<p>Which colleges, among prestigious and top-notch, are located in safe towns/cities? For instance, I heard New Haven is not a very safe place to be at.</p>
<p>p.s. those who say "does town/city really matter when you can get a great undergrad. education?", please don't leave a message here. I say yes to the question.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.morganquitno.com/cit06pop.htm#25%5B/url%5D">http://www.morganquitno.com/cit06pop.htm#25</a></p>
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Which colleges, among prestigious and top-notch, are located in safe towns/cities?
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<p>Princeton is pretty darn safe. So is Stanford (although East Palo Alto is sketchy). So is the area around Caltech. </p>
<p>I have to believe that most of the small rural/suburban schools are quite safe, i.e. Dartmouth, Williams, Wellesley, Amherst, the Claremonts, etc.</p>
<p>Its a relative term of course--- but for those of us that considering studying on an urban campus to be a good experience we note that many schools are in safe neighborhoods. NYU is in the Village, an area that has come up from years ago and many faculty live near the school. Everyone complains about PENN and Drexel being in a bad area but again, its usually a matter of which direction you head in when you go off campus. I always feel safe at PENN in the daytime and relatively safe at night despite the headline grabbing crime cases they have each year.BU is in Boston but on the edge of the city and safe. Emerson in Boston overlooks Boston Common park. I felt safe in that area. Georgetown seems safe for DC although the city itself seems to empty out when the workers return to the suburbs in the evening. All cities have high crime areas but many urban colleges make sure the area they are in stays safe. I liked the area around Columbia and felt safe there yet many do not consider it safe. </p>
<p>I hear mixed reviews on the neighborhoods surrounding Berkely but have never visited. Anyone?.</p>
<p>Check out c0llegepr0wler.c0m. They have a category for campus safety. Last time I looked, Boston College was the safest (it's in a very rich neighborhood).</p>
<p>I agree with the OP re safety being very very important. Beware of those who say "XYZ college's neighborhood is PERFECTLY safe--you just have to be careful, and travel in groups of a dozen or more after sundown." Also beware of people who try to tell you you're hiding from the real world if you want a place where you can zip out for a burger at 11 p.m. without carrying an Uzi.</p>
<p>Berkeley isn't the safest place around. I lived around there for a couple years and it can get a little creepy at night, especially on the outskirts of the college area. I was in a pizza joint on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley in the afternoon and saw a guy pull a switchblade out of his sock and threaten the clerk.</p>
<p>if youre in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere youre always going to be safer than in just about any part of boston</p>
<p>Just a clarification that Boston College is not in Boston but in a suburb called Chestnut Hill.</p>
<p>Looking at the OP he/she wants to be in a city so its a moot point to say a rural environment is safer than Philly, NY, or Boston. It comes down to comparing the urban campuses and most of the top schools are in safe areas for a city. If someone wanted to study near the ocean I wouldn't point out that there are fewer drownings in a mountain town. Many small rural and suburban schools have larger frat scenes since there is little to do off campus. So crimes of underage drinking, date rape, disorderly conduct may be more prevalent than at Columbia. If you are street smart it is safe to be in a city just don't take stupid risks.</p>
<p>OP< I see you are thinking about Wharton. PENN is trying hard to make their campus safer and has bought a good deal of propety that will extend the campus into Center City Phila. which is considered a real success story as far as becoming a part of town that went from 1 to well over a hundred outdoor cafes in 6 yrs. Still, PENN always has a few very serious crimes each year including students getting shot. Not sure if that happens elsewhere.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is in a good neighborhood.
So are the Claremont Colleges.</p>
<p>It's funny how NYC is one of the safest cities. Am I missing something here?</p>
<p>BC straddles the Boston/Newton line (the Eastern end of the campus is IN Boston). Chestnut Hill is just a neighborhood/mailing address. It's not a city.</p>
<p>U Michigan - Flint Campus and Kettering are in very safe neighborhoods</p>
<p>/sarcasm</p>
<p>I stand corrected about Chestnut Hill but are you saying the main campus for BC is not a suburban campus? Thats how its usually portrayed. I think this poster is interested in PENN type schools so we are talking "true urban" . I'll ad MIT which is in a safe but not very interesting part of Cambridge right over the bridge from Boston. How is the JHU area?</p>
<p>I would not consider BC an urban school, though many of its students live and go out in the Cleveland Circle part of Brighton, an urban Boston neighborhood.</p>
<p>Boston has had an uptick in crime but it does not affect any area near any university in the city or region whatsoever. You would have to be abnormally paranoid to feel unsafe in any of these parts of Boston. New York feels "edgier" but is actually statistically safer than even Boston, especially around Columbia/NYU due to the density of security patrols.</p>
<p>^ interesting. That's pretty cool, actually, about nyc.</p>
<p>dogs, the main BC campus feels quite suburban, and is surrounded on 3 sides by a really ritzy suburban neighborhood. But I think when most people hear "suburban" they think it's like miles just to get to the big city's boundary. The eastern end of the campus (that's in Boston) abuts a park-like area that includes of a large reservoir. But the very-urban-feeling Cleveland Circle neighborhood is very very close to the BC campus. So it's almost the best of all possible campuses, as it's very safe and secluded, but all sorts of great urban neighborhoods are so close you can walk to them or reach them by a very short trolley ride. </p>
<p>BC recently purchased a large plot of land (that used to be a seminary) at the northeast tip of the campus (the Boston Archdiocese had to sell the seminary to BC to cover the child-molestation lawsuit payouts--no kidding). This plot of land is completely inside Boston, so now even more of the BC campus is in the city of Boston.</p>
<p>Re NYC...that Bronx neighborhood that Fordham is in is "edgier" than any college neighborhood I saw in the Boston area--or just about anywhere else</p>
<p>CMU is not a good neighborhood, anything within 5 blocks from the O cannot be considered in a good neighborhood</p>
<p>To above post...</p>
<p>I've lived 6 blocks from CMU on Forbes Avenue and Aylesboro for almost 12 years, and I can tell you that CMU is quite safe (especially when compared to somewhere like Berkeley, yikes). Oakland is a lot less raunchy than it used to be, and with security forces from both UPitt and CMU around, its really not that big a deal going out at night, although it always pays to walk at night with a partner or two. </p>
<p>Are you from Pittsburgh thoughtprocess, or are you just making unsubstantiated claims?</p>
<p>Thoughtprocess: What you wrote makes no sense at all. A restaurant is now considered dangerous and so is anything within its vicinity?</p>
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Looking at the OP he/she wants to be in a city so its a moot point to say a rural environment is safer than Philly, NY, or Boston
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<p>Actually, the OP asked about safe cities/towns, so rural towns are a perfectly acceptable response. And like another poster said, rural areas in general tend to be safer than cities for sociological reasons, as you are more likely to know your neighbors in a small town than in a stranger where everybody is basically a stranger.</p>
<p>Princeton is very safe. A bit too safe, if you ask me, but safe nonetheless.</p>