<p>My impression of Yale student life was that of students holed up in their freshman suite on a Friday night IMing one another from across the room. Is this an accurate assessment of everything that was going on in New Haven that night? Surely not. But neither is "oh but my Columbia friends are always doing lines of crack at nightclubs downtown, surely there is no campus life at Columbia"- I am paraphrasing, but this was close to posterx's characterization of Columbia on its forum.</p>
<p>As someone who actually attends the university, I can attest to the fact that Columbians take advantage of a plentitude of options at night- and not all of them involve leaving the neighborhood or even the grounds of the campus. There is rarely a weekend night when several student theatrical performances, campus movie screenings, or house parties are not competing for attention with whatever is happening in the rest of the city. The widespread impression on this forum is that Columbia students are never on campus, but it's telling that Columbians are always remarking instead that "no one ever goes below 110th St!" (the southern boundary of Columbia's immediate neighborhood)</p>
<p>Ive attended Columbia and Dartmouth, spent ALOT of time at Brown and Harvard, and have visited Penn and Yale. I also know a ton about these schools and many alumni.</p>
<p>My personal experience:
1. Dartmouth/ Brown
2. Yale/ Penn
3. Harvard
4. Columbia</p>
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I've always heard that Dartmouth is the Ivy League Year-Round Summer Camp. Go figure.
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<p>It's kind of true. We do work hard, but we have a lot of fun doing it. As a student there, everyone I know is extremely happy to be there. Because the campus is so small and the graduate schools really have nothing to do with us and because of sophomore summer, classes at Dartmouth get really close. </p>
<p>I can't speak for any of the other schools, but the undergrad experience at Dartmouth is phenomenal.</p>
<p>Brown students in surveys are usually very satisfied with their experience (probably the student empowerment). As for academics....I don't know.</p>