive as other outwardly.</p>
<p>I don’t recall the survey being called “sovereigndebt’s list of the colleges with the highest quality of life, etc…” It is a survey. Will you or someone else agree with all the results? No. Based on the student response, these are the results.</p>
<p>I believe that the phrases were used in context, so where’s the beef? If you feel the phrases are a bit too jejune for your taste, then tell me on which Admissions Committee you sit and I will avoid using these in my essay.</p>
<p>Some like to consider Morningside Heights part of the Upper West Side. Others prefer the northern boundary to be 110th. Perhaps East Harlem should also be part of the Upper East Side? </p>
<p>Regardless of the name of the area and the impact of gentrification, you cannot change its location and the closeness to a different part of New York.</p>
<p>Jejune or not, you might be better served to use “I could not care less!” People who hire or admit might not be that generous towards applicants who show an affinity for American colloquialism at the expense of correct English.</p>
<p>It is pretty hard to ignore that, even now, only couple of blocks north of Columbia/Barnard you find some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the East Coast, where you wouldn’t find a student at any time, let alone night time.</p>