I absolutely love to ski. What schools can y’all think of that would be considered top 50, and are within a reasonable drive of great skiing? Kind of a weird question I know, but I figured it was worth asking.
Middlebury, Dartmouth, Colorado College, and any of the Claremont colleges.
Middlebury, Bennington, Dartmouth
Also Lehigh and Lafayette are near the Poconos.
Middlebury and Dartmouth have their own ski areas and are within two hours of some of the Vermont ski areas. Williams is probably within an hour of the Berkshire ski areas. Amherst 2 to 3 hours to the Southern Vermont areas.
Colorado College.
Bates, Colby and Bowdoin in Maine are about one to two hours depending on which school and which ski area from Sunday River, Saddleback and the world class Sugarloaf. Sugarloaf is an amazing place and probably the best ski area in the Northeast.
St. Lawrence is about 90 minutes from White Face and Lake Placid also amazing.
UVM is also a very good school and about an hour from Sugarbush and Smugglers Notch. While not an elite school it is very good and is probably in the nicest college town in the east, Burlington, VT.
The answer depends on what you consider “top” colleges, what you consider “great” skiing, and what you consider a “reasonable” drive.
http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegerankings/tp/top-colleges-for-skiing.htm
The most selective schools in this group include (in alphabetical order):
Colby (Maine)
Colorado College
Colorado School of Mines
Dartmouth (NH)
Middlebury (VT)
Reed (OR)
In addition to all the others already said, Colorado, Dart and Mid are the obvious.
Here are a few more obscure ones:
UC Davis is about 1.5 hours from Tahoe skiing areas.
Sierra Nevada College has the only ski area management major and it is next to a ski resort(Diamond Peak) in Incline Village
http://www.sierranevada.edu/academics/business/ski-business-and-resort-management/
UBC has public transportation access of local ski areas in Vancouver and Whistler by car. And there are many in Canada.
Lewis Clark is about 1.5 hours from Mount Hood.
I disagree that Claremont Coll. is any where near good ski resorts, if you call Mountain High and Big Bear are. If so, UCLA and UCI should also be included.
UVM is also about 45 minutes from Stowe.
Since you would be skiing on the weekend I would say up to two hours is a good distance. If you really really love skiing then I would stay away from Southern New England, Poconos and the Catskills and focus on the Rockies and northern Vermont, the Adirondack region and Maine.
The east has more top colleges that are close to great skiing. No question about that.
I’m not sure how far McGill is from good slopes in the Lawrentians, but it’s a possibility. Almost any college in the Rockies, northern New England, or upstate New York can get you to decent skiing within a single day-trip. On the West Coast, Whitman should be accessible to good ski areas.
University of Denver! 
It’s nowhere near top 50 in the “rankings”, but Montana State (Bozeman) has an honors college and offers a variety of strong STEM majors/departments (including engineering program). You’ve got Bridger Bowl 1/2 hour to the north and Big Sky an hour to South. Can’t possibly beat the location for skiing.
You can definitely ski if you go to Colorado College or Denver University but keep in mind the ski areas are at least 2.5 hours away (more with traffic). At CC most of your skiing will be over block breaks which is great because you can stay up in the mountains and not have to commute. Skiing on weekends is doable with some blocks but not realistic if you are in a particularly demanding block.
Also not top 50 but another school worth looking into if you are drawn to a small LAC type is “Quest” in Squamish, BC.
Colorado Springs is two to three hours outside of the Rockies. Not super convenient without a car. My mother lives in Conifer so I can attest to how often those highways get shut down. The breaks in between the blocks in the block schedule are the optimal time to go.
Middlebury has FANTASTIC skiing. I believe they actually have their own slopes.
Tufts has a ski team, but the main skiing areas are a while away. I assume the team is bussed in.
My father was a ski instructor at Smugglers Notch when he went to Colby. Bowdoin, Bates, and Colby have great skiing nearby.
However the first school that comes to mind when you say “elite” and “skiing” is Midd.
Colorado Springs is right on the edge of the Rockies, but yes, it’s 2-3 hours from major ski resorts.
Along with its Rocky Mountain location, the one-course-at-a-time “block plan” is the most distinctive feature of Colorado College. Each 1-course block lasts 3.5 weeks. Then you get a 4.5 day “block break”.
https://www.coloradocollege.edu/basics/blockplan/blockbreak/
Focusing on a single course at a time is a good arrangement for subjects that benefit from field work (such as geology).
Cornell is near decent skiing.
Williams is right in the middle of the Berkshires and 25 minutes from skiing. Winter sports – skiing and snowboarding are a big part of the campus culture.
http://wso.williams.edu/wiki/index.php/Skiing
Cornell is near decent skiing - decent. Anything in the traditional northeast, Rocky Mountain, or Pacific Northwest skiing states should work. I believe Middlebury has the largest college-owned ski area in the country. Midd and Dartmouth are two top schools with top ski teams. Both regularly finish in the top ten and produce a bunch of Olympians (not only for the US, but other countries too).