In my humble opinion, Stanford was always the outler among a host of “cannot go wrong” choices. Car culture versus Amtrak (Brown) or Metro North (Yale).
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Like everyone has said, you really can’t go wrong as far as academic institutions are concerned. It is really about gut feelings and personal preferences about location where you think you will be most happy.
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Have you checked out ‘Real Talk Princeton’? Just Google it and read through that for a while and it’ll give you a good insight to things Princeton.
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cc tends towards an East Coast bias. 
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That is not true, Columbia is the toughest of those four with their core and intense environment, while I interact more with Stanford undergrads than Columbia’s, students were happier with their Stanford experience.
“I want a thriving LGBTQ+ community”
Absolutely, without a doubt, that would favor Stanford over Yale and Princeton if those are your three finalists.
“Stanford is very secluded and San Fran (nearest city) being relatively farther away does detract a bit…”
Stanford is not secluded as others have pointed out, but it is probably a little closer to San Jose than SF. It is more suburban with Columbia being urban and Dartmouth being rural or secluded.
That being said, the drawbacks to Stanford would be that costs are higher here in the bay area so your out of pocket expenses would be higher than anywhere else except Columbia. The other drawback is non-stem students may feel a little out of place.
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I don’t think anyone here is talking about the academic experience. All these colleges will be very rigorous.
The primary concern for this user appears to be where he is going to have the all around best experience as an older LGBTQ student. I don’t think that’s Stanford. The OP may decide differently.
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It’s not rigor, it’s the academic experience, one is the core which you have to be ready for, and two is the intense environment. It’ll be harder at Columbia than the other colleges on that list to maintain the GPA needed for grad school, which is probably why it was eliminated from the top-3.
Maybe you were joking with “crazy” comment as a college would not have that yield (without using ED) if it had that kind of undergrad experience.
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Thank you! I’ll definitely check it out.
Yes. Also I think that aspect of a college can be highly subjective, making it very difficult to assess cultural differences between these three schools in a comprehensive and definitive level.
So what else have you eliminated? Did you talk to the FA office at Brown?
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The “three schools” in current contention remain Stanford, Yale and Princeton, I believe.
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Again, New Haven is worse for crime than Palo Alto, even the Yale parents on this thread caution on some of the neighborhoods outside New Haven. The FBI data on crime for the two cities:
Violent crime: 51/100 for New Haven, 7.7/100 for Palo Alto
Property crime; 59/100 for NH vs 34.4/100 for PA
I didn’t attend Stanford so it’s not like I have a bias because of that, but there seems to be a lot of generalization on some of your points on Stanford and the bay area.
As for LGBTQ+, campusprideindex.org gave Stanford 5 stars for LGBTQ inclusivity, programs, the individual categories had a combination of 4 and 5 stars, so it’s not like everything was 5 stars. Yale was not listed on there, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have LGBTQ programs of course, but it’s not on that organization’s website, unless I missed it.
“The “three schools” in current contention remain Stanford, Yale and Princeton, I believe.”
Brown may be brought back in if the FA package can match the final three that are mentioned.
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Thanks for your perspective.
I’m not sure anyone is talking about crime. I’m wondering how many people turn down Yale because of crime, lol. My vote is now for Columbia or Brown, which do not appear to be in contention.
If you’d like to continue addressing my comments, send me a message so we don’t derail the thread.
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This is a fair assessment. Each of those schools is almost the epitome of their locations. Stanford isn’t just suburban; it’s a veritable country club that stretches for miles. Personally, that would have driven my 21 y/o self crazy after four years. Isn’t Stanford one of those universities where some students have to take a jitney in order to get to their classes?
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To argue against Yale for a moment, it seems to be the most vulnerable of your choices in some ways. Crime, at least in a relative sense, can be an issue; labor relations with support staff aren’t always great; and its infrastructure appears to require extensive refurbishment periodically. Challenges of a similar degree do not seem to be present at Stanford and Princeton.
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The campus is walkable but large, in part because it includes grad schools, and there are parts of the campus most students won’t visit.
The Marguerite schedule is above, I think. It also goes off campus.
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Princeton suffers from these things like Yale except for a sense of personal safety. Depending on the College they get many of the dorms have a lot of issues and Facilities isn’t very responsive. Quite a bit of petty theft especially bikes and jackets too. At Princeton if you don’t like the dining halls then your choices are mediocre and relatively expensive off campus choices. In New Haven you have a lot more good cheap options.
I’m not saying Princeton isn’t a great option but it’s not perfect in any sense. My D found the suburban location boring and lacking but she came from an urban setting. If the OP comes from an urban environment they may find Columbia, UPenn, and even New Haven more to their liking.
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Ok, well thank you! Thank you all, really. These are truly the last moments. Whatever college I pick will be good I believe.
I will even say at this point that my decision has really become a Yale or Stanford one. And trust me that no matter how much one can talk about each school, they are both great choices I believe.
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Once you do make up your mind, and if you have some time and care to share, I think folks would love to hear more about how you made your final selection.
Very, very best of luck to you! You can’t go wrong with either choice (especially, if it’s Stanford 
…just kidding, of course).
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ok I had to look up what jitney meant, lol, anyway as gardenstatelegal mentioned, the campus is pretty walkable for undergrads, of course you don’t have to deal with cold weather, though it does rain Dec/Jan.
edit to add:
“Challenges of a similar degree do not seem to be present at [Stanford]”(Stanford University - College Confidential Forums) and Princeton.
Even though I’m advocating for Stanford, to an outsider it could seem like Stanford may not have some issues as well. Their handling of covid (partly due to county/state restrictions), could be criticized, so I would probably compare that to Yale’s if those are the OP’s final two, if that’s a factor. And you’'ll have no problem getting great food in the bay area, but out of pocket expenses would be higher compared to Yale.
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