<p>I can’t speak to the “best” college experience (no one can), but I would suggest my school, the University of Notre Dame, for this list. </p>
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We have one of the greatest sports traditions (despite recent football seasons), which leads to very active campus spirit. Everyone goes to the games and there are literally over 100,000 more people on a 2 square mile campus on football Saturdays. All year round there is very strong Irish pride, and there’s a great mix of athletics and academics, perhaps unrivaled, since ND is one of the top undergraduate universities and roughly 75% of students were varsity athletes in high school. Informal sports, intradorm sports, interdorm sports, club sports, and varsity sports support perhaps the most active student body at a major university in the US. As for our mascot… The Notre Dame Fighting Irish Leprechaun is legendary.</p>
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South Bend generally sucks, but the part immediately adjacent to campus (Eddy Street Commons) is cool, with plenty of places to eat/shop. However, you really never need to leave campus as an underclassman, given that everything you need is on campus. Hell, we even have our own post office (& zipcode), fire department, and police department. It’s very safe, unless you drunkenly wander through the middle of South Bend at night, which should never happen.</p>
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Notre Dame has perhaps the most active alumni base, and does have the biggest alumni network, with hundreds of alumni clubs in forty five countries and all six inhabited continents. I’ve heard we don’t even have reunions, because of the large number of alumni that come back every football Saturday. ND has one of the highest alumni donation rates in the country and if anyone has encountered a Notre Dame graduate, they damn well know it.</p>
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Notre Dame has a pretty good national reputation (from living all over the East Coast and going across the Midwest, it seems so to me… and [url=<a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public]some[/url</a>] [url=<a href=“Harvard Tops Gallup Poll List as Best University”>Harvard Tops Gallup Poll List as Best University]polls[/url</a>] put us pretty high for academics in the public view) and ranks fairly highly on US News (Top 20, I think?).</p>
<p>As for actual academics, and not just subjective/flawed rankings or polls, ND is very good. Perhaps not the best, but I’d say among the best in general – at least for undergraduates. On the individual level, it would depend on the major/department.</p>
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Something like 98% of graduates are working in their career or pursuing higher education within six months of graduation. The Career Center is very good and advising is great. I’m pretty sure our student/faculty rate is 11:1, which is pretty good. Everyone has a couple big classes their freshman year, but once you get into your major, courses are much smaller (often 10-12, maybe up to 20).</p>
<p>Good luck to your friends.</p>
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A tree forever? :)</p>