As I go into my senior year, I struggle to find a college that has everything I want. I have a 34 ACT and a 93 unweighted GPA along with a decent resumé. I want a school that has a lot of school spirit. I like the idea of going to football or basketball games with a bunch of friends and always representing my school. I value a good college town that is either centered around the college or has its own unique culture. I don’t love cold weather, but I would deal with it if it meant going to the right school. Based on all of this, which school is right for me?
Wake Forest, SMU, maybe Vanderbilt if your weighted gpa is higher and U of Miami. If you are open to big state schools, then maybe Alabama, Clemson and Auburn
If you really want to go for it, UC Berkeley. Now granted I am biased as that is my school, but it really has everything you want.
In general, your larger public schools will get you what you want more as they are larger so they have better sports programs (usually), a more constructed and stabilized town, huge tradition due to large amounts of people (granted this does not mean a deep tradition), and sometimes great business programs. The ones to check out with great business programs are Indiana U, UMich, UVA, UTAustin, and (if you can get into the program) UCB
Sports: D1 program which is pretty fun to watch and has a brand new football stadium. You can even get housing right next to it like I did
Spirit: Decently strong. Granted, some students are not into it as they are pretty stressed, but every game you have the Cal band, fight songs, and not to mention Cal’s massive tradition in their Nobel lauriets and their stories.
Town: This is where it can get iffy. While Berkeley is technically a majority “college town”, and there are areas that are nice and quaint, it can be dangerous and is not the stereotypical college town where everyone there is about college and is artificially nice. Still, it has a VERY unique culture about social activism that surprisingly is not in your face about it.
Weather: Fantastic. Arguably the best thing out of your criteria. In winter, its like mid 60’s and in summer it only gets to about mid 80’s at worst, probably less.
Major: For undergrad business, UCB (Haas) is ranked second only to Wharton. While you will have to apply to it while you are there and it is competitive, if all else fails UCB has one of the top ranked Econ programs so employment wise you are set.
X Factor: The bay area. UCB is the top recruited school in the bay area (According to Forbes, even above Stanford), and so employment is very easy, especially in business.
Alright, im done with my shameless Golden Bear pitch. Some other schools you could consider are:
Dartmouth (only downsides are sports and weather, great town though) Reach
UCLA (same as Cal but more sports heavy [and successful at it], warmer weather, but less college town as it is located in a rich area)
UT Austin (Great business program, Austin, TX, is a great town for young people, huge sports and culture. Really a great choice!)
Michigan (Same as above, save for maybe the town but I truly I have no idea, and weather)
Notre Dame (Mega sports, good business, high spirit, just weather and maybe town is an issue I dont know)
Michigan and Ann Arbor are a really good fit here minus weather, was my first thought after reading. In general, keep an eye on state flagships. UF is a good option as well for better weather.
Michigan is the first school that occurred to me.
Other possibilities not already mentioned:
USC (better weather, slightly more selective … but not in a distinct college town)
Colorado-Boulder (sunnier, dryer weather; less selective)
Wisconsin-Madison
Indiana-Bloomington
UVa
If you can deal with the cold Notre Dame, UMichgan, and UWisconsin, Boston College, Indiana (Kelley) , Cornell (Dyson) all came to mind. In warmer weather perhaps UNC, UMD, Vandy, USC, UTexas, UVa, Wake Forest, UMiami, UFlorida, Berkeley, UCLA, USC. Some other options if you are OK with just basketball might be Gtown and Villanova.
