Hi! So I’m putting together a list of colleges to which I’m planning to apply, and I know that I’d like to go to school in a relatively big city (Boston, San Fran, Seattle, NYC, etc). However, I also really want to be able to easily get out of the city for hiking/skiing/backpacking/whatever. I know that Seattle has a couple great schools like this (like University of Washington- urban environment, but super easy to get to nature), but I’d appreciate any other suggestions. If it matters, I’m mostly looking at pretty selective schools (my GPA, SAT scores, and extracurriculars are all relatively strong-I’d say at least top 5% at my school). Any help is greatly appreciated!!!
I’m sure you will get a diversity of responses. If the city is taken as New York’s capital district as a whole, then Union College is one possibility. For nature, you would not be far from the Adirondacks, the Berkshires and the Green Mountains. Colorado College could work as well.
^^Yes check out Colorado College for sure.
Georgetown is sitting at the entrance to the C&O Canal National Historical Park - 180 mile long running/biking/hiking/bird-viewing/camping national treasure that runs alongside the Potomac River (and connects up with the Allegheny Trail at Cumberland, MD for another 180 miles to Pittsburgh). And all DC schools are within driving distance of Shenandoah National Park.
Being more creative, there are colleges which offer semester long programs in the Adirondacks, NY City or DC. The selection of your base location might be somewhat less important with these options. If nothing else, this could broaden your college choices somewhat.
Reed, Lewis and Clark (Portland OR).
What does “easily” mean to you? I think many (most?) big cities are about 2 hours from outdoorsy and nature stuff if you have a car or if there’s decent public transit. Drive 2-3 hours north of NYC and you’re in the Catskills and very rural areas; you can also take Metro North. 2-3 hours north or west of Boston will have you in rural Massachusetts. 2-3 hours in almost any direction from Atlanta will have you in more rural areas, although the north has the Appalachians and national forests. A couple hours out from Philadelphia (2-3 hours) is also home to a lot of national forests, parks, hiking trails and outdoorsy stuff. Many other Southern cities like Columbia, SC; Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC; and Richmond, VA are not far from natural regions with mountains and lakes and forests et al.
So my point is - do you mean that you want to be in a big city that is within a few hours of some natural regions (which is basicaly every large city) or do you mean that you need there to be public transit that will take you there (which is difficult, since one of the things that often defines rural areas is their lack of public transit to bigger cities). New York is an exception in that area…it’s relatively easy to get out of the city via Metro North and visit the more open areas, like the Catskills. The Catskills are about 100 miles north of NYC; that’s about a 2-3 hour travel time depending on whether you drive or take a train. I went to Columbia, and people were always organizing ski trips in upstate New York and mountain biking in eastern PA or what not. Very easy to get to rural areas.
Even NYC has some beautiful parks within the city limits. LA has wilderness areas nearby, but lacks the walkable urban environment that NYC, Chicago, Boston, or Philly have. You can get to the Lawrentians, and even Vermont, easily from Montreal, which makes McGill a decent option. Vanderbilt is an easy day-trip from Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Pennsylvania has some gorgeous countryside, within easy day trips from Pittsburgh (Carnegie Mellon & Pitt) or Philly (Penn, Drexel, Temple). You can easily get to wilderness regions and wine country from Stanford or Berkeley.
I don’t think you could top University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
I agree with quakerstake that University of British Columbia is hard to beat. Other very strong choices include Dartmouth, Stanford, University of Washington Seattle, the Claremont Colleges, and the University of Colorado Boulder.
I’m not sure what you mean “close to nature”. Like, what type of activities - hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, mountain climbing, or just looking around?
I think if we got a better idea of what you like, that would help. Because for instance, there are some things off limits or more difficult if you pick an area with a harsh winter.
How about Middlebury?
I didn’t read the whole thread title, so ignore Middlebury. It’s about as far away from urban as a college could be. I second Colorado College, though.
It may not be as big of a city as you are looking for but you might consider the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The Smoky Mountains are less than an hour away with hiking, white water rafting, cycling, backpacking etc.
You might want to check out Tufts.
It straddles the cities of Medford/Somerville.
Somerville has the second highest density of young people/artists in the country, while Cambridge (next to Somerville has the third). Adjacent to that is Boston. The Red Line subway connects Tufts (Somerville), Harvard, MIT (Cambridge) and Boston.
On the Medford side, about two miles from campus is the Middlesiex Fells, a 2,500 acre urban wilderness accessible via bike or via activitues planned by the Tufts Mountain Club (TMC).
http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/massparks/region-north/middlesex-fells-reservation.html
Tufts also owns a lodge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire which is run/maintained by TMC. Tufts/TMC provides vans for students to use to get back and forth from “The Loj”. It is about a 2 hour drive.
https://tuftsmountainclub.org/loj/
For bikers, there is a several mile long bike trail from Davis Square in Somerville to the suburbs.
If you have acess to a car then Walden Pond is a 20 minute drive away.
http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/massparks/region-north/walden-pond-state-reservation.html
Macalester is in a city yet is close to lakes and trails within the city limits, and close to nature as soon as you leave the Twin Cities.