<p>Hehe another mention of Temple. Props to you Nvman.</p>
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Yale has the best campus life/campus culture that I've ever seen, outside UW-Madison perhaps, and even more impressive, it is one of the few colleges located at the center of a major city.
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<p>Since when is New Haven, population 120k, considered a "major city"?</p>
<p>The National Rifle Association considers a city "major" if it has more than 150,000 handguns in it. By that standard, New Haven is a megalopolis.</p>
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OP says, "I don't really want NYC sort of thing for my college experience..." So naturally somebody recommends Columbia.
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<p>Well, I took that to mean the OP didn't want something like BU or NYU, where there is no campus at all. Columbia has a dedicated, open campus in the middle of the city. The "NYC sort of thing" IS a big city, so I'm not exactly sure what the OP wants if they mean they don't want something like New York City while still going to college in a big city.</p>
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Other places are Ohio State and UT-Austin...if you don't mind being pretty remote from a big city, but still living in a pretty happening small city - "college towns" on steriods, you could say.
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<p>Eh, I wouldn't say Austin is a small city, with a metro population of over 1,000,000 and only 90 miles from San Antonio with a metro population of 1.5 million.</p>
<p>I also wouldn't say Columbus is a small city. Small city=metro. less than 500,000 in my book.</p>
<p>University of Toronto and McGill University in Montreal fit the bill.</p>
<p>Sorry Simpsnut, I didn't mean to be harsh on you. The way I read it, the OP thought Chicago had a sort of NYC vibe, so wasn't very interested in it. I took that to mean a big city, but one that is not overwhelming. So I guessed probably nothing in NYC, Philly, or Chicago (not so sure about LA--certainly a different vibe from NYC). I guessed the OP liked places like Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Wash DC, Nashville, Atlanta--places that have at least a bit of hustle-bustle, museums, and pro sports teams, but are not the type of gigantic places that take forever to get from one side of town to another.</p>
<p>Yes, Vanderbilt is also decent and located not too far from the city center, although it's by no means right in the city.. </p>
<p>New Haven is a major city relative to most college towns, with, for example, about 40,000 jobs and 400 retail establishments based just within a few blocks of the Yale campus. Also, New Haven is technically part of the New York City metropolitan area, which has a population of over 20 million people. The population of New Haven (the urban area, not the town boundary, which has 130,000) is actually closer to a million people. You have to remember that New England has cities and towns because it is so old - and the boundaries of the towns (some now called "cities") were set up in the 1700s before any of these areas grew into major cities. New England did not do what New York did, which was to annex lots of surrounding towns into one political entity. The political entity is more at the state level.</p>
<p>Northwestern is in Evanston, a nice, very affluent, and immediate suburb of Chicago. It also has 3 metro stops right next to campus that will take you to downtown Chicago in 30 minutes.</p>
<p>Evanston is good, and Northwestern is very close to the center, but it seems quite suburban relative to the others I listed. I've been there at times on weekend evenings and it's been kind of dead.</p>
<p>have you looked at Rice? Its a quick lightrail ride from the center of Houston, but feels very campusy.</p>
<p>Washington University in St. Louis. It's in the city, but the campus is for the most part closed in. Right in front of the campus is forest park, (bigger than Central Park) which I find to be a nice perk.</p>
<p>UMiami is a few miles from the actual downtown, but close to the city nonetheless.</p>
<p>Irish200- "Ohio State, St. Louis Universty"</p>
<p>I have to highly disagree on both.</p>
<p>Ohio State is a large campus smack in the middle of Columbus which gives you a huge city life, no doubt about that. However, Ohio State is spread out all over, and there really is no green space to the campus. </p>
<p>St. Louis University, doesn't have a campus scene if you ask me. I live right outside of St. Louis, (St. Charles) and can easily say not only is the campus awful, but so is the location. St. Louis University, the campus itself, is a decent area, but when you travel in your car for about 5min things start to get ugly quick. St. Louis University isn't truly in the 'downtown', I believe they called it 'outer downtown' when I took a campus tour about a year ago. The campus is not big at all, it includes about three streets. If any of you have seen the website videos, it's not as good as they make it look. There is no football team, I'm not sure if that bothers you too much. And there is a decent amount that commute since a good amount of students from the STL metro area attend. </p>
<p>I'm not saying either of the schools are bad, in fact the academics at both are great. I applied to both, and was accepted to both but what's funny is that I turned down both because I didn't feel there was a true campus atmosphere. </p>
<p>My school, University of Nebraska, has a good city and campus life. City of Lincoln has 239,000 residents and the campus is closed in well. However your probably not looking at a school like Nebraska so I won't really push it. UCLAri has a post on this, so haha.</p>
<p>I will say a lot of the schools in the Big 12 and Big 10 will give you what your looking for in terms of a campus. While they aren't ivy league schools there are some good ones.</p>
<p>In Chicago (I know, which was mentioned as a fairly low interest, but I'll put in my two cents), the only one that really meets the description is University of Chicago - it has a real campus and a campustown in Hyde Park, though in truth it's surrounded by ghettos beyond Hyde Park's boundaries. Northwestern doesn't have the ghettos but it's a long way from the city center. However, it has the 'L', allowing easy access to the city center, whereas U of C really doesn't. DePaul has the most traditional campustown feel to it in Chicago, but it's academically subpar and it's in an insanely expensive area.</p>
<p>tourguide446 is right. I want to be in a city but not an overhwhelming one like NYC, Chicago, or philly. I want something that I can handle. Thanks for the help everybody.</p>
<p>Philly is by no means overwhelming.</p>
<p>"Overwhelming" is certainly a relative term. I find Philly to be a lot more like NYC than it is like Boston. There's a difference between being a flea on a beagle and being a flea on a grizzley bear.</p>
<p>There's no doubt that Boston is a more charming city, but Philly isn't as bad as NYC.</p>
<p>also depends on weather. Boston is more charming than philly,but the weather in philly is much better. There is a huge difference in winter between the two cities. spring semester in boston is not alot of fun at all.</p>
<p>college of charleston IN charleston, sc.... univ. of south carolina in columbia, sc.</p>